Young People’s Blog

“It is the Lord’s passover…and when I see the blood, I will pass over you” (Exodus 12:11,13).

The Lord instituted the Passover about 3,500 years ago, when He told the children of Israel to kill a lamb, and to put the blood on the side posts and on the upper door posts of their houses. Why was this necessary? Why could not the Lord simply have brought judgment down on the Egyptians, and left the Israelites alone?

It was because the Israelites had hearts that were just as sinful as those of the Egyptians. The Egyptians were sinners, but so were the Israelites, even though they were God’s chosen people. God could not righteously judge the Egyptians and let the Israelites go free. God could pass over the Israelites only because of the blood on the door, which spoke of the blood of Christ.

You and I do not keep the Passover, for the Lord Jesus was the true Passover. He has shed His blood on Calvary’s cross, and now His blood is before God, and it cleanses us from all sin. Just as it was God’s view of the blood that counted at the time of the Passover, so today it is the value God puts on the blood of Christ that is important.

“The god of this world [Satan] hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

Satan loves to blind the minds of unbelievers, and sometimes even young people who have been brought up in Christian homes fall under his influence. Instead of accepting the Lord Jesus as their Savior, they listen to the silly arguments of those who follow false religions, or who perhaps say they are atheists, and do not believe there is a God. Yet if you ask these same young people if they are happy, they will almost always say “no.” If you ask them how their life is going, they will often say that they are in a mess. Why is their life in a mess?

It is because we cannot live without our Creator, and when we pretend that He does not exist, or perhaps believe in a system of teaching that is not based on the Bible, we end up with no guidance in our lives, no reason even for living, no moral standards by which to live, and no hope for the future. But there is a God, and He has chosen to reveal Himself to us by sending His Son into this world. Now He wants everyone to hear “the glorious gospel of Christ.”

“Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth” (Proverbs 27:1).

This is a good verse for us all to remember, for none of us knows what may happen tomorrow. Many years ago in England, a man remarked to a business friend about the recent death of another man, who was well known to both of them. The man who made the remark said, somewhat boastfully, “I guess I am so busy that I don’t even have time to die.” The Lord took him up on that challenge, and as he bent down to tie his boots, he had a sudden heart attack and died.

It is all right to make plans for the future, but we ought to make them with the attitude that we get in the book of James — “Ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that” (James 4:15). We do not know whether we will even be alive tomorrow, let alone whether we will be able to do certain things. It is important to live with the knowledge that the Lord is in control of our lives.

“And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every freeman, hid themselves…and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb” (Revelation 6:15-16).

Here is another very solemn verse, as we see that the Lord Jesus will come back to this world to judge it. Of course, this cannot happen until the Lord comes and takes every true Christian home to be with Him. But before He comes back again in judgment, He will allow events in this world that will make it very clear that He is about to come. As a result, all who are in this world will be frightened, for they will realize what is happening. This will be especially true of those who live in countries where the Bible was available, and where they heard the gospel.

It is noticeable that when they call to the mountains and rocks to fall on them, they refer to the Lord Jesus as “the Lamb.” Why is this? It is because they know He came to die for them, and wanted to be their Savior. But they rejected Him, and now must fall under His judgment. I hope that no one who reads this will be among those people in that day.

“A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine” (Revelation 6:6).

This verse might seem to be confusing at first, but it refers to the time right after the Lord Jesus comes and takes us home to be with Him. Then God will begin to warn this world of coming judgment. One way that He will do this is to allow food shortages.

In the days when the New Testament was written, a penny was a man’s wage for a day’s work. Here we see that an entire day’s wages will have to be spent, just to buy enough wheat or barley to make some bread. Many poor people will suffer, but the oil and the wine will not be hurt right away. This means that for a while, rich people will be able to enjoy their luxuries.

