St. Matthew, Chapter 23, verses: 34b; Scourge and persecute.

Our paragraph topic is:  (Their persecution of religion) Part 10.  

In the previous part God speaks to the Scribes and the Pharisees through Christ Jesus to let them know his judgment upon them.  God and Christ are one.  But we know that God speaks simply through the use of the pronoun I.  He says " I send you."  Christ does not speak this but God speaks this through Christ to the Scribes and the Pharisees.

Christ has offered them opportunities to repent of their ways.  He has opened the door for them to repent of their persecution of their religion but they are not open to the idea of repentance.  They are set in their ways, completely possessed of the evil within them.  This is why Christ calls them a brood of vipers.  They cannot change.  God tells them that the prophets and the wise men he will send them:  "And some you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from town to town."

How did he know what they would do?  How did he foresee their actions?  Would they fight and continue to persecute the spread of God's religion from town to town?  Were they that zealous in their beliefs against the spread of God's love for his people?  

Christ came to establish a new covenant with man.  He came to build his church on earth, to teach his disciples how to love, how to live, how to spread the words of the kingdom of heaven.  In order to do that he had to suffer the sacrifice for our sins and pay the price for our deliverance.  The Lamb of God shed his blood for us.  He died, was buried, and rose again on the third day declaring his deliverance over death and the grave.  And God took him into his arms up into heaven where he sits at his right hand waiting for the coming of judgment day.

Do not be afraid Christ told his disciples many times.  His last words were that he will be with us always, even until the end of the world.  Let us remember that we have a Father in heaven who is the creator of all things who is in control.  When things do not go the way that we expect or would like and we get disappointed, always remember that God is in control and it is he who has the ultimate say.  It is his plan that will work out and not ours.  We must be thankful that he is in control and not us.  Thank you Father for the blessings that you have given us this day.  Keep us in your grace. 

Read the sign of the times! Read the Highlighted New Testament Bible and lift the scales from your eyes that you may see, that you may know, that you may find the truth of who you are in Christ. Read it as though you would read a good book, from cover to cover, and see for yourself. Do not study it in parts reading one passage nd then skipping to another, but read it for understanding. Read it for knowledge. Read it for faith. Read it that your eyes may be opened, that your ears may hear, that your heart may be filled with the light of Christ .   The Holy Spirit awaits you. Christ seeks to know you. Open the door and let him in.

St Matthew, Chapter 12, verse: 34, The Vipers appear.

Our paragraph topic is:  (Blasphemy against the Spirit not forgiven)
Part 4. 

Christ has called the Pharisees evil trees with bad fruit.  He has spoken to their core value.  He has proclaimed their evil nature because they have been taken by the demons that possess them.  The Pharisees are not aware of their evil.  In their eyes they are seeking to maintain their control over the people that they are loosing face with.  For Christ has spoken to them as though they were men of little value.  He has spoken to them without honor.  He has spoken to them without the respect that they were accustomed to receiving from the public.  So they sought to destroy him.  They sought to trick him.  They sought to bring Scandal to him in the face of the public.  

Their plans were unsuccessful.  Their plans failed.  There plans were conceived in the dark corners of evil who counseled them.  And now it was time for Christ to speak to the evil that possessed them.  It was time for him to call them by their name.  And he said to them, "You brood of vipers, how can you speak good things, when you are evil?"   For vipers they were, hissing in the background in the ears and minds of the Pharisees.  Suggesting all sorts of evil that they may commit against him.  They were telling the Pharisees all the things that they can do to this man who calls himself the Son of God.  They hated Christ.  They loathed his presence.  They needed to remove him from the earth so that they could continue their reign over the house of the lost sheep of Israel. 

So they spoke their evil to the Pharisees.  They whispered evil into their minds.  They brought darkness into their hearts and filled it with evil.  Christ said to  them,  "For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks."   And their hearts were dark.  Their hearts were empty.  Their hearts were filled with the passions of destruction for Christ.  There was no love in their hearts.  There was no faith in their hearts.  There was no hope in their hearts.  There was only the darkness of evil fully possessing their being with the desire to destroy Christ.  Their abundance was evil.

Where is your heart today?  Is it filled with darkness?  Is it filled with evil?  Is it filled with the passions of the world that keep you from recognizing that you are a child of God?  Do you know what is in your heart?  Can you see the darkness?  If there is no light then there is darkness.  If there is no light then there is evil present.  If there is not light within you then the world possesses you and the darkness lives within you. 

Do you not know that Christ came to give you light in your heart?  Do you not know that the Holy Spirit came to live within you, in your heart?  Do you not know that the eye is the lamp of the body and if the eye is sound then the body is full of light?  Christ has told us in these passages that we are the children of God.  Christ has told us in the sermon on the mount to let our light shine before men that they may see the good that we do and give glory to God.  Where is your light?  Do you not know how to find it?  Can you see it?  It is there within you to see.  It is there within you to feel.  It is there within you to know that the Holy Spirit dwells within you.  Come, receive the light of the Holy Spirit that he may be your guide in this world!