King James Bible Study – “And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” – Mark 8:34
Date: Thursday, November 07, 2019
Chapters: Matthew 25
Message: Behold, What Christ Has Done
Hello My Friend,
Charles Spurgeon, said this, “He keeps his promise a thousand times, and yet the next trial makes us doubt him. He never faileth; he is never a dry well; he is never as a setting sun, a passing meteor, or a melting vapour; and yet we are as continually vexed with anxieties,…”Behold,” is a word intended to excite admiration. Here, indeed, we have a theme for marvelling. Heaven and earth may well be astonished that rebels should obtain so great a nearness to the heart of infinite love as to be written upon the palms of his hands. “I have graven thee.”It does not say, “Thy name.” The name is there, but that is not all: “I have graven thee.” See the fulness of this! I have graven thy person, thine image, thy case, thy circumstances, thy sins, thy temptations, thy weaknesses, thy wants, thy works; I have graven thee, everything about thee, all that concerns thee; I have put thee altogether there. Wilt thou ever say again that thy God hath forsaken thee when he has graven thee upon his own palms?” in reference to this Scripture, “But Zion said, The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.” – Isaiah 49:14-16.
“Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands;” Behold; To fix the eyes upon; to see with attention; to observe with care; to direct or fix the mind. “Behold”, is a very powerful action, our Lord, Jesus Christ fixes His eyes upon each and every single one of His own. He watches, observes, and fixes His mind on our cares, our needs, our desires, and most of all, our soul. Christ died to save every soul, whether or not we choose to believe that, well, that is our freewill to do so, that still does not change the fact that He did. And it does not matter if one dies having outright rejected Christ, having been misled by their religion, or never knew Him out of ignorance, Christ will deny them, and they will be cast into hell. Does that sound cruel? It is not, it is God’s Law, He chose to make one Law for salvation, only those who receive His Son can be saved. Once we receive Christ, we are His forever, our names are not only engraved in the palms of His hands, He takes hold of them and never lets us go. “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one.” – John 10:38-30.
It is really said when you stop and think about all the people who die in their religion, and ended up in hell because while they knew of Jesus Christ, and even believed in the Gospel, they never accepted Him as their Saviour. We cannot pray someone into salvation, each person must acknowledge, and receive Him themselves. The time was coming, Jesus knew that the prophecies concerning His betrayal, capture, and crucifixion were about to come to pass. That did not stop Him from teaching as many as He could about the Gospel before that would happen. To explain how just knowing who Christ is does not save us, Jesus gives a parable about ten virgins awaiting their grooms return so they could get married.
“Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.” – Matthew 25:1-2,6-13.
“Behold, the bridegroom cometh;” Jesus only fixes His eyes and attention on those who are ready and prepared for Him when He comes for them. The foolish are compared to those who know the Gospel, but never received Him themselves. Notice, that it just says virgins, that means, this includes men and women, as His people are His bride (Revelation 22:17). “Lord, Lord, open to us.” The second we take our last breath in our body, our soul stands before Christ, and if we have not received Him before our last breath, the door into the kingdom of heaven will be shut, never to be opened again. “for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.” And when He does return, first, the body of every single saved person will resurrect, their souls in heaven will rejoin their new glorified body, that means it will be immortal, and without one ounce of a remnant of sin. Years later, at Judgment Day, the body of every unsaved person will resurrect, their souls in hell will rejoin their body and stand before Christ in judgment, each and every one of them will be cast into the lake of fire, along with Satan, and all his minions. Yes, this sounds horrible, but they knew, they were told what would happen to them, but they rejected Christ (Revelation 21:6-8). Ignorance does not save us. “And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.” – Acts 17:30-31.
“but now commandeth all men every where to repent:” This is not just for the Jews, the Catholics, the Protestants, the Muslims, the Atheists, this is for all. We must all repent, turn our minds away from believing that our own works or goodness can save us, and turn them to believing that Christ’s work is what saves us. To further explain this further, Jesus speaks another parable, about three servants given money to
“For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey. After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” – Matthew 25:14-15,19-21,24-30.
“and delivered unto them his goods.” The goods or the money is the Gospel, which is the sinless death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ to save all who believe in and receive Him. “to every man according to his several ability;”Just think about this for a second, Jesus, who chooses us through our faith in Him alone, gives us talents to be used for furthering the Gospel. He never gives us more than we can handle, all the while giving us the ability to do what He has called us to do (I Corinthians 10:13). “Thou wicked and slothful servant,” So what exactly was this mans fault? He took the Gospel, fully knowing the value of it, and buried it, never telling anyone else, and never using his talent once to show Christ in him. Unprofitable servants, that is what Jesus calls those who receive the Gospel, but never doing anything else with it. We who are saved will stand before Christ, and be held accountable for those whom we never showed Him to the world. And to explain this further, Jesus straight out tells them when He returns, He will reign over all, and all will stand before Him in judgment.
“When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.” – Matthew 25:31-34,41,46.
“but the righteous into life eternal.” So, who exactly are the righteous? Those who sincerely accepted Jesus Christ as their Saviour. Okay, here is the thing, Jesus will not be mocked, He knows when someone calls on Him without a true heart. For example, a person in prison, they change their ways while serving their time to lessen their sentence, they find their way to the church service, receiving Christ in vain. Then once they get out, they go right back to their wicked ways, hiding the Gospel, never doing one thing to acknowledge what Christ has done for them, nor ever telling one soul about Him. This is not to say that no one in prison gets saved, many do, in fact, but receiving Christ is vain is an insult to Christ, and anyone who does will not be saved. “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Therefore whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed.” – I Corinthians 5:1-2,10-11.
Today’s Prayer: God, Thank You for giving me life, for the life You have given me, and for eternal life through Your Son, Jesus Christ. I use to be one of those who weighed out all my good and bad and used that to determine whether or not I would go to heaven. I admit that I never thought I would because I could never keep myself from doing bad. Then one day, You came to me, You did not force me, You guided me, You reminds me that Jesus loves me and does not want me to suffer anymore, and then You showed me the way, the truth, and the life. Thank you, I not only celebrate one birth, I celebrate two, having been born with Your Spirit upon my soul. I have chosen today to stand by You, to minister to You however and wherever you need me. When things are going great, when I am being persecuted, when I feel all alone, and it seems like life is falling apart, I will stand by You. Nothing gives me more comfort, hope, or peace than when I remind myself that You are with me, and even when I fall, You will pick me back up because You never leave nor forsake me. And although I know my works do not save me, I know that my faith and acceptance of Your Son in my life does. I pray this in your name, Jesus. Amen.
God Bless You, I am praying for you,
Christina
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