EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/19/2025 7:51 PM
My Worship Time
Focus: “What God Did: “He Sent His Son”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
1 John 4:9-11
Message of the verses: “9 By this the love
of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the
world so that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved
God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for
our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
I
want you who read this SD to know that I am changing things up a little bit
this evening as I am going to look at what the late Dr. Warren Wiersbe has to
say about these verses, and then in tomorrow evening SD I will look at what
John MacArthur has to say about these verses.
I have mentioned before that I have a great deal of respect for Dr.
Warren Wiersbe and enjoy reading what he has written in what he calls his “Be
Books” as he has written these books for all of the books of the Bible, but in
some cases he will combine a couple of either Old Testament books or New
Testament books together.
“Because
God is love, He must communicate—not only in words but in deeds. True love is never static or inactive. God reveals His love to mankind in many
ways. He has geared all of creation to
meeting men’s needs. Until man’s sin
brought creation under bondage, man had on earth a perfect home in which to
love and serve God.
“God’s
love was revealed in the way He dealt with the nation of Israel. ‘The Lord did not set His love upon you, nor
choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the
fewest of all people. But because the
Lord loved you…hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand” (Deut. 7:7-8).
“The greatest expression of God’s love is in the
death of His Son. ‘But God demonstrates
His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us’
(Rom. 5:8), NASB).
The word manifested
means ‘to come out in the open, to be made public.’ It is the opposite of ‘to hide, to make
secret.’ Under the Old Covenant, God was
hidden behind the shadows of ritual and ceremony (Heb. 10:1); but in Jesus
Christ ‘the life was manifested’ (1 John 1:2).
‘He that hath seen Me,’ said Jesus, ‘hath seen the Father (John 14:9).
“Why was Jesus Christ manifested? ‘And you know that He was manifested to take
away our sins’ (1 John 3:5). ‘For this
purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the
devil’ (1 John 3:8). Where did Jesus
take away our sins and destroy (render inoperative) the works of the
devil? At the cross! God manifested
His love at the cross when He gave His Son as a sacrifice there for our sins.
“This
is the only place in the epistle where Jesus is called God’s only-begotten
Son. The title is used in John’s Gospel
(John 1:14). It means ‘unique, the
only one of its kind.’ The fact that God sent His Son into the world is one evidence of the deity of Jesus
Christ. Babies were not sent into the world from some other
place; they were born into the
world. As the perfect Man, Jesus was born into the world, but
as the eternal Son, He was sent
into the world.
“But
the sending of Christ into the world, and His death on the cross, were not prompted
by man’s love for God. They were
prompted by His love for man. The world’s
attitude toward God is anything but love!
“Two
purposes are given for Christ’s death on the cross: that we might live through Him (1 John 4:9)
and that He might be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10). His death was not an accident; it was an
appointment. He did not die as a weak
martyr, but as a mighty conqueror.
“Jesus
Christ died that we might live ‘through Him’ (1 John 4:9), ‘for Him’ (2 Cor.
5:15), and ‘with Him’ (1 Thess. 5:9-10).
A sinner’s desperate need is for life,
because he is ‘dead in trespasses and sins’ (Eph. 2:1). It is something of a paradox that Christ had
to die so that we may live! We can never
probe the mystery of His death, but this we know: God died for us (Gal. 2:20).
“The
death of Christ is described as a ‘propitiation.’ John has used this word before (1 John 2:2),
so there is no need to study it in detail again. We should remember that propitiation does not
mean that men must do something to appease God or to placate His anger. Propitiation is something God does to make it
possible for men to be forgiven. ‘God is
light,’ and therefore He must uphold His holy Law. ‘God is love,’ and therefore He wants to
forgive and save sinners. How can God
forgive sinners and still be consistent with His holy nature? The answer is the cross. There Jesus Christ bore the punishment for
sin and met the just demands of the holy Law.
But there, also, God reveals His love and makes it possible for men to
be saved by faith.
“It
is important to note that the emphasis is on the death of Christ, not on His birth.
The fact that Jesus was, ‘made flesh’ (John 1:14) is certainly an
evidence of God’s grace and love, but the fact that He was ‘made sin’ (2 Cor.
5:21) is underscored for us. The example of Christ, the teachings of
Christ, the whole earthly life of Christ, find their true meaning and
fulfillment in the cross.
“For
the second time, believers are exhorted to ‘love one another (1John 4:11). This exhortation is a commandment to be obyed
(1 John 4:7), and its basis is the nature of God. ‘God is love; we know God; therefore we
should love one another.’ But the
exhortation to love one another is presented as a privilege as well as a
responsibility: ‘If God so loves us, we
ought also to love one another’ (1 John 4:11).
We are not saved by loving Christ;
we are saved by believing on Christ
(John 3:16). But after we realize what
He did for us on the cross, our normal response ought to be to love Him and to
love one another.
“It
is important that Christians progress in their understanding of love. To love one another simply out of a sense of
duty is good, but to love out of appreaction (rather than obligation) is even
better.
“This
may be one reason why Jesus established the Lord’s Supper, the Communion
service. When we break the bread and
share the cup, we remember His death.
Few men, if any, want their deaths remembered! In fact, we remember the life of a loved one and try to forget the sadness of his
death. Not so with Christ. He commands
us to remember His death: ‘This do in remembrance of Me!
“We
should remember our Lord’s death in a spiritual way, not merely
sentimentally. Someone has defined
sentiment as ‘feeling without responsibility.’
It is easy to experience solemn emotions at a church service and yet go
out to live the same defeated life. True
spiritual experience involves the whole man. The mind must understand spiritual truth; the heart must love and appreciate it; and the will must act on it. The deeper we go into the meaning of the
Criss, the greater will be our love for Christ and the greater our active
concern for one another.
I
hope that whoever reads this SD will appreciate Dr. Warren Wiersbe’s ministry
even though he is now with the Lord.
2/19/2025 8:52 PM
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