Author: BTP

“One thing thou lackest” (Mark 10:21).

I have recently been reading an interesting book about a sailing expedition in the year 1742. Several ships set out from England on a mission that would take them into the Pacific Ocean. That meant sailing across the Atlantic Ocean and around “Cape Horn,” the southern tip of South America. Cape Horn has some of the most dangerous seas in the world, so those outfitting the ships put in everything they thought the men might need—dried beef, hard biscuits, plenty of fresh water, guns, and many other things.

But several months into the voyage, many of the men began to get very sick. They lost weight, their teeth fell out, and their muscles shrivelled up. Some of the men died. No one knew what was wrong, but they were lacking one thing—vitamin C. Today we understand this. The men had “scurvy” because they had no fresh fruit or vegetables in their diet.

Eventually they were shipwrecked on a small island where hardly anything grew, but they found some wild celery and ate it because they were starving. Within a short time the disease of scurvy disappeared! Tomorrow we will talk about the spiritual meaning of today’s verse.

“For He [God the Father] hath made Him [the Lord Jesus] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Have you ever thought of what it meant for the Lord Jesus to be “made sin” for us? It means that God the Father dealt with the Lord Jesus as if He had committed the sins that we committed. The Lord Jesus took all the punishment for sin as if He had done all those wrong things. This was something you and I will never be able to understand. He has a nature that hates sin, yet He was made sin for us.

During those three hours of darkness on the cross, the Lord Jesus suffered more than you and I can ever imagine. But His love to God His Father, and His love to us, kept Him on that cross until all the judgment was exhausted. Have you ever thanked the Lord Jesus for what He has done?

“For without are…whosoever loveth and maketh a lie” (Revelation 22:15).

Usually, we talk about someone “telling” a lie. But do you know that you can tell a lie without speaking a word? Today in our Sunday school a man told us a story and showed us a picture. A long time ago (more than fifty years!) he was working with two other men on a small, barren island in the far north of Canada. A grizzly bear was on that island too, with no food, and he was looking for a good meal. In order to preserve their lives, it was necessary for one of the men to shoot the bear. The man who told the story showed us a picture of himself kneeling by the dead bear with a rifle in his hands. Then he asked the children to tell him who they thought had shot the bear. Of course they were all sure that he had done it! But the picture was “making a lie,” as our verse says. It was just a posed picture, as one of the other men had shot the bear.

God hates lying, no matter whether it is spoken with our lips, or just a picture that tells an untruthful story. Let us remember that God wants the truth, always.

“But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42).

Mary and Martha were two sisters who lived in the same home with their brother Lazarus. One day the Lord Jesus came for a visit, and they prepared a meal for the Lord. Martha was very anxious that everything would be done right, while Mary (who had been working with Martha) went and sat down at the feet of the Lord Jesus to hear His Word. Then Martha wanted the Lord Jesus to tell Mary to come back and help her.

Sometimes we can get so taken up with doing everything just right in our lives that we neglect to read God’s Word, and pray. We can get so busy with life that our spiritual life suffers. That is what was happening to Martha.

Instead of telling Mary to go and help Martha, the Lord Jesus reminds Martha that “one thing” was “needful.” In our busy world, we have to remember our priorities, and give the Lord first place in our lives. No longer can we listen to the Lord Jesus in person, but we can read His Word and meditate on it. Then we learn more of Him, and this will be ours for all eternity. Good food is important too, but it will last only for this life. What the Lord Jesus tells us through His Word is forever.

“After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also…therefore said He unto them…salute no man by the way” (Luke 10:1-2,4).

Here we see that the Lord Jesus sent out seventy of His disciples, to preach, and to heal the sick. He gave them instructions, and among their instructions they were told, “Salute no man by the way.” Does this mean that they were not to be polite or courteous, or speak to anyone they met on the way?

I do not believe that it means this. Rather, the Lord was telling them not to be “sidetracked” by anyone along the way. They were not to waste their time in idle conversation or visiting with those they might meet. Rather, they were to remember that they had been given work to do for the Lord, and they were to do it. When the Lord Jesus was only twelve years old, He said to His parents, “Wist ye not [do you not know] that I must be about My Father’s business”?

