4th Intro to Acts

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/20/2017 8:31 AM

My Worship Time                                                               Focus:  PT-4 Intro to the Book of Acts

            In this section we continue looking at the sermon that John MacArthur preached in early January of 2014 on the intro to the book of Acts, a sermon he entitled “Continuing Christ’s Word PT-1.” 

“Chapter 9, Verse 31 moves the church throughout Judea and into Samaria and says at the end, the church increased.  You come to the third section.  That would be from 9:32 over to Chapter 12, Verse 24.  That section ends – and by the way, that section includes the extension of the church to the gentiles, Antioch, and that ends with these words.  “Let the word of the Lord continue to grow and be multiplied.”

This is the story of the building of the church, the developing of the church, the addition of the church from the beginnings of Jerusalem then to Judea and Samaria, and then into the gentile world as far as Antioch.  And that also includes the salvation of Cornelius through the instrumentality of Peter.  So the gentiles are adding.

The next section is Chapter 12, Verse 25 to Chapter 16, Verse 5, and this tells the story of the church going way beyond Antioch, jumping into Asia Minor and the preaching tour through Galatia by the Apostle Paul.  And that section ends in Chapter 16, Verse 5, so the churches were being strengthened in the faith and were increasing in number daily. 

These sections that all end with the same sort of summary of the development of the growing church.  Sixteen six begins to tell the story of Paul reaching the great gentile cities, like Ephesus and beyond Asia Minor even into Corinth, and this ministry goes on all the way into Chapter 19, and it ends in Verse 20.  So the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing.

That’s how all the sections end.  Final section, Chapter 19, Verse 21, goes all the way to the end and tells the story of the final years of Paul’s ministry before his imprisonment in Rome.  And how does that section end at the end of the book?  He stayed two full years in his own rented quarters, was welcoming all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness unhindered.

So that’s the overview of the history of Acts.  Got it?  It’ll be on the quiz.  The quiz will be in 20 minutes.  I wouldn’t do that to you.  But it’s important, isn’t it?  Does that get your arms around this book that could just be a lot of stories that you couldn’t quite grasp?  It ends with Paul in prison, and so Luke stops there. 

Luke had lived through 30 miraculous years from the resurrection to the imprisonment of Paul.  He’d lived in those 30 years of the first fulfillment of the great commission by the first force of apostolic preachers to the point where churches were established, and the next generation was put in place by placement of elders.  In fact, Luke wrote a history, started in Jerusalem, and ended when the gospel was penetrating Rome, the capital of the world, their world.

So I’d like to think of this as 30 years in which Jesus continued his work ordained by the father, energized by the Holy Spirit, and brought to fruition through the means of apostolic preaching of the gospel.  It’s a magnificent story.  It’s an incredible account.  Let’s go back to the first chapter for the few minutes we have.  And in Chapter 1, we have some very essential foundational elements given here because the Father’s plan worked through the Spirit’s power by the Son, has some requirements. 

And it’s quite interesting that Chapter 1 sort of lays these foundational truths.  The narrative part doesn’t really start until Verse 12 when it says, “Then they returned from the Mount called Olivet.  So before we get into the actual action here, there are some things that precede that, very important things.  Let me read 1 through 11.

“The first account I composed to Theophilus about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up to heaven after he had, by the Holy Spirit, given orders to the apostles whom he had chosen.  To these, he also presented himself alive after his suffering by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of 40 days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God.”

“Gathering them together, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the father had promised.”  By the way, that’s how he ended Luke, and that’s how begins the next volume, which he said, “You have heard from me.”  In other words, the Lord had promised the coming of the Holy Spirit.  “For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”  “So when they had come together, they were asking him, saying, ‘Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel?’  He said to them, ‘It’s not for you to know the times or epics which the father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.’”

“After he had said these things, he was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received him out of their sight, and as they were gazing intently into the sky while he was going, behold two men in white clothing stood beside them.  They also said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky?  This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come in just the same way as you have watched him go into heaven.’  And with that, they went back to Jerusalem.  School was over.  Initial lessons were taught.”

Six things appear in those 11 verses that I read to you.  In what you would call the final lesson, the final preparation, this if you would like to call it is the last will and testament of Jesus.  This is the last talk he ever had with them before he went back to heaven and it was very critical,  very important.  And in these words here, and they are few, really, He gives to them all that they need.  He reminds them of all that is essential, and let me just suggest there are six things here. 

The first is He says you have to have the proper message.  You have to have the right message.  You have to have also the right confidence.  Thirdly, you have to have the right power.  And then, interestingly enough, you have to have the right mystery.  You have to have the right mission, and you have to have the right motive.

These are timeless.  These we need to know because we’re just continuing to be the instruments that he uses to finish what he began.  We need to make sure the message is right.  We need to make sure we have confidence in that message.  We need power beyond ourselves.  We need the right mystery, and I’ll explain that.  We need to have a clear vision of the task or the mission, and then an overwhelming and overarching motive.”

Ok we will look at the last part of this sermon in our last SD on the introduction to the book of Acts.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Cyrenius” (Acts 2:2).

Today’s Bible question:  “Who said ‘For unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior, which is Christ the Lord’?”

Answer in our next SD.

