SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/27/2017 8:03 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Spiritual
Blindness and Spiritual Sight”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts
7:55b-57
Message of the verses: “he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; 56 and he said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." 57 But they cried out with a loud voice, and covered their ears and rushed at him with one impulse.”
We have been talking about Stephen’s vision, stating that
he was the first one to see the glorified Christ in heaven after His return to
heaven, and perhaps we should put our self in his shoes for a moment. We are sitting there talking to the Sanhedrin
and all of a sudden we look up and see into heaven, seeing the glorified Lord
Jesus Christ standing next to the Father.
Question: “What would we
do?” Answer: Probably do just what Stephen did when he
stated: “Behold, I see the heavens
opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” What would the members of the Sanhedrin
do? They probably thought he was
“touched in the head” and so this just caused them to get angrier at
Stephen. It runs in my mind that we
learned that all on the Sanhedrin were Sadducees which meant they did not
believe in visions or angels.
John MacArthur writes “Stephen’s use of the phrase ‘Son
of Man” may have been the sharpest dagger, because it took them back to the
trial of another prisoner. Like Stephen,
Jesus was accused of blasphemy by false witnesses, yet He kept silent. Finally, in frustration, the high priest
demanded that He speak: ‘I adjure You by
the living God, that You tell us whether You are the Christ, the Son of
God.’ Jesus said to him, ‘You have said
it yourself; Nevertheless I tell you, hearafter you shall see the Son of Man
sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven’ (Matt.
26:63-64). For that so-called blasphemy
of claiming to be the Son of God and Son of Man who would sit on God’s right
hand, they had executed Jesus. Stephen’s
vision and words describing who he saw throws that claim Jesus made right back
in their faces. Jesus claimed He would
be at the right hand of God; Stephen now asserts that He is there! They must either execute Stephen too or admit
they were wrong when they had Jesus murdered.”
The Sanhedrin did not want anyone hearing what Stephen
saw, for as mentioned it would show that their choice to kill their Messiah was
wrong and so “they cried out with a loud voice, and covered their ears and rushed at him with one
impulse.” Jesus had stated of
these Jewish spiritual leaders that they were “blind guides of the blind”
(Matt. 15:14) and they certainly just proved it once again.
Luke used the word “rushed” “1) to set in rapid motion,
stir up, incite, urge on 2) to start forward impetuously, to rush.” This word describes what the demon filled
swine did as they rushed down the hill into the sea and drowned. If we were going to describe what happened to
the Sanhedrin at this point we could say “They lost it.” They turned into a howling murderous mob.
Spiritual Meaning
for My life today: Paul writes “be
angry and do not sin, don’t let the sun go down on your anger.” Good advice to follow, not to do what the
Sanhedrin did here.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to continue to give me wisdom
as I study His Word each day.
Memory verse: Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brethren, whatever
is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever
is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if
anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “They brought fruit back from
the land” (Numbers 13:23-24).
Today’s Bible question: “What physical difficulty did the beggar near
Jericho have?”
Answer in our next SD.
11/27/2017 9:01 AM
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