SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/28/2025 9:20 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-3 “The
Seriousness of His Commission”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
2 Timothy 4:1
Message of the
verse: “1
I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is
to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom:”
I have been thinking about the name that John MacArthur
gives to this first verse of the fourth chapter of 2 Timothy, thinking about
the word “seriousness” and to me that makes this verse very important, very
important to Timothy for sure, and then very important to all believers who
read this verse. Paul is charging
Timothy in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and that makes it very
serious.
I will now begin with a quotation from John MacArthur’s
commentary: “In marked contrast to human
courts, in the bar of divine judgment—whether for reward, separation, or
condemnation—there will be no argument, no new evidence to be revealed, no
cross-examination, no witnesses to cal, no excuses, no jury of peers, and no
appeal. In the most absolute way, the
Judge’s decision will be final.” Now I
don’t usually disagree with what I find in MacArthur’s commentaries, but let me
just say something that I have learned a long while ago and it has to do with
the “Great White Throne Judgments,” the judgment that all who come to are lost
and will very soon go into hell. What I learned
and I don’t know if this will happen, but it does seem like it may come about,
and that is that each person in this judgment will have an opportunity to say
why they think they should not be there.
There could be comments like “I was very helpful to my neighbors when
they needed my help.” Things like that,
however the thing that all who are at this judgment is that they never truly
confessed that they were sinners, and then called upon the Lord Jesus Christ to
save them from their sins, so that they could then follow Him, doing the works
that He had planned for them. I am about
to put a fairly long quote on my SD which comes from the 25th
chapter of the book of Matthew, which is a part of the Olivet Discourse,
actually the last part of it and I think that this is where I got the idea of
unbelievers being able to tell the Lord what they had done for Him.
31 "But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and
all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 32 “All the
nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one
another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; 33 and He will put the sheep on His right, and
the goats on the left. 34 “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come,
you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world. 35 ‘For I was hungry, and you gave Me something
to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a
stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and
you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ 37 "Then the righteous will answer
Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and
give You something to drink? 38 ‘And when did we see You a stranger, and
invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39 ‘When did we see You sick, or in
prison, and come to You?’ 40 “The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the
extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of
them, you did it to Me.’ 41 “Then He will also say to those on His
left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been
prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing
to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; 43 I was a stranger,
and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in
prison, and you did not visit Me.’ 44 “Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord,
when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in
prison, and did not take care of You?’ 45 “Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the
extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it
to Me.’ 46 “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the
righteous into eternal life.’”
Now I am not sure if this will happen after the
Tribulation ends or if this is a part of the Great White Throne Judgment, as
when the Lord returns to planet earth at the end of the Tribulation period
there will be a separation of the believers and the non believers, as the
believers will go into the kingdom, the Millennial Kingdom and the unbelievers
will go to sheol, and once the Great White Throne judgment happens then all of
those unbelievers from the beginning of time will then go into hell.
Well
I did not get too far this morning into this first verse in 2 Timothy four, and
as I look at this commentary there is still pretty much to get to, and so I
will end this SD with two more paragraphs from MacArthur’s commentary.
“When
we stand before our omniscient Lord, He already will know, far better than we
ourselves can know even in our most honest moments, exactly how faithful and
godly our life has been. Not a year or a
month, not an hour, minute, or second escapes His notice or His judgment. Paul could say with complete honesty, ‘I am
conscious of nothing against myself.’ Nonetheless,
he went on to say, ‘Yet I am not by this acquitted; but one who examines me is
the Lord. Therefore do not go on passing
judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to
light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men’s
hearts; and then each man’s praise will come to him from God’ (1 Cor. 4:4-5).
The grammatical construction of 2 Timothy 4:1
suggests the idea of imminency, that Christ Jesus…is about to judge momentarily,
and gives a second reason for Paul’s solemn charge to Timothy.
Spiritual
Meaning for my Life Today: I realize the imminency of getting the Gospel
out and that surely is one of the main reasons that I spend time in studying
the Word of God and writing these Spiritual Diaries each day as I am now doing
three each day.
My
Steps of Faith for Today: I trust that the Holy Spirit will get these
Spiritual Diaries to those He desires to get them in order to bring glory to
the Lord Jesus Christ.
6/28/2025 10:13 AM
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