Barnes’ Notes

SUPPLICATION

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NON CHRISTIAN Resisters

[We all have friends and family that do not want anything to do with Christianity so it is up to us to pray for their salvation. Here’s an opportunity to pray for them. Fill their name in the blanks.]

SIN NOT LEADING TO DEATH

Screen Shot 2016-07-19 at 5.32.48 AM“There may be those…in sin that there may seem to be…almost no ground of hope. They may have cast off all the restraints of religion, of morality, of decency;…they may have been professors of religion, and now may have renounced the faith of the gospel altogether, but still, while there is life it is our duty to pray for them,…” Barne’s Notes (ref#16, [1 John 5:16])

FATHER, I am thinking about ____. Your Apostle John says, at the end of his first epistle, there is sin that leads to death and sin that does not lead to death (1 John 5:16). I do not know where ____ is in (his/her) spiritual life, because I only see the outward signs, but, I pray for (him/her) with a “hope and expectation of success” Matthew Poole (ref#21, p941, [1 John 5:16]).

You say, You will give me what I ask for in 1 John 5:15. And follow it with: “If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life…” (1 John 5:16 ESV).

Oh FATHER, how I want to believe that ____ is sinning in a way that does not lead to death so that You will give (him/her) life. I pray ____’s sin is not an obstinate sin, thus incurable (ref#21, p941, [1 John 5:16]). I pray ____ is not refusing Your diagnosis of (his/her) need and Your offer of forgiveness (ref#56, p1828, [1 John 1:10]). I pray ____ is not chronically disobedient to Your commands (ref#125, p2437, [1 John 5:16]) for continuing in such a state leads to permanent death.

Sin that does not lead “to death is sin for which forgiveness is possible because (1) forgiveness is sought” and (2) You, FATHER, are “willing to grant it” ESV Study Bible (ref#125, p2437, [1 John 5:16]).

Turn ____ from (his/her) wandering, evil course; save (him/her) from death (James 5:20). FATHER, nothing is impossible with You (Luke 1:37). Grant ____, repentance that (he/she) may escape from the snare of the devil, for (he/she) now is captured by him to do his will (2 Tim 2:25-26).

SABBATH

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A DAY OF REJOICING

“’If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth;…’” (Isa 58:13-14 ESV)

“[And call the Sabbath a delight] This appropriately expresses the feelings of all who have any just views of the Sabbath….They esteem it a privilege, not a task, to be permitted once a week to disburden their minds of the cares, and toils, and anxieties of life. It is a ‘delight’ to them to recall the memory of the institution of the Sabbath, when God rested from his labors; to recall the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, to the memory of which the Christian Sabbath is consecrated; to be permitted to devote a whole day to prayer and praise, to the public and private worship of God, to services that expand the intellect and purify the heart” Barnes’ Notes (ref#16, [Isa 58:13]).

“…now that we are His, the first day of the week…has become a feast! We look with eager delight for Sundays to come round one after another—Charles Spurgeon (ref#182).

“It is a day of rejoicing: God made it to be a joyful day to the Church…They that receive…the Sabbath aright, call it a delight and honorable (Isa 58:13-14). It is a pleasant and a joyful day to them; it is an image of the future heavenly rest of the Church…” Jonathan Edwards (ref#186).

ADORATION

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CLOTHED WITH THE GARMENTS OF SALVATION

Screen Shot 2016-05-17 at 4.44.08 PM“I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,…” (Isa 61:10 ESV).

FATHER, I will rejoice with holy joy, to Your honor. For the beauty of Your grace has clothed me with a durable covering. You have provided this garment for protection and ornamentation. It is the image of the church—how You defend it and make it beautiful (ref#16, [Isa 61:10]). 

“For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown…to sprout up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations” (Isa 61:11 ESV).

May I be pleasing to You with the righteousness and salvation that JESUS CHRIST clothes me. I rejoice to think of the fathomless blessings that shall spring forth for future ages and spread to distant regions—from generation to generation. How great is Your salvation that shall be published and proclaimed to all the world and the ends of the earth shall see it (ref#18, [Isa 61:10-11]).

SABBATH

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ACTIONS TO IMPROVE KEEPING THE SABBATH

“The offence of Sabbath-breaking was one for which there could be no excuse….Transgression of it was therefore a presumptuous sin, and was punished accordingly” Barnes’ Notes (ref#16, [Numbers 15:32]).

“In those days I saw people in Judah treading winepresses on the Sabbath and bringing in grain and loading it on donkeys, together with wine, grapes, figs and all other kinds of loads. And they were bringing all this into Jerusalem on the Sabbath. Therefore I warned them against selling food on that day.  People from Tyre who lived in Jerusalem were bringing in fish and all kinds of merchandise and selling them in Jerusalem on the Sabbath to the people of Judah. I rebuked the nobles of Judah and said to them, ‘What is this wicked thing you are doing—desecrating the Sabbath day?  Didn’t your ancestors do the same things, so that our God brought all this calamity on us and on this city? Now you are stirring up more wrath against Israel by desecrating the Sabbath’” (Nehemiah 13:15-18 NIV).

“The desecration of the Sabbath is first brought into prominence among the sins of the Jewish people by Jeremiah (Jer 17:21-27). It could not but have gained ground during the captivity, when foreign masters would not have allowed the cessation of labor for one day in seven. On the return from the captivity, the sabbatical rest appears to have been one of the institutions most difficult to re-establish” Barnes’ Notes (ref#16, [Neh 13:15]).

“When evening shadows fell on the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I ordered the doors to be shut and not opened until the Sabbath was over. I stationed some of my own men at the gates so that no load could be brought in on the Sabbath day.  Once or twice the merchants and sellers of all kinds of goods spent the night outside Jerusalem.  But I warned them and said, “Why do you spend the night by the wall? If you do this again, I will arrest you.” From that time on they no longer came on the Sabbath. Then I commanded the Levites to purify themselves and go and guard the gates in order to keep the Sabbath day holy….” (Neh 13:19-22 NIV).

Nehemiah “not only expressed his own dislike of it, but endeavored to convince them that it was a great sin….Those that are jealous for the honor of God cannot bear to see his Sabbath profaned” Matthew Henry (ref#18, [Neh 13:15-22]).

“If reformers will but put on resolution, more may be done towards the breaking of bad customs than they can imagine” Matthew Henry (ref#18, [Neh 13:15-22]). Are we willing to be reformers? Will we vow to not buy or sell on the Sabbath? Can we convince our local church to make that vow? Other churches? Our government representatives?