Mary, Martha and Lazarus — J. Oswald Sanders

Mary, Martha, and Lazarus in Bethany

Tonight, I want to speak about Mary and Martha and, of course, the appendage Lazarus. Would you turn to Luke's Gospel, chapter 10, verse 38. Now as they went on their way, he entered a village, and a woman named Martha received them into her house.

And she had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?

Tell her then to help me. But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things. One thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion which shall not be taken away from her.

The home at Bethany was an oasis to our Lord in the desert of the life he lived, in the loneliness after his exile from heaven. To be able to drop into this home and relax to him must have been a wonderful blessing.

And it says now, Jesus loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus. Martha probably was a widow. She had her own house, and it's quite possible she was a widow. Mary apparently was not married, and Lazarus was single.

So the Lord didn't mind putting up with singles sometimes. And to him it was a refreshment of spirit to spend time with these three people. Lazarus doesn't seem to be a very prominent character. The sisters seem to be the two dominant people.

And they're totally different types. Martha, practical, bustling, busy, competent. Mary, dreamy, probably unpractical, meditative, reflective, meditative, so on. And all three managing to live together in comparative harmony.

Apparently there wasn't always harmony. But there was such an atmosphere in that home that made it a great joy to the Lord to be present. Lazarus apparently was a rather passive man. You don't find anything active said about him.

He was obviously a good brother. They loved him. He was obviously a good man. The Lord loved him. And afterwards, after his resurrection, many believed on the Lord because of Lazarus. His testimony, obviously, after his resurrection was something that really commended the Lord.

And many believed because of Lazarus. But he was not the dominant character in that group.

One man was asked, now which character do you like best?

Do you like Martha best or Mary? And the man thought for a while. He said, well, I like Martha best before dinner and Mary best afterwards. Well, I think that's very nice when there's a combination of Mary and Martha.

But there's not always a combination, is there? But it's very nice to have a Martha. And I'm sure that our Lord appreciated her cooking. But in this case, she carried it a little bit too far.

Both women had a strong individuality that showed itself. They were clear types.

They say there are no pure types, but they seem to be fairly pure. And they manifested it in the way in which they reacted to the presence of the Lord. There were three incidents in which Mary and Martha were concerned.

The one was the incident where it was a choice between cooking or company. And Martha chose the cooking and Mary chose the company. The second incident was in the resurrection of Lazarus where you find our Lord adopting a different method in dealing with Martha from that of Mary.

It was a case of talking with Martha and tears with Mary. Then the third case was the place where Mary anointed the Lord with the anointing oil. And in that case, it was a case of devotion or dollars, which is the most important, the love for the Lord or selling the anointing oil and giving it to the poor.

So those were the three incidents in which these two women... The first is Martha's dinner party, which we read just now. She was the hostess. It was her house. They were there as guests. And Mary is serenely sitting at the feet of the Lord Jesus, listening to the pearls of wisdom, the treasures that drop from His lips, and enjoying it.

Martha is disturbed, means not knowing which way to turn. Anybody ever found a situation like that in the kitchen? Distracted with much serving, not knowing which way to turn. She wanted to turn on a really special meal for this loved and honored guest.

She was going to use her best skill to do it. She, meanwhile, sits in the guest room. She sits there, piously listening to the Lord, while pressure builds up in the kitchen. And pressure can build up in the kitchen.

Don't you care that my sister has left all the work for me to do? Tell her to help me. Don't you think that a few days afterwards, after the resurrection of Lazarus, Martha could have wished she'd torn her tongue out, rather than speak to the Lord of Glory like that?

But you see, her undisciplined temper got her into that trouble. She was quite right in expecting, doubtless, Mary should have given a hand. She should have helped perhaps before, even if she didn't do now.

But she had a right to expect that, but she had no right to rebuke the Lord in that way. And the Lord indicated to Martha that she was doing more than is necessary. You've doubtless heard it suggested where he said one thing is needful.

The idea was one dish would be sufficient. You're going to the trouble of making a whole lot of special dishes, but one general dish, some chow mein with everything else in it would do. One would be sufficient.

And he didn't speak harshly to her. He didn't chide her. He just said, really, Martha, you're going to too much trouble. One dish would have been adequate. We could have got through on it. And Mary, unpractical Mary, is indulging her temperament, sitting at the Lord's feet, and Martha is allowing her undisciplined temperament to master her.

It's interesting the way in which the Lord treated them. He didn't chide Martha, and he didn't chide Mary. He pointed out things to Martha, and he also indicated that it wasn't wrong for her to expect Mary to have helped her.

