MORNING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/23/2026
7:43 AM
My
Worship Time Focus:
“The
Fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference:
Luke
1:74-75
Message of the verses: “to grant us that we, being rescued from
the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and
righteousness before Him all our days.”
In this mornings SD I begin the last section in
MacArthur’s 10th chapter in his first book on the gospel of Luke,
and I believe that there will be just one more chapter in order to finish his
commentary on this first chapter of Luke.
“In one of the most dramatic
incidents in all of redemptive history, God’s covenant with Abraham was
confirmed by his faith, expressed in his willingness to offer his son Isaac as
a sacrifice to God. Israel unlike
Abraham, has through history failed to respond in faith to the revealed will of
God, even when Messiah came. As a
result, the promised blessings of the Abrahamic covenant, like those of the
Davidic covenant, have not been realized.
Not until the Jewish people acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah who comes
in the name of the Lord (Luke 13:35), look with penitent remorse on the One
they pierced and mourn their rejection of Him, will the believing remnant be
saved (Rom. 11:26) and the nation experience all the blessings of the Abrahamic
covenant in the millennial kingdom. Only
then will Zacharias’s fervent hope that the children of Israel, being
rescued from the and of their enemies, might serve God without
fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all their days, be
realized.” Now let me quote the verse references
from this paragraph in the order that they are listed.
(Luke 13:35)
“35 Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell
you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of
the Lord!’"”
(Zech. 12:10)
“10 "And I will pour out on the house of
David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy,
so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn
for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one
weeps over a firstborn.”
(Rom. 11:26)
“26 And in this way all Israel will be saved, as
it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness
from Jacob”;
“As is the case with the Davidic
covenant, Gentile believers will also experience the vast blessings of the
Abrahamic covenant. In a spiritual
sense, all Christians share in the promises of salvation blessing in the
covenant, and so in the promises of salvation blessing in this covenant, and so
in the sense of salvation are called children of Abraham, as the apostle Paul
notes in Galatians 3:6-7: ‘Even so Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned
to him as righteousness. Therefore, be
sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham.’ Looking
ahead to the cross, God applied the righteousness of Jesus Christ to Abraham’s
account. Those who believe the gospel
and in faith embrace Jesus Christ ‘are blessed with Abraham, the believer’
(v-9). Even if they are not
descended from Abraham physically all who believe share the principle of faith
with Abraham and thus are in that sense his spiritual descendants. The salvation blessings of the Abrahamic
covenant are for all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, both Jews and
Gentiles. To the Romans Paul wrote:
“11 He received the sign of circumcision as a
seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still
uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe
without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as
well, 12 and to make him the father of
the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the
footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.”
(ESV)
“That all believers become Abraham’s children
spiritually does not mean that the church is the new Israel, cancelling all the
promises to the nation. That kind of ‘replacement
theology’ is unacceptable in light of the unconditional Old Testament promises
of God and the New Testament reiteration of them. Paul says with regard to Israel, ‘the
gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable’ (Rom. 11:29). Israel has not been permanently set aside
as a nation; God would not perpetuate and protect the Jewish people through the
centuries unless He had a definite purpose for doing so. The apostle Paul recoiled in horror as the
thought that God had permanently rejected Israel: “ I say then, God has not rejected His
people, has He? May it never be!” (This is the strongest Greek Paul is
using here) “God has not rejected His
people whom He foreknew” (Rom. 11:1-2). Though
Israel stumbled into disobedience, ‘They did not stumble so as to fall, did
they? May it never be [me genoito]!
But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them
jealous’ (v. 11). Gentiles, like a
wild olive branch, are grafted into the rich root of Abrahamic blessings (v.
17). But the natural branches (the
Jews), ‘if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for
God is able to graft them in again’ (v. 23).
Indeed, after ‘the fulness of the Gentiles has come in’ (v. 25), ‘all
Israel [i.e., the believing remnant] will be saved’ when Jesus returns at
the end of the tribulation to set up the millennial kingdom (v. 26).
“It is then that the Abrahamic covenant, anticipated
by members of the believing remnant such as Zacharias, Simon, and Anna, but
rejected by the unbelieving nation when it rejected the Messiah, will be fully
realized. Through redeemed Israel, its blessings
will flow to the world in the earthly kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I have to say that before I became a believer over 52 years ago, I did
not know much, if anything about the Jewish people, but once God saved me I
have certainly learned to love them and as I look at the world today with what
is going on in the middle east I certainly pray that God will continue to bless
the nation of Israel as they team up with the United States to rid the world of
the terrible people in Iran. Now not all
of the people of Iran are terrible, but those who are trying to kill the Jewish
people and the people of the United States are the ones that, it seems to me that
God is judging.
My
Steps of Faith for Today: I continue to believe and always
will believe that God is not finished with Israel at this time, and as
mentioned pray for victory for Israel over the bad Iranian regime.
3/23/2026
8:37 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment