SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/2/2024 9:14 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: PT-
“Terror”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
28:2-7
Message of the verses: “2 And behold, a
severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven
and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it. 3 And his appearance was
like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. 4 The guards shook for fear
of him and became like dead men. 5 The angel said to the women, "Do not be
afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. 6 “He
is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come; see the place where He
was lying. 7 “Go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the
dead; and behold, He is going ahead of you into Galilee, there you will see
Him; behold, I have told you.’”
In verse two we see the words a severe earthquake
which was used to remove the stone of our Lord’s grave from in front of this
tomb, or cave like burial place. I
looked up both words severe and earthquake and in the Greek the meaning is very
much like what these words mean in English.
I am kind of puzzled as I wonder what else had happened to the earth
around the tomb seeing how there was an earthquake. I do know that the soldiers who were there
guarding the tomb were very frightened from this event as seen in verse
four. Now this was the second supernaturally
event caused earthquake in connection with Jesus’ death and burial, the first
one having occurred at the moment of His death:
“And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom;
and the earth shook and the rocks were split” (Matt. 27:51).
In his commentary John MacArthur writes about other
times when the Lord used earthquakes and I will just quote this paragraph so
that they can be revealed. “God caused
an earthquake on Mount Sinai just before He revealed the law to Moses (Ex.
19:18) and on Mount Horeb when He revealed Himself to Elijah (1 Kings
19:11). In the end times He will also
send numerous earthquakes (Joel 2:10; Matt. 24:7; Rev. 6:12; 8:5;
11:13-19). Now within three days He
caused two earthquakes just outside Jerusalem.”
Now
speaking of Jerusalem and Israel the last day or so Iran has sent many missiles
to Israel to try and destroy it. Let me
just say a few things that I know are true.
First of all Israel will not be destroyed again as I understand
Scripture. Second the Lord used a man
from the United States to allow Iran to make billions and billions of dollars
from their selling of oil which is how they got the funds to do the harm that they
are doing. Lastly let me quote some
verses from the 12th chapter of Genesis: “1 Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go forth
from your country, And from your relatives And from your father’s house, To the
land which I will show you; 2 And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless
you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; 3 And I will
bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you
all the families of the earth will be blessed’” (Gen. 12:1-3). This is God’s call to Abram who He renamed
Abraham and in this call it can be understood that anyone who hates Israel just
because they are Israel will have to answer to God. I have heard that you can chart the rise and
fall of nations on how they are treating the Jews. For instance just ask Hitler. I fear what will happen to the United States
because of their turning away from helping Israel. Ok enough of this as I don’t usually talk
about current events in my Spiritual Diaries, but I wanted to kind of get this
off my chest.
Now
back to Matthew where we read that this earthquake had occurred when an angel
of the Lord descended from heaven, which caused the earth around the grave, and
the when he arrived he then rolled away the stone and sat upon it. I think back
to the Jewish leaders who had gone to Pilate to demand that he send guards to
watch the gravesite to make sure that Jesus’ disciples would not steal the body
of Jesus claiming that He had risen from the dead. My thoughts on that are that the disciples of
Jesus were in great fear wondering what would now happen to them because their
Leader was now dead. Fear now would come
upon the soldiers who were guarding the tomb of Jesus when this angel of the
Lord came to remove the stone, Jesus already being raised from the dead. Now think about how many men it took to place
this very large stone in front of this tomb, and now an angel of the Lord has
no trouble in moving it out of the way so that people can come in to see that
the Lord had been resurrected from the dead.
Notice what John writes in John 10:18:
“"No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own
initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up
again. This commandment I received from My Father.’”
Lord willing I will continue talking about this
subject as I begin the next SD.
One
more thing that I want to mention which is that I pray for the people of Israel
each and every day, knowing that God will watch over them because He called
them to be His people and their Messiah is Jewish.
10/2/2024 9:49 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment