ANIMOSITY TOWARDS CHRIST

“Did not Moses give you the law, yet none of you keeps the law? Why do you seek to kill Me?” (John 7:19 NKJV).

During His life on earth, the Lord Jesus had some hostile confrontations in the Temple with His enemies. Our text comes from one of those confrontations where the Lord Jesus exposes the hearts of His enemies regarding the cruelty that they had towards Him.

Perception of the cruelty - “Why do you seek to kill me?” the Lord Jesus was not ignorant of the murderous schemes of His enemies. He knows the hearts of men. The enemies of the Lord thought they were clever and could conceal their murderous plans against Him. But He knew their every plan and reveals their intentions. All sin is known to God. We deceive ourselves if we think we can sin and hide it from God. He knows our evil before we even do it. The fact that God knows our every action ought to purify us.

Painfulness of the cruelty - “Kill.” The evil intent of the Lord Jesus’ was great. They not only wanted to stop His ministry, but they also wanted to kill Him. Their desires were eventually realized at Calvary. However, the death of the Lord Jesus did not accomplish what they thought it would do. It did just the opposite. Similarly, those who bear the name of the Lord Jesus Christ do not endear themselves to the world. Yet persecution has not accomplished its purpose. The church has only grown stronger through persecution.

Progress of the cruelty - “None of you keep the law?” Malice and cruelty against the Lord and His people does not start all at once. It first begins when people start disobeying the Word of God. And disobeying the Word is a result of despising the Word of God. Sin has small beginnings and if not checked will grow into monstrous evil. David’s great sin began with just a sinful look that was unchecked. Never take for granted a so call “little” sin; it can be the seed of great sins. To gain the victory, we need to attack sin in the bud. Not attacking sin until it is a full-grown tree is the way to defeat.

(Adapted from Butler’s Daily Bible Reading 2)

Soli Deo Gloria (To God Alone Be The Glory)

Quotation of the Week

“If you want to be like Jesus, remember, He had a wilderness, a Gethsemane, and a Judas!”

Leonard Ravenhill (1907 - 1994)

British Christian Evangelist and Author

Word Study

Falsehood (lying)

In Eph. 4:25 we read, “Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another” (NASB).

“Falsehood (lying)” is the Greek word pseûdos (ψεῦδος = psyoo'-dos). The word describes an untrue statement, an intentional violation of the truth, a lie or a deception. In classical Greek, pseûdos denotes a lie, a falsehood, in contrast to the truth. In the Septuagint, pseûdos carried the idea of falsehood. In the New Testament, pseûdos also meant to lie, to deceive. In a broad sense, pseûdos is whatever is not what it seems to be; it is the antithesis of truth. Because believers have “put off…the old man” (4:22) and have “put on the new man” (4:24). Thus, we are to put away all falsehood, and all deceit. Believers are to exemplify the truth, just as the Lord Jesus, the One who said He was the “truth” (cf. John 14:6). And the best way to kill a lie is by telling the truth.

“Fear Nots” Found in the Bible

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18 KJV).

Did You Know…

God stated in Num. 18:24 that all the tithe that the Israelites were to pay to Him were to be given to the Levites (Num. 18:24).

Bible Quiz

What was the first thing David did after he learned of the deaths of Saul and Jonathan?

**Answer to last week’s Bible Quiz: Where was Jonah when he prayed to God with the voice of thanksgiving? In the belly of a fish (Jonah 2:1, 9).

Prophecies Fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ

Seed of a woman (the virgin birth)

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (Gen. 3:15 NJKV).

In the midst of the judgment on the serpent God gave a promise that was good news. It is sometimes called the protevangelium or “the first Gospel.” It is the first announcement of the coming Redeemer found in the Bible. The promised seed is said to be the seed of the woman, not of the man. This Person is to come by the woman, and by her alone, without the involvement of any man. Therefore, the address is not to Adam and Eve, but to Eve alone. This points to the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ (Matt. 1:18; cf. Gal. 4:4-5).

Did You Know – Christian History

Allen Yuan Xiangchen was born in 1914. He was a Chinese Protestant Christian pastor.

Yuan was a Chinese student who attended classes at the YMCA in Beijing. His father wanted him to learn English. Yuan did not want to learn English or to believe in Christianity, both of which he detested as foreign intrusions. He had already rejected China’s two major religions: Buddhism, which he felt had no answers for the present and Confucianism which he felt had no answers for the future. According to Yuan, he could not believe in a God he could not see or touch. All of that changed on December 29, 1932. Two Christian teachers had been praying for him. That night, in the midst of doing his homework, eighteen-year-old Yuan met the Lord Jesus and accepted Him as his personal Savior. He was so happy that the next day he told all my friends about his born-again experience.

That would be Yuan’s practice from then on. Filled with the Holy Spirit after a godly Mr. Tsui laid hands on him in a Pentecostal service, he entered Bible school. He became a zealous evangelist and founded a church. Like the Salvation Army, he conducted street meetings. When the Communists took control of China, they sought to control its religious life. They banned street meetings. All churches were ordered to join the Three-Self Patriotic Movement. (Self-governing, self-supporting, self-propagating.).

Yuan and ten other ministers in Beijing refused to join for three reasons. They had been independent from the start, they did not believe it right to yoke themselves with the unbelievers who would enter the Three-Self movement, and they believed in separation of the church and state. Because of this refusal, Yuan was sentenced to life in prison at the age of forty-four. He spent twenty-two years behind bars, separated from his wife and six children. His family suffered cruelly.

Working nine hours a day, Yuan sang hymns on his midday break. However, because of prison overcrowding, the government decided to release Christian leaders who had spent two decades in jail. Yuan was paroled and told he must not preach. But he continued to spread the gospel from his own home. He taped sermons and distributed them. He was still working for Christ in his late eighties. “As we live each day, we want to work for Him [Jesus] until He returns, as we know He is coming soon. If He comes today, I am fully prepared, as everybody must give an account.”

A Little Humor

By the time Bobby arrived, the football game had already started. “Why are you so late?” asked his friend. “I couldn’t decide between going to church and going to the football game. So, I tossed a coin,’ said Bobby. “But that shouldn’t have taken too long,” said the friend. “Well, I had to toss it 35 times.”

Thought Provoking Church Sign

“The first step to receiving eternal life is to admit that we don't deserve it!”