Loss: Its Cause, Effect, and Cure
LOSS: ITS CAUSE, EFFECT, AND CURE
DAVID recovered all. The very words indicate loss. As we have said before, we have all suffered losses of many kinds. Even if we lose old chappals we are sorry for a few days. Sometimes the doubt loses an old shirt with many holes in it, but even then we feel sad and demand that old shirt back. As human beings, we are much concerned with material things. Bul are we as concerned about our spiritual losses? Remember, every second that we spend without the Lord Jesus Christ is an eternal loss.
Many years ago I met a grey-haired, almost baldheaded old man. When I questioned him, ‘Have you experienced God's salvation?’ he began to argue with me. Fe thought I knew nothing about the world, and whatever I said to him, he made fun of. He seemed to he thinking: “He's just a boy. How can he help me?’
; After many months, I met the old man again. He came to me with tears and said: 'Brother, do you recognise me?' I said, 'Yes, so many months ago you came to such and such a place.’ Then he told me, 'After you left me, I became restless and even though I tried to forget your words I could not.' He had been compelled by the Holy Spirit to read the verses I had given him. Then he said: 'T discovered my position, how I was living in darkness, and how the I.word Jesus Christ would forgive my sins when I accepted Him as my personal Saviour.’ Then he began to weep and said: 'My life for sixty years has been wasted. Now I want to be used of Him. I have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ.’ He kept saying again and again, 'My life has been wasted and the best years of my life are gone. Now, I want to spend the remaining few days to please my Lord.
Do you know that your life is nothing but wasted in the eyes of God unless your sins are forgiven? In I Joel 1:4 we read of four kinds of insects which eat away the crops of the farmer, — palmerworm, the locusts, the cankerworm and the caterpillar. Sometimes the farmers with great hope work very hard day and night to fill the land and sow the seed. The seed comes up but when the time comes for reaping the harvest, they find that something has come in and destroyed the crops. Maybe one part of the crop is eaten away by the I palmerworm, and another part of the field by the locust, and a third part by the cankerworm, and the fourth part by the caterpillar. How much is left? Nothing!
All is gone! What does God say? 'Oh ve sinners, why do you waste your life?’ Your life is like that field which is being eaten away by the palmerworm, cankerworm, locust and caterpillar.
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When we were children we had many bad habits. In our stubbornness we kept on grieving our parents, doing many wrong things, and wasting our time, but afterwards we learned our mistake. Then we said, 'If I had worked harder, I would not have failed in the exams,’ As we grew older, we became slaves to the lusts of youth and by all those lustful desires we wasted the best years of life. Many young people when corrected and instructed by their parents and teachers will reply, 'What do you know? You do not know what life is! You are too old to understand. You don't even know how to use a cake of soap. You old Daddy, you wipe your face on the cloth that you wear, but we are university students. See this nice cake of scented soap, and this nice towel to wipe the face with! How can your teach me anything?’
That is how many of us in our youth have wasted our time, money and energy. When we had a wealth of strength and opportunity, we live a life of shame. Then the time came when we began to earn money. By unfair means we earned and saved money for the love of money, and we became so proud, We said, 'How clever I am. In a short time I have gathered so much money. When I retire, I will buy a piece of land and build a house with many rooms and live a life of comfort and pleasure and ease with my children and grandchildren around me.'
But old age will come, and your children will leave you one by one. Your teeth also will fall out. Your * money will go to doctors. Then you will weep and say: 'My life has been wasted for these forty years. My life has been wasted and is gone. My years have been eaten by palmerworms, locusts, caterpillars and cankerworms, I
Indeed, this may be your condition today. You are conscious that your life has been wasted and is being wasted. Be of good cheer. There is hope even for you. You can recover every loss. However great your loss may be and however humbling, still your loss can be recovered. Your life can be abundantly fruitful, and every minute you spend will yield everlasting fruit. That is why our Lord Jesus Christ came into this world. In John 15:5, He says: 'l am the vine and you are the branches. It is by abiding in the Lord Jesus Christ that we may bring forth abiding fruit. Every past loss of any number of years, will be compensated. That is the wonderful miracle of salvation. Even though we have wasted our life in so many sinful and shameful ways, yet, by coming in to the Lord Jesus Christ, and by being joined to Him, we may become abundantly fruitful.
Sometimes unexpected losses come to us. We read in 2 Kings 4:38 that suddenly there was a great famine. There was no grain anywhere, because there was no rain. There was great barrenness and no crops and the people had to go here and there to gather something for food. They had no rice, wheat or vegetables. They lived upon herbs. Even in these days, though we may see grand buildings being built up in the cities, and new and wide roads being constructed, and very big colleges being opened, and all kinds of new things, because of which we may say that we are living in a very grand world, yet in the eyes of the Lord, it is only a barren void. The Bible calls the world a desert and a horrible wilderness. One day all the old things will be removed and burnt up.
We read in 2 Kings 4 that the people, because of the famine, had to go into the jungle to gather herbs as they had no grain or proper food. They were living 7 upon herbs. The very same condition exists even now in the world. On the one hand, people are boasting of worldly education, wealth and advancement. On the other hand, they are rotting in filth and defilement in sinful places. How much time they spend in cinemas and evil places. I flow much time they spend reading I filthy magazines, which they carry about with them.
