I would like to read with you
three verses that are found in the first chapter of the Gospel
of Mark. These are verses 32 to 34. In
the evening, after the setting of the sun, all the sick and
the demoniacs were brought to Jesus, and the whole city was
gathered before his door. He healed many people who had
various illnesses. He also hunted many demons. and he did not allow the devil
to speak because he knew him. This first chapter of the Gospel
of Mark is very interesting, and we can learn a lot from these
three verses that we have just read. First, we see that Jesus
used his time for the glory of God. In the morning, he was at
the synagogue where he healed a man with an impure spirit.
In the afternoon, on the Sabbath day, he was at Peter's, where
he healed Peter's mother. Now, in the evening, after the
setting of the sun, we read, he healed many sick and demoniacs,
and his verses tell us that the whole city was gathered before
his door. Jesus did not waste his time. He used it to the maximum in
the service of his Father. This leads me to ask the question,
what do you do with your time? Are you too busy with something
else to have time for God's things? When we invite people to come
to a place of worship, the answer is almost always the same. You
know, they say, I don't have time. You don't have time? Yet, you have exactly the same
number of hours in the day as the Lord Jesus. He, neither,
had only twenty-four hours in the day. The question is, what
do you do with your time? We know what the Lord did. He
used it to the maximum in the things of God. In general, there
are three things that take our time. First of all, there is
work. However, work is absolutely legitimate,
and not only that, work is absolutely necessary, and we must work to
earn our living. This is a biblical principle.
But work can become our master, so that we give it much more
time than we need. That is to say that we can become
obsessed with work. Work at every moment, and no
time for anything else. This is bad, because it is very
possible that work takes the place in our life that should
return to God. It is also the family that takes
time in our life. And again, this is a completely
legitimate thing, because we absolutely need to devote time
to our family. We do not have the right to abandon
our family, but we can let ourselves be dominated by our family. so
that we have more time for the things of God, and that is bad. Or, pleasure can take up too
much of our time. Pleasure, relaxation, we all
need it. But here again, we can become
far too attached to pleasure and give it much more time. Let
us pay attention to what we do with our time. Of the twenty-four
hours that we have in the day, we must absolutely devote them
to God. Life is short. It only lasts
seventy years, more or less. After that comes eternity. Jesus gives us an example of
how we must spend our time. Do you think too much of the
things of this world, and do you forget the eternity that
awaits you? The second thing that we see
in this passage is that Jesus does not allow himself to be
influenced by the acclamations of the world. We see in verse
32 that the whole city was gathered before his door. A lot, a lot
of people before the door of the Lord Jesus. Why? Because
he healed the sick, because he chased the demons, and that's
what people wanted. It is easy to have the acclamation
of the world when you do something that pleases them, and it is
dangerous for the person who is the object of this acclamation. We all love popularity, and in
itself it is not a bad thing. It is good to have friends who
love us, but remember this, that one day, You will have to appear alone
before God. The third thing that we notice
in this passage is that Jesus fulfills the plan of God. We
see this in verse 34. We are read, He also chases many
demons, and He does not allow the demons to speak, for they
know Him. Why did Jesus not allow the demons
to speak? The verse gives us the answer.
It is because he knew him. Humbly speaking, this would have
been reasonable and very effective if the demons had publicly declared
before the whole world that Jesus Christ was the only Son of God. But Jesus did not want this. Why? I give you two reasons. First, because his hour had not
yet come. He came into the world to do
a work, that is, the work of the expiation of the sin of men. In other words, he came to die
for men, and this was not yet the moment. We see in verse 44
that Jesus says the same thing to a leper that he has just healed. He says to him, keep yourself
from saying anything to anyone, but go and show to the sacrificer
and offer for your purification what Moses has prescribed. Then,
in chapter 8 of the Gospel of Mark, and in verse 29, we see
that Jesus asks his disciples, Who do you say I am? Peter answered
him, You are the Christ. Jesus strongly
recommended him not to say this of himself to anyone. It was not yet the time. Jesus
did not come to become a terrestrial king. He came to die. His goal
was to do the will of the Father and to redeem a people for God. But there may be a second reason
why Jesus did not want the demons to speak of him. It is because
the demons were impure spirits, and God does not need impure
spirits to do his work. God wants to use those who are
pure to do his will. He does not need others. If we
want to be used by God to do his work here in this world, and we must be careful to keep
ourselves pure so that we can be useful servants. All those
who confess the name of Christ do not necessarily belong to
Him. Demons can confess the name of
Christ, and certainly they do not belong to Him. What the Lord wants is that we
give Him the first place in our lives, that we follow the example
of the Lord, so that God and the things of God may take the
first place. Oh, how easy it is to let ourselves
be lost in the world and the things of the world! How easy
it is to let ourselves be drawn into things that may be legitimate,
such as work, family, and pleasure! But, following the example of
the Lord, we must devote ourselves entirely to Him. And then, at
that moment, we will have time for the things of God. From our
24-hour day, we will have time for prayer and reading the Bible. In our seven-day week, we will
have a day for the Lord. And we will not give the Lord's
Day to anything else. If everyone gave God the place
that belongs to Him, our churches would be too small to contain
everyone who would want to go there. Thus, I invite all those
who are listening to me today to look at their own lives, to
know if they give God the space and time to return there. It is important. It is the example that Heaven
gives us. It is our duty before God. We
are always very happy to receive letters from our listeners. If
you have a problem, or if you think that we can help you, write
to us and we will be very happy to answer you. Voici l'adresse
à laquelle vous devez écrire Echo de la vérité Boite postale
505 71322 Chalon-sur-Saône Ça s'écrit C-H-A-L-O-N France Je
vous répète cette adresse Echo de la vérité Boîte Postale 505 71322 Chalon-sur-Saône,
France J'ai des hommes aujourd'hui Jusque
par-delà les mers J'ai des hommes aujourd'hui Que la paule, notre
paule Ouvre la salle de parole I love you, my love.