SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/21/2018 11:14 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1
“Jesus: The Fulfillment of Prophecy”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts
13:23-37
Message of the verses: “23 "From the descendants of this man, according to promise, God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, 24 after John had proclaimed before His coming a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. 25 “And while John was completing his course, he kept saying, ’What do you suppose that I am? I am not He. But behold, one is coming after me the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie.’ 26 “Brethren, sons of Abraham’s family, and those among you who fear God, to us the message of this salvation has been sent. 27 “For those who live in Jerusalem, and their rulers, recognizing neither Him nor the utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled these by condemning Him. 28 “And though they found no ground for putting Him to death, they asked Pilate that He be executed. 29 “When they had carried out all that was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb. 30 “But God raised Him from the dead; 31 and for many days He appeared to those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, the very ones who are now His witnesses to the people. 32 "And we preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers, 33 that God has fulfilled this promise to our children in that He raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, ’YOU ARE MY SON; TODAY I HAVE BEGOTTEN YOU.’ 34 “As for the fact that He raised Him up from the dead, no longer to return to decay, He has spoken in this way: ’I WILL GIVE YOU THE HOLY and SURE blessings OF DAVID.’ 35 “Therefore He also says in another Psalm, ’YOU WILL NOT ALLOW YOUR HOLY ONE TO UNDERGO DECAY.’ 36 "For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep, and was laid among his fathers and underwent decay; 37 but He whom God raised did not undergo decay.”
I want to begin with a verse from the book of Revelation
“10 Then I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, "Do not do
that; I am a fellow servant of yours and your brethren who hold the testimony
of Jesus; worship God. For
the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy’ (Rev. 19:10).” In my John MacArthur study Bible he writes
the following about the highlighted portion of this verse: “The central theme of both OT prophecy and NT
preaching is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul is doing both in this sermon that he is
preaching in this synagogue that is he is talking about the prophecies of the
Messiah from the OT and also telling how these prophecies were fulfilled in
Jesus Christ as we see in this portion of his sermon.
The first prophecy of the Messiah is found in Genesis 3:15
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her
seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the
heel."” This of course speaks of
what is only spoken of one time in Scripture and that is the “seed of the woman” which
speaks of Christ’s virgin birth. It also
speaks of what Christ would accomplish on the cross as even though He would
die, He would bruise Satan on the head which is a death blow. We next move onto Isaiah 7:14 “14 “Therefore
the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and
she will call His name Immanuel.”
Once again we read about the virgin birth of Christ and this time we see
it actually spelled out, unlike where it was actually eluted to in Gen.
3:15.” Isaiah 9: 6 “6 For a child will be born to us, a son will be
given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will
be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” Jesus certainly was and is our “Wonderful
Counselor,” and He is the “Mighty God,” “Eternal Father, and Prince of peace.” In Micah 5:2 we read about where He would be
born: “2 “But as for you, Bethlehem
Ephrathah, Too little to be among the clans of Judah, From you One will go
forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, From
the days of eternity.’” Matthew 2:1
verifies this “1 Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of
Herod the king, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying.” In Genesis 12:2-3 we read at the calling of
Abraham that the Messiah would be one of his decedents: “2 And I will make you a great nation, And I
will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; 3 And
I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of
the earth will be blessed.’” Now
there are many other prophecies in the OT that speak of the Messiah that I will
not put into this SD, with the exception of the ones which are favorites of
mine and they come from the book of
Zechariah: “9 Rejoice greatly, O
daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king
is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on
a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey (Zech. 9:9).” “12 I said to them, "If it is good in
your sight, give me my wages; but if not, never mind!" So they weighed out
thirty shekels of silver as my wages (Zech. 11:12).” Zech. 12:10 “I will pour out on the house of
David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of
supplication, so that they
will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one
mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter
weeping over a firstborn.” I
realize that this last one (12:10) has not happened yet, but just as the others
did happen, this one will also happen when Christ returns to planet earth as
spoken of in the 19th chapter of Revelation.
We will end this first of what will probably many SD’s on
this section with a quote from John MacArthur:
“Verse 23 ties together Paul’s first two points. Historically, Jesus was ‘the offspring of
‘David. Prophetically, He was the One
whom, ‘according to promise, God brought to Israel’ as ‘a Savior.’ He was the fulfillment of the Old Testament
prophecies of the coming Messiah. In Him
God’s ‘promise’ in the Old Testament was realized.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I am thankful
that God has kept all of His promises about His Son, and will continue to keep
them in the future.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
I am trusting the Lord to give comfort
to my wife as she has some minor surgery tomorrow.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “80” (Exodus 7:7).
Today’s Bible
question: “In what way did Paul remember
Timothy night and day?”
Answer in our next SD.
2/21/2018 12:02 PM
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