Young People’s Blog

“And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage” (Genesis 47:9).

In our verse for today, we find that Jacob readily told Pharaoh how old he was, but added some further comments too. He remarked that his days had been few, and that he had not lived to be as old as his fathers. This was true, for his father Isaac lived to be 180 years old, and his grandfather Abraham lived to be 175. However, Jacob’s life was not over yet.

More than this, Jacob describes his days as being evil. Why was that? It was because he had been a schemer and a deceiver much of his life, thinking that he had to get God’s blessing by his own efforts. As a result, he had a bad conscience much of his life, and also, his own sons had deceived him when they sold Joseph into Egypt. They had learned from their father how to lie and cheat.

All this is very sad, for Jacob loved the Lord, and really valued God’s blessing. But it took him a long time to realize that God could bless him without any of his own efforts. Jacob did not need to scheme, lie, and cheat in order to get God’s blessing.

“And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, How old art thou?” (Genesis 47:8).

This month the oldest known living land animal in the world had a birthday! I am writing this in December, 2022, and a very large tortoise turned 190 years old this month. He was born in 1832, in the Seychelles islands in the Indian Ocean, and gifted to the British governor of the island of St. Helena in 1882, when he was fifty years old. St. Helena is in the southern Atlantic Ocean, almost 2,000 miles west of the coast of Africa. He has lived there on the property of the governor’s home ever since. His name is Jonathan.

We are amazed that any living creature can live that long, but it is entirely possible that there are other tortoises who live in the wild who are even older. However, this is the oldest one that we are aware of.

When Pharaoh asked Jacob how old he was, Jacob was 130 years old. In many parts of the world, even today, it is not considered impolite to ask people how old they are. But tomorrow we will see what Jacob’s answer was.

“Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name” (John 12:27-28).

We are on holy ground when we consider these verses, for these words describe the most awful dilemma of all time. Here was the Son of God, as man, in absolute perfection in His person, facing the prospect of suffering for sin. He could request the Father to save Him from all that, but on the other hand, that is why He had come into the world. How could the dilemma be solved?

The Lord Jesus settles the matter with just four words in English—“Father, glorify Thy name.” Our Lord could have gone back to heaven without going to the cross, but would that have glorified the Father’s name? In one sense, He had glorified the Father in His pathway up to that point, but going back to heaven without going to the cross would have left the sin question unsettled, and left you and me in our sins. God would not have been glorified as to sin, and this was most important in the heart of the Lord Jesus. He would glorify the Father and go to the cross, whatever the cost.

“For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer” (1 Timothy 4:4-5).

When we consider what we are going to eat, those of us who grew up in western countries find some of the things people eat in other parts of the world a little unusual. Maybe we say, I could never eat that. I remember many years ago being offered sheep’s brains to eat. I was feeling sick that day, and did not feel like eating anything, but the brother in Christ who was with me said jokingly that I just pretended to be sick so that I did not have to eat sheep’s brains. You will remember that John the Baptist ate locusts, and I suppose you could fill your stomach up if you ate enough of them.

On the other hand, people in other lands sometimes think what we eat in North America is rather strange. Some people cannot imagine eating beef, for example, while others would never eat pork. So we all have our preferences.

But here, Paul tells us that if we receive our meat with thanksgiving, then it is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer. That simply means that God has said that it is all right for us to eat any kind of meat, if we receive it from Him and are thankful for it.

“One believeth that he may eat all things: another…eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him” (Romans 14:2-3).

Today there are many people who have chosen to eat “vegan” or “vegetarian.” Others feel free to eat meat and animal products. After the flood of Noah, God gave man the right to eat meat, as we find in Genesis 9:3—“Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you.” It does not appear that people ate meat before the flood of Noah.

There is sometimes a tendency for us to think that our way is the right way, and I have known people who did not eat meat try desperately to persuade other people not to eat meat. On the other hand, I have heard those who feel free to eat meat make fun of those who are vegan or vegetarian, for the diet they eat.