As I write this in December, 2021, we are seeing some of this beginning to happen already. Supplies of food and other things are sometimes not available in some parts of the world, partly because of the Covid virus pandemic, and partly because of trouble between various nations. This is a warning to the world now, but it will get much worse after the Lord comes for us.

“Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing” (Revelation 5:12).

In our verse today we have another reason why the Lord Jesus is worthy to be the Judge of this world. Yesterday we saw that He had that right as the Creator of all things. Here He has an even more significant right to be the Judge — because of His work on the cross. He is not only the Creator, but also the Redeemer. He now has a double right to this world, and He takes that place as Judge, to make everything right in this world.

As we mentioned yesterday, man brought sin into this world, and spoiled God’s creation. But the Lord Jesus has suffered for sin, and not only has He put our sins away, but He has redeemed the whole creation. Through His work on the cross everything will eventually be put right here, and there will be new heavens and a new earth. He is indeed worthy of the praise about which we read in this verse.

“Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created” (Revelation 4:11).

This verse, and many others, tell us that the Lord Jesus was the Creator of all things, and that He created them for His pleasure. He is the One who will be sitting on the throne when all this that we read about in Revelation starts to happen, and He takes His rightful place, first of all, as Creator.

The creation around us is beautiful, although it has been spoiled by sin. However, God created it for His pleasure, and even if man does not always care about the creation, God appreciates His own work, and values it.

But has His creation always brought Him pleasure? No, for man brought sin into this world, and spoiled His creation. But the Lord Jesus, as Judge, is about to establish righteousness in this world, and then once again the creation will give Him full pleasure.

“Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow…wherewith the Lord hath afflicted Me in the day of His fierce anger” (Lamentations 1:12).

All through His life in this world, the Lord Jesus was the “man of sorrows,” for He saw and cared about the heartache and all the problems that sin had brought into this world. His love went out to everyone, yet they despised and rejected Him, and did not want Him. Yes, they liked it when He healed them or fed them, but hated Him when He told them they were sinners before a holy God.

But there was another greater sorrow that the Lord Jesus endured, and this is what our verse tells us. The Lord Jesus bore the sins of every person who is saved, and the sorrow was unlike any other sorrow ever known in this world. You and I can never understand what it meant for the Lord Jesus to be “made sin” for us, and to be forsaken of God. Yet He went through all this sorrow, in obedience to God His Father, and because He loved us so much.

“The words of a talebearer are as dainty morsels, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly” (Proverbs 26:22 JND).

“Where there is no talebearer, the strife ceaseth” (Proverbs 26:20).

In these verses there is something important for all of us to remember. There are people who love to go around telling other people some juicy piece of gossip, and usually it is something bad about someone else. But then, there are people who like to listen to this kind of talk, for to them it is a “dainty morsel” — just like something good to eat. They never stop to think that it may not be true, and even if it is true, why go around repeating it? Then it gets passed on to someone else, and trouble is the result.

Let us not be the kind of person who goes around spreading gossip. If we are going to say something about someone, let us say something good. And if we cannot think of something good to say, let us say nothing. Also, let us not be the kind of person who likes to listen to, and then repeat, this kind of thing. If we remember this, we will not only save ourselves from a lot of trouble, but we will honor the Lord.

“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26).

“There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying” (Revelation 21:4).

It is hard for us to imagine a world in which there is no death, for we have been accustomed to seeing everything alive in this world eventually die. Some trees live to be very old. There are Bristlecone Pines in California that are nearly 5,000 years old. Some animals also live to be very old, such as large turtles, which can live to be over 200 years old. But all of them must die eventually.

I remember one of the professors at the university I attended asking the question, “Why does everything alive in this world have to die?” He did not know that the Bible would have given him the answer. We know that death was the result of sin, for “by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin” (Romans 5:12).

But eventually, through the work of the Lord Jesus on the cross, there will be no more death. This will of course be true in heaven, but it will also be true on earth. What a wonderful time that will be, when we see the full result of the suffering of the Lord Jesus!