Young People’s Blog

“As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live” (Ezekiel 33:11).

As I write this, I am in London, England for a few days. Today we had a few hours of free time, so we went to a museum which we had never visited before. One section of it was rather gruesome, for it showed how they used to execute criminals many years ago. In England, this was done by hanging most of the time, which was often carried out in public. (The last public hanging in England was in 1868.) Crowds of people used to come to watch someone being hanged, and it seems that most of the time the crowd applauded, for they felt that bad people should be properly punished for their crimes. People could be hanged for many different crimes, including murder, stealing, forgery, treason, poaching, and pickpocketing.

Our God is a God of judgment, and He cannot pass over sin, no matter how small. However, we see from our verse that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Rather the grace and love of God has provided a way for Him to forgive the sinner, if the sinner will accept Christ. And when God carries out judgment, He does not enjoy it, as did the crowds in years gone by. In another Scripture God calls it His strange work.

God is light, and we make Him a Judge by our sins, but He is also love, and no one has made Him like this.

“How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” (Hebrews 2:3).

All through man’s history, there have been very unusual attempts by prisoners to escape from prison. The Tower of London in England, which was built nearly 1,000 years ago, was often used as a prison for those of the nobility in bygone days. Despite the strict security, there was more than one successful escape from it. More recently, prisoners of war were kept in various prisons in Nazi Germany during World War II. There were quite a few successful escapes from those prisons, which often involved very clever methods and hard work. Many of those who tried to escape were recaptured, but quite a few escaped as well.

However, if we die without knowing the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, or are left behind when the Lord Jesus comes to take every true believer home to be with Himself, there will be no possibility of escape. No clever methods or special tricks will enable someone to get out of hell. They will be there for all eternity. This is the most awful end of a life that can be imagined, for we cannot even think of what eternity in hell will be like. For those in prison, there is always hope, but those in a lost eternity will have no hope. Once again, do you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior?

“And when they [the Jewish leaders] were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole Him away while we slept” (Matthew 28:12-13).

This verse is very sad, for it shows how stubborn the heart of man is. No doubt the soldiers told their leaders all about the earthquake, the appearance of the angel, etc., and how frightened they were. But instead of believing that the Lord Jesus had risen from the dead, the leaders paid the soldiers a lot of money to tell a lie. The soldiers did as they were told, and even today there are many Jews who believe this lie.

But while we may find fault with the Jews for doing this, let us remember that naturally, our own hearts are no better. Unless the Lord works in our hearts, we will not believe on the Lord Jesus, no matter how much proof is given to us of His death and resurrection. Man’s natural heart will look for every possible excuse to refuse God’s offer of salvation.

How thankful we can be that God has worked in our hearts, and given us the faith to believe on the Lord Jesus!

“And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it” (Matthew 28:2).

Last night my wife woke up at 3:30 a.m., and felt the bed shaking for a few minutes. This morning when we got up, we learned that a powerful earthquake had occurred in southern Turkey and northern Syria during the night, causing serious damage in which many people were killed. We felt only a little ripple of the earthquake here in Cyprus.

Earthquakes demonstrate God’s power, and man can do nothing to stop them. Also, they usually occur without warning, although there are areas of this world that are more susceptible to earthquakes. There is no doubt that God uses earthquakes to speak to man, and to warn him of coming judgment.

However, in our verse for today, there is no record that the earthquake did any serious damage. Rather, it demonstrated to man the power of God in resurrection, and the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead. The Jews had set a watch of soldiers to make sure that the disciples did not steal the body of the Lord Jesus, but in Matthew 28:4 we read that “the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.” Not only did the earthquake scare them, but also the sight of the angel who came and rolled back the stone from the door of the tomb.

The resurrection of the Lord Jesus was a wonderful event, and was the assurance that God was fully satisfied with the work that the Lord Jesus did on the cross. The Jews did not want to believe that the Lord Jesus really rose from the dead, but God gave them plenty of evidence that it had happened.

“Thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep” (2 Corinthians 11:25).

This is a very short verse, but it would be interesting to sit down with the Apostle Paul and hear the details of these three shipwrecks. We do not know anything about what happened, for the only shipwreck in Paul’s life about which we know any details (Acts 27) had not yet happened when Paul wrote this to the Corinthians.

Last night here on the south coast of Cyprus, we heard a terrific storm out on the Mediterranean Sea, with high winds, heavy rain, loud crashing of waves, and a lot of thunder. I laid in bed and thought of the Apostle Paul and some of his experiences, and how he was probably shipwrecked in a storm like this.

If you know the Lord as your Savior, you are not promised an easy pathway through life either. You may not be shipwrecked, as Paul was, but we know that we will be called upon to suffer for Christ, if we live a faithful life before Him in this world. Paul could say, “Out of them all the Lord delivered me” (2 Timothy 3:11), and we have that promise too.

“So they [Paul and Barnabas]…sailed to Cyprus. And when they had gone through the isle unto Paphos, they found…the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus…who called for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the Word of God” (Acts 13:4,6-7).

