SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/18/2024 8:16 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “The Propagation”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matthew 28:15
Message of the verse: “15 And they took the
money and did as they had been instructed; and this story was widely spread
among the Jews, and is to this day.”
I have mentioned in many of my Spiritual Diaries that my
goal in doing them is first of all to bring glory to the Lord Jesus Christ as
the Holy Spirit of God has caused what I write to go around the world and I
hope and pray that those who read them will learn and grow in the Lord, and
those who do not know Him as their personal Savior and Lord will then accept
Him. With that said I also want to
remind those who read them that I will give quotes from people that I read to
help me better understand the Scriptures, including at this time John MacArthur
as I have been reading his commentaries and listening to his sermons on Matthew
to aid in my growth as a believer. So
with that said I wish to continue to quote from his commentary as he has much
to say about this 15th verse in the 28th chapter of
Matthew.
“Evidence for the resurrection is supplied by the very story
that denies it. And because it came from
Jesus’ enemies rather than His friends, it should be all the more convincing to
skeptics. Intending to conceal the
truth, the Sanhedrin and the soldiers actually reinforced it.
“In the first place, if their story had been true, the
Jewish leaders could surely have found the stolen body with little
difficulty. They had the resources of
hundreds of men, including military men, and even the power of Rome behind them
in this instance. It would have been
utterly impossible for eleven unlearned and unsophisticated men to have
succeeded in eluding a search for any length of time. The simplest way to have disproved the
resurrection was to locate the body and put it on display for all the world to
see. Yet there is no evidence that the
Sanhedrin even attempted to find the body they claimed the disciples had
stolen. The failure of the Sanhedrin to
make such a search is strong evidence that they themselves actually believed
Jesus was raised.
“Another obvious flaw in the Sanhedrin’s lie was the
basic idea itself. To suggest that the
disciples stole the body was to show complete ignorance of those men’s state of
mind at the time. They had not believed
Jesus’ many predictions of His resurrection, and, now that He had been
crucified, they were hopelessly dejected and afraid. If anything, they had even less belief in His
resurrection after His death than they had had before.
“When the women reported Jesus’ resurrection to the
eleven apostles and the other believers with them in Jerusalem, ‘the words
appeared to [the apostles] as nonsense, and they would not believe them’ (Luke
24:11). Their personal prejudices and
human understanding, common to most Jews of that day, prevented them from
accepting the idea of the Messiah’s death, thereby making belief in His resurrection
impossible. Those men did not have the
least motive for stealing Jesus’ body.
Because He had been given an uncommonly fine burial by Joseph and
Nicodemus—a much better burial than the disciples could have afforded—what better
place for His body to remain than in the garden tomb? The apostles had no reason to counterfeit a
resurrection they did not even believe in themselves. How could it be that the men who fled for
their lives while Jesus was still alive would, after His death, suddenly muster
the courage and ingenuity to steal the body and then body start preaching and
teaching in the name of a Jesus they knew was dead?”
Ok,
I now want to go back to the statement that I quoted from John MacArthur’s
commentary in yesterday’s SD. I will
quote it here and then after thinking about it give some insight that I believe
to be true. “But as wicked and self-serving as the
Sanhedrin’s plan was, it fit perfectly into God’s much greater and sovereign
plan. God did not want unbelievers to
proclaim the true gospel, even had they wanted to. The Lord would not send out messengers to
preach the resurrection who did not believe in the One who was raised. In His eternal wisdom God permitted those
guardians of the grave, who could have spread the factual, historic truth of
the resurrection, to become victimized by the corrupt Jewish leaders. The resurrection of the Son of God would be
proclaimed only by those whose hearts were committed to the risen Savior and
Lord.” Some thoughts that come into my mind are that
God can certainly use anybody He wishes to give out the gospel message, even in
their heart they do not believe it, and yet I don’t believe that this is the
usual way of how He works. I have
mentioned in earlier SD’s that the person who told me about Christ was not
truly a believer, and yet the truth of the gospel is what the Holy Spirit of
God used to bring me to salvation. Now
with that said, I agree with MacArthur that this is not the normal way of
getting the gospel out, that is by unbelievers, as they do not have the motivation
in doing it. It is the job of the Church
to get the message of the gospel out to the world, and not those who are
unbelievers for they would not have the motivation to do so.
10/18/2024 8:40 AM
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