SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/20/2018 9:26 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “The Enslaved Woman”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Acts 16:16-18
Message of the verses: “16 It happened that as we were going to the place of prayer, a slave-girl having a spirit of divination met us, who was bringing her masters much profit by fortune-telling. 17 Following after Paul and us, she kept crying out, saying, "These men are bond-servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation." 18 She continued doing this for many days. But Paul was greatly annoyed, and turned and said to the spirit, "I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!" And it came out at that very moment.”
We have been studying about the birth of the churches for
a number of months now and one thing that we have seen after a church was
successfully started was that there would be some kind of satanic attack on
that church. We saw this in Samaria from
the 8th chapter of Acts and also in Cyprus in the 13th
chapter of Acts. What this is, a clash
between light and darkness and one of the things that we should remember is
that the Lord Jesus Christ said that He would build His church, remember that
promise as Jesus Christ will never fail in the building of His church, not in
Philippi or any other places where His church is found. I know that in many cases that churches cease
to survive, but there will always be a church in this world up until the time
when the Lord will come in the clouds above the earth and call His church home
to be with Him.
Yesterday I was talking to our Pastor who took some time
to answer a couple of questions that I had concerning my Sunday school
lesson. He began a new series in our
morning service. He will spend the next
four months or so in the book of Philippians and began last week by talking
about the very verses that I was going over last Sunday morning from Acts
chapter 16. I mentioned to him what I
learned as to why Paul and his team went to the river, which is because that is
where the Jewish people would hold their prayer and worship time since there
was no Synagogue. He then told me about
something their guide from Israel stated to him while they were there last
month, and that was that around the temple site there were many little places
that held water for cleansing purposes for people to be cleansed before
entering the temple, and there were also found near Synagogues, and so the
reason that Jewish people worshiped near a water supply when there was no
Synagogue was because of this need for cleansing, and that is why Paul and his
team continually would go to the river to teach and to preach. Now while they were there doing this they
encountered this “enslaved woman” as seen in our verses for today.
Speaking of the kind of spirit this woman had John
MacArthur writes “The Greek text literally reads ‘a python spirit.’ That designation derives from Greek
mythology, in which the Python was a snake that guarded the famous oracle at
Delphi. Eventually, the Python was
killed by Apollo, the god of prophecy.
Since it was believed that Apollo spoke through the oracle at Delphi,
the term ‘python’ came to refer to anyone in contact with Apollo. In modern terms, she was a medium in contact
with demons. Luke notes that the
demon-possessed girl ‘was bringing her masters much profit by fortunetelling.’ Such people were believed to be able to
predict the future, a valuable commodity by the Greco-Roman culture.
‘Greeks and Romans put great
stock on augury and divination. No
commander would set out on a major military campaign nor would an emperor make
an important decree without first consulting an oracle to see how things might
turn out. A slave girl with a
clairvoyant gift was thus a veritable gold mine for her owners. (John B.
Polhill).’”
Now as I read through this commentary about this woman I
cannot help but think of Hitler who was sought these kinds of things from the
occult to help him, and also we know that the Antichrist will also use the
occult as it is believed that he will actually be possessed by Satan.
I think it best that we conclude this section in our next
SD. I have been trying to keep the
length of my Spiritual Diaries to be less than what they use to be in order for
those who follow my blogs to not have to spend so much time reading them.
Spiritual meaning
my life today: Believers need to be
looking out for the ways that Satan tries to tear churches apart, mostly by
causing division among church members.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Continue to pray for unity in our church.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Will sup with him and he with
me.”
Today’s Bible
question: “Who said, ‘Pass over before
the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of Jordan?”
Answer in our next SD.
4/20/2018 10:06 AM
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