Author: BTP

“We commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies” (2 Thessalonians 3:10-11).

There is a movement in the governments of some countries today to ensure a guaranteed income for every adult, whether they work or not. Our verses today show the frequent result for those who can work, but refuse to do so. They become “busybodies”; that is, they tend to spend their time getting into mischief, doing a lot of idle talking, and causing trouble for themselves and others. Often they have to depend on the help of others to be able to live.

When man fell by disobeying God’s one command in the Garden of Eden, God immediately told Adam that from that time onward, he would have to work hard in order to eat. In this way, work is a great mercy, for it tends to keep man’s sinful nature somewhat in check.

It is also a poor testimony for a Christian not to work if he is able, for we should be willing to work to provide for our own needs, as well as to be able to help others who cannot work.

“And every man went unto his own house. Jesus went unto the mount of Olives” (John 7:53; 8:1).

Yesterday we spoke about some cats that were dropped off in our neighborhood, and suddenly they had no home. They could not find their way back to the place where they used to live, and they had to appeal to us to help them.

Have you ever thought of the fact that the Lord Jesus had no home in this world? Sometimes others invited Him to their homes, but in the verses we have for today, it seems that on this occasion everyone went to his own house, leaving the Lord Jesus with nowhere to go for the night. It seems that more than once the Lord Jesus spent the night on the mount of Olives.

Probably those people were not deliberately wanting to be mean; they were just thoughtless, and did not think about where the Lord Jesus would go for the night. Yet the Lord Jesus did not complain, and if you read the next verse in chapter 8, you will find that early in the morning He came again into the temple and began to teach the people. Even if no one showed the Lord Jesus any love, He never stopped showing His love to others.

“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5).

I am sure that many of you reading this calendar memorized this verse when you were quite young. It is an important verse as it refers not only to our trusting the Lord Jesus as Savior, but also trusting all the way along our path. Don’t lean on your own understanding!

This verse came into focus at our home this week. Someone dropped off a mother cat and her three kittens in our neighborhood, as they obviously didn’t want to care for them anymore. The cats appeared outside the door to our deck, looking very hungry. I love cats and couldn’t just ignore them, sitting there with soulful eyes! Soon they were feasting (very hesitantly) on a can of tuna in one dish and some milk in another dish. But… they had no trust. Someone may have treated them badly, and before they would come for the food, we had to go inside and stay away from the door. Their “own understanding” was that people couldn’t be trusted.

That was sad as we really wanted to show them some love and care. Those kittens missed out on the love we wanted to show them because of a lack of trust. God loves us and invites us to trust Him with ALL our heart!

“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).

My wife keeps a “sudoku” puzzle book beside her armchair, and when she has a few minutes, she enjoys keeping her mind sharp with a difficult puzzle. But occasionally I see her pick up the eraser and begin to eliminate some of her work. Why? The numbers just weren’t fitting anymore as they should!

It is like that when we read God’s Word. We need to read and meditate on what we have read. Then we can form thoughts on it. But if our thoughts are not guided by the Spirit of God, we may get a wrong idea, and then other parts of Scripture just don’t mesh with that thought. Everything seems to be scrambled. We may have to use the “eraser” and go back to square one in our thinking on the meaning of a verse or passage. That is the meaning of the phrase “rightly dividing the word of truth.” When we interpret God’s Word correctly, everything fits together smoothly.

When my wife starts to do a sudoku puzzle, she uses a pencil, not a pen. It’s the same when we interpret the Word of God. We should take time to meditate, and then check other’s thoughts and commentaries, before picking up that pen that cannot be erased!

“I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of His wrath. He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light” (Lamentations 3:1-2).

When the prophet Jeremiah wrote these words, he was really referring to himself, and all the difficulties he had passed through while speaking to the children of Israel about their sinful ways. But sometimes in the Old Testament the Spirit of God gave the prophets language that went far beyond their own experiences, and really referred to Christ Himself. That is certainly the case in this chapter.

