EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/27/2026
8:08 PM
My
Worship Time
Focus: PT-1 “John’s Personal Character”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference:
Luke 1:15
Message of the verse: “For he will be great in the sight of the
Lord; and he will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy
Spirit while yet in his mother’s womb.”
I am going to begin this section this evening, but
will not be able to complete it, and so I will finish it in the morning in my
morning Spiritual Diary, Lord willing.
According to MacArthur “great” is
a relative term as it is measured within a specific cultural and historical
context, however John the Baptist’s greatness transcends time and culture. Now the reason for this is because Jesus
declared John to be the greatest man who had lived up to his time, and when you
think about that as you look at the different persons in the Old Testament like
Abraham, Moses, David and many others including the writers of the Old
Testament, and I don’t want to forget Noah for where would the rest of these be
without the ministry of Noah. There is
one more person that I have to add and that would be Daniel who truly was a
great Old Testament prophet and author where we find in his 9th
chapter a prophecy which could be one of if not the greatest prophecy in the
Old Testament as its span went from his lifetime all the way to the end of the
tribulation period found in the book of Revelation.
MacArthur writes: “John was great
in the only way that truly matters—in the sight of the Lord (or ‘God’;
a common New Testament phrase signifying divine approval; cf. 1:6; Acts 4:19;
7:20; cf. 7:46; 2 Cor. 2:17; 4:2; 7:12; 8:21; 12:19; 1 Tim. 2:3; 5:4; James
1:27; 1 Peter 2:4; 3:4). (It should be
noted that when Gabriel used the term great in 1:32 in reference to
Jesus he did not qualify it by adding ‘in the sight of the Lord.’ Jesus Christ, as God in human flesh, was
already great in the absolute, highest sense.)”
“Implicit in God’s approval of John
was the reality of his justification, since no one can be approved by God whose
sins are not forgiven. In anticipation
of His work on the cross, God imputed to John to John the righteousness of Jesus
Christ (cf. Isa. 61:10; Rom. 3:22; 2 Cor. 5:21)is of monumental significance in
understanding the doctrine of election (cf. Eph. 1:4).”
(cf. Isa. 61:10; Rom. 3:22; 2 Cor. 5:21)
“10 ¶ I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul
shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he
has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself
like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with
her jewels.’
“22 the righteousness of God through faith in
Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction:”
“21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no
sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
(cf. Eph. 1:4)
“4 even as he chose us in him before the
foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.”
“God’s
choice of John is a profound illustration of how He has sovereignly chosen all
who believe (John 1:12-13; 6:37, 44; 15:16; Rom. 8:29; 1 Thess. 1:4; 1 Peter
1:1-2) and written their names in the Lamb’s Book of Life before the foundation
of the world (2 Thess. 2:13-14; cf. Luke 10:20; Acts 13:48; Rom. 8:29; Rev.
13:8; 17:8).” I realize that all of
these verses are important to look up, but I just cannot quote all of the
verses that John MacArthur adds in his commentary.
We move on by writing about Gabriel
as he gave two marks of John’s greatness, one external and physical, the other
internal and spiritual. First, John
would drink no wine or liquor. John’s
lifestyle would be one of temperance, moderation, and self-denial, and perhaps
that would be an understatement. John
had a choice wardrobe of a camel’s hair coat and leather belt, and then the
part that seems very difficult to me which is his diet of locusts and wild honey
as this reflected his indifference toward worldly pleasures. Abstaining from wine and liquor took his
disdain for and the separation from the world which was a significant step
further for John. John would be so
preoccupied with the work that God commissioned him to do that he would
distance himself from those things.
In MacArthur’s commentary on this
section he takes a very long time to talk about the use of wine and strong
drink. I remember a long time ago while
on vacation in Florida that I heard an entire sermon by MacArthur on the use of
wine and liquor as he talked about how in Israel during the Old Testament
times, and early New Testament times that the water was really bad to drink and
so the people would put a little bit of wine in the water to make it more tolerable
to drink. I am not going to go on with
this subject because I know that some believers do not mind having a glass of
wine or something else, The Bible does
tell us not to get drunk, and so I will leave it at that. Ok one more thing and that is that Jesus did
turn water into wine as His first miracle found in the gospel of John, but I
don’t know how strong it was. In the
church I attend there is a covenant and a part of that covenant is not to drink
alcohol unless it is used as a type of medicine.
2/27/2026
9:02 PM
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