JE 14
June 14
Luke 10:17-20. The return of the seventy disciples.
In the first verse of this chapter it is recorded that the Lord sent out seventy disciples to preach. Now we hear of their return.
While they had been visiting the towns and villages, their Lord had been engaged in teaching at Jerusalem. We have heard to what trials he was exposed in that wicked city from the scoffs of his enemies. How great must have been the relief to his sorrowful spirit, when he found himself again in the midst of his attached followers! The messengers returned with joy. They rejoiced because the devils had been subject unto them through Christ's name. The Savior seems to have partaken of their joy when he uttered these mysterious words—"I beheld Satan like lightning fall from heaven." Could any sight be more suited to occasion joy to Satan's great enemy and conqueror?
When a cruel tyrant is slain, the captives in his dungeons are set free. An interesting account has been written of the destruction of the Inquisition at Madrid in 1809. The wicked men who ruled over that dreadful prison were slaughtered by the French soldiers. At the same time the dungeons were visited, and were found full of miserable captives. Those who had been for many years pining under the fear of death, were suddenly restored to the light of day, and to all the enjoyments of life. Great was the joy felt by the soldiers who wrought this great deliverance!
But who can conceive the joy that our Savior felt when he looked forward to the consequences of Satan's downfall! Already the people of God are delivered from his power. The day shall come when the old serpent will deceive the nations no more. At the end of the world he will be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, and "shall be tormented day and night forever." (Rev. 20:10.) This deliverance Jesus obtained for us by his own death.
Christ gave his disciples power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy. Did He mean literal serpents or spiritual serpents? Did He not mean both? The disciples were shielded from the attacks of all venomous creatures. In our Lord's parting charge he said to them—"These signs shall follow them that believe—they shall take up serpents." (Mark 16:18.) In the same charge he said also, "In my name they shall cast out devils." Christ must have alluded to Satan and his angels when he spoke of "all the power of the enemy."
Well might the disciples rejoice in the wonderful gifts they possessed. Yet they had a greater cause for joy. Their names were written in heaven. The Lamb has a book of life, in which he has written the names of all who shall never taste the second death. It contains not only the names of the apostles, but of all who love Jesus. As a father writes down in his great Family Bible the names of all his children, so God writes down in the book of his remembrance the names of all His children. A father may some day have to read, with a sigh and with a tear, the list of his family; but Jesus shall never lose one of the members of His family; they shall live forever who are written in the book of life. Is it our chief desire to have our names written there? If this be our supreme desire, we must be saved. Those who perish, perish because they will not come and ask for life.
O that this dreadful sentence might awaken those who are now unconcerned about their precious souls! "Whoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the lake of fire." (Rev. 20:15.)