EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/17/2026
8:15 PM
My Worship
Time Focus:
PT-2 “Are
You the Coming One?”
Bible
Reading & Meditation
Reference: “Luke 7:18-23”
Message of the verses: “18 The
disciples of John also reported to him about all these things. 19 And
after summoning two of his disciples, John sent them to the Lord,
saying, “Are You the Coming One, or are we to look for another?” 20 When
the men came to Him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to You, to
ask, ‘Are You the Coming One, or are we to look for another?’” 21 At
that very time He cured many people of
diseases and afflictions and evil spirits; and He gave sight to many who
were blind. 22 And He answered and said to
them, “Go and report to John what you have seen and heard: people who
were blind receive sight, people who limped walk, people with leprosy are
cleansed and people who were deaf hear, dead people are raised up, and people
who are poor have the gospel preached to them. 23 And
blessed is anyone who does not take offense at Me.”
I mentioned this morning that I had
a decision to make on whether or not to quote the rest of John MacArthur’s
commentary or go a different route. I
have decided to quote from his sermon on these verses, the first sermon as he
has more than one sermon connected to these verses.
One of the things that has fascinated
me in my study of God’s Word is to see the things in the Old Testament that
relates to the Lord Jesus Christ. There
is a sermon that Jesus used to speak to two of His disciples which took place
after He was raised from the dead as they were walking along the road to Emmaus
and I would have loved to be present to hear that sermon. The reason is that Jesus was talking to these
men about how the Christ worked in the Old Testament, and these men did not
realize this, and I have to say that not many believers realize this.
Now in MacArthur’s commentary on the
beginning of these verses he quotes many, many verses to help us learn some of
these things from the OT about the Messiah.
I have decided to quote his entire sermon, the first one which focus in
on these verses and also focuses in on Christ in the Old Testament.
ARE YOU THE COMING ONE?
Charles Wesley lived for eighty-one
years of the eighteenth century and he wrote 6,500 hymns. Many of them
are Christmas hymns. One of the most magnificent and one of my favorites
is titled, "Come Thou Long Expected Jesus." The lyrics go like
this:
Come, Thou, long expected Jesus,
Born to set Thy people free.
From our fears and sin release us.
Let us find our rest in Thee.
Israel's strength and consolation,
Hope of all the earth Thou art.
Dear desire of every nation,
Joy of every longing heart.
Born Thy people to deliver,
Born a child and yet a King.
Born to reign in us forever,
Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.
By Thine own eternal Spirit,
Rule in all our hearts alone.
By Thine all-sufficient merit,
Raise us to Thy glorious
throne."
What distinguishes a hymn from all
other forms of music is hymns are theology. They are theology, great truth
about God and His redemptive purpose. And that hymn is certainly no
exception to that.
Wesley chose to identify Jesus as
the long expected Jesus. "Come, Thou long expected Jesus, born to
set Thy people free." What did he have in mind when he chose that
title for the Messiah? Open your Bible to the 7th chapter of Luke, the
7th chapter of Luke. If you're going to be theological, you have to be
biblical because theology comes out of Scripture. In the 7th chapter of
Luke we pick up the story in verse 18. It says, "And the disciples
of John reported to him about all these things."
Now let me explain that
briefly. John here is John the Baptist. John is called the Baptist
because he baptized so many people down at the Jordan River. Now you
remember John. He was born just before Jesus was born. He was born to Zacharias
and Elizabeth who were related to Mary, so he was sort of in the same family as
Jesus. But there was no particular distinction in that. What sets
John apart is that he was chosen by God to be the last and the greatest prophet
and his job, which made him the greatest, was to announce the arrival of
Messiah. And he had done that. He had done that. He had declared
that Jesus is the Messiah and then the camera turns away from John and he fades
into the background and the story is all about Jesus from there on.
