Ques. 68. Please explain why the Lord asked those who knew Him, not to make Him known, in Luke 9:21 and other places, when He healed their diseases and restored the blind to sight.
Also what is the meaning of Christ's answer, or why did He give the person this kind of an answer in Luke 9:58? C. T.
Ans. In Luke 9:21 it was because the Lord was rejected as Israel's Messiah, and was going to make atonement for sin on the cross, that He said, "Tell no man that thing"; then calls Himself the Son of man.
We need to read the context in each case to understand the reason. In Mark's gospel, specially, it is as the true servant hiding Himself, and doing the Father's will. What an example this is for us.
Luke 9:57-62 are tests of discipleship. Are we willing to lose our comforts to follow the Lord? (Verse 58.)
Are we willing to lose our character before men to follow the Lord? (Verses 59, 60.)
Are we willing to lose our connections to follow the Lord? (Verse 61.)
These points test whether Christ or self is our object. Quite true, we get comforts from the Lord if we follow Him. We get a new character as His servants, and new connections in His people. We also see from Ephesians 5 and 6, and Colossians 3 and 4, that "wives" and "husbands", "children" and "parents", "servants" and "masters", are all relationships given to us from Him to carry out (through grace) for Him.
The man in John 5, who was carried by the bed for 38 years, received strength to carry the same bed for Christ.
True discipleship puts and keeps Christ first. (John 12:26.)
Ques. 69
What scriptures condemn the use of tobacco as a lust of the flesh? N. R. M.
Ans. Read Rom. 6:12, 13, 19; 13:14; Gal. 5:16, 17, 24; Eph. 2:3; 2 Tim. 2:22; Titus 2:12; 3:3; 1 Peter 2:11; 2 Peter 2:10, 18; 1 John 2:16, 17.
These and many other scriptures teach us that the flesh never walked in God's ways, but in self-pleasing. Man, away from God, does His own will. The Lord Jesus, as a man on earth, ever walked in obedience to His Father's will. His every thought and word and deed was obedience to His Father."By the word of Thy lips I have kept Me from the path of the destroyer." (Psa. 17:4.)
If we are believers, we are now "in Christ" (Rom. 8:1); He is our life (Col. 3:4); and the Holy Spirit dwells in us (1 Cor. 6:19.) Christ is also our pattern; our lives are to be after the pattern of His. (1 John 2:6.) The flesh is also in us with all its evil desires; but if we walk in the Spirit, we shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. (Gal. 5:16.)
In the power of this new life, and by the Spirit, we are now to yield our members, the members of our bodies, to God, as instruments of righteousness. (Rom. 6:11-14, 19) Once these very members were the servants of sin. Now our bodies are to be for His glory.
We have instructions in the Word for our whole life: Our food, our clothing-every mercy we receive, we receive from our Father, and we are to give thanks to Him for them. (1 Tim. 4:3-5.) It is sanctified unto us by the Word of God and by prayer. His Word gives all to us, and we thank God as the giver. It does not belong to us till we give thanks.
Apply this to your tobacco chewing, snuffing and smoking. Does your Father give it to you? Do you return thanks to Him every time you use it, as you do for your food? Is it not a worldly lust, an unclean habit that you have acquired? It sickened you at the first, and now it holds you in its grip, and you allow it; and, alas! in many instances the children of God seek an excuse to gratify their evil nature in this way. They do not want to admit that it is sin, but all lawlessness is sin. (1 John 3:4. New Trans.) It is pleasing to themselves, and pleasing ourselves is not pleasing the Lord. Nor are they working out their own salvation with fear and trembling. (Phil. 2:12, 13.) They are not in this respect allowing God to work in them both to will and to do of His good pleasure. It is monstrous to say, It does not hinder the communion of those who use it. Could one in the presence of the Lord go on with it?
“Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us purify ourselves from every pollution of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." (2 Cor. 7:1.)
Ques. 70
When we go to be with the Lord, do we receive a glorified body immediately? L. M. P.
Ans. When a believer departs to be with Christ (Phil. 1:23), his spirit is with the Lord, and his body returns to dust.
When the Lord returns for His saints (John 14:3; 1 Cor. 15:52; Phil. 3:20, 21; 1 Thess. 4:16,17); then the body and spirit will be united again, and it will be a glorified body. The living believers which are then on earth, will have their bodies also changed and glorified.