6/20/2017 8:55 AM

3rd Intro to Acts

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/19/2017 8:13 AM

My Worship Time                                                                                       Focus:  3^rd Intro to Acts

            We want to continue to look at the sermon that John MacArthur gave in 2014 as he introduces to us the book of Acts: 

            “And you might say, “Why do they need confidence?  Why do they need assurance?”  For one thing, Judas had killed himself, and another had to be chosen to replace him among the 12, and that happens in the first chapter of Acts.  Judas was an apostle.  Is that a preview of more disaster to come?  But the message is that nothing can stop the purpose of God or the power of God from unfolding, not even the apostasy and suicide of an apostle. 

            “Alan Thompson writes, “The dominant feature is that the sovereign plan of God has not been derailed by this most wicket of actions, a betrayal from among the ranks of Jesus’ own inner circle.”  And then subsequently, the suicide of the betrayer.  In fact, it is necessary.  We’re told in Chapter 1 that it fulfills prophecy.  Verse 20.  God is at work.  All the redemptive purpose of God continues.

            “So what do we call this book?  The Acts of the Apostles?  The only time the apostles appear is in Chapter 1 together, as a group, then you have Peter and John together for a while.  And then later, you have the Apostle Paul who is really not part of the apostles.  So kind of a push to call it the Acts of the Apostles, even though that’s probably what’s in your Bible. 

            “Some have said it should be called The Acts of the Father because if anybody is at work unfolding his redemptive plan, it is the father, it is God, and you know what, you can make a case for that because the Lord opens the heart of Lydia because in Chapter 14 in Verse 27, when they arrive together, the church together, they begin to report all that God had done. 

            “So you could make an argument that we could call it The Acts of the Father.  You could also have an argument and we could call it The Acts of the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit separates Paul and Barnabas, so the Holy Spirit is working to separate these men to send them on the missionary trip out of Antioch. 

            “I kind of prefer the Acts of the Risen Lord because the theme of the preaching through the whole book is the resurrection.  That’s the theme of the preaching.  Starting with the message at Pentecost, Christ has arisen from the dead, and all the apostolic preachers feature the risen Christ.  You say, “Well, it’s one thing to preach the risen Christ, but is the risen Christ acting?”  Yes.  Let’s go back to Verse 1. 

            “The first account, the Gospel of Luke, was about all that Jesus began to do and teach, and so we could conclude that what he began, he would also complete.  Alan Thompson, whom I quoted a minute ago, says this.  This is his title for the book.  “The Acts of the Lord Jesus through his people by the Holy Spirit for the accomplishment of the father’s purposes.”  So write that just under Acts in your Bible.  That’s it.  The Acts of the Lord Jesus through his people by the Holy Spirit for the accomplishment of the father’s purpose.

            “Is Jesus involved in the Book of Acts?  Is he continuing to be involved?  Yes.  He has gone back to heaven and been placed at the right hand of God, given a name above every name.  He is the Lord.  He is identified as the head of the church.  Several times in the epistles, he is the head of the church, reigning from heaven as the head of the church as the king over his spiritual kingdom, he extends his kingdom through the history of the Book of Acts.

            “It is the Lord Jesus at work.  You begin to see that in Chapter 2, Verse 47.  And the Lord was adding to their number, day by day, those who were being saved.  The one who is Lord, the one who is the Lord of the church, he is still at work.  He is saving.  He is adding people to the church.  He is after all; remember now, the head of the church and the king over his kingdom.

            “In Chapter 11, I’m just giving you some illustrations, we’ll see it as we go, there were some of them, men of Cypress and Cyrene, who came to Antioch and began speaking to the Greeks, also preaching the Lord Jesus, and the hand of the Lord was with them, and the large number who believed turned to the Lord.  So they were preaching the Lord and the hand of the Lord, same Lord, was there. 

            “They were preaching the Lord Jesus, and the hand of the Lord Jesus was causing people to be saved.  So again, the king is on his kingdom.  The king is over his kingdom.  He is the head of the church.  He is building his church.  He is saving his people.  One other illustration just for the sake of time would be in Chapter 16 in Verse 14.

            “A woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, seller of purple fabrics, a worshipper of God, was listening, and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.  Some might argue that’s God.  I would argue that where Lord appears in this book, given that it was the name of Christ, he is at work.  There’s a negative indicator, too, of Jesus’ involvement.  If you go to Chapter 8, you find Paul persecuting the church, ravaging the church. 

            “And we all know the story.  Who stopped Paul?  Who stopped him?  Jesus who showed up on the Damascus Road in Chapter 9 and stopped him dead in his tracks.  Now Jesus is engaged both in the growth of his church and in stopping the destruction of his church.  Jesus appears in the 18th Chapter in a vision to Paul and says, “Don’t be afraid any longer.  Go on speaking, and don’t be silent, for I am with you, and no man will attack you in order to harm you, for I have many people in the city.”

            “Jesus, the head of the church, says, “I’m going to reach people in this city who belong to me, and I will protect you.  I will protect you.  You have nothing to fear.  Go on preaching.”  So here is the Lord building his church, and the Lord of the church protecting his church.  Chapter 23:  Things are getting very difficult for Paul and persecution ampting up with a conspiracy to actually kill him.  Verse 11, the Lord stood at his side and said, “Take courage, for as you have solemnly witnessed to my cause at Jerusalem, so you must witness at Rome also.  I’ll protect you until you reach Rome.”