It should be the same with us. God has a work for each of us to do in this world, and we should be careful not to waste our time, but rather to do what the Lord has entrusted to us.

“Evil men understand not judgment: but they that seek the Lord understand all things” (Proverbs 28:5).

Everyone in this world has a conscience that enables us to know right from wrong. However, our conscience is like our eyes; we need light for them to work properly. A good pair of eyes does not help us in a very dark room, and if our conscience is not guided by the Word of God, we will not understand right and wrong properly. Now that many people in Western countries have given up the Bible, they do not have a proper sense of right and wrong, and sometimes seem to lack common sense.

Man cannot live rightly without his Creator, and only those who know the Lord, and read His Word, can have a right sense of right and wrong. That is why we see so many wrong judgments being made in this world, and why men seem so unable to think properly. It is because their consciences are not enlightened by God’s Word.

“He that is least among you, the same shall be great” (Luke 9:48).

We saw yesterday that is wrong for us to want to “be somebody;” that is, we should not want to be somebody important. Here in our verse today the Lord Jesus tells us how to be truly great. True greatness lies in being the least among others, for then we become more like the Lord Jesus.

The Lord Jesus was the only man who had a right to be great, for He is the Son of God. He created this world, and upholds “all things by the word of His power.” (See if you can find the reference for this verse too.) But He voluntarily took the lowest place in this world, and went all the way to Calvary’s cross.

If you think for a moment about those Christians whom you like and admire the most, are they proud people who want to be important? No, they are almost surely those who take a low place, and who want to serve the Lord, and serve others.

“The Son of Man shall be delivered into the hands of men. But they understood not this saying, and it was hid from them…Then there arose a reasoning among them, which of them should be greatest” (Luke 9:44-46).

The disciples were expecting a glorious earthly kingdom to be set up, but the Lord Jesus had to remind them that before the kingdom could be set up, He would have to go to the cross. As we see in our verses for today, the disciples could not understand this; it was “hid from them.” But then we read in the next verse that they were having a discussion about which of them should be greatest.

This was one of the reasons why they could not understand. They were thinking about themselves, and not about the Lord Jesus. Here He was, humbling Himself and going to the cross, while they disputed about who should be greatest.

Sometimes we have this problem too. If we are wanting “to be somebody,” as the saying goes, we are not thinking in the right way. Pride in ourselves is always wrong, and it can make it difficult for us to understand God’s thoughts. The Lord Jesus was “meek and lowly in heart,” and we are called to be like Him. See if you can find the place where it tells us that the Lord Jesus was “meek and lowly in heart.”

“His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men” (Isaiah 52:14).

When the Lord Jesus suffered on the cross for sin, it tells us here that His face was marred more than any man, and His form (body) more than the sons of men. What does that mean? We know that the Jewish leaders punched him in the face, and that Pilate scourged Him. The soldiers placed a crown of thorns on His head, and nailed Him to the cross. However, we know too that many people have had their bodies seriously injured from car accidents, industrial accidents, attacks by wild animals, etc. Does this verse mean that the face and body of the Lord Jesus were injured more than any other person? I believe the thought goes deeper than that.

The Hebrew word for “marred” is used only one other time in the Bible, and there it is translated “corruption,” for this is one of the meanings of the word. I believe that this meaning shows us what the word means in our verse today. It was not only the physical suffering that the Lord Jesus felt so much, terrible though it was. Rather it was His being made sin for us, and bearing our sins in His body during the three hours of darkness, that made His face and His body marred more than any man. He was made to be corruption for our sakes. How this ought to touch our hearts!

“Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor” (Ephesians 5:2).

Today we have a verse that shows us the same thing as we had yesterday, that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was a sweet-smelling savor to God. Why did it have such a sweet smell to God? It was because of the perfect obedience of the Lord Jesus to the will of His Father. Every father in this world knows how much it means to him to have an obedient child, and especially if he asks that child to do something that is very unpleasant. Think of how much it meant to God the Father to see His beloved Son go willingly to Calvary’s cross, and bear the judgment for sin! It was indeed a sweet smell to God.

In the same way we can be a sweet savor to God, if we obey His command to walk in love with one another. In this way we are “followers of God,” as it says in verse one of Ephesians 5. It means a great deal to God our Father when we obey His commands.