The Lord Jesus felt very much the pain of being crucified, for it was a most brutal death. However, he felt far more the sufferings at the hands of God, for the Lord Jesus was “the Man” that saw affliction “by the rod of His [God’s] wrath.” It was God the Father Himself who dealt with the whole question of sin in those three hours of darkness, when our Lord Jesus was on the cross. We can never understand what it was for Him to be “made sin” for us, but we can thank and praise Him for all that He endured to put away our sins.

“For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly” (Romans 1:26-27).

One final comment on those things which God supposedly does not care about. Another statement is made in the article—“Whether you’re single, married, or have a complicated relationship, God is… not judging your romantic life.” I am not sure what the author means by “a complicated relationship,” but I must point out that God recognizes only one romantic relationship—that of a heterosexual marriage.

Sadly, I have known Christian young men and women who lived together without being married, and have also known Christian men and women who engaged in homosexual relationships. Both of these are condemned in the Word of God, and especially homosexual relationships, as we see in our verse today. Let us not be deceived by some of the modern trends in Western society today; the standards of God’s Word remain the same. God does care about the wickedness of some of those “complicated relationships” that man has invented.

“One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith” (Titus 1:12-13).

Here is another comment in that article about the things that God supposedly does not care about—“God doesn’t play favorites with cultures or judge based on ethnicity or nationality. He appreciates the rich diversity He created and values all people equally.” This statement is also somewhat misleading.

First of all, God did not create culture; man did. Then the world divided up into nations, away back in the book of Genesis. There is some truth in the statement that “God doesn’t play favorites with cultures,” for the early apostles never tried to change the local culture where they preached the gospel, unless that culture interfered with God’s claims. Then, as we see in our verse today, God’s Word judges every culture.

We cannot go against God’s Word by claiming that it is part of our culture. The Apostle Paul did not hesitate to condemn the Cretians for their behavior, even though it was part of their culture. Their practices were a dishonor to the Lord, and they needed to change.

“Using diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, as ye have been also called in one hope of your calling” (Ephesians 4:3-4 JND).

In that list of things that supposedly God does not care about, it was mentioned that God does not care what denomination we belong to. This is also not true, for if we read the Word of God, we do not find anything about denominations. In the beginning, all believers came together simply as members of the body of Christ. Our verse today emphasizes this, and shows us that all believers should be together, not divided up into different denominations.

It is man who has made the denominations, not God. Also, as we pointed out a few days ago, many denominations hold and teach bad doctrine, and bad doctrine dishonors the Lord Jesus by taking away from His glory, and giving it to man.

If we “use diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit,” as our verse today tells us to do, then we will not want to be part of a denomination, but rather will want to gather together only as members of the body of Christ. The Spirit of God will always gather us to Christ, and to His name alone.

“Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment” (Ecclesiastes 11:9).

Here in today’s verse we have a warning. God takes notice of all those things we may have done in the past, and has kept a record of them. When we are young we sometimes are tempted to do things without thinking of how sinful they are in the sight of God. This verse reminds us that if we do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, we will have to stand before God some day and be judged for them.

Those sins in the past must be accounted for, and we cannot pretend that God does not care about them. We cannot simply “turn over a new leaf,” and think that we will do better from now on. No, God is a God of judgment, and cannot just forget about our past.

World War II has been over for almost 80 years, yet as I write this in 2024, a 99-year-old woman was recently brought to trial in Germany for crimes she allegedly committed as a very young woman under the Nazi administration. If man does not forget the past, surely God is not less righteous than man.

“As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12).

One of the things mentioned in the list that God (supposedly) does not care about was what we have done in the past. We have all done things in the past that we know were wrong, yet there is nothing we can do to correct those wrong things now. Sometimes the memory of those things is painful.

However, for us who know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, we can be assured that all those sins are gone. They are under the shelter of the blood of Christ, and as our verse today says, God has removed them as far as the east is from the west. Another verse says that God will “cast all their sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19). We will never see them again, and God will never bring them up again, to judge us for them. What a wonderful salvation we have!