Thursday, August 29, 2024

PT-2 "The Certainty of Sin" (1 John 1:6, 8, 10)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/29/2024 10:45 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                                    Focus: PT-2 “The Certainty of Sin”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  1 John 1:6, 8, 10

 

            Message of the verses:  “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth;…If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us….If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.

 

            I want to pick up where I left off from yesterday’s SD by writing about the people of Judah and what they did in the time of Malachi’s day as they were equally adept at denying their sin.  (You will need to look at the SD from yesterday on this section of Scripture to best understand where I am going with this tonight.)  God had given them very clear and detailed instructions concerning what offerings were acceptable to Him which is seen in Lev. 1:1-7:38, as you will have to look at this by yourself as it is a very long section of Scripture.  Yet they continued to present defiled food and defective animals to the Lord and then they acted surprised (thinking that they had done nothing wrong) when the Lord through the prophet Malachi, confronted them about their clear disobedience as we will read about this in Malachi 1:6-8: “6 "’A son honors his father, and a servant his master. Then if I am a father, where is My honor? And if I am a master, where is My respect?’ says the LORD of hosts to you, O priests who despise My name. But you say, ‘How have we despised Your name?’ 7 “You are presenting defiled food upon My altar. But you say, ‘How have we defiled You?’ In that you say, ‘The table of the LORD is to be despised.’ 8 “But when you present the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And when you present the lame and sick, is it not evil? Why not offer it to your governor? Would he be pleased with you? Or would he receive you kindly?" says the LORD of hosts.”

 

            MacArthur writes “God then moved from an expression of displeasure to a warning of severe judgment on the religious leaders, the priests:

 

1 "And now this commandment is for you, O priests. 2  "If you do not listen, and if you do not take it to heart to give honor to My name," says the LORD of hosts, "then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings; and indeed, I have cursed them already, because you are not taking it to heart. 3  "Behold, I am going to rebuke your offspring, and I will spread refuse on your faces, the refuse of your feasts; and you will be taken away with it. 4  "Then you will know that I have sent this commandment to you, that My covenant may continue with Levi," says the LORD of hosts” Mal. 2:1-4).

 

            Now I have one more paragraph to quote from MacArthur’s commentary:  “the Lord’s rebuke was necessarily harsh because the people had disobeyed Him so grievously (1:11-16) and yet were acting as though they had done nothing wrong.  They had arbitrarily (and wrongly) excused their wicked behavior, to the point that they audaciously accused God of being unjust and unfair to them (v. 17).  In a similar sense, there are many today who think God would be brutally unjust for sending any human being to hell.  It is not until people accept both the absolute holiness of God and full responsibility for their sin that they admit God has the right to judge and punish them (cf. Ezra 9:13; Neh. 9:33; Luke 15:21; 23:41).”

 

            Now in the next SD I will again pick up on what the apostle John faced, as he faced a similar situation in writing to his audience. 

 

8/29/2024 11:09 PM

 

 

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