            “So in summary, the Lord Jesus reigns over his kingdom from heaven.  The Lord Jesus is engaged in building his church by adding people to the list of redeemed, saved souls.  He is fulfilling the father’s plan, and he’s doing it by the preaching of the Gospel and the power of the spirit working through the preaching.  But make no mistake; it is the Lord continuing the work he began. 

            “The gospel is preached, sinners are saved, the church is established, leaders are chosen, saints are edified, witnesses given for Christ, and all along, the believers are suffering for their noble effort and being rejected by the world, but the Lord is protecting them so that the gospel can be preached, and the elect will be gathered, and this is the history of the church until he returns. 

            “Acts is the first volume in that history where Christ continues the work that he began when he was on earth.  By the way, we’re writing Volume 21 if we just count centuries, but it’s the same work.  What’s going on?  The Lord Jesus is reigning from heaven.  He is the head of the church.  According to the father’s plan and by the Holy Spirit’s power, he is continuing to do what he began when he was on earth.

            “The Gospel is being preached, sinners are being delivered, the church is being established, leaders are being chosen, saints are being edified, witness given for Christ, and all along, the saints are suffering but being protected so that they can do the work of bringing in the elect.  This will go on until he establishes his rule on the earth when he comes to reign. 

            “Now Luke is not an apostle, but he’s a close friend.  Essentially, he was a close associate of the apostles for 30 years from 30 AD to 60, it appears.  And he knows the story.  He knows the history.  He knows the history, from the death of Christ on.  He was part of it.  So he knows what happened in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and beyond because he was there.

            “The Book of Acts, I want to tell you, sometimes people ask the question – in fact, I was asked this question recently.  Is the Book of Acts descriptive of prescriptive, which is a technical way of saying is it just history for the sake of information, or is it theology for the sake of edification?  The answer is yes.  Of course it’s descriptive.  Like all narrative texts of scripture, it is descriptive history, but it is also prescriptive theology because its history is our theology.  It is our ecclesiology.  It is our pneumatology.  [The Study of the word of the Holy Spirit.]

            “It is our Soteriology [the doctrine of salvation] because they preach the gospel we preach.  This is the church of which we are a part.  So in a sense, what began to be in the Book of Acts still is, and on the same basis, we’re living this history, which while not written down in the New Testament is written down with the same exact precision in heaven.  Kind of exciting to be a part of that isn’t it?  I think there’s another message that you need to understand was very, very important to be communicated in this pattern of growth, and it is this: That the gospel is universal, and it goes beyond Israel.

            “Even the disciples were pretty stuck on the fact that all the promises of God were theirs and maybe theirs alone.  They had the traditional, typical attitude toward gentiles that the Jews had developed through centuries, and toward half-breed Samaritans, it was even worse.  And Jesus, after all, came to Israel and really never went beyond Israel, other than journeying a little bit into Decapolis, an area around Galilee where gentile towns had developed. 

            “The Jews were very provincial about the promises of God belonging to them, but the Book of Acts just blows that to pieces.  You could go back to the Old Testament, and I could show you passages in the Old Testament where the messianic promises relate to the world and the nations.  There are many of them.  Somehow the Jews missed that.

            “You’re not very long into the Book of Acts until you realize that Philip is preaching to the gentiles, but a gentile eunuch is converted, that Peter is preaching to a gentile soldier named Cornelius, that the church is established after Jerusalem in a gentile city called Antioch, and that Paul takes the gospel to the gentiles all over the Mediterranean world of Asia Minor.

            “And that leads to a discussion in Acts 15 about, wait a minute, how does this work.  This is such a hard sell that when the first gentile conversions happen, God allows the same miraculous phenomena of tongues to occur so that the Jews don’t think this is some kind of a second class event to Pentecost.  So there was a very important message to proclaim to the Jews through the Book of Acts, and it starts in the very first chapter in the eighth verse.

            “Go preach in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the world, that Christianity is global.”  And we will see that.  You could divide the Book of Acts into six sections.  You won’t remember this, so I’m not going to give you detail on it, but Section 1 ends at Chapter 6, Verse 7 tells the story of the church at Jerusalem and the preaching of Peter. 

            “And it finishes by saying the word of God increased by the number of the disciplines multiplied in Jerusalem, a great multiplication, a great number of priests were obedient to the faith, and that’s the end of Section 1, and the gospel expands.  From Chapter 6, verse 8 through Chapter 9, Verse 31, the gospel spreads throughout Israel, Judea, all the way to the martyrdom of Stephen, all the way to the preaching in Samaria by Philip. 

            “And that section ends this way, Chapter 9, Verse 31.  So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up, and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase.  So Chapter 6, Verse 7 ends the first section by saying the church increased.”

            We will continue to look at these different sections in our next SD.  I really don’t want to put too much material on each SD but kind of spread this sermon out perhaps for a couple of more days so it is easier for everyone to read it, a little at a time.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “To arrest the Christians there” (Acts 9:1-2).

Today’s Bible question:  “Who was governor of Syria when Christ was born?”

