Author: BTP

“Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard…and anointed the feet of Jesus…and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment” (John 12:3).

Yesterday we saw that when the holiness of God was displayed in the temple, the “house was filled with smoke.” The smoke was a warning to man that God could not be directly approached in those days, and that a sacrifice was needed. Here we find that another smell filled a house—the house where Mary, Martha, and Lazarus lived in a town called Bethany.

This was a different kind of smell—an odor that people would love to smell. It was the smell of a precious ointment that was poured onto the feet of the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus was a guest in the house, and Mary took this opportunity to honor Him in this way. Mary understood clearly that the Lord Jesus needed to go to the cross, and she came ahead of time to anoint his feet as a token of her love for Him. This smell was a picture of what the work of Christ is to God; it is a sweet smell, for our Lord Jesus was perfectly obedient to His Father’s will, even though this obedience took Him all the way to the cross. We will see another verse about this tomorrow.

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts…and the house was filled with smoke” (Isaiah 6:3-4).

We had this verse before us back in July, but I want to look at it again, and compare it with another verse which we will see tomorrow. As we said back in July, where there is smoke there is fire, and the smoke speaks of a warning to man of the judgment of God. Fire in the Bible often speaks of judgment, and the smoke is a picture of God’s warning about it. It was a warning to Isaiah, away back, hundreds of years before the Lord Jesus Christ was born.

You and I would not want to be in a house that was filled with smoke. It irritates our eyes, and it tells us that there is a fire somewhere in the house. We want to get out of that house, and of course find out where the fire is. In our verses today, the smoke is connected with the holiness of the Lord.

“Let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not” (Galatians 6:9).

It is a wonderful privilege to work for the Lord while we are here in this world, and to be able to do His will. However, when things do not go very well, we can easily become discouraged. Perhaps we do not see many results from our work for the Lord, and we may wonder if it is all worthwhile. But our verse for today shows us that we will see results, if we do not give up.

Yesterday I had a phone call from a friend with whom I had gone to medical school. I had not seen him for some years, as he lives in southern U.S.A. It was about 60 years ago that I first spoke to him about being saved, and all through our years in university I reminded him that he needed to come to Christ. Sadly, there was no response, although we remained good friends. However, the Lord was working, and last night he told me that just a little while ago, he had accepted Christ as his Savior. He is now 79 years old.

Needless to say, I told him that not only had he made my day, but that he had made my year! Let us remember not to give up or become discouraged, for we shall reap, as our verse says.

“Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing” (2 Timothy 4:8).

On Saturday we looked at an old English word—“hitherto.” Today in our verse we have another old English word—“henceforth.” It is the opposite of the word hitherto, for it means “from now on,” or “in the future.”

On Saturday we saw that as Christians, we can look back and remember how the Lord looked after us. In today’s verse, we can look forward, along with the Apostle Paul, and know that there will be a crown for those who love the Lord’s appearing.

This world is in a mess right now, and things are getting worse, not better. Only when the Lord comes back in power and glory will there be real peace, with no war. Best of all, the Lord Jesus will have His rightful place. By that time, all true believers will be with the Lord Jesus in heaven.

“Hitherto hath the Lord helped us” (1 Samuel 7:12).

The word hitherto is an old English word that simply means “up until now.” If we know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, and have walked with Him, we can all say that up until now the Lord has helped us. Perhaps we have had some hard times in our life, but as we saw with Job, we learn more from going through difficulties than we do when everything goes smoothly. We learn to rely on the Lord more, and we learn more of His love and grace.

In the chapter where today’s verse is found, the Israelites were in a tough spot, for the Philistines had come up against them, and they did not have the power in themselves to fight with them. But when they confessed their sin, the Lord came in and gave Israel the victory. Then the prophet Samuel could say, “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.”

“He took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray… And, behold, there talked with Him [the Lord Jesus] two men, which were Moses and Elias: who appeared in glory, and spake of His decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem” (Luke 9:28,30-31).

