Young People’s Blog

“He is despised and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3).

While He was here on earth, the Lord Jesus was the “Man of sorrows,” for He experienced sorrow and suffering in many different ways. He saw the ruin that sin had brought into His creation, and He really felt the heartache and pain that He saw all around Him in the lives of people. His love made Him feel this even more, for we feel it very deeply when those whom we love are suffering.

There was suffering in His own Person too, for He knew how to be tired, hungry and thirsty, as well as feeling the rejection of those whom He loved and came to save. But the greatest sorrow was when He bore the judgment of God on the cross, and in this He “carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4). Those who know Hebrew tell us that the word for “carried” in verse 4 is the same word as is translated “bear” in verse 12, where it says, “He shall bear their iniquities.”

We may have sorrow in our own lives, but it is nothing compared to His sorrow!

“Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled [unclean or impure]” (Titus 1:15).

If you are truly saved, you have a new life in Christ that wants to please the Lord. If we allow that new life to display itself in the way we conduct ourselves, our mind will be kept pure. But in our everyday lives we meet unbelievers, and we will often find that they seem to turn everything that is said into something impure. I remember working one summer in a plant that built school buses, and there was one man who worked there who always seemed to find something impure to say in the lunchroom. His mind and conscience were defiled, and it was painful to hear him.

We cannot always stop this kind of talk, but we should avoid it if we can. If we ask the Lord, He will give us something to say that perhaps will reach their conscience, even though it is defiled.

“Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles” (Proverbs 21:23).

We probably get into more trouble with our mouth and our tongue than in any other way. What we say reveals what is inside, and we can easily say things that upset others. But we make words with our tongue, so why does it mention our mouth as well?

I would suggest that it is because our mouth and facial expression can send a message to others even if we do not say anything. We can smile nicely, we can grin as if we are laughing at someone, we can look angry, we can look proud, we can express disgust, and many other emotions without saying a word. We need to remember this, for our face and mouth tell others what we are thinking.

We can avoid this by asking the Lord to help us get rid of those wrong thoughts. Then our face and our tongue will not say things that we wish afterwards we had not said.

“The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: He turneth it whithersoever He will” (Proverbs 21:1).

Have you ever wanted someone in authority to do something for you, and found that he/she would not do it? Probably we have all had that experience, and we have to remember that perhaps the Lord allowed them to refuse to do it. But the Lord is able to change their minds.

Many years ago, I had this experience with a man in authority, and I prayed about it, for what I wanted was very important, and seemed to be what the Lord would want. Some weeks later, the Lord gave me the chance to talk to him about it again. I did not even ask for anything; we just talked about the situation. To my surprise he suddenly said, “I will do it.” The Lord had changed his mind!

Men can change the course of rivers of water by making a new channel, and the Lord can do that with men’s minds too, in order to have them do His will. Let us remember this when we pray.

“Go to the ant, thou sluggard [lazy person]; consider her ways, and be wise: which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest” (Proverbs 6:6-8).

Ants are one of the commonest of God’s creatures in this world and are probably the most numerous. For every human being alive in the world today, there are more than 1 billion ants! They can live in almost any environment, whether in deserts or in rainforests, in cold climates or warm ones.

God uses them to teach us something, for I have never seen a lazy ant. They are always busy doing something useful. They are also very persistent. A Christian man once watched an ant carrying a burden bigger than itself, and trying to climb up a wooden fence. It tried 69 times and fell down, but made it to the top the 70th time.

If we have a tendency to be lazy, we can learn from watching the ants. They prepare for winter by putting food away, and while we might not have to do this in quite the same way, it is a good lesson for us to make good use of our time.

“The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee” (2 Timothy 4:13).

“Do thy diligence to come before winter” (2 Timothy 4:21).

Sometimes we might think of men like the Apostle Paul as being “super Christians,” who were able to go through life without any real problems. Yet we see from these verses that he was a real man, with human feelings and real needs, just as we have.

He was in prison in Rome, and no doubt it was hard for him. He was getting older, and winter was coming on. There was probably no heat in the prison, and he wanted a coat that he had left in Troas, in order to keep warm. He asks Timothy to bring it to him, and specially asks him to come before winter.

The Lord knows what we need, and He knows about our circumstances too. The Lord Jesus was a real man as well, although He is God. He too had all the same feelings of a man, and all the same needs. He understands our difficulties and wants to help us in them. He knows even if we need a warm coat or a warm blanket!

“Alexander the smith did many evil things against me. The Lord will render to him according to his works” (2 Timothy 4:14 JND).

“At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge” (2 Timothy 4:16).

Alexander was evidently a bad man, although it seems that he had said he was a Christian in the past. We do not know whether he was a true Christian or not, but he was a real enemy of Paul, and Timothy was told to beware of him too. Paul does not ask the Lord to pardon him, but simply predicts that He will reward him according to his works.

However, when some dear brethren, no doubt from fear, had left Paul all alone when he stood before Caesar, Paul realized that they were real, and asked the Lord not to lay it to their charge. This was showing the same grace that the Lord Jesus had shown when being nailed to the cross; He had said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). God is gracious towards weakness, but firm towards real opposition to the truth. We should act the same way.

“I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none” (Psalm 69:20).

When something bad happens to someone in this world, even if the person deserves it, there are usually some people who take pity on them and feel sorry for them. But when the Lord Jesus suffered for us on the cross, there was no one to take pity on Him, or to comfort Him. He went through all that suffering alone. He was even forsaken of God on the cross, during the three hours of darkness, when He was “made sin” for us.

For the Lord Jesus, He knew that it was worth it, and in a coming day, when we are in heaven with Him, “He shall see of the travail (painful work) of His soul, and shall be satisfied” (Isa. 53:11). But how we ought to thank Him for all that He suffered for us, and for God’s glory!

“Do the work of an evangelist” (2 Timothy 4:5).

An evangelist is someone who has a gift to preach the gospel, and to share the good news with other people. Normally the Lord gives this gift to those who like to speak to people, and who find it easy to socialize with others. They are not afraid to approach someone whom they do not know, and strike up a conversation.

Timothy was not like that; he was a timid man, but the Apostle Paul tells him to “do the work of an evangelist.” That means that even though he was a shy person, Timothy was to speak to those who were not saved and tell them how to get saved.

Maybe some of you find it hard to speak to others about the Lord, but if we realize that they are going to hell if they are not saved, then we will make the effort to speak to them. In these last days sometimes we have to “do the work of an evangelist,” even if we are not gifted for it!

“But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them” (2 Timothy 3:14).

If we have learned something from the Word of God, the Lord wants us to continue in it. That means that we “live it out” in our everyday lives. In spiritual things, we learn something when we hear it and have it in our heads, but when we “live it out” in our everyday lives, we are assured of it. If we learn something in school, say, something in history, we can remember it in our heads for a long time. But we cannot keep spiritual truth in our heads if we do not use it; we will tend to lose it. But if we walk in it, we are assured of it, for it becomes part of us.

Timothy had learned much from the Apostle Paul, for most of the New Testament was not available when Timothy was living. But since Paul wrote much of the New Testament, he was able to teach Timothy personally about many things. You and I cannot listen directly to Paul, or Peter, or John, but we can now read their writings in the New Testament. The Lord wants us to continue in what we have read and heard!