Answer in our next SD

6/19/2017 8:56 AM

 

 

2nd Intro to Acts

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/18/2017 7:18 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                          Focus:  2^nd Introduction to Acts

 

            In today’s SD I have decided to begin to quote a sermon from John MacArthur given in 2014 as he began to teach and preach the book of Acts in his church.  I will break up this sermon in different parts until it is all complete and by then I am hopeful that my commentaries will come in and we can began to look at the first chapter of the book of Acts.  I remind you of a couple of things, and that when I quote a sermon from John MacArthur the grammar may not be correct as the words that he speaks are the words that are written down and put on his website.  Next I want to say that this is the second time that he has preached through the book of Acts, similar to the gospel of John.  At this time he was preaching through the gospel of John in the morning and then the book of Acts in the evening.  So the following is the first installment of his first sermon on the book of Acts from 2014.

“Well, we’re going to open to the book of Acts, finally, and I’m going to at least read Verse 1.

I do confess to you that I am a firm believer that if you understand the overall significance of a book, you can navigate it.  I don’t know how you are if you ever use a Google map, but when pop up a Google map on your iPad or whatever it is and you want directions, if you’re like me, you want to see the whole picture first.  I want to know A to Z, and then I can get down into the details and kind of track along with that if I have some kind of sense of where I’m going.

I think that works really well in studying the Bible, especially when you approach a new book, to get some kind of an overview of the whole thing, to pull back and get the full picture.  Now in reading Verse 1, you’re going to get enough for us to get started.  The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach.  Luke is referring – Luke is the writer, the historian.  He’s referring to his gospel, the Gospel of Luke.

That was the first account that he composed and sent to this gentleman named Theophilus, which means “Lover of God.”  And first volume of history was about all that Jesus began to do and teach.  That’s a very important verb.  Luke wrote Volume 1, the Gospel of Luke, about all that Jesus began to do and teach.  The Book of Acts is Volume 2 about the continued doing, if you will, and teaching of Jesus.

The gospels, you might say in one sense, tell the story of the finished work of Christ.  You do remember that he said in his high priestly prayer in anticipation of the cross in John 17:4, “I have finished the work you gave me to do.”  And then on the cross, according to John 19:30, just before he gave up his life, he said, “It is finished.”  So it is true that the first volume, the Gospel of Luke, and for that matter, all the other gospel writers, tell us of the finished work of Christ.  The long awaited sacrifice for sin that satisfied God fully, he offered.

By the sacrifice and offering of himself, he saved forever those who believed, and of course, he secured their redemption by his resurrection from the dead.  Now nothing can be added to the finished work of Christ.  Nothing.  It was satisfactory to God, and so God raised him from the dead to validate his satisfaction, and then God gave him a name above every name, exalted him to his right hand, gave him the name Lord, restored him to complete exalted heavenly glory, and even added a new dimension now as the savior because he had offered personally the sacrifice.

And so he would then purchase with that work a vast array of redeemed people throughout all of human history who would forever praise and honor and glorify him.  This is the work that Jesus finished, but there also was the work that Jesus only began.  The work of redemption he finished.  The work of doing and teaching he just began.  The work of proclaiming the gospel, teaching the kingdom, and living the kingdom he only began.

You might say he began in his ministry to collect the elect.  He began to collect them, small group they were as we reminded in our study on Sunday morning in John 6.  He began to collect the elect, but he only began that.  By the time he ascended into heaven, there are just a few.  They’re all in one tiny little country in the midst of this globe.  A hundred and twenty gather in the upper room in Jerusalem, and several hundred more in Galilee, and that’s the beginning.  That’s what Jesus began.

So Acts, as Luke continues to write, is the story of what Jesus continues to do and teach.  This is Volume 2, although it’s the first book of church history, it’s Volume 2 of the New Testament history of redemption.  And if you will, it could be said that it’s actually Volume 3 because the first volume of redemptive history is the Old Testament itself.  Acts continues the story, the story and the long process completing God’s redemptive work through Christ.

So Luke says the first account I composed, the Gospel of Luke.  The Gospel, which like the other three Gospels, tells the story of, listen, of the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.  The Old Testament gives the prophecies of the coming of Messiah, and the Gospels give the record of the realization of those prophecy.  The plan of God promised in the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New Testament. 

God brings the chosen redeemer to save Israel and the nations that was promised throughout the Old Testament.  So Luke’s Volume 1 is very, very important.  Let’s go back to Luke 1 for a moment, and let me read the first four verses so you understand something about Luke’s writing.  By the way, if you ever have the opportunity to listen to the messages that were preached from this section when we went through Luke, you’ll find them very instructive.

So Luke writes, “In as much as many have undertaken to compile account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses of servants of the word, it seemed fitting for me as well having investigated everything carefully from the beginning to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught.”

Now I just want to grab one phrase, the exact truth.  Luke is a fastidious historian to start with from the human view.  He’s a meticulous historian.  And you add to that, of course, that he’s inspired by the Holy Spirit, and he sets off to write, and in Luke’s mind, he doesn’t know this will be called Luke, and he doesn’t know Volume 2 will be called Acts.  He writes one great, long history, and the goal was exact truth.  To provide absolute certainty of the facts of redemptive history, to provide full assurance to believers, like Theophilus and others, that God’s promise of salvation was being fulfilled. 

