Solomon gives an example from nature to teach the discipline of living beneath your means and managing God-given resources according to the seasons of life. Stop being lazy with the time, talent and treasure that God has entrusted to you. Even the ant knows to save a surplus to get through the dry season and to gather during the harvest. Live on less than you make. Work with wisdom and diligence. Remember God’s ownership and your stewardship.
After a rich young ruler came to Jesus asking what good thing he must do to have eternal life, the Lord told him to sell his possessions, give them to the poor and come follow Him. But the young man went away sorrowful, for he was very wealthy. As the rich young ruler walked away, Jesus told His disciples that it was hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom. He then used a greater to lesser hyperbole to illustrate the problem. The camel represents the rich man, oversized and burdened with a load, while the eye of a needle represents the narrow gate that leads to the kingdom of God. Some have suggested that the “eye of the needle” referred to the small, narrow door within a city gate used for foot passengers, which even a man would need to bow low to enter. However, the metaphor still holds true. A large camel cannot enter through a small door nor a needle’s eye. It would need to shrink to enter either.
Riches have a way of owning us, rather than us owning them. To rely on worldly wealth, rather than God’s provision is idolatry. The rich young ruler who claimed to be a keeper of the commandments had actually failed to keep the first, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
Why is there suffering in God’s creation? Humanity has rebelled and chosen its own way. And the whole world has fallen under sin’s sway. Sin begins as an attitude of self-will that wants its own way, rather than God’s way. So, sin is an offense against God, but it is also harmful to the one sinning. A father may tell his toddler not to touch the hot stove, but when the toddler touches it anyway, the father need not punish. The blistered hand is punishment enough. Yet, the day of judgment is coming when all sinners will be judged. Until then, sin itself is already at work in the sinner. For it entraps and entangles, enslaving and deluding, slowly squeezing the life out of the sinner hypnotized by its stare and strangled by its coils. Thank God there is a Savior, One who came to break the bonds of sin and set us free! Thank God for Jesus who not only releases us from sin’s snare, but also adopts us into the Father’s family. Those who have received Christ as Savior and Lord are no longer entrapped and caught in the cords of sin.
Just as Jacob had wrestled God on the eve of his return to the promised land, so Moses had an encounter with God on the eve of his return to Egypt. While Jacob’s encounter left him walking with a limp for the rest of his life, Moses was at risk of death in his meeting with God. Apparently, Moses had failed to circumcise his son. This was the mark of the covenant that God had given to Abraham. And Moses had been negligent to keep it. So, in this terrifying encounter with God, Zipporah, Moses’ wife, ascertained the offense and performed the circumcision herself. When she had cut away her son’s foreskin with a sharp stone, God released Moses and let him go. Before Moses could lead the household of God, he needed to get his own house in order.
This was Christ’s response to the disciples when they asked why they had been unable to cast the demon out from the epileptic boy. He told them it was because of their unbelief. They lacked faith in God’s power to heal. Yet, Christ immediately taught them a principle of faith to avoid any possible misunderstanding. He wanted them to stop doubting and believe. They didn’t need faith the size of a mountain, but faith the size of a mustard seed, a seed so small as to make it difficult to see. He used a hyperbole of lesser to greater to illustrate this principle. The phrase “as a mustard seed” shows His use of simile to introduce the lesser (“mustard seed”) to greater (“mountain”) hyperbole. The apostle Paul knew this teaching from Jesus and used it in his list of hyperboles: “If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2). It is not the size of your faith, but that you have stopped doubting and started believing. In other words, it is not GREAT faith in God, but faith in a GREAT God. Do you have faith as a mustard seed?
Lose to win? Jesus gave this paradoxical teaching after rebuking Peter for his insistence that Jesus should not suffer, die and be raised as He predicted. Jesus warned Peter and His disciples that if they tried in their own wisdom and strength to preserve their lives, they would instead be lost. But if they would surrender their lives to Christ, depending on Him for life, they would be saved. This same life choice is set before us. If you would choose to avoid the persecutions and troubles that the world will throw at you for following Christ, then be aware that you are choosing to gain the world at the expense of your own soul. Yet, if you would choose to follow Christ and be willing to suffer with Him for the sake of the gospel, you will find the very life you desire and more.
Jacob, who was called Israel, spoke a word over each of his sons from his death bed. He bestowed a double portion to Joseph, giving his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, equal standing to his other sons. And so, when the twelve tribes of Israel move out of Egypt 400 years later, two of the twelve tribes are called Ephraim and Manasseh. The last words of Jacob are explanatory and prophetic. They explain the origin of the twelve tribes of Israel, and they predict the coming of the Messiah to the tribe of Judah (Gen. 49:8-12). Genesis is a book of beginnings. It describes the creation and the fall of humanity. It begins the story of God’s rescue.
Christ was sent first as Shepherd to the lost sheep of Israel and then as Redeemer for the whole world. As the apostle Paul wrote, “Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers” (Rom.15:8). Jesus died on the cross and was raised, so that both believing Jews and Gentiles might be saved. Yet, His earthly ministry was entirely focused in Israel. However, when a Roman centurion or even a Canaanite mother asked for help, Jesus answered them according to their faith. So, the demon-possessed daughter of a Canaanite woman was healed. After Christ’s resurrection, He commissioned His disciples to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19). The good news was given first to the Jew, but then was to be carried to all the peoples of the world by Christ’s disciples. We are those who are still called to carry out the Great Commission of our Redeemer. As the Father sent the Son, so the Son sends us (John 20:21).
Where have you been sent?
Those who declare God dead are themselves dead in their trespasses and sins. Having denied knowledge of God, they think themselves wise and show themselves fools. For if God were dead, there would be no mind to know it, nor mouth to speak of it. God is not only the Creator of all, He is the Sustainer of all. He is not the absentee clockmaker, winding up the universe and walking away. No. He is the eternally present One, active and always at work in the creation He has made. He still hears when we pray. He still speaks when we listen. He never sleeps, for He has no need of rest. He never leaves nor forsakes us, for He always keeps those He has saved through the blood of His Son. Our Lord lives! Blessed be His Name!
I don’t know what you believe about heaven and hell, but Jesus taught that they were real places of eternal existence. In this parable of Jesus, He compared the kingdom of heaven to a fishing net that caught both good and bad fish. The good fish represented those who truly believed in Christ as Lord. And the bad represented those who were hypocrites.
The kingdom of heaven is to be populated by those who have made Christ king. However, there are those who pay lip service to Jesus outwardly, yet inwardly their hearts remain unchanged. They still have “self” on the throne. They have not made Christ the Lord of their lives. They are hypocrites. As the gospel “dragnet” gathers people into the church, both the saved and the hypocrite are present. Yet, at the “end of the age” (Matt.13:49), they will be separated. The “just” to everlasting life and the “wicked” to a place of everlasting torment called Hell.
This is why we must continually preach the gospel to the church. For we do not know who there is among us that has yet to truly confess Christ as King. And this is why each of us must examine our own hearts to be sure that we have truly submitted our lives to Jesus. Have you confessed Jesus as Lord and believed that God raised Him from the dead? Are you truly among the redeemed? The end of the age is coming. Are you ready?