I have been touring in many different parts of the world for forty-three years and have met people in trains, buses, aeroplanes and ships. They were my fellow passengers and men of education and position. I have watched these people, both men and women, and have noticed that they carry with them the most filthy books, magazines and novels, and for hours on end keep reading these books. This only goes to prove how evil this world is.
When these men, in 2 Kings 4:39, went into the jungle to gather herbs, they saw some wild vines. They thought that these would be very nice and tasty for I food, so they gathered them and put them into a big i pot. They were misled by the colour of the leaves and by the hope that they were good for food. ' We have found something wonderful. We are going to have a I nice meal,’ they said as they cooked it. But, when the food was being served and they began to eat, some wise man discovered something wrong with the food. So he cried, ‘O man of God, there is death in the pot.'
Maybe he noticed by the taste or by the smell of that food that it was deadly poisonous. Some were just. beginning to eat, and others had even put the food into their mouths, but they all stopped eating as if they were; paralyzed. Their hands refused to go to their mouths. Why? Because they had been told that there was death in the pot! We are told that these men were good people ‘ and servants of God, but they had no understanding of herbs and that is why they had gathered this vine.
Unknowingly, with their own hands, they had put death into their pot. That is how men and women, though many of them are good people, are bringing death into their families. There are fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, children, sisters or brothers, who for lack of understanding, are bringing death into their i homes and lives. Wherever they go, even though they do not realize it, they are causing their children to eat death unknowingly.
Those who are not born again are like that. They do not know how death enters their hearts and families, and they think that they are enjoying life. They think that they are living a life of pleasure. O you foolish men! O you foolish women! You do not know that you are carrying death with you wherever you go. Maybe through your words or conversation or through your habits, you are bringing death to others. Only by divine light can you change your condition. God's Word says ‘The wages of sin is death.’ Even one sin is enough to cause spiritual death.
There are some poisons which are very deceptive. Even a very little drop is sufficient to cause death and many have died by such means. So it is with a sinful thought, or word or deed. By these we eat and drink deadly poison. In the Bible story we say that those servants of God were very happily going to eat that food, but when they were told by somebody that there I was death in the pot, they very wisely, instead of going I to doctors or physicians, went to the man of God. They: could have said: 'Let us go to Jerusalem for a specialist.’ But they were wise men and they knew no specialist or doctor could save them from death. So they went to the man of God and said: ‘Oh, man of God, there is death in the pot, we are about to die because we have eaten poison. Please help us now. In a few minutes we are going to die.
You are going to learn that same lesson one day. You have wasted your life laughing and joking and yet you are saying; ‘We are living good lives. We are getting the best out of our lives.' But a day is coming when you will see that you are in danger of death, and not only you but your children and family as well —all of you are only fit for hell. By that time nobody will be able to save you.
The wise men in the story, however, very wisely went to the man of God (verse 41). At his command they brought some flour and he put it into the pot, and the effect of the poison was taken away. The Lord Jesus Christ said, 'I am the Bread of Life, and by eating Me ye shall live forever.’ This is the only Bread that can take away the poison in your life caused by sin.
Now those people were hungry. No doubt they had 4 been saved from the harm caused by the poison, but how could their hunger be satisfied? They were wondering: ‘How can we get food to satisfy our hunger?’ Then there came a man who brought to the man of God twenty loaves of barley bread and the prophet said, 'You serve the people’ (verse 43). There were many men and only twenty loaves of bread. Those men were strong and hungry, and there were only twenty loaves to be divided among them.
I have seen in Punjab, men eating about eighteen chuppatis each and here we find only twenty barley loaves for a hundred people or more. So naturally the servitor said, ‘low can twenty loaves satisfy their hunger?! The man of God said, 'Give the people that ‘ they may eat, for thus said the Lord, They shall eat and leave thereof.’ So, they ate and ate till they could not cat any more; they were full up to the throat, but still much was left over.
There are those today who are trying to satisfy their \ hunger by worldly means. They spend much and eat much. They clothe themselves with fine and costly clothes, changing many times a day and every day, and every month buying new clothes. I
Are they satisfied? There are some people who have I
many things to eat for breakfast, yet when you ask I them, ‘Are you satisfied?’ they say ‘no,’ even though they have spent so much money and have eaten so well. They have been eating and drinking death, and they will die without hope. But those who have eaten the Bread of Life, are free from every poison, and are satisfied with a small quantity and with whatever God gives. Their hearts are full of worship and thanks giving and praise to God. They have recovered the I loss caused by drinking poison,
Where is a poison that affects your stomach, nerves and brain. It works very slowly. So it is with sin! By I living, in sin you are eating and drinking poison every: day and are ruining your life. Whatever you have will be wasted and ruined and you will end your life in the same condition and will go away from this world with I nothing but defeat, shame and reproach. So we beseech you this day to eat the Bread of Life by faith. It will: take away the effects of the poison of sin in your nature that you may begin to recover every loss. [t will make you eternally wise, eternally rich, eternally strong and eternally satisfied and every past loss will be fully recovered,
‘David recovered all !" Similarly, all the damage of the loss caused by folly, sin and defilement can be recovered, Only vat the Bread of Life from the hands of Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is greater than, Elisha, greater than all prophets and all other men. He offers to you this Bread of Life today,
Chapter 7