The prophecies in the Old Testament that came through the prophets to whom he refers as eyewitnesses and servants of the word, those prophecies were precise and exact and identified places like where he’d be born in Bethlehem and details about his life and details about his death.  So Luke wants to write a history to show that all the precision of the Old Testament that pointed toward Christ was fulfilled with the same kind of precision.

So Acts then continues the story of the exact truth of God fulfilling Old Testament prophecy with the coming of Messiah, and then after Messiah’s resurrection and ascension, God continues to fulfill the story, and Luke writes with the same precision.  Why?  To provide certainty.  To provide certainty so that you may know the exact truth about the things you’ve been taught so that you may know. 

You’ll remember that at the end of this book of Luke, as Luke signs off, Jesus opened their minds to understand the scripture, and he said to them, “Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem.  You’re witnesses of these things, and behold, I’m sending forth the promise of my father upon you, namely the Holy Spirit.  Stay in the city until you’re clothed with power from on high.” 

And that is how Volume 1 ends, and Volume 2 essentially begins with the arrival of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is promised in the book of Luke and comes in the book of Acts the way the Messiah was promised in the Old Testament and came in the book of Luke.  This is an exact and precise history.  The early readers were being taught then essentially that the apostles and the prophets spoke the truth.

Luke writes to give them assurance.  The Holy Spirit would come and the work would continue.  Luke writes with certainty about Christ from his birth to his ascension in Volume 1, and he writes with certainty from the ascension to the coming of the Holy Spirit to the gospel being proclaimed to the world for the establishment of the church. 

That’s just kind of a broad overview.  As in the Old Testament, all that is going on in Luke and Acts is being done by God.  I told you God is the sovereign power behind all of redemptive history, and the spirit works the will of the father, and the son does the will of the father.  God is at work redeeming his people in the Old Testament and in the New.  An interesting little note.  Luke loves to use a particular word in its death in the Greek language, and it means it is necessary.  Luke uses that word 40 times in his writings to affirm to us that it is necessary that this happen.

It is necessary that this happened.  It is necessary Luke records in his Gospel because the Old Testament profit said it.  It is necessary, Luke says in the book of Acts, because Jesus predicted it and promised it.  So Acts is Volume 2 of Luke’s history, and the first volume of the history of the church written to give believers an exact account so they could have confidence that God is still fulfilling his redemptive promise.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Moses caught it and it became a rod” (Exodus 4:4).

Today’s Bible question:  “Why did Saul of Tarsus go to Damascus?”

Answer in our next SD.

6/18/2017 7:25 AM

 

Intro to Acts

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/17/2017 9:22 AM

My Worship Time                                                                        Focus:  First Introduction to Acts

            I have wanted to study the book of Acts for some time now and so today we begin our journey through a book that is what we call a bride book, a book that connects the events that happened between the four gospels and the letters that were written after the church began.  I believe that it is safe to say that the book of Acts is an action packed book.  I remember one time many years ago when our family was on vacation and we were reading through the book of Acts one chapter at a time and we got towards the end of the book of Acts where Paul had been arrested in Jerusalem and a mob was about to kill him, and there the chapter ends.  My daughter said “Dad we can’t stop here,” and so we went ahead and read the next chapter to find out the fate of Paul.

            The book of Acts begins where the book of Luke ends as Luke is writing to a man named Theophilus who was probably a Roman official who wanted to know more about the Christian faith and so Dr. Luke first wrote to him about our Lord when He was on earth and so in the book of Acts he continues that story with the resurrection of Jesus Christ in the first chapter of Acts and then in chapter two he writes about the beginning of the Church. 

            You could say that the book of Acts is the Acts of the Apostles, or you could say that the book of Acts is the acts of the Holy Spirit in the church.  You could also say that also that the book of Acts was the continuation of the word of the Lord Jesus Christ through His Spirit and His church.

            Acts begins in Jerusalem and ends in Rome and in between we see what is a divided book, a book divided between what Peter does in the first 12 chapters and this has to do with the Jewish believers in the early church.  After chapter 12 Paul takes over and the book then is all about Paul’s dealings with Gentile believers his work to build the church.  The church today is made up of mostly Gentile believers however God always has a remnant of Jewish believers in His church.

            I want to make note of chapter fifteen for just a moment here as it is one of the most important chapters in the book of Acts.  Paul was off on different missionary journeys and many Gentile believers were coming to know the Lord.  The problem arises with some Jewish believers who said that the Gentile believers had to be circumcised and follow the Law of Moses.  If this problem had not have been solved, and the basis of the problem is as found in the 15^th chapter of Acts then the church could have ended right there.  Chapter fifteen is a good example of how to have a business meeting in a church.

            I want to mention a couple more things before I end the SD and the first is that I will likely do another SD on the introduction to Acts once my books come in.  The next thing I want to say and the Lord just reminded me of it and that is that in my evening devotions I am almost done with the book of Colossians and then I am planning to go through the book of Philemon as it is only one chapter.  After that I want to begin a study on the book of Ephesians as I already have that commentary.  The book of Ephesians is a book about the church, and it is a very important book for everyone to study.  I have wondered if I should not do that study in the morning and Acts in the evening but have decided to do Acts in the morning and Ephesians in the evening.  I am more awake in the morning as I am a morning person.  With this said I want to say that we will be looking at two very important books on the church, Acts where the early church began and continued until it got to Rome, and Ephesians how the church should operate so this is exciting to me to study these two books at the same time.

