EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/24/2025 7:17 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
“PT-3 Introduction 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
continue to quote from the introduction of John MacArthur’s commentary on 2
John. “In keeping with the biblical
mandate, the early church, at great cost, took the gospel to the farthest
reaches of the Roman world and beyond; clearly understanding the people cannot
be saved apart from believing in Christ.
If they could, the suffering t he gospel preachers endured (cf. 2 Cor.
11:22-33) was surely pointless. If the
lost could be saved through natural theology or their pagan religions, the
Christian missionaries could have stayed safely at home. Even exposing pagans to the gospel may have
damned them, since they might not believe it.
It would be better, on those terms, if they never heard it.
“Paul’s
encounter with the pagan Athenians on Mars Hill is instructive of how the early
church approached those of other faiths.
The apostle began by commending them for their religious zeal (Acts
17:22-23), much as he did the unbelieving Jews (Rom. 10:2). Then, as was his custom when evangelizing
Gentiles (cf. Acts 14:15-17), Paul appealed to God’s general revelation in
nature, He noted that he had ‘found an altar with the inscription, ‘to an
unknown god’’ (Acts 17:23). Despite the
pantheon of gods they worshiped, the Athenians had a nagging concern that there
might be one that they still did not know.
To avoid giving offense, they erected a sort of catchall altar to
appease any god they might have inadvertently overlooked.
“The
apostle’s reaction is illuminating. He
did not approach those pagans expecting to discover how God had been speaking
to them. Nor did he seek a new
understanding of God’s grace and love in his encounter with them. Instead, he confronted them with the fact
that they were worshiping in ignorance (Acts 17:23), and explained to them who
God really was (vv. 24-29). And far from
assuming that they could know Him and be saved from hell through their false
religion, Paul closed his message by calling them to repent and turn to Jesus
Christ, the only way to God, saying, ‘Therefore having overlooked the times of
ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should
repent, because He has fixed a day in which
He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has
appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead’ (vv.
3-31).
Paul’s encounter with the Athenians illustrates the
impossibility of anyone being saved through general revelation along. General revelation demonstrates that an
all-powerful Creator exists. But it does
not reveal the way of salvation, ‘since in the wisdom of God the world through
its wisdom did not come to know God’ (1 Cor. 1:21a). Human reason, even aided by general
revelation, cannot produce a saving knowledge of God. Therefore, as Paul went on to write, ‘God was
well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe’
(1 Cor. 1:21b). Only those who believe
the message of ‘Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles
foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the
power of God and the wisdom of God’ (vv. 23-24; cf. 2:1-5) will be saved (cf. 2
Thess. 1:8, where Paul defines those who do not know God as those who ‘do not
obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ’).
“Now human has the power in himself to come to God,
even by the gospel. Scripture is clear
that humanity is dead and cannot in the flesh please God (Rom. 8:7-8). No person can by his own strength, works, or
faith please God at all, especially not so as to earn salvation even under the
hearing of the gospel, let along apart from it.
God alone saves sovereignly and always through the gospel. Only He can give life and light producing
repentance and faith—always directed toward Jesus Christ.”
I
certainly relate to what MacArthur is talking about in the above
quotations. It was in May of 1966 that I
had to go to get my physical in order to be drafted into the U. S. Army. The day was very long and a part of the physical
was to give a urine sample which for me a 19 year old man was difficult that
day. I finally did it and was told that
there was a problem and to give another.
I told him it took all day to do the first one and I could not do
another. The problem was that I had albumen
in my urine. I had to go home and see a
Kidney Doctor which I did. He checked me
three times a day for three days and then did an e-x-ray of my kidneys. No problem with them.
It
was July 5, 1966 that I got inducted into the U. S. Army and was sent to basic
training in Georgia. I did not want to
be there because of a war going on in Vietnam, but I went because it was my
duty to do so. Now from the time that I
was very young I picked up the habit of swearing, swearing a lot, and although
I did not know the Lord then I knew that He did not like my swearing. I prayed to the Lord and wanted to make a
deal with Him. “Lord if you get me out
of the army, then I will stop swearing.”
Deal made! After going to the
doctor in the army for three days I was told that I would be going home. Trouble was I only kept my deal with the Lord
for about two or three weeks. However He
did not forget it.
Upon
getting home and then going back to my job at Ford Motor Company, I was tested
again and was told that I did not have Albumin in my urine, and have not had it
to this day.
Fast
forward to the year 1973, after being married, divorced, and then married again
I went on a vacation to visit a friend in Florida where he gave me some cassette
tapes from a man named Hal Lindsey on what was going to happen in the end
times. I listened intently each day to
one tape message, and then after listening to most of them the Lord saved me as
Lindsey had a salvation message at the end of his sermons. I learned about the Rapture of the church,
the Tribulation Period, and other things that will happen in the end times, and
God used those messages to save me. Now
here is the way that I knew that the Lord saved me. He took my swearing away from me, and then
gave me a love for studying His Word, and eventually to begin writing these
blogs, and teaching Sunday school classes and other Bible studies. This took place over the past 50+ years. My
wife was saved, then my two children were saved, and then they got married and
their children were saved. All I can say
is Praise the Lord for His abundant mercy and grace.
4/24/2025 8:01 PM
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