Monday, May 12, 2025

PT-5 "The Test of Christian Hospitality" (2 John 9-13)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/12/2025 7:00 PM

My Worship Time                                  Focus:  PT-5 “Truth: “The Test of Christian Hospitality”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                         Reference:  2 John 9-13

            Message of the verses:  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 John MacArthur’s sermon in this evening’s Spiritual Diary, and just to let you know with this SD we are about one third through this rather long sermon.  It is best to look at the previous Spiritual Diaries on this sermon so that you can follow what is being taught in this sermon.

            “Now, you’re in 1 Corinthians 2, go down to verse 11. Let me show you another very important portion of Scripture. First Corinthians 2:11. Well, verse 10, we need that one. “For to us God revealed them” - “them” meaning the things that God has prepared for us in salvation, God revealed these saving realities through the Spirit. Of course, this is in the Scripture, “For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God, for who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so, the thoughts of God knows no one except the Spirit of God.”

            “You can’t know God’s mind, you can’t know God’s thoughts, you can’t read God’s mind, you cannot know what God requires through intuition, through human wisdom, through religion. You don’t get to God, you get to Satan. The best that men can do cannot reveal to them the mind of God. The only one who knows the thoughts of God is the Spirit of God. Verse 12 says, “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God that we might know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit.”

            “What Paul is saying is this: We have to have words from God brought to us by the Spirit to know what God thinks, what God wants, what pleases God. You can’t know God through human wisdom. You can’t get there. Only the Spirit of God knows the mind of God. You are dependent upon the Spirit of God conveying to you the words of God, not in words taught by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit. And that’s what the Bible is; it is words taught by the Spirit. It is combining spiritual realities with spiritual words.

            “But you know what? Even if you have that, even if you have a Bible, verse 14 says, “A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, they’re foolishness to him and he can’t understand them because they’re spiritually appraised.” You can’t get there - listen to this - you can’t get there through human wisdom. You can’t even get there through divine revelation as a natural man. Not only will natural theology, wider mercy, trans-dispensationalism, or any other term, not only will they not get you there, you can’t get there on your own even with this because your mind is so darkened by sin, compounded, you are blinded by Satan, and naturally do not accept the things of the Spirit of God.

            You see, what the Bible teaches is absolutely the opposite. You can’t get there by your own wisdom, your own intuition, your own insight, your own rationality. You can only get there by the revelation of the Holy Spirit, and you can’t even get there by the revelation of the Holy Spirit on your own. Man, in his natural capacity, no hope - no hope. Holy Spirit has to go beyond the Scripture and illuminate the soul - right? - and awake the dead and regenerate the corpse.

            “Look at Acts 17 - Acts 17. I’m preparing you for a eureka when you hit 2 John. It’s all going to be clear. Acts 17, Paul’s on Mars Hill. He stood in the midst of the Areopagus. I’ve preached there several times, it’s quite an experience. He said, “Men of Athens” - in fact, I preached on this very text - “I observe that you’re very religious in all respects. You’re a very religious group.” This is the religious elite of the great city of Athens, where the most erudite (learned) and brilliant people were. And this is the philosophical ground, the high ground, the high place where the philosophers and religionists gather.

            “You’re very religious in all respects. While I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.” Here’s your problem, you’re worshiping the God you don’t know because you can’t know Him. So I’m here to tell you about Him. “He is the God” - verse 24 - “who made the world and all things in it. Since He is Lord of heaven and earth, doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands.”

            “Neither is He served with human hands as though He needed anything since He Himself gives to all life and breath and all things.” Your whole religious thing has got it all wrong. You’ve got all these temples, He doesn’t need that. You’ve got all these people taking food to serve these imaginary gods, He doesn’t want that. He is the God who gives to all life and breath and all things. He gives, He doesn’t need. “He made from one every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He’s not far from each of us.”

5/12/2025 7:12 PM

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