John 7

John 7:5

Believe The Best Even his brethren did not believe on him.—John 7:5.Don’t you like to think of Jesus growing up as a boy in His home at Nazareth and doing everyday things like any other child? We know that He worked as a carpenter with His father Joseph, and I am sure He helped His mother also in every way He could. He lived just as the other children in Nazareth lived, and did what they did, ate the same food, and played the same games. Those around Him did not know any great difference between Him and other children. They must have noticed that He was a good child, but to them He was only Joseph the carpenter’s little son Jesus.All the Jews looked forward to the coming of the Messiah. They believed that one day a Savior would come to deliver the Jewish nation.

They expected Him to come with pomp and power and defeat all their enemies; but they never dreamed that the Savior was among them, and that He was Joseph’s little son.When He grew up and went out on His mission to save the world “even his brethren did not believe on him.” How hard that must have been for Him!When He gathered His disciples round Him and ordained twelve of them to be apostles, to be with Him and to preach and heal, there were none of His own brothers among them, nor were there any among the multitudes who followed Him. When they did come near Him it was to try to stop Him, because they said, “He is beside himself”—that is, “He is mad”— and they tried to get Him to come away home with them.What must they have felt when Christ died and rose again and ascended into Heaven? “He was with us all these years, and we never knew Him, we would not believe on Him.” Then they believed, but too late.

How much easier His work would have been if His own friends had not been so distrustful of Him, and how much more He could have done for them if they had only believed!James, the brother of our Lord, was afterwards the head of the Church in Jerusalem. There is a tradition that he prayed so much that his knees grew hard as those of a camel with kneeling on them. He believed so well then that he died a martyr; but he must always have felt, “Why did I not believe in Him sooner?”Boys and girls, there is a wonderful power in belief. You know yourselves how much easier it is to do anything for those who believe in your power to do it. Their belief seems actually to give you the power.It is the same with conduct. It is much easier to be good with those who treat you as good than with those who are always looking for faults and expecting you to do wrong.If you know a boy at school who has done a mean thing, and is in disgrace with everybody, don’t take it for granted that he will always be like that.

Give him a chance to redeem his character. You will likely find him very anxious to do so.

Trust him and you may make him a man.In a certain palace in Rome there lived some years ago a famous writer who had a servant to whom he entrusted the care and management of the whole household. This servant was what is known in Italy as a major-domo—that is to say, he was a sort of man cook-housekeeper. He got a certain sum every month on which to run the house, and he got his own salary besides. For a time all went smoothly. The man seemed devoted to his master. But one day the master happened to notice that the accounts, which were brought to him month by month for inspection, did not tally. Some money was not accounted for. It was merely missing.

The master thought there must be a mistake and he gave the major-domo the benefit of the doubt; but month after month the same thing happened, and at last he was forced to believe that the man whom he had trusted was cheating him.What do you think he did?He spread out the proofs of the man’s guilt on his desk; and then rang the bell. When the man appeared he saw at once from the spread-out papers and the master’s serious face that his guilt had been discovered. For some minutes there was silence in the room. Then the master spoke, and this is what he said: “I am very grieved to find that for some months past you have been cheating me. I can only assume that the salary I have been paying you is not sufficient. From today it is doubled.”That was all.

The servant could not speak—how could he? But he fell on his knees before that generous master, and sobbed till he was bidden to rise.

He left that room not only a better man, but a good man for the rest of his life.That good master’s way was Christ’s way. It was a better way than the way of Christ’s brethren. Boys and girls, will you make it your way? If you do, you will be happy. And the world too will be a happier world because you have determined to believe in the best that is in your fellow-men.

John 7:24

Look Beneath The Surface Judge not according to appearance.—John 7:24.Late one evening a traveler came to an American inn. “I can’t let you in here,” said the innkeeper. “You are suffering from some disease and I don’t want my family to catch it. Your face is very badly marked.” “My face!” exclaimed the traveler. “I see how it is your mistake has arisen. I am a botanist, and I have been gathering rare plants all day long in the swamp yonder, and the mosquitoes have bitten me, and caused my skin to turn red and swollen.”The innkeeper begged pardon, and invited the great botanist, who presented his card, into the house.Not very long ago, a handsome well-dressed lady with large brown eyes was walking along a street pavement in London. She walked arm-in-arm with a friend. A milkman on his rounds had left one of his pitchers on the pavement. The friend stepped aside, but the lady stumbled over the pitcher, with the result that it was upset and the milk was spilt.

The milkman was very angry. The fact that the culprit was well- dressed seemed to make him all the angrier. “What do you mean kicking over my pitcher?” he shouted. “I’m sorry,” she answered. “I did not mean it.

I am blind.” “Blind,” said he, looking at her eyes, “tell that to the first fool you meet; pay my milk.” She did pay it.The man could not have told that she was blind, for her eyes seemed as bright as yours are this morning; but don’t you think it was a pity that he judged so hastily, and that he did not give even a moment’s consideration to what the lady said?The innkeeper and the milkman both made the same mistake. They judged by appearance, and appearance led them astray.Appearance is just the outside of anything, or how things look to our eyes. With boys and girls at school, life itself is often pretty much a surface thing—“rare fun,” as some of you would describe it. All the same, most of you feel that it is a good thing to get below the surface occasionally. Take a rather common case. A boy in your class—one who, you say, is “ripping good fun”—often walks home with you, and you feel rather proud of this.

He asks you to go fishing with him one Saturday. You get a shock as he reveals himself to you.

He says things you wish to forget, but cannot. Had your mother known everything she would have said, “Don’t walk any more with that boy.” And girls, there is one old lady who, when she looks back on her school life, remembers with thankfulness that she had as a friend a quaint, plainly-dressed girl whom all the “smart” pupils seemed to avoid. To that girl she now feels that she owes the greater part of her education.Once a girl got a present of a box containing what seemed a number of common stones. They had been gathered on the Rocky Mountains by a friend interested in geology. She would not believe that they were worth anything, so the little box and its contents were just pitched aside. Many years afterwards it appeared in a saleroom among other odds and ends.

A specialist in geology noticed it, spent nearly a whole forenoon examining the stones, and gave a big price for it when it was put up to auction. The girl judged by appearances, and lost by doing so.So it was when Jesus Christ was on earth.

When He spoke His wonderful words there were people who said, “How has this man learning?” “Is not this the carpenter?” Others looked deeper, and found in Him a Friend far above any they had ever known. He could sympathize with them in everything, their joys and sorrows alike. More than that, they recognized in Him a Savior from their sins.You may think that you cannot know Jesus as His disciples knew Him. His bodily presence is certainly gone from this world; but your New Testament tells you about Him, and the more often and more thoughtfully you read that wonderful book, the more living do its words become. Jesus Himself lives in its pages. But if in your reading of it you make no effort to get below the surface but just make up your mind that it is dull, you will miss having the comfort of His friendship when you are in difficulty.

His disciples saw in their Friend the Christ, the Son of the Living God. What a friend to have!