SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 8/18/2025 9:08 AM
My
Worship Time Focus:
“Christ, The Faithful Lord”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference:
2 Timothy 4:17-18
Message of the verse: “17 But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that
through me the proclamation might be fully accomplished, and that all the
Gentiles might hear; and I was rescued out of the lion’s mouth. 18 The Lord
will rescue me from every evil deed, and will bring me safely to His heavenly
kingdom; to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.”
One would think that these verses
will end Paul’s letter to Timothy, but there is still some things that Paul
wanted to tell Timothy, which Lord willing we will look at in the next few
days, and then move onto a study of Jonah, and then Nahum.
As Paul is writing this letter to
Timothy empire-wide persecution of the church had begun and Paul was on trial
for his life. Paul stood before the
dreadful Roman tribunal, perhaps even standing before the wicked emperor Nero,
something we don’t know for sure. The
court would have been jammed with many spectators, similar to when other famous
people in our own day would be, but the problem in Paul’s case is that none of
these spectators would be on the side of him, for probably true believers were
too frightened to come to the courthouse.
John MacArthur writes “Verses 17018
form the apex of this passage, testifying to the faithfulness of Christ, the Lord [who] stood with [Paul] and
strengthened [him]. He stood there
not only or even primarily for Paul’s sake but that through the apostle the
proclamation of the gospel might be
fully accomplished, and that all the Gentiles might hear. Paul was the unique and divinely
appointed apostle to the Gentiles (Rom.
11:13), and it was above all for their salvation and for the Lord’s glory
that the apostle himself ministered (cf. Acts 9:15; 22:21; 26:17).”
Now as we read about Paul’s life in
the Scripture we can see that he often had been delivered out of the lion’s mouth, a common figure of mortal
danger. “Save me from the lion’s mouth; From the horns of the wild oxen You
answer me.” This is from Psalm 22,
and that Psalm was written by David, but it was about the Lord Jesus Christ as
He hung on the cross. One more Psalm to
look at “Lord, how long will You look
on? Rescue my soul from their ravages, My only life from the lions” (Ps.
35:17). It also was the specific
danger into which the Lord allowed Daniel to be placed and from which He
miraculously delivered the prophet as seen in Dan. 6:16-23. MacArthur writes “An immeasurably greater
threat—for Paul and for every believer—comes from Satan himself, our ‘adversary, the devil, [who] prowls about
like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour’ (1 Peter 5:8). Yet even the devil has no ultimate power
over those who belong to Christ.
“Paul did not fear physical
danger. Many times he had faced death,
and at least once was left for dead (see Acts 14:19). ‘Whatever
I face,’ he declared, the Lord will
deliver me from every evil deed, and will bring me safely to His heavenly
kingdom. He knew that the completion
of his own salvation was nearer than when he first believed (cf. Rom. 13:11)
and preferred ‘rather to be absent from
the body and to be at home with the Lord’ (2 Cor. 5:8). For Paul, as for every believer, ‘to live is Christ, and to die is gain
(Phil. 1:21). And although the
apostle would not give up the battle until the Lord took him home, his
loneliness, pain, deprivation, and desertion make the prospect of heaven all
the more appealing.
“For that and for everything the
Lord had done, was doing, and yet to do, Paul exulted, To Him be the glory forever and ever, Amen.”
Spiritual Meaning for my Life Today: Trust the Lord because He is and always will
be in control.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I realize that my wife is dealing with
cancer, and yet I also realize that the Lord is with both of us and He can
never make a mistake.
8/18/2025 9:39 AM
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