EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
5/13/2026 7:28 PM
My Worship
Time Focus: PT-3 “The Message”
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Luke 4:16-21
Message of the verses: “And He came to
Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom,
He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to
read. 17And the scroll of
Isaiah the prophet was handed to Him. And He unrolled the
scroll and found the place where it was written:
18“THE SPIRIT OF THE
LORD IS UPON ME,
BECAUSE HE
ANOINTED ME TO BRING GOOD NEWS TO THE POOR.
HE HAS
SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO CAPTIVES,
AND
RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND,
TO
SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED,
19TO PROCLAIM THE
FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.” 20And He rolled up the
scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the
eyes of all the people in the synagogue were
intently directed at Him. 21Now He began to
say to them, “Today this Scripture has been
fulfilled in your hearing.’”
I will continue with MacArthur’s
commentary from where I left off this morning.
I begin looking at the second point
that MacArthur speaks of, “Messiah will proclaim spiritual release to
the captives. Lost sinners imagine
that they are free, and see Christianity as infringing on their right to be and
do what they want to. But that is a
tragic deception; sinners are not free. All sinners
owe God an unpayable debt for violating His law (James 2:10; cf. Matt.
18:23-35), and are in bondage to ‘Him who is able to destroy both soul and body
in hell’ (Matt. 10:28). The lost are
also in bondage to Satan (Eph. 2:1-2), ‘held captive by him to do his will’ (2
Tim. 2:26). Satan uses their fear of
death to enslave them (Heb. 2:14-15).
They are also slaves of sin (Rom. 6:6, 16-20), since ‘everyone who
commits sin is a slave of sin’ (John 8:34).
“The good news of the gospel is that
God has sent His Son to free those who are in spiritual bondage. In Isaiah 42:5-7 (God said to the Messiah,
5 This is what God
the Lord says,
Who created
the heavens and stretched them out,
Who spread out the earth and its [a]offspring,
Who gives breath to the people on it
And spirit to those who walk in it:
6 “I am the Lord, I have called You in
righteousness,
I will also hold You by the hand and watch over You,
And I will appoint You as a covenant to the people,
As a light to the nations,
7 To open blind eyes,
To bring out prisoners from the dungeon
And those who dwell in darkness from the prison.
Aphesis (release)
means ‘forgiveness’ (it is so translated in 1:77; 3:3; 24:47; Matt. 26:28; Mark
1:4; Acts 2:38; 5:31; 10:43; 13:38; 26:18; Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14; Heb.
9:22). Messiah will set the prisoners
free by paying the penalty for their violation of God’s law. Through His sacrificial death God has ‘canceled
out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile
to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross’ (Col.
2:14). As Charles Wesley expressed it in
his magnificent hymn ‘O For a Thousand tongues,”
He
breaks the power of cancelled sin,
He
sets the prisoner free.
“Third, Messiah’s mission was to
provide recovery of spiritual sight to the blind. Spiritual blindness is the natural
condition of fallen man. ‘They do not
know nor do they understand; they walk about in darkness’ (Ps. 82:5); they ‘have
eyes but do not see’ (Jer. 5:21). ‘This
is the judgment,’ Jesus declared, ‘that the Light has come into the world, and
men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light,
and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed’ (John
3:19-20). In addition to their natural
blindness, God judicially blinds the minds of unrepentant sinners. The apostle John wrote, ‘He has blinded their
eyes and He hardened their heart, so that they would not see with their eyes
and perceive with their heart, and be converted and I heal them’ (John 12:40;
cf. Rom. 11:8). Satan also ‘has blinded
the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel
of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God’ (2 Cor. 4:4).
“But the Messiah came ‘to open blind
eyes’ (Isa. 42:7). He is the ‘Sunrise
from on high’ (1:78) who will ‘shine upon those who sit in darkness and the
shadow of death’ (v. 79). Since He is ‘the
light of the world (John 8:12; 9:5; cf. 3:19; 12:46) those who follow Him ‘will
not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life’ (John 8:12). Paul reminded the Corinthians that ‘God, who
said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our
hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of
Christ’ (2 Cor. 4:6). ‘You were formerly
darkness,’ Ephesians 5:8 says, ‘but now you are light in the Lord’ (cf. Col.
1:13). Paul was sent to the Gentiles ‘to
open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the
dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an
inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in [Jesus]’ (acts
26:18).
“Finally, Messiah came to set
free those who are spiritually oppressed. These are people overwhelmed by life’s
painful circumstances, especially the wearying burden of sin and the inability
to keep God’s law (cf. 11:46; Matt. 23:4; Acts 15:10). Jesus promises such people ‘Come to Me, all
who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for
I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light’
(Matt. 11:28-30). ‘For this is the love
of God,’ John wrote, ‘that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are
not burdensome’ (1 John 5:3).
“Because Jesus had already been
ministering for many months, these things were already happening. For the spiritually bankrupt, imprisoned by
their sin and awaiting sentence by the Judge of all the earth (Gen. 18:25),
blind to the truth, and oppressed by the heavy burden of their sins, the
favorable year of the Lord had come.
The ‘day of salvation’ (Isa. 49:8) and the ‘year of redemption’ (Isa.
63:4) had arrived.
“Stopping His reading of Isaiah 61:2
in the middle of the verse, Jesus closed the book, gave it back to the
attendant and sat down. It was a
dramatic moment, and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him wondering
what His message would be. What He said
was shocking, unexpected, and unprecedented: He began to say to them, “Today
this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Other teachers had
spoken of a future fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, but Jesus told them that
they were witnessing its fulfillment before their eyes. Salvation had come; the messianic era had
begun; the Messiah was present that day in the synagogue in the person of
Jesus, a man from that very village.”
5/13/2026
9:46 PM
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