June 23, 2025 – A Study of Matthew – From Crying to Feasting

From Crying to Feasting

Psalm 107:17-22 – New International Version (NIV)

¹⁷ Some became fools through their rebellious ways
    and suffered affliction because of their iniquities.
¹⁸ They loathed all food
    and drew near the gates of death.
¹⁹ Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
    and he saved them from their distress.
²⁰ He sent out his word and healed them;
    he rescued them from the grave.
²¹ Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love
    and his wonderful deeds for mankind.
²² Let them sacrifice thank offerings
    and tell of his works with songs of joy.

How did “some” become fools (verse 17)?

Why did they suffer affliction (verse 17)?

What did they draw near to (verse 18)?

Who did they cry to (verse 19)?

What (who) did the Lord send to heal them (verse 20)?

What did He rescue them from (verse 20)?

Why should they “give thanks to the Lord” (verse 21)?

What should they “sacrifice” (verse 22)?

How should they “tell of his works” (verse 22)?

In your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?

In your opinion, what does this passage reveal about crying out to the Lord?

Matthew 8:1-13 - New International Version (NIV)

¹ When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. ² A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

³ Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. ⁴ Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”

⁵ When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. ⁶ “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”

⁷ Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”

⁸ The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. ⁹ For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

¹⁰ When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. ¹¹ I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. ¹² But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

¹³ Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.

Who followed Jesus from the mountainside (verse 1)?

In your opinion, why did the man with leprosy ask to be made clean instead of healed (verse 2)?

What was Jesus’s physical response to the man (verse 3)?

Why was the man to go to the priest and “offer the gift Moses commanded” (verse 4)?

Who came to Jesus in Capernaum (verse 5)?

What was wrong with the servant (verse 6)?

In your opinion, why did Jesus ask “shall I come and heal him” (verse 7)?

What was the centurion’s response (verse 8)?

What did the centurion say he was “under” (verse 9)?

Why was Jesus “amazed” (verse 10)?

Where will many come from to “take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (verse 11)?

What will happen to “the subjects of the kingdom” (verse 12)?

When was the servant healed (verse 13)?

In your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?

In your opinion, what does this passage reveal about crying out to the Lord?

In your opinion, what is demonstrated in Jesus’s interaction with both the leper and the centurion in Matthew 8:1-13 that Psalm 107:17-22 foretells?

1 John 1:5-10 - New International Version (NIV)

⁵ This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. ⁶ If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. ⁷ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

⁸ If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

What is the message “we have heard from him and declare to you” (verse 5)?

When do “we lie and do not live out the truth” (verse 6)?

When do we “have fellowship with one another” (verse 7)?

What “purifies us from all sin” (verse 7)?

When do we “deceive ourselves” (verse 8)?

What happens when we “confess our sins” (verse 9)?

How do we make him out to be a liar” (verse 10)?

In your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?

In your opinion, what does this passage reveal about crying out to the Lord?

In your opinion, what do the people that Psalm 107:17-22 is written about have in common with those reading 1 John 1:5-10?

In your opinion, how is Jesus healing the unclean in Matthew 8:1-13 similar to and different from the purification in 1 John 1:5-10?

Revelation 15:1-8 - New International Version (NIV)

¹ I saw in heaven another great and marvelous sign: seven angels with the seven last plagues—last, because with them God’s wrath is completed. ² And I saw what looked like a sea of glass glowing with fire and, standing beside the sea, those who had been victorious over the beast and its image and over the number of its name. They held harps given them by God ³ and sang the song of God’s servant Moses and of the Lamb:

“Great and marvelous are your deeds,
    Lord God Almighty.
Just and true are your ways,
    King of the nations.
⁴ Who will not fear you, Lord,
    and bring glory to your name?
For you alone are holy.
All nations will come
    and worship before you,
for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

⁵ After this I looked, and I saw in heaven the temple—that is, the tabernacle of the covenant law—and it was opened. ⁶ Out of the temple came the seven angels with the seven plagues. They were dressed in clean, shining linen and wore golden sashes around their chests. ⁷ Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls filled with the wrath of God, who lives for ever and ever. ⁸ And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed.

Why were these the “seven last plagues” (verse 1)?

Who was “standing beside the sea” (verse 2)?

What song were they singing (verse 3)?

Why will all nations “come and worship” (verse 4)?

What was opened in heaven (verse 5)?

Where did the “seven angels with the seven plagues” come from (verse 6)?

What filled the “seven golden bowls” (verse 7)?

Why could no one enter the temple (verse 8)?

When would people be able to enter the temple (verse 8)?

In your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?

In your opinion, what does this passage reveal about crying out to the Lord?

In your opinion, how do those rescued from the grave in Psalm 107:17-22 anticipate those who are victorious in Revelation 15:1-8?

In your opinion, what does Revelation 15:1-8 help us understand about the feast that Jesus says will take place in heaven in Matthew 8:1-13?

In your opinion, what does 1 John 1:5-10 help us understand about how those proclaimed as victorious in Revelation 15:1-8 achieved their victories over “the beast and its image and over the number of its name”?

In your opinion, what is the role of faith in all who receive healing or victory in the Scriptures from Psalms, Matthew, 1 John, and Revelation?

In your opinion, how can we take our “places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven”?

(sprucewhispers.blogspot.com)

March 19, 2023 – John’s Writings – Seeing Salvation

Seeing Salvation

Exodus 14:26-15:3 - New International Version (NIV)

²⁶ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.” ²⁷ Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the Lord swept them into the sea. ²⁸ The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived.

