Friday, October 18, 2024

PT-2 "The Propagation" (Matt. 28:15)

 

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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