THE KING’S BUSINESS
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the exposure of their own so much boasted religion. The Pharisees, although silenced, were not satisfied. Indeed they were more bitter in their hate than ever. They now determined on His death (cf. Matt. 12:14). Friday, November S. Luke 6:12-19. Luke tells us Jesus chose the twelve after a night spent in prayer. It is one of the characteristics of Luke’s writings that he again and again dwells on Jesus’ prayerful ness. This doubtless arises from the fact that Luke presents Jesus'especially as the “Son of Man.” What a lesson it is to us of the need of much prayer, that Jesus should spend a whole night in prayer before undertaking to choose the twelve. There are those in our day who fancy that they have reached such an altitude of spiritual at tainment that no long periods of prayer are necessary, they simply ask and “take by faith” at once. Have these people gotten beyond their Lord? Have they attained some height of spiritual perfection that He did not know? To ask the question is to answer it. Happy is the man who has learned to be as his Lord and to spend whole nights waiting upon God. There was great diversity among those that Jesus chose, diversity in temperament, previous history, and native ability. Taken together they give us an impressive illustration of the different types of men Jesus can use for His work. Matthew is the only evangelist who in his list of Apostles records the fact that he himself belonged to the despised class of publicans. Luke here calls him Matthew. When he spoke of him a few verses back as a publican he calls him by his old name, Levi. In all three lists Judas Iscariot is named last, and his disgrace as “the traitor” is noted in each. The Apostles are grouped in twos in all the lists. The method of grouping followed by each evan gelist is worthy of study. The most difficult question that arises in regard to the choos ing and sending of the twelve is why Jesus chose and sent out Judas Iscariot. It seems hardly sufficient to answer that it had been predicted-in the Old Testament that one of
His immediate circle would betray Him (Ps. 41:9; 55:12-14), and that, therefore, Jesus chose Judas, whom He knew to be a devil (John 6:70, 71), in order to fulfill this prophecy. The simplest and most nat ural explanation seems to be that Judas'had qualities that would have admirably fitted him for a place in the apostolic company and a leader in the church, if they had been sanctified. Grace gave him the great oppor tunity, but he hardened his heart and brought upon himself the great condemna tion and infamy. When Jesus came down from the mountain with the newly chosen twelve, opportunity was at once at hand to give them an impressive illustration of the work to which He had called them. There were multitudes there t o ’be taught and "healed and delivered from Satan’s power. He was full of power after His night of prayer. “Power came forth from Him, and healed them all” (A. R. V.). Saturday, November 6. Luke 6:20-26. The sermon here recorded is usually taken to be merely another report of the sermon recorded in Matthew (Chs. 5, 6 and 7), that is, the Sermon on the Mount, but a careful reading of the two accounts shows that this is a mistake. That was the Sermon on the Mount, this is the sermon "in the Plain" (v* 17). Naturally the two sermons are much in, common, but there are also wide divergencies between the two. Our Lord JeSus, like all great teachers, repeated the same essential truths over and over again, but He varied the method of presentation and brought in different shades of meaning on different occasions. In verses 20-23 we have words of comfort and encouragement to the poor and persecuted. Jesus pro nounced. the poor the superlatively happy. Their poverty would make them discon tented with this world and ready to listen to the truth about another state of things. So it is to the poor that the Gospel is preached, and most of those who really; ac cept it belong to that class (Matt. 11:5; Luke 4:18; Isaiah 66:2; 1 Cor. 1:26). It is very hard for a rich man to enter the
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