But now, all of a sudden, Luke
injects John back in and John’s disciples, some of the followers of John, have
gone to tell him about the miracles Jesus is doing. And so, in verse 19
we read this, "Summoning two of his disciples, John sent them to the Lord
saying, 'Are You the Expected One or do we look for someone else?' And
when the men had come to Him, they said, 'John the Baptist has sent us to You
saying, "Are You the Expected One or do we look for someone
else?"'"
This is the most compelling
question that anybody could ever ask and the question that demands an answer
more than any other question, because it has such immense eternal
implications. Are You the long Expected One or do we look for someone
else? Are You the One who is prophesied to set Your people free from fear
and sin? Are You Israel's strength and consolation? Are You the
hope of all the earth? Are You the dear desire of every nation? Are
You the joy of every longing heart? Are You the One we look for?
That was John's question.
Israel had long waited for the
Messiah to come. And we wouldn't be surprised to have somebody in Israel
ask the question, but we are a little surprised that it comes from the mouth of
John the Baptist. Why is John asking this question since he would have
known about the virgin birth of Jesus, because they were relatives, he would
have heard stories that circulated in the family about the perfections of Jesus
as a person, as a sinless child and a sinless young man and a sinless
adult? And he did, after all, declare, pointing to Jesus, "Behold,
the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." And he did on
one occasion even say — and it's recorded in all four gospels — "You are
the long Expected One." And he also heard a voice from heaven, the
Father, saying, "This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,"
and the voice came right when John was baptizing Jesus. And he also saw
the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus, further divinely affirming Him as the
Messiah. So the strange reality is, why is he asking the question?
Well, because it's the most
important question there is. And he had all of that evidence that Jesus
was the Expected One, the Coming One, the long-awaited Messiah, but there were
some things that just didn't fit. Where was the regal splendor of the
Messiah? Where was His kingliness? Why was He not ascending to the
throne? Why was He not establishing Himself as the sovereign? Why
was He not overthrowing the Romans? Why was He being rejected and hated
by the religious establishment? Why did things appear to be going in the
wrong direction? Why was He not asserting Himself as a sovereign?
So the doubts creeping into the mind of John: Is He really Israel's strength
and consolation? Is He really the desire of every nation, as Haggai, the
prophet, had called Him?
Well you can see if you look at
your Bible in those two verses that I read you, verses 19 and 20, that the
title, "the Expected One," or "the Coming One" is
capitalized, is it not? And the reason it's capitalized is because it's
not just a descriptive term, it is a proper noun, it is a title. "Coming
One," or "Expected One," ha erchomenos, is a title
for the Messiah. That was a name for Messiah. We find that name in
the Old Testament. He is called the Coming One. The psalmist
identifies Him as the Coming One several times. "Blessed is the Coming One
who comes in the name of the Lord." And so John is asking, "Are
You the Messiah? Are You the long-awaited Savior, Deliverer of
Israel?"
We have determined that He
is. John did as well after his doubts were removed and we'll see more
about that next Sunday. But I can tell you that it is the testimony of
every true Christian that we believe that Jesus is Israel's strength and consolation.
Israel is the hope of all the earth... I should say Jesus is the hope of all
the earth and Jesus is the desire of every nation. We believe that.
That's what Christians believe. We believe that Jesus is the Expected One,
the Coming One and the Old Testament description of the One who is to come is
so complete and so clear that it actually describes the Coming One so well as
to leave no doubt who it was. To anybody who is honest it is absolutely
crystal clear that Jesus of Nazareth is the One prophesied in the Old
Testament. As Christians, we believe it. That's what Christians
believe. We believe that the long Expected One is Jesus and we
acknowledge Him as our King and our Redeemer and our Lord and our Savior.
And we do that eagerly and we do that unhesitatingly. We confess that
Jesus is Lord to the glory of God.
What does it mean to say it?
What does it mean to say Jesus is Lord? What does it mean to believe that
He is the long Expected One, the Coming One, the Promised One, the King and
Redeemer, the Lord and Savior the Old Testament describes? What does it
mean when we say we confess Him as Lord?