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question “Paul.”

Today’s Bible question:  “What became of the serpent at the burning bush?”

Answer in our next SD.

6/17/2017 9:47 AM 

"The Benediction" (Eph. 6:23-24)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/16/2019 10:23 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                              Focus:  “The Benediction”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Eph. 6:23-24

 

            Message of the verses:  “23 Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 24 Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with a love incorruptible.”

 

            As mentioned in our last SD, this SD will be the last one on the book of Ephesians as we have been looking at this letter that Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus for thirteen months and three days.  I have mentioned many times that at the beginning of this year, 2019 that God has been speaking to my heart about humility, and although I did not know it at the time this study in Ephesians would be one of the ways that God was to teach me more about humility, and for that I am very thankful.  Humility is not thinking less about yourself; it is not to think of yourself at all.  We can see from the 12^th chapter of Romans where Paul was about to talk about Spiritual Gifts, gifts given by the Lord to be used in the church, gifts that are given to every believer, who receives at least one, gifts that when it came to the church at Corinth puffed those believers up, and so to the Romans in 12:1-3 Paul writes right before he begins to explain the Spiritual gifts the following “1Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. 3 For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”  Paul has spent eleven chapters in his letter to the Romans to explain that every person every born, with the exception of Jesus Christ, was born a sinner, and the sinner can do nothing about this except accept the provision that God has made for them, that is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ who paid it all.  He then goes on to write about what we as believers should do, and that is to give ourselves to God as a living sacrifice as seen in Romans 12:1, and then tells us not to get caught up in the world system but we are to be transformed, and that word in the Greek is “metamorphoo,” to change into another form, to transform, to transfigure 1a) Christs appearance was changed and was resplendent with divine brightness on the mount of transfiguration.”  Paul says that we as believers are to be changed by the renewing of our mind in order to prove what the will of God is, “that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”  Our part in all of this is to have our minds changed as we study the Word of God through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Paul then goes on to show us that we are going to receive spiritual gifts, but to remember that as they are gifts given to us, just like our salvation, that we can do nothing to earn them but that we should humbly use them to advance the cause of Jesus Christ:  “3 For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”  This third verse of Romans chapter 12 is the verse that I have been looking at and thinking about to better understand humility, and in the midst of me looking at it for this year God also used the letter to the Ephesians to also give me more insights into this subject of humility, including in the last part of this letter the putting on of the Spiritual Armor. 

           

            Now with that said I want to quote the last three paragraphs in John MacArthur’s commentary on Ephesians as we conclude this study with what he wrote concerning Paul’s Benediction to this book.

 

            “It is beautiful clarity and simple dignity, the apostle’s closing benediction resists being analyzed.  It is not unlike others of Paul’s benedictions, yet it seems uniquely to reflect the themes of this rich epistle.  Certainly ‘peace’ (cf. 1:2; 2:14-15, 17; 4:3; 6:15), ‘love’ (cf. 1:15; 4:2, 15-16; 5:25, 28, 33), and ‘faith’ (cf. 1:15; 2:8; 3:12, 17; 4:5, 13; 6:16) are recurring touchstones in the thought of this great letter.  Little wonder Paul gathers all three together and prays that they would be the experience and commitment of all believers.

 

            “’Grace,’ or divine favor, was the gift Paul desired for ‘all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible.’  That is the love that belongs to true believers; so Paul is really identifying the ones who will receive grace as only those whose love is not temporary and thus untrue but permanent and thus genuine!

 

            “To apply obediently in the power of the Holy Spirit the principles of ‘peace, love, and faith’ taught in this epistle we yield to every believer the blessing, and favor of God.”

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  That I, through His Holy Spirit obediently follow the principles of peace, love and faith that have been taught in this Ephesian letter.  It is all about grace, God giving me what I can never earn or deserve to have.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Continue to live my life through the power of the Holy Spirit as I depend on Him to give me the strength to do the things that He has planned for me to do since before time began, and do them humbly to the glory of Christ.

 

Today’s quotation from “Love in Action” written by David Jeremiah as he comments on Job 38:2 and Job 42:7.

 

“Remember the words of the Lord when He finally interrupted Job’s miserable counselors to ask a question in Job 38:2.  And consider the warning He issued to Eliphaz and his friends in Job 42:7.  If we wish to be encouragers, we will not speak until we have truly listened.  We will not deliver pre-packaged answers or pretend to know what we could not possibly know.  And we will not point a finger…unless it is to direct our friend to the only true Source of encouragement.  Sometimes all Christian encouragement takes is to listen, be present and quietly supportive.  And then, if the right time presents itself, to gently recall that God is good, even when we don’t understand.  That’s often enough.  And it’s always appropriate.”

 

11/16/2019 11:10 AM

"The Specific Illustration" (Eph. 6:19-20)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/15/2019 12:36 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                                      Focus:  “The Specific Illustration”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                              Reference:  Ephesians 6:19-20

 

            Message of the verses:  “19 and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, 20  for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.”

