Where is Your Faith??
Jesus calls them an evil and adulterous generation. The word adulterous is not to be taken literally; it means apostate or faithless. Behind it, there is a favourite Old Testament prophetic picture. The relationship between Israel and God was conceived of as a marriage bond with God the husband and Israel the bride. When therefore Israel was unfaithful and gave her love to other gods, the nation was said to be adulterous and to go whoring after strange gods.
Jesus says that the only sign which will be given to this nation is the sign of Jonah the prophet. Here we have a problem. Matthew says that the sign is that, as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. It is to be noted that these are not the words of Jesus, but the explanation of Matthew.
Here is a tremendous truth—Jesus is God’s sign, just as Jonah was God’s message to the Ninevites and Solomon God’s wisdom to the Queen of Sheba. The one real question in life is: ‘What is our reaction when we are confronted with God in Jesus Christ?
People whose constant pursuit has been pleasure may decide that they must stop; but they must find something else to do to fill up their time, or they will simply, through the very emptiness of their lives, drift back to their old pursuits. The lives of these people must not only be sterilized from evil; they must be nurtured to become productive and fruitful. It will always remain true that ‘Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.’ And if one kind of action is banished from life, another kind must be substituted for it, for life cannot remain empty.
To put it quite simply, the Church will most easily keep its converts when it gives them Christian work to do. Our aim is not the mere negative absence of evil action; it is the positive presence of work for Christ.
For all these reasons, true kinship is not always a matter of a flesh-and-blood relationship. It remains true that blood is a tie that nothing can break and that many people find their delight and their peace in the circle of their family. But it is also true that sometimes our nearest and dearest are the people who understand us least, and that we find our true fellowship with those who work for a common ideal and who share a common experience.
For all these reasons, true kinship is not always a matter of a flesh-and-blood relationship. It remains true that blood is a tie that nothing can break and that many people find their delight and their peace in the circle of their family. But it is also true that sometimes our nearest and dearest are the people who understand us least, and that we find our true fellowship with those who work for a common ideal and who share a common experience. This certainly is true—even if Christians find that those who should be closest to them are those who are most out of sympathy with them, there remains for them the fellowship of Jesus Christ and the friendship of all who love the Lord.