When the Lord Jesus went up on the mount of transfiguration, He took Peter, John and James with Him. As He appeared in His glory, Moses and Elijah appeared too. Both of those men had left this world hundreds of years before—Moses through death, and Elijah by being caught up by a whirlwind into heaven without dying.

It is noteworthy what they talked about as they were there. Instead of talking about the wonderful glory of the Lord Jesus, and the joy of being there on the mountain with Him, they talked about His death that was shortly going to happen in Jerusalem. We might wonder why they did that, but they realized that all blessing, whether on earth or in heaven, had to come through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

On this the Lord’s day, are you and I thinking about the suffering and death of the Lord Jesus, or are we thinking about a lot of other things? The Lord Jesus has asked us to remember Him, and values it very much if we think about Him, not only today, but every day.

“And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also, the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before” (Job 42:10).

“Pray for them which despitefully use you” (Matthew 5:44).

As Elihu had said to Job, God desired only his blessing, despite all the difficulties that He passed him through. At the end of the trial, Job had twice as much as he had before. Once Job had judged his pride and realized that any goodness in him was because of God’s grace, God gave him a marvelous blessing.

However, there was something that Job did first; he prayed for his friends. At first Job was angry with his friends for accusing him falsely, but then he got beyond that, and prayed for them. The Lord Jesus also taught the people to pray for those who used them despitefully. (The word “despitefully” means to treat someone badly). This is good for us to remember, for just as God desires our blessing, so we should want blessing for others, even those who annoy or hurt us.

“Then Job answered the Lord, and said, behold I am vile…I will lay my hand upon my mouth” (Job 40:3-4).

At first, when all the trouble came upon Job, he was ready to find fault with God, for Job claimed to be a good man. However, he was taking the credit for his goodness, when it was all the work of the grace of God in his soul. But when Elihu, and then the Lord Himself, spoke to Job, he began to realize that he had no right to find fault with God. Then his reaction was to say, “I am vile.”

All this time Job was a believer; he was not a heathen. But, like some Christians, he was ready to say that his goodness came from within himself. This is wrong, for naturally we are all sinners. Any goodness in us is because God has worked in our hearts to believe. Let us remember this.

If we see unbelievers behaving in a bad way, let us remember that our own natural hearts are no better. Left to ourselves, we would behave badly too.

“Surely it is meet [right] to be said unto God…that which I see not teach Thou me” (Job 34:31-32).

Sometimes we do not immediately understand what God is doing in our lives. What should we do when this happens? Elihu gives us the answer—the same answer he gave to Job. The right thing to do is to ask the Lord to teach us what we do not understand. If we ask the Lord, He will always show us the lesson He is seeking to teach us.

The answer may not come right away, but He loves us, and wants us to get the blessing out of what He is doing in our lives. Let us not think that God is not treating us right, but rather let us recognize that He always wants to do us good. We learn more through difficult times in our lives than if everything is going well.

“Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgment. Therefore I said…I also will shew mine opinion” (Job 32:9-10).

Yesterday we spoke about the respect that is due to those who are older than we are, and who usually have more knowledge and experience than we do. However, as our verse for today shows us, this is not always so. Job’s friends really were his friends, and they thought that they were helping him. However, they had the wrong idea about what was happening to Job, and they made things worse for him, rather than helping him.

As we saw yesterday, Elihu was a younger man, but he had the mind of the Lord, and was able to be a help to both Job and his three friends. He understood that all difficulties in our lives are not punishment from the Lord, but may be for other reasons. He did not know why the Lord was allowing such awful problems in Job’s life, but he knew that it was wrong to assume that it was because Job was a wicked man.

All this is a good lesson to some of us older ones, for we are not always right. When we have said something, and younger ones ask questions, it is good for us to listen to them. A number of times in my life someone younger than I has pointed something out to me, and I had to realize that he was right, and I was wrong.