EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/22/2025 9:29 PM
My Worship Time
Focus: Intro to 2 John 5-13
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 2 John 5-13
Message of the verses: “5 Now I ask you,
lady, not as though I were writing to you a new commandment, but the one
which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. 6 And this is
love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just
as you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it. 7 For many
deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus
Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist. 8
Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that you
may receive a full reward. 9 Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the
teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he
has both the Father and the Son.10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring
this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a
greeting; 11 for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil
deeds. 12 Though I have many things to write to you, I do not want to do so
with paper and ink; but I hope to come to you and speak face to face, so that
your joy may be made full. 13 The children of your chosen sister greet you.”
I will be mostly quoting from John MacArthur’s
commentary on these verses from 2 John. “Verse
9 jumps out of this section: Anyone who
goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God;
the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son. There again (as through 1 John) is the test
of a true Christian and a true preacher—pure
doctrine concerning Christ.
“The
true church of Jesus Christ has always understood that fact. Through the centuries, even in the church’s
darkest hours, there have always been those who were faithful to evangelize the
lost with the pure gospel of Jesus Christ.
People searched the Scriptures, without all the Bible study tools
available today, to understand the gospel in preparation for spreading the
message of salvation. Many unsung heroes
of the faith labored for decades translating the Word so people could read it
in their own languages. Missionaries
traveled in arduous and threatening circumstances to reach difficult places
with the truth of Christ. There they endured long periods of separation from
family, friends, and country, suffered the loss of coworkers and loved ones,
and battled disease, danger and satanic opposition for the gospel’s sake (cf.
Eph. 6:12). Tens of thousands of
faithful evangelists have been martyred for their unwavering commitment to obey
the Lord’s command to proclaim the truth that saves.” In the church that I attend, which is around
180 years old, that means it began before the civil war in our country. This church has helped to start two mission agencies.
Baptist Mid began a little over 100
years ago and it began in Africa, and they still have a hospital and church
where it started. Then some time ago,
not exactly known the exact date another mission agency began at our church,
Baptist Church Planters is the name of that one, and for a while there were
some financial problems with it, but later on that was taken care of and all of
the churches and people who invested in it were given all their money
back. This agency works only in our country
to get the much needed gospel message to a nation that is in dire need of
it.
“There
are some, however, who advocate a radical and alarming shift from this
commission, suggesting that preaching the gospel to the lost may actually be
unnecessary, along with the immense sacrifices that have been made to do
so. Going beyond the Bible’s teaching
about the general revelation of God in nature (see the discussion of Rom.
1:18-32 below), some argue that natural theology (‘the attempt to attain an
understanding of God and his relationship with the universe by means of
rational reflection, without appealing to special revelation such as the
self-relation of God in Christ and in Scripture’ [Colin Brown, ‘Natural Theology,’
in Sinclair B. Ferguson, David F. Wright, and J. I Packer, eds., New Dictionary of Theology (Downers
Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1988), 452]) alone is sufficient to save—apart from
any knowledge of the true God, or of Jesus Christ or the gospel. Some imagine that God saves people apart from
the gospel by treating them as He did those who lived before the time of the
New Testament (a view labeled trans-Dispensationalism). But as the writer of Hebrews
emphasizes, ‘God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in
many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son,
whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world’
(Heb. 1:1-2). Having given His final
revelation in His Son, God will not turn back the clock to another era. John 1:12 fixes the necessity of faith in
Christ: ‘But as many as received Him, to
them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in
His name.’”
4/22/2025 10:00 PM
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