In our verses today, God warns us all not to do that. It really does not matter spiritually whether we eat meat or not, and the Lord wants us to respect one another, and go on happily together.

“Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord…for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh” (James 5:7-8).

The book of James is good for all of us to read, but it was written mainly for the Jews who had been saved, and were living in various parts of the Roman Empire. Because most of the Jews did not recognize the Lord Jesus as the Son of God, those Jews who were saved were often persecuted for their faith.

Here James encourages them to be patient, and to wait for the coming of the Lord. The persecution might continue, and might not stop until the Lord came and took those dear Jewish believers home. So it may be with us. We may not be persecuted as the Jews were in those days, but this world has rejected the Lord Jesus, and if we are faithful to Him, we will be rejected too. But “the coming of the Lord draweth nigh,” and then we will enjoy perfect peace forever. We can be patient, when all this is ahead of us.

“But the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patience of the Christ” (2 Thessalonians 3:5 JND).

When we talk about the Lord’s coming, we are sometimes told to be patient in waiting for Him to come. When we are going through a difficult world, it is quite normal for us to want the Lord to come and take us home. We will look at one of those verses tomorrow. But today we see a little different thought that perhaps we have not considered before.

Here in today’s verse it is the Apostle Paul’s wish that the hearts of the Thessalonian believers be directed into the love of God, and into the “patience of the Christ.” What does this mean? I would suggest that it means HE, our Lord Jesus Christ, is waiting for us, and is more anxious to have us with Him than we are to be with Him. If we are waiting patiently, He too is waiting patiently, for He wants us there with Him. How wonderful it is to see things from God’s side, and not only from our own point of view! We can want the Lord to come for selfish reasons, but God wants us to think of things from His side too, and to realize how much His beloved Son wants us to come and be with Him.

“They received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth” (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12).

This is a very serious verse, for it shows that those who hear the gospel today, and refuse it, will not have a “second chance” after the Lord comes and takes all true Christians home to be with Him. According to our verse today, God will send them “strong delusion,” which simply means that they will be deceived by Satan and believe a lie. Satan has a certain amount of power at his disposal, and he will use some “signs and lying wonders” to convince people of what he is saying. Having rejected the truth of the gospel, they will be allowed to believe these lies. The result will be that they will be forever lost, and eventually sent to hell. Again, how very solemn this is!

God has done everything possible to enable sinful men to be saved, but if they reject God’s offer of mercy, God has no other choice than to punish them for their sins. As Christians, let us be urgent in giving out the gospel, so that souls will not have this happen to them!

“The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold…sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb” (Psalm 19:9-10).

Back in early November we talked about honey, and saw that it represents the sweetness and enjoyment of natural things. God has provided these things for us, and it is not wrong to enjoy them from time to time.

However, there are some things that are sweeter than honey; that is, things that give us more enjoyment than natural things. When we enjoy natural pleasures (like going on a hike), there is happiness at the time, and then perhaps a pleasant memory afterwards. But they all come to an end, and are only for this life.

In our verse today, the psalmist shows us that the judgments (teachings) of the Lord are more to be desired than gold, and are sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. This is true, for the things of Christ are more precious to our souls than anything else, and the enjoyment of them lasts, not merely for time, but for eternity. A small amount of natural pleasure is good, but if we try to find our ultimate enjoyment in those things, we will be disappointed. Only Christ can fill our hearts.

“And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet savour” (Genesis 8:20-21).

Noah had just come out of the ark, because the flood was over, and he, his family, and all the animals in the ark had been safely preserved through it. Now they were to repopulate the earth, and to multiply on it.

Noah was grateful for what the Lord had done, and he was spiritually intelligent enough to realize that a sacrifice was appropriate. That sacrifice was a picture of the Lord Jesus, for Noah and his family could not have been preserved except for the grace of God. They too were sinners, yet God had worked in their hearts to honor Him, and to build that ark.

So today, you and I, as Christians, are beyond any judgment of God for our sins. The Lord Jesus wants us to remember Him in His death, and to recognize that it is only through His grace that we are saved.