the Fourth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 3 of 5
Matthew 13:44-58
The short parables of the treasure and the pearl underline two marvellous truths: the very great value attached by Christ to His Assembly, and paid by Him to acquire it — He sold all that He had, even to the giving up of His own life. In the second place, we see the joy that He finds in her. In v. 47 the Gospel net is thrown into the sea of the nations. The Lord had declared to His disciples that He would make them fishers of men. Here then are the servants for this work. But the fish are not all good, . . . nor are all those who are nominally Christians true believers! It is the Word which allows them to be distinguished. The good fish is recognised by its scales and its fins (Leviticus 11:9-11) and the true Christian by his moral armour, by his capacity to resist the penetration and the attraction of the current of this world.
Parallel with the treasure which the Lord found in His own (v. 44), v. 52 shows us the treasure which the disciple possesses in His Word. Do we all value it as the treasure from which we can bring forth "things new and old"?
Alas! this chapter ends like the preceding one with the unbelief of the multitudes. They only see in the Lord Jesus the "carpenter’s son" with the result that His grace could not be shown towards them.
