EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/06/2025 9:37 PM
My Worship Time Focus: “Comparisons With Five Natural Phenomena”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Jude 12-13
Message of the verse: “12 These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; 13 wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever.”
The first thing that I want to write is that what we are looking this evening is actually an introduction to the five highlighted phrases in these two verses, and so this introduction will be very short, and then Lord willing, I will take one of these at a time and they also will be rather short.
John MacArthur writes the following in this brief introduction to these “Five Natural Phenomena.” “In many of His parables, the Lord Jesus used natural phenomena as object lessons to illustrate spiritual truth (cf. the parable of the soils in Matt.13:3-23; the parable of the tares and the wheat in Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43; the kingdom parables in Matt. 13:31-33, 44-50; the parables of the fig trees in Matt. 24:32-34 and Luke 13:6-9; and the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15:3-7). The Psalms also contain many rich allusions to creation and natural phenomena (cf. Pss. 1, 8, 18, 23, 29, 33, 42, 46, 59, 68, 72, 90, 91, 97, 98, 104, 107, 114, 124, 135, 147, 148). In this passage Jude followed that well-established pattern by comparing apostates with five natural phenomena: hidden reefs, waterless clouds, fruitless autumn trees, wild sea waves, and wandering stars.”
Now as I was thinking about the different parables that are written about in this introduction it made me think of why Jesus began to speak in parables. “22 Then a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to Jesus, and He healed him, so that the mute man spoke and saw. 23 All the crowds were amazed, and were saying, "This man cannot be the Son of David, can he?" 24 But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, "This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons’” (Matthew 12:22-24). As you read over these verses what you are looking at is the unpardonable sin as I will go on to quote more from this 12th chapter of Matthew: 31 “Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. 32 “Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come. ” (31-33). Now I have been taught that the unpardonable sin could only happen in this age when the Lord Jesus was on planet earth, and after this Jesus began to teach in parables, as he goes on to explain this to His disciples. “9 “He who has ears, let him hear." 10 And the disciples came and said to Him, "Why do You speak to them in parables?" 11 Jesus answered them, "To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. 12 “For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. 13 "Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. 14 “In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, ‘YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING, BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND; YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE; 15 FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL, WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY HEAR, AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES, OTHERWISE THEY WOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES, HEAR WITH THEIR EARS, AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN, AND I WOULD HEAL THEM.’”
8/6/2025 10:03 PM
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