As I write this in February, 2023, we are actually in Cyprus, and yesterday we were able to visit Paphos, which is at the western end of the island. If you look at Cyprus on a map, it does not look very big, but it is quite a large island, and it would have been a long way for Barnabas and Paul to walk to Paphos. When you come across the name of a place in your Bible, it is good to look it up on a map and learn a little about it. It makes the stories come alive for you.

No doubt Paphos has changed quite a bit since Barnabas and Paul were there, but there is a plaque hanging there in Paphos, telling tourists that it was in this city that Christianity first came to Cyprus. It is clear that Sergius Paulus was saved when Paul and Barnabas preached to him that day, and he was one of the important people in government. Later others came to Cyprus to preach the gospel, and no doubt many others were saved.

“Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:11).

First of all, if we are going to lead a victorious life, and not allow our old sinful nature to rule our lives, we must recognize that the power is not in ourselves. As we saw a couple of days ago, the old nature is too strong for us. Just as the power to wash our sins away does not come from ourselves, so the power to keep the old sinful nature from ruling our lives does not come from ourselves. It comes from the Lord.

Since the Lord Jesus died and rose again, we are entitled to “reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin.” That means that when wrong thoughts come into our minds, we can say, “But I am dead to that kind of thing. That old sinful nature does not have any rights over me. I am free simply to turn my mind away from it, and to think about Christ.” Now that I have a new life in Christ, that is the life that I want to rule my thoughts, and that is the life that I want to display in my behavior.

I do not allow that sinful thought to go around and around in my mind, and enjoy it, but neither do I get all upset and fight with that thought. I simply turn away from it, because I can consider myself to be dead to it.

I can now consider myself to be dead to sin, and a dead man is not tempted by anything he enjoyed when he was alive. So also you and I can look to the Lord, and it is His power that enables us to reckon ourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God.

“Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin” (Romans 6:6).

Today’s verse is most important, for we know that while the blood of Christ washes our sins away forever, we still have the sinful nature that commits those sins. The Bible often refers to this as “the flesh.” God forgives sins, but He never forgives our old sinful nature. It can never be made any better, and it deserves nothing but death.

However, in His work on the cross, the Lord Jesus has made it possible for us to allow the new nature to act, instead of the old sinful nature. In His death and resurrection, the Lord Jesus died unto sin, and God saw the end of what we all were as children of Adam. Now we belong to a new Head—the Lord Jesus.

Baptism is connected with this, for when we are baptized, we go under the water and then come up again. In this way we identify ourselves with the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and admit that our sinful nature deserves nothing but death.

This may seem a bit complicated at first, but if you read the 6th chapter of Romans, you will see how the Apostle Paul explains it. God looks upon our “old man”—what we were as children of Adam, as having died with Christ. Now, in resurrection, we have a new life in Christ.

However, some of you will say, “But I still have the old sinful nature!” What do I do now? Tomorrow we will see what to do.

“For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do” (Romans 7:19).

Have you ever had this experience? Most of us, as Christians, have had this happen to us. We have wanted to do what is right before the Lord, but then found that our sinful nature was too strong for us. Perhaps we have become very upset with ourselves, and become frustrated when our minds just would not stop thinking about some particular sin. Even though we did not like thinking about it, it became a struggle to fight against that thought.

Some years ago, while I was at a Christian camp, I saw a group of young people having a mud fight. It was all in fun, but within a few minutes every one of them was covered with dark slimy mud. Suppose you had decided to hug one of those young people, what would have happened? You would have gotten very dirty.

But suppose, instead, you were upset because they had gotten so dirty, and you started fighting with one of them. What would have happened then? You still would have gotten very dirty.

The point is that whether we enjoy sinning, or whether we fight with sin, we get dirty either way. Our minds are defiled with the sin, whether we willingly do it, or get all upset because wrong thoughts keep coming into our mind. Tomorrow we will see how we should handle this problem, according to the Word of God.

“Daniel…kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God” (Daniel 6:10).

Yesterday my wife and I were on a long flight, on an airline based in a country in the Middle East. It was interesting to us to read one of the rules of the flight, prominently displayed on the screen in front of every seat, saying that those who wished to pray must do so while sitting in their seat. This was obviously for those on the flight who were Muslims, and who are expected to pray five times a day, kneeling on their prayer mat.

We thought how sad it was that while Muslims had to be told to pray in their seats, we would never see such a rule displayed in a western airline. Muslims pray because they are told to do so, but we Christians have the privilege of praying at any time, and are told to “pray without ceasing.” (See if you can find this verse in your Bible.) Of course, there are times when we cannot kneel down to pray, but it is good always to be in an attitude of prayer, and to be ready to turn to the Lord at any time, either to thank Him, or to ask for help. It is also good to be like Daniel, who had a definite time every day when he prayed, and thanked the Lord.

Prayer expresses our dependence on the Lord, and brings His power into our lives.