Author: BTP

“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33).

In the verses just before our verse for today (Matthew 6:25-32), the Lord Jesus had been telling the people not to be worried or anxious about their food, their drink, or their clothing. He pointed out that God feeds the birds, and also gives the flowers beautiful colors, yet they do not work to produce food, or have barns in which to store it. The Lord knows what we need, and has promised to provide it.

His instruction to His disciples was, “Seek God’s interests in this world, and He will see to it that you have what you need in this life.” This was good advice for them, and it is good advice for us today. We can get very concerned about what kind of a job we might have, and how much money we are going to make, etc. In these days of higher inflation, it has become more difficult to “make ends meet.” God has not promised to supply all our wants, for we have gotten used to “the good life” here in western countries. However, God has promised to add unto us what we need for this life, when we give Him the first place in our lives. We are not to worry about what may happen tomorrow; the Lord will look after this for us.

“But the fearful, and unbelieving…and all liars, shall have their place in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8).

An older Christian who is now with the Lord told me that he was saved through this verse. Apparently when he was a boy, quite a few gospel preachers would come up to him from time to time and ask him if he were saved. He was not saved, and finally, to get them to stop, he told them that he was saved. But sometime later he read this verse, and the thought gripped his soul, “I am a liar, and I lied in the worst way, because I lied about being saved.” The thought of spending eternity in the lake of fire filled his mind, and he realized how serious it was to go into eternity without Christ. He accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior, and peace filled his soul.

Have you accepted the Lord Jesus as your Savior? If you die without Christ, our verse says that you will have to go to that lake of fire and brimstone for all eternity. What an awful thought! But the Lord Jesus is waiting to save you.

“For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only He who now letteth will let, until He be taken out of the way” (2 Thessalonians 2:7).

Here we have another mystery, or secret, that some people know and others do not. The “secret of iniquity” means that already Satan is working behind the scenes to cause all kinds of trouble and sinfulness in this world. Iniquity simply means doing our own will, and for those who do not know the Lord, it means doing whatever they want, without any restraint. But thankfully there is someone who does restrain all that—the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God lives in every true believer, and also lives among believers collectively as the house of God. His presence in this world holds back the evil so that it cannot go beyond a certain point.

However, when you and I are called home at the Lord’s coming, the Holy Spirit will leave with us, and then the evil will break loose in a way that we can scarcely imagine. How thankful we should be that the Holy Spirit is here in this world, and that we will not be here when He is gone, when the evil has nothing to hold it back.

“When I see the blood, I will pass over you” (Exodus 12:13).

“And having made peace through the blood of His cross” (Colossians 1:20).

When the first Passover was kept by the Israelites in Egypt, they were told to kill a lamb, and put the blood on the doors of their houses. Then, when the Lord came through the land to destroy the firstborn in every house, He passed over the houses where blood was on the door, and did not destroy the firstborn in those houses.

In Israel, the blood of the lamb did not really put away their sins, but it was a picture of the blood of Christ. Now the blood of Christ has completely put away our sins, so that we are not only safe from any judgment from God, but peace has been made for us with God. However, it cost the Lord Jesus His death on the cross, and God wants us never to forget that. Peace has been made, but there was a cost to it!

“And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory” (1 Timothy 3:16).

Godliness is living in this world according to God, and doing what pleases Him. But if we read this verse, we might get the impression that it is hard to do, and that it is a real mystery. However, the word mystery in the Bible does not have the same sense as it does in everyday speech. It simply means something that is a secret that is known by some but not by everyone. Those who are not saved do not know the secret of godliness, for they do not have a new life in Christ. But when we accept Christ as our Savior, we have the capacity to live a godly life.

According to our verse today, the secret of godliness is to look at the Lord Jesus, for the verse speaks about Him—how He came down into this world, lived down here for 33 ½ years, and then was received up in glory. When we look at Him and His pathway through this world, we see a pattern for us, so that we can live a life for God’s glory.

“Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick” (Matthew 5:15).

I grew up on a fruit farm, and became very familiar with bushels. We often picked grapes or apples into bushels, and sometimes other things like potatoes. In our day a bushel is made of thin strips of wood that are closely put together, overlapping one another, so that you cannot see through it. If it is turned upside down, it will hide whatever is underneath it.

