MORNING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/6/2026
8:43 AM
My
Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Intro
to ‘The Uniqueness of the Gospel’”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference:
Luke
5:33-39
Message of the verses: “33 And they said to Him,
"The disciples of John often fast and offer prayers, the disciples of the
Pharisees also do the same, but Yours eat and drink." 34 And
Jesus said to them, "You cannot make the attendants of the bridegroom fast
while the bridegroom is with them, can you? 35 "But
the days will come; and when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they
will fast in those days." 36 And He was also telling
them a parable: "No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and puts
it on an old garment; otherwise he will both tear the new, and the piece from
the new will not match the old. 37 "And no one puts
new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and it
will be spilled out, and the skins will be ruined. 38 "But
new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. 39 "And no
one, after drinking old wine wishes for new; for he says, 'The old is good
enough.'"
I continue quoting from John MacArthur’s introduction
to these verses in this morning’s SD.
“Such agnosticism regarding biblical
truth is the antithesis of true faith. It is nothing more than love of self and
sin in religious garb, masquerading as humility. Scripture teaches that absolute truth exists and that every person is accountable
to it. As Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians
2:10, failing to live the truth is the mark of unbelievers, who are damned by
their unbelief.”
(2 Thessalonians 2:10)
“10 and with all wicked deception for those who
are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.”
“On the
other hand, believers are those who know the truth and have been set free by it
(John 8:32).”
(John 8:32)
“32 and you will know the truth, and the truth
will set you free.’”
“In the
prologue to his gospel Luke declared that he hand done careful research (1:3)
so that his readers ‘may know the exact truth about the thing’ of which he
wrote (v.4). Jesus taught that
acceptable worship of God must be consistent with the truth (John 4:23-24), that
the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth (John 14:17; 15:26 16:13), that God’s
Word is truth (John 17:17, 19), and that He came into the world to testify to
the truth (John 18:37).”
(John 4:23-24)
“23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when
the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father
is seeking such people to worship him. 24
God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and
truth.’”
(John 14:17; 15:26 16:13)
“17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world
cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he
dwells with you and will be in you.”
“26 ¶ "But when the Helper comes, whom I will
send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father,
he will bear witness about me.”
13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide
you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but
whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are
to come.”
(John 17:17, 19)
“17 ¶ Sanctify them in the truth; your word is
truth.”
“19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that
they also may be sanctified in truth.”
(John 18:37)
“37 Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?”
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for
this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone
who is of the truth listens to my voice.’”
“Paul
taught that those who refuse to obey the truth will face God’s wrath (Rom. 2:8),
that the gospel is ‘the message of truth’ (Eph. 1:13) that the ‘truth is in
Jesus’ (Eph. 4:21), that salvation comes through ‘faith in the truth’ (2 Thess.
2:13; cf. 1 Tim. 2:4), that the church is ‘the pillar and support of the truth’
(1 Tim. 3:15), that unbelievers are ‘deprived of the truth’ (1 Tim. 6:5), ‘have
gone astray from the truth (2 Tim. 2:18), are ‘always learning and never able
to come to the knowledge of the truth (2 Tim. 3:7), ‘oppose the truth’ (2 Tim.
3:8), and turn away their ears from the truth’ (2 Tim. 4:4; cf. Titus 1:15).
“The scandal of the gospel is, as
Francis Schaeffer said years ago, that Christians preach and exclusive Christ
in an inclusive age. But now, as noted
above, the world’s inclusivism and pluralism has infiltrated the church. Shockingly, some voices within the church are
even suggesting that adherents of other religions can follow Jesus Christ
without leaving their religions or identifying with Christianity. In fact, some argue that those in
non-Christian religions may actually be aided in coming to God by those false
religions. Clark Pinnock writes,
When we approach
the man of faith other than our own, it will be in a spirit of expectancy to
find how God has been speaking to him and what new understanding of the grace
and love of God we may ourselves discover in this encounter. Our first task in approaching another people,
another culture, another religion is t take off the shoes, for the place we are
approaching is holy…we may forget that God was here before our arrival. (Cited
in Erwin Lutzer, Christ Amng Other gods [Chicago: Moody, 1994], 185)
Then,
shockingly, he adds,
God…has
more going on by way of redemption than what happened in first-century
Palestine. (Lutzer, 185)
“The theme of this closing section
of chapter 5 is an appropriate one in this age where diversity of belief,
openness to other religious views, and inclusivism are seen as the primary
religious virtues. In His confrontation
with the Jewish religious leaders over the question of fasting, the Lord Jesus
Christ set forth clearly the uniqueness and exclusivity of the gospel. He did
not come as merely another rabi within the framework of contemporary
Judaism. Nor did He come to make a few
minor tweaks to contemporary Judaism. Nor did He come to make a few minor
tweaks to the existing religious system of His day. Jesus came to preach the gospel, which fulfilled
the Old Testament and was incompatible with the Jewish religion of His
day. Judaism was concerned with
self-righteousness; Judaism was concerned with what men thought (Matt. 6:2, 5,
16; 23:5), the gospel with what God thinks; Judaism was concerned with external
behavior (Matt. 13:25-28), the gospel with internal attitudes.”
(Matt. 6:2, 5, 16; 23:5)
“2 "Thus, when you give to the needy, sound
no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the
streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have
received their reward.”
“5 ¶ "And when you pray, you must not be like
the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the
street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you,, they
have received their reward.”
“16 ¶ "And when you fast, do not look gloomy
like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be
seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.”
“5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others.
For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long,”
(Matt. 13:25-28)
25 but while his men were sleeping, his enemy
came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. 26 So when the plants came up and bore grain,
then the weeds appeared also. 27 And the
servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not
sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So
the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’”
“It was Jesus’ uncompromising
insistence of the gospels exclusivity that lay at the heart of His ongoing
conflict with the Jewish religious leaders.
That hostility, already evident in two earlier incidents in chapter 5,
the healing of the paralytic (vv. 17-26) and the confrontation at Matthew’s
banquet (vv. 30-32), escalates in this passage.
All three Synoptic Gospels place this incident immediately after the
banquet given by Matthew, suggesting that it happened shortly afterward. The text contains three simple elements: the inquisition, the interpretation, and the illustrations.”
Spiritual
Meaning for my life today: It is my desire to continue to put into my
Spiritual Diaries the truth, the truth about the gospel of Jesus Christ which
is the only way that a person can become a true believer in Jesus Christ.
My Steps
of Faith for Today: Trust that the Lord will give me peace
through this very difficult situation that I am going through with my wife as she has given up on
any treatment to help her with her cancer as she does not want to suffer from
treatments that do not help.
6/6/2026
9:37 AM
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