 

            The verses that we are looking at in today’s SD are verses that I have on my prayer list that I use for praying for our Pastors on Saturday each week.  I will quote from that prayer list as we begin looking at these verses: 

 

“4 Effectiveness in Proclamation:  Scriptural Example is from Ephesians 6:19:  “and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.”  I want to pray for our Pastors effectiveness in proclamation. 

“The following is a quote from John MacArthur, “Now remember, Paul was a prisoner when he wrote that. He didn't say, "Pray...pray for my ankles, they've been rubbed raw. They're bleeding from the shackles." He didn't say, "Pray for my healing." He didn't say, "Pray for my deliverance." He didn't say, "I'm being abused. Pray for my suffering to end." Now he didn't want prayer for those things, he said, "Pray for my boldness in speaking the Word of God." Chains were incidental, absolutely incidental.”  Now this does not mean not to pray for our Pastors when they are sick.  Another Scriptural example is Colossians 4:2-4“2 Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving; 3 praying at the same time for us as well, that God will open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, for which I have also been imprisoned; 4 that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak.”  2 Thessalonians 3:1 “Finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord will spread rapidly and be glorified, just as it did also with you.”  MacArthur writes:  “Pray that I’ll have an opportunity to speak.  Secondly, when that opportunity presents itself pray that I will speak as I ought to speak.  And how I ought to speak is boldly and clearly.  And then the third component is when I have spoken in that opportunity boldly and clearly, pray that the Word may spread from there and be glorified.  What is that?  The right response, that men will honor it; they will glorify it by obeying it.  The word ‘spread rapidly’ literally in the Greek is the word to run.  It’s a track word.  Pray that it will sprint and be honored by everybody who hears it.”

            There is one more quotation from this prayer list that goes along with this and I will also use it on this SD.

“Now the following is a quote from Gardener Spring “"We cannot convert a single soul. We press home the divine commands and they trample upon His authority. We press home His threatenings and they despise His justice. We speak tenderly of His promises, they heed not His faithfulness of His beloved Son and they tread Him under their feet, of His patience and long suffering but their impenitence and obstinacy are proof against them all. We reason and plead with them until the obstacles to their conversions seem to us to rise higher by every effort we make to overcome them. Until finally we sink in dejection and cry out, `What mighty power can break these granite-like hearts, what omnipotent grasp can rescue these perishing men from everlasting burnings?' O you blood-bought churches, your minister’s need your prayers for the exceeding greatness of that power which God worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead," end quote.”

            We can see from this quotation that the most important prayer request that Paul has for himself is that even though he was in prison was that he would still be able to spread the gospel while there.  MacArthur adds “When Satan tempted him to keep quiet about Christ, he wanted God’s help to be bold and faithful to proclaim ‘the gospel.’  He wanted help in his own battle against Satan, and he pleaded with his brothers and sisters at Ephesus to pray toward that end.”  I think that this shows us exactly what Paul was all about, what was number one in his life and that was preaching the gospel whether in prison or in a church meeting.  Paul wanted fellow believers to pray for his victory in the spiritual warfare that this ministry provoked from Satan.  Paul confronted the enemy face to face and knew he was not able to win in his own resources.  So if Paul needed help outside his human resources that means that I do along with every other believer who has ever lived.  God cannot use the self-sufficient person, and the reason is because such a person feels no need for God.  It is the believer who is humble who knows his own need and is genuinely poor in spirit whom the Lord can use and can bless.  I can see in my quest for humility the reason what the Lord is teaching me about this subject.

            It was a few years ago when I studied the epistles of first and second Thessalonians that I became convicted that I needed to pray for our pastors and had the privilege to take time on a Wednesday evening service to share what I had learned and why I would be much more involved in the praying for our pastors.  John MacArthur writes “Paul also needed the prayers of fellow believers because he was a leader.  Our enemy knows that when he strikes the shepherd, the sheep will scatter (Matt. 26:31), and church leaders—even as the Lord Himself—are Satan’s special targets.  The more faithful and fruitful a pastor is, the more his people need to pray for his strength and protection.  He is more subject to the devil’s schemes to make him discouraged or self-satisfied, hopeless or superficially optimistic, cowardly or overconfident.  Satan uses every situation—favorable or unfavorable, successful or unsuccessful—to try to weaken, distract, and discredit God’s gifted men in their work of ‘equipping of the saints for the work of service’ (Eph. 4:12).

            It is believed that Paul wrote the letter to the Philippians shortly after he wrote the letter to the Ephesians.  In that letter is the following quotation from Phil. 1:12-14 “12 Now I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel, 13 so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole praetorian guard and to everyone else, 14 and that most of the brethren, trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment, have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear.”  It is good to know that the believers that read Paul’s letter to the Ephesians had prayed for Paul as he asked and that God was blessing his ministry while in prison.

 

            MacArthur adds “Even when he requested prayer for himself, Paul’s purpose and motive were selfless—to further the gospel, to encourage other believers, and to glorify his Lord.”

            Let us now look at verses 21-22 of Ephesians 6 “21 But that you also may know about my circumstances, how I am doing, Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will make everything known to you. 22 And I have sent him to you for this very purpose, so that you may know about us, and that he may comfort your hearts.”

