THE KING’S BUSINESS
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Tuesday, February 9. Matthew 11:25-27.
brought them to repentance and to the ac ceptance of Jesus Christ as their Saviour and Lord, but they had not repented; on the contrary, they had closed their eyes ana hardened their hearts and that which was intended for their salvation became their condemnation. Christ accepted brings salva tion, pardon, sonship and eternal life, but Christ rejected brings greater condemnation and more appalling judgment and penalty (Heb. 10:28, 29). Their impenitence was utterly without excuse and Jesus upbraided them for it. The word translated “upbraid” is a very strong one. But we have more light .than Chorazin and Bethsaida. How must then our Lord regard those who do not repent among us? Sodom was a very guilty city, its vileness became the synonym of all that is most indescribably loathsome in vice, but the guilt of New York and Chi cago and London and of every other Ameri can and English city is greater than that ot Sodom, for we have rejected greater light than Sodom ever had. The amount of light given and rejected is the measure of the guilt of the nation and of the individual. Capernaum fancied that it would surely be exalted to heaven because of the great grace bestowed upon it, but Jesus said that this great grace rejected would drag it down to Hades. Our blessings as a nation will drag us down to Hades unless we repent. Jesus puts the rejection of Himself as the supreme sin and the one meriting heaviest condemna tion. He could not do this unless he had the consciousness that He was God. He is the supreme manifestation of truth and of God and the rejection of Him therefore is the final revelation of a heart wedded to darkness, error and sin. It is therefore the one supreme, decisive, final and damning sin (cf. John 3:18, 19). Our Lord’s pity for Chorazin and Bethsaida in their wickedness and doom did not cause Him to falter for one moment in the sternness of His rebuke and the full declaration of the awful judg ment to come upon them. It is not mercy and pity but grossest cruelty to gloss over guilt and to conceal impending doom.
Only three Verses, but what verses! We can only touch upon their immeasurable sig nificance. If we are to get God’s infinite wisdom, we must renounce our own finite wisdom (v. 25). The man who is full of his own wisdom cannot have God’s (cf, Isa. 5:21; 1 Cor. 1:18-27; Prov. 26:12), If we are to be wise with the true wisdom we must take our place as fools to be taught by the All-Wise and only truly Wise One (1 Cor. 3:18-20). Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and thanked God that this is so (Luke 10:21 R. V.). It is a tremendous statement of the authority committed to Jesus that we find in the 27th verse, but it is to be taken in the broadest, fullest and most absolute sense (cf. Matt. 28:18; John 3:35; 13:3; 17:2; Eph. 1:20-23; Phil. 2:10, 11; Heb. 2 :8, 10; Acts 10:36). God has actually committed the whole universe, celestial as well as terrestrial, into the hands of our Lord: what a wonderful and mighty Saviour we have! He is also a wise Saviour, for He thoroughly knows God. He alone and those to whom He wills to reveal Him do. How futile then to seek to know God by a study of philosophy or theosophy or comparative religions. Outside of the revelation that Jesus Christ makes of the Father, God is in deed, as the agnostic says He is, “the Un knowable.” But there is One who does know God and who is ready to give to any one who will believe in Him an understanding, that he also may know God (1 John 5:20). Wednesday, February 10.- Matthew 11:28-30. Only three verses again, but containing one of the most wonderful messages that ever fell from the lips of the Son of God, words of inexhaustible import and of peren nial application. As we ponder verse 28, we might well exclaim, “Never man spake like this man.” In this utterance' His Deity shines out bright and clear. What incred ible presumption or utter lunacy it would have been in Jesus to have said what He here says if He were mere man. This is
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