But God does not want us to hide our light under a bushel. Perhaps a bushel would be a picture to us of allowing things like business, or studying, or perhaps other responsibilities in this life, to hinder our light to this world as Christians. It is easy to become so absorbed in things to do with this life that we seem to have no time to shine as a light in this world. Let us take care that we do not hide our light. God wants it to be on a candlestick, so that everyone can see it.

“Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure” (Titus 1:15).

“And such were some of you” (1 Corinthians 6:11).

All of us, as Christians, have probably had the experience of having what we considered a normal conversation with unbelievers, and having them turn what we say into talk that was defiling. We may have made a remark that to us was perfectly clean and acceptable, only to have them say something about it that tried to take the conversation down a wrong road. We have to be prepared for this kind of thing in this world, for our first verse in Titus goes on to say, “Even their mind and conscience is defiled.” We find this experience rather disturbing, and we may wonder what to do.

First of all, let us remember our second verse, and that we too have an old sinful nature. Before we were saved, we may have been guilty of the same thing. And even if we did not do it, yet we had to recognize that the tendency was in our hearts. Then, let us graciously but firmly point out that since we belong to Christ, we do not appreciate that kind of talk. Bringing in the name of Christ is not popular, but it is powerful, and will usually cause the one who made the defiling remark to feel ashamed. In this way we are the light of the world.

“For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world” (Titus 2:11-12).

Yesterday we saw how serious it was to disobey the Lord in the Old Testament, and we pointed out that it is still a serious thing to do that today. Because we are God’s children, He may discipline us in some way if we deliberately rebel against Him and commit sin.

However, this is not God’s preferred way of dealing with us. This is the day of God’s grace, and God wants to deal with us in grace. In our verses for today, we see that grace teaches us how to behave as Christians. If we really understand the grace of God, we will find that it is the strongest force to keep us from sin. Why is this? It is because we realize two things more and more. We realize how much we had sinned, and even more important, we realize what our old sinful nature is capable of. But then we also realize how much the Lord Jesus suffered for us, and what a price He paid to save us. All this deepens our understanding of God’s grace, and to go out and sin deliberately becomes more and more abhorrent to us. We all need to have this deeper understanding of God’s grace, and we need to allow it to teach us.

“They found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day…and the Lord said unto Moses, The man shall surely be put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp” (Numbers 15:32,35).

This might seem to have been a rather severe punishment for a man who was caught gathering sticks on the sabbath day. We might think that the Lord could have given him another chance, or at least a lesser punishment. However, the Lord had clearly said that it was a serious thing for someone to sin presumptuously; read Numbers 15:30-31. To sin presumptuously means deliberately to do something wrong, when you know that it is wrong. If a man did something ignorantly, he could offer a sacrifice, but there was no sacrifice for a deliberate sin.

God does not demand that we be stoned to death, if we sin deliberately, for we are not living under the law of Moses anymore. However, God may discipline us in some other way, for it is a serious thing to disobey the Lord. It is really rebellion in our hearts, and God looks upon rebellion as being most serious. Let us all remember this.

“In the hearts of all that are wise hearted I have put wisdom, that they may make all that I have commanded thee” (Exodus 31:6).

In the book of Exodus, God gave Moses the pattern for the tabernacle. But he also provided all the materials with which to build it, and men with the wisdom and intelligence to know how to build it properly. Normally a group of people who had been slaves in Egypt for many years would not have had either the materials (such as silver and gold) or the knowledge to build something as expensive and complicated as the tabernacle, but God provided both for Israel. They were able to build the whole tabernacle, as God had told Moses.

This is a good lesson for us too. Perhaps we do not have much wisdom in ourselves, and perhaps we do not have many resources at our disposal. However, if we wish to do something for the Lord, He will show us what He wants us to do. Also, He will give us both the resources (material things, money, etc.) and also the wisdom to be able to do it. The Lord does not give us something to do, and then leave us to figure out for ourselves how to do it. No, He provides everything for us, so that we can do His work in the right way.