²⁹ But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. ³⁰ That day the Lord saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. ³¹ And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.

15 ¹Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord:

“I will sing to the Lord,
    for he is highly exalted.
Both horse and driver
    he has hurled into the sea.

² “The Lord is my strength and my defense;
    he has become my salvation.
He is my God, and I will praise him,
    my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
³ The Lord is a warrior;
    the Lord is his name.

What was Moses to do “so that the waters my flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen” (verse 26)?

Who swept the Egyptians “into the sea” (verse 27)?

How many Egyptians survived (verse 28)?

What was the sea like when the Israelites went through (verse 29)?

Who saved “Israel from the hands of the Egyptians” (verse 30)?

How did the Israelites respond to seeing “the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians” (verse 31)?

Who “sang this song to the Lord” (verse 1)?

What does the song say the Lord has become (verse 2)?

Why will they praise the Lord (verse 2)?

What is the Lord (verse 3)?

In your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?

In your opinion, what does this passage teach us about salvation?

John 9:35-41 - New International Version (NIV)

³⁵ Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

³⁶ “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.”

³⁷ Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.”

³⁸ Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.

³⁹ Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”

⁴⁰ Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”

⁴¹ Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.

What did Jesus hear (verse 35)?

Who did Jesus ask “do you believe in the Son of Man” (verse 35)?

What did the man want to know so that he could believe (verse 36)?

In your opinion, why is the statement “you have now seen him” a very powerful testimony to this man (verse 37)?

How did the man respond to Jesus (verse 38)?

Why did Jesus say He had “come into this world” (verse 39)?

In your opinion, what does Jesus mean by “so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind” (verse 39)?

What did the Pharisees who heard Jesus ask (verse 40)?

Why does the Pharisees’ guilt remain (verse 41)?

In your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?

In your opinion, what does this passage teach us about salvation?

In your opinion, how is the Israelites reaction to God in Exodus 14:26-15:3 different from the reaction of the man who had been given his sight to Jesus in John 9:35-41?

1 John 2:15-23 – New International Version (NIV)

¹⁵ Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. ¹⁶ For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. ¹⁷ The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.

¹⁸ Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. ¹⁹ They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.

²⁰ But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. ²¹ I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. ²² Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son. ²³ No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

What are we not to love (verse 15)?

Who does not have “love for the Father” (verse 15)?

What does not come from the Father (verse 16)?

Who will live forever (verse 17)?

What time is it (verse 18)?

Who has already come (verse 18)?

How did they know the antichrists did not belong (verse 19)?

What do Christians have (verse 20)?

What do Christians know (verse 20)?

Why did John write to Christians (verse 21)?

Who is the antichrist (verse 22)?

Who “has the Father also” (verse 23)?

In your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?

In your opinion, what does this passage teach us about salvation?

In your opinion, how are the miracle of the Lord becoming the “salvation” of Moses and the Israelites by taking them through the sea in Exodus 14:26-15:3 and the miracle of Jesus transforming people from loving the world to loving the Father in 1 John 2:15-23 similar?

In your opinion, what does 1 John 2:15-23 help us understand about the judgment that Jesus says in John 9:35-41 he came into the world for?

Revelation 15:1-8 – New International Version (NIV)

¹ I saw in heaven another great and marvelous sign: seven angels with the seven last plagues—last, because with them God’s wrath is completed. ² And I saw what looked like a sea of glass glowing with fire and, standing beside the sea, those who had been victorious over the beast and its image and over the number of its name. They held harps given them by God ³ and sang the song of God’s servant Moses and of the Lamb:

“Great and marvelous are your deeds,
    Lord God Almighty.
Just and true are your ways,
    King of the nations.
⁴ Who will not fear you, Lord,
    and bring glory to your name?
For you alone are holy.
All nations will come
    and worship before you,
for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

⁵ After this I looked, and I saw in heaven the temple—that is, the tabernacle of the covenant law—and it was opened. ⁶ Out of the temple came the seven angels with the seven plagues. They were dressed in clean, shining linen and wore golden sashes around their chests. ⁷ Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls filled with the wrath of God, who lives for ever and ever. ⁸ And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed.

Why are these the “seven last plagues” (verse 1)?

Who are those who are “standing beside the sea” (verse 2)?

Whose song did they sing (verse 3)?

Who is holy (verse 4)?

Why will all nations “come and worship before you” (verse 4)?

What is the other name given to the temple in heaven that was opened (verse 5)?

Who came out of the temple (verse 6)?

What was given to the angels (verse 7)?

Where could no one enter “until the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed” (verse 8)?

In your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?

In your opinion, what does this passage teach us about salvation?

In your opinion, how are the song of Moses and the Israelites who had been saved from the Egyptians in Exodus 14:26-15:3 and the song of “those who had been victorious over the beast and its image and over the number of its name” in Revelation 15:1-8 similar?

In your opinion, how are the man who saw Jesus and believed in John 9:35-41 and “those who had been victorious over the beast and its image and over the number of its name” in Revelation 15:1-8 similar?

In your opinion, what does 1 John 2:15-23 help us understand about “those who had been victorious over the beast and its image and over the number of its name” in Revelation 15:1-8? 

In your opinion, what do these passages from Exodus, John, 1 John and Revelation help us see about ourselves?

In your opinion, how can a lost, blind person who loves the world be transformed and become one of those who are “victorious of the beast and its image and over the number of its name”?

 

(sprucewhispers.blogspot.com)