EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/26/2026
8:51 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
“TRUE REPENTERS RECEIVE THE MESSIAH”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference:
Luke
3:15-17
Message of the verses: “15 Now while the
people were in a state of expectation and they all were thinking carefully in
their hearts about John, whether he himself perhaps was the Christ, 16 John
responded to them all, saying, “As for me, I baptize you with water; but He is
coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the straps of His
sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing
fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the
wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.’”
This will be the last Spiritual Diary in this 18th
chapter of John MacArthur’s commentary, something that I rely on in order to
write these Spiritual Diaries.
As mentioned this is the final point
and it moves beyond the things that accompany salvation to the One who alone
can save, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.
John’s words are very powerful and so they attest that the coming one,
the Messiah, is God, since He does things only that God can do. This should be something that people are
involved in any kind of cult or even in the Roman Catholic church because it
seems their Pope tries to act like He is the Messiah.
Now for centuries the Jewish people
had longed for and eagerly anticipated the coming of the Messiah, but now is
seems that the people were in a heightened state of expectation because
of John’s ministry, as some thought he was the Messiah. Their speculation as to whether he was the
Christ, though understandable, was misguided, and John would tell them
that. It is true that John was a prophet
as seen in Luke 20:6, and the greatest man who had ever lived up to his time as
seen in Matthew 11:11. However John was
not the Messiah, look at John 1:6-8), nor did he ever claim to be. On the contrary, “When the Jews sent to him
priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ [John] confessed
and did not deny, but confessed, ‘I am not the Christ’” (John 1:19-20; cf.
3:28).” “John 3:28 “28 You yourselves
bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before
him.’”
John’s disclaimer, As for me, I
baptize you with water; but One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not
fit to untie the throng of His sandals not only made it clear that he was
not the Messiah, but also that he was inferior to Him. John baptized them in the water of the Jordan
River as an outward confession of their repentance. However the Messiah, the one who is
coming, or “the Expected One’ (Luke 7:19-20) is mightier than
John. So superior is the Messiah that
John deemed himself that he was unfit even to untie the thong of His sandals—a
menial task that was performed by the lowliest of the slaves as John points out
in John 1:27. The Messiah would baptize
them with the Holy Spirit and fire. Now
that demonstrates the Messiah’s superiority to John, for those two supernatural
acts can only be performed by God. It is
God and God alone who dispenses the Holy Spirit to those who repent and judgment to those who do
not.
MacArthur writes “The Jews were well
aware that under the New covenant, God would send the Spirit to indwell those
who repent (Ezekiel 36:27; 37:14). Nor does any human have the authority to
immerse unrepentant sinners in the fire
of eternal judgment. The Jews also
knew that the Old Testament frequently associates fire with divine judgment
(cf. Isaiah 29:6; 30:33; 31:9; 66:15-16; Ezek. 38:22; Zeph. 1:18; 3:8). Malachi wrote that Messiah would come (3:1)
bringing judgment, which caused the prophet to exclaim, ‘But who can endure the
day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like
fuller’s soap’ (v. 2). In 4:1, God used
the metaphor of fire to picture future judgment: ‘For behold, the day is coming, burning like
a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day
that is coming will set them ablaze,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘so that it will
leave them neither root nor branch.’” The New Testament also uses fire in
reference to diving judgment (Matt. 7:19; 13:40, 42, 50; 18:8; 25:41; Luke
9:54; 12:49; 17:29; John 15:6; 2 Thess. 1:7; Heb. 10:27; 2 Peter 3:7; Jude 7;
Rev. 14:10; 19:20; 20:10, 14-15; 21:8).
“John’s powerful call for true
repentance is just as relevant and needed today as when he first gave it. It is the duty of every true preacher of God’s
Word to warn his hearers of the danger of false, shallow, non-saving
repentance; repentance that is grounded in selfish regret over sin’s
consequences instead of desire to be delivered from sin fails to subdue the
love of sin and initiate a passion for holiness, leads to further sin in a
hypocritical attempt to maintain the façade of self-righteousness, produces
self-deception, leads to a deadly false security, and ultimately hardens the
heart, and sears the conscience.”
In tomorrow morning’s SD, Lord
willing I will begin looking at chapter 19 of MacArthur’s first commentary on
the gospel of Luke which is entitled “The Boldness of John the Baptist and this
chapter will only cover three verses (3:18-20).
4/26/2026
9:27 PM
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