March 26
“The secret things belong unto the Lord our God” (Deut. 29:29).
All the things the Lord Jesus saw in the temple and among His people in Jerusalem as
described in Matthew 23:13, 15-23, He must have told His friends at Bethany. I can imagine
the Lord Jesus Christ with a very sad, heavy and burdened heart returning from Jerusalem to
Bethany that night, and before He scourged the temple, He told them that secret. As we
become co-workers with the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord reveals many secrets which He has
hidden from other (Matt. 13:17; Deut. 29:29).
In this way God’s people can enjoy partnership with the Lord Jesus Christ. If we are growing
spiritually, many things will be revealed to us before they happen. The Lord has warned us
through His prophets of coming events like earthquakes, famine etc., and again and again
before anything happens, the Lord gives us the privilege to prepare His people for the coming
judgment. Thus we enter into the hidden secrets of God’s heart. The fifth purpose of the Lord
Jesus in visiting Bethany was to share His secret and burden with those who had become His
co-workers.
March 25 | Daily Bread
March 25
“Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth” (1 Peter 2:22).
In Mark 11:11 we have the account of the fifth visit of the Lord Jesus to Bethany. After He
had seen the condition of the temple, our Lord came back to Bethany (v. 11). That day He
had seen what was happening in Jerusalem in the temple. Before He could pour out His wrath
upon them He turned back to Bethany perhaps to share His burden with those there. As in
Genesis 18:17-22 God appeared to Abraham before He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah,
saying, “How can I hide this great secret from my servant Abraham, because he is My friend.
At Jerusalem He had seen with His own eyes what was happening in the temple (Mark 11:17).
He had openly said that it had become a den of thieves. Such was the condition of the city.
As we begin to grow spiritually, we begin to know what it means to have partnership with the
Lord. As was the condition of the people in the day of Malachi 1:6,7, so it was then, and as
the Lord Jesus went about with His disciples, He could see the priests offering polluted
sacrifices (v. 8).
The Lord Jesus was found without sin, for He had no sin. He was perfectly blameless in
thought, word and deed. To foreshow His moral perfection, the people had to offer an animal
without blemish, and the priest was supposed to examine the animal before it was sacrificed.
Otherwise, there was no value in the sacrifice. God was foreshowing how for their own
salvation somebody had to be offered on their behalf without blemish.