Well let me just tell you what it
means and I'm going to give you a description of a Christian. It means
that we trust His wisdom beyond all other wisdom. It means that we
believe that everything that He says and everything that is said in the Bible
about Him is absolutely true and anything that contradicts any of it is
wrong. It means that we desire to know His thoughts above all thoughts as
supreme. It means that we long to hear and obey His Word over all other
words. It means that we give Him our lives now and forever, we entrust
Him not only with our time but with our eternity, believing firmly in a person
and a reality that we have never seen, but the testimony of Scripture is
sufficient to verify. It means we obey His commandments with joy.
It means we love Him supremely and we love people who love Him and we even love
people He loves who don't love Him. It means we give our lives to
proclaim His gospel, the gospel of salvation. To say that Jesus is Lord,
which is the Christian confession, is to say that we accept Jesus as our
absolute authority and source for all that is true. It means that we
desire always to do what pleases Him, though we fail. It means we fear
Him, we worship Him, we obey Him and we proclaim Him above all others. To
confess Jesus as Lord means that no area of our lives is unaffected by our
relationship to Him. Our relationship to Him defines what we think. It
defines our attitudes, it defines our emotions. It defines what we say.
It defines how we act in every area of life. Our relationship to Him
pervades all our being. To confess Jesus as Lord means that we trust His
purpose for our lives and we trust His utter, sovereign control over all
aspects of our lives including our failures and our successes, our blessings
and our sorrows, our sickness and even our death. To confess Jesus as
Lord means that we count Him as the source of all that is good and all that is
right and all that is blessed, and therefore He is to be thanked for
everything. To confess Him as Lord means that we believe that He created
and controls the entire universe, that He has pre-written all history so that
it is directed in its course toward perfect fulfillment of His intended desire
when He re-wrote...when he pre-wrote it. To confess Jesus as Lord, to be
a Christian, means to give our souls to Him, our bodies to Him as living
sacrifices, our minds to Him, our time to Him, our abilities to Him, our money
to Him, our prayers to Him. It means to dedicate our children to Him and
to pray that everyone we know may love Him the way we love Him. To
confess Jesus as Lord means to give our lives in service to Him, fellowship in
the church, to engage ourselves in ministries of all kinds to the honor of His
name and the spread of His gospel. To confess Jesus as Lord means that we
are willing to live for Him no matter what it requires, and if asked to die for
Him with an affirmation of His glory on our lips as our life leaves us.
We have never seen Him but we talk
to Him every day. We have never heard an audible voice, but He speaks to
us through His Word every day. We haven't seen His face, He is to us
invisible and His Kingdom is not material. And even the heaven He
promises to which we look we have never visited, nor has anyone else who can
tell us about it. Only two apostles had a glimpse and struggled to
explain what they saw.
You ask about what it means to be a
Christian? That's what it means. It's not about going to church.
It's about submitting everything to the lordship of Jesus Christ. We live
in a very singularly defined life. Jesus Christ is everything to us and
we are complete in Him. He is not some addendum to our lives. He is
not some addition to our lives. He is not part of our lives. He is
all of our lives. And to make that kind of commitment, you better be sure
that He is the Expected One or do we look for someone else? John the
Baptist understood what it meant to say, "Jesus is the Coming One."
It meant everything. And if there was some lingering doubt in his mind
because not all that he had anticipated or that had been promised was before
his eyes being fulfilled, and if the question was there at all, then it was
worthy of an answer. If you're going to be a Christian, you better count
the cost. It's all about Christ and only Christ and always Christ.
He is our all and all. He is our everything. That kind of singular
devotion, singular love, singular obedience, singular trust, singular hope
demands assurance. And for the moment, anyway, John was asking a question
that any doubter should ask: Are You the Expected One?
8/17/2026
8:40 PM
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