 

            Paul wrote this section so that the Ephesians believers would know exactly how to pray for him and tells them that he would send Tychicus to tell them more about Paul’s situation “And I have sent him to you for this very purpose, so that you may know about us, and that he may comfort your hearts.” 

 

            Tychicus who was an Asian was trusted by Paul as he was chosen to be with Paul when they took the offering to the Jerusalem church as seen in Acts 20:4-6 “4 And he was accompanied by Sopater of Berea, the son of Pyrrhus, and by Aristarchus and Secundus of the Thessalonians, and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy, and Tychicus and Trophimus of Asia. 5 But these had gone on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas. 6 We sailed from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and came to them at Troas within five days; and there we stayed seven days.”

 

            MacArthur concludes this sub-section:  “In addition to informing the Ephesian believers, Tychicus, who was commended as a faithful minister in the Lord, was to encourage them: that he may comfort your hearts.  The letter itself would seem to have been encouragement enough, but Paul knew that a personal word from someone who had been with him recently would be an added comfort to their hearts.  This man in chains sought to comfort others.”

 

            Lord willing, we will finish this letter to the Ephesians in our next SD, and then on Sunday we will begin to look at introductions to the book of Matthew.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  A humble heart is a heart that can be used by the Lord to do what He desires him to do.

 

Today’s quotation from “Love in Action” comes from Job 38:2 and 42:7:

 

Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

(Job. 38:2).  My wrath is aroused against you and your

two friends, for you have not spoken of Me

what is right, as My Servant Job has (Job 42:7).

11/15/2019 1:25 PM

 

           

The Objects of Prayer (Eph. 6:18)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/14/2019 10:20 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                             Focus:  The Objects of Prayer

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 6:18

 

            Message of the verse:  “18 With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints,”

 

            Notice the highlighted part of verse 18, showing us that as believers we are to pray for believers.  In other places from Paul’s writings we are commanded to pray for unbelievers, for government leaders, and for others, but as stated here it is for believers.  It is only the believers who are involved in the spiritual warfare, as unbelievers cannot be involved in spiritual warfare for they are not believers.  We can see that the armor of God is only for believers to put on, wear, and use in the spiritual warfare that we go through.

 

            John MacArthur writes “It is not inappropriate to pray for ourselves any more than it is inappropriate to pray for physical needs.  But just as the Bible primarily calls us to pray about spiritual needs rather than physical, it primarily calls us to pray for others rather ourselves.  Even when he was concerned about his own needs, Paul does not mention that he prayed for himself but that he asked other believers to pray on his behalf, as he does in the next two verses (Eph. 6:19-20).  The greatest thing we can do for another believer, or that he can do for us is to pray.  That is the thing we can do for another believer, or that he can do for us, is to pray.  That is the way the Body of Christ grows spiritually as well as in love.  When one member of the Body is weak, wounded, or cannot function, the other members compensate by supporting and helping strengthen it.  Samuel said to the people of Israel, ‘Far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you’ (1 Sam. 12:23).  With God’s own Holy Spirit to indwell us and help us even when we do not know how to pray (Rom. 8:26), how much more doe we as Christians sin against God when we fail to pray for fellow saints?”

 

            I usually use a fairly long prayer sheet to guide me through my prayers to the Lord.  I first start out by asking the Lord to search my heart to make sure that I have no sins in my life so that I can then have fellowship with the Lord.  Next I want to praise the Lord for who He is by going over His attributes.  I then give myself to the Lord, my body, mind, and my will.  I then get down to the business of praying for first of all my family beginning with praying for my wife.  I then pray for those on my list who do not know the Lord.  Next I pray for the pastors in our church, those who led our church.  One of the things that I have added to my prayer list this year is my desire to forsake pride and learn humility.  I do have other needs that I pray for but I desire to pray for others, hoping that other people will pray for my needs as I pray for theirs. 

 

            John MacArthur concludes this last sub-section with the following:  “Praying for others with sincerity and perseverance is, in God’s immeasurable grace, a great blessing and strength to our own souls.  D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones reported that before the outbreak of the Spanish civil war that country was experiencing such an epidemic of neuroses that psychiatrists could hardly handle them all.  But the war, terrible and destructive as it was in most respects, had the unexpected effect of ‘curing’ many of Spain’s thousands of neurotics.  When they became concerned about the welfare of their families, friends, and country instead of their own, their neuroses disappeared and hospitals and clinics were almost emptied of such cases.  ‘These neurotic people were suddenly cured by a greater anxiety,’ and anxiety that reached beyond their own selfish welfare.  (The Christian Soldier [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977], pp. 357-58.)”

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I desire to pray for the issues of other believers so that the Lord will bless my prayers for them.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Continue to learn more about humility, and humility means that I care for others even more than myself.

 

Today’s quotation from “Love in Action” comes from what David Jeremiah writes about Job 11:6:

 

“I think Zophar gets the award for the most discouraging speech.  ‘Job, if you think you’re hurting, you ought to contemplate just how bad you’d feel if you really got what was coming to you.’  Job had lost everything.  His life had disintegrated, and he has nothing left but the breath in his mouth.  And Zophar said, ‘Yes, but if you knew how bad you really are, Job, you wouldn’t be so angry right now.  You’re not even getting all the rotten things you really deserve.’  That’s encouragement?”

 

11/14/2019 10:59 AM