But he said, of the two, Mary has chosen the better part. Your concentration is on cooking. Mary's concentration is on food for the soul. Man shall not live by bread alone. It's wonderful to have a nice meal, but there's something even more important than that.

But the gentle, tactful way in which he did it was very, very beautiful. Now, Martha made three mistakes. The first mistake was, she forgot herself and rebuked the Lord, and that was unpardonable. The second thing was, she interpreted the merits of people to arbitrarily judge the action of others, especially if they're the opposite type.

So easy to do that, and we all fall into the... She thought that Mary was dreamy. She didn't have any much room for dreaminess. She liked practicality. Well, that was her second mistake. And then thirdly, her third mistake was, she was obsessed with an unduly lavish meal that caused her to neglect fellowship with the one who could feed her soul.

In other words, she got her priorities wrong. She chose cooking instead of the company of the Lord of glory. So there was Martha, a lovely hostess, a good cook, and yet who had her priorities wrong. But in spite of her outburst, Jesus didn't rebuke her, nor did he redirect Mary.

He didn't say to Mary, Now Mary, you should really have been out helping Martha. He didn't say that to her. He didn't undervalue the love and devotion which Martha was expressing through her fingers, nor did he undervalue the devotion of Mary, who expressed her devotion through sitting at his feet.

And I think we've got to recognize that different people express their devotion to Christ in different ways, and we're not to be judgmental about it. If somebody does it a different way, well, the Lord doesn't misunderstand.

He appreciates it. He didn't suggest that Martha should do exactly as Mary did. He just said, Well, Martha, if you've got to make a choice between the two, she's made the wiser decision. That's all he said.

And he commended Mary for her choice. Now, God had given to each sister a different temperament. God gave it to them. They didn't generate it. You didn't choose your temperament. If I had chosen mine, I might have made a different choice.

It probably would have been worse, but we've got no choice in that matter at all. It's something which God has done. And he gave each of those their distinctive talents, and he expected them to use them to his glory, but to put first things first.

Mary chose to do that. We are given our distinctive talents. God gave them to us. We didn't choose them. We had no word asked. He knew exactly what he had for us, the ministry he had for us in the body of Christ.

He knew he gave us those talents which would enable us best to glorify him. Therefore, there's no need to envy anyone else in the world. He's given us the best talents for us to fulfill our place in the body.

If I find myself at a disadvantage compared with somebody else, well, it means probably that I'm not in the sphere where God wants me. There are one or two things we can learn from it. We could emulate Martha's hospitable spirit.

That was something very nice. She wanted to do the very best she could for the Lord, and that was commendable. We can be fervent in spirit without being slothful in business. Here is Mary who was fervent in spirit.

Martha was not slothful in business, but we can join her as being contemplative. Now, take the second incident where Lazarus was ill. When the sisters saw that Lazarus was very ill, they immediately sent a message up to their friend in the north, and they expected that he'd come to their side without any hesitation.

They never thought for a moment that he wouldn't rush down and heal Lazarus because they believed in his power. But as you read in John chapter 11, it says there that when Jesus got the message, he stayed two days in the place where he was, which is something that you wouldn't have done or I wouldn't have done if I had the Lord's power.

I'd have either exercised my power from up there in the north or I'd have come down to be with the sisters in their trouble. But he didn't. He purposefully stayed two days in the same place where he was with the result that when he did come down, Lazarus had been dead four days.

He allowed the two sisters to go through the trauma of seeing their brother sickening and dying, and he wasn't with them. And the two sisters were devastated. They got their heads together, and as they talked it over, they were disappointed.

Their friend had let them down. When Martha went out along the road to meet Jesus, I don't think she lifted her eyes to him. She said, Lord, if you'd been here, if you'd done what we expected you, Lazarus would still be alive.

She was really heartbroken. Not only had her brother died, but their friend had let them down. And Mary, when she didn't even go out, when Jesus came and Mary saw him, she said, Lord, if you'd done as we expected you to do, Lazarus would still be alive.

You see, they'd been talking it over together, and they'd both felt that they had been let down. And Jesus said to them, he said, you know, I am glad for your sakes that I was not there. He wasn't glad for his own sake.

He was deeply moved, but he said, I'm glad for your sakes that I wasn't there. Why? Because he had something infinitely more wonderful than a healing. He was going to demonstrate the fact that he was the resurrection and the life.

And if you read that passage, you'll notice that the word believe comes again and again. Said I not unto thee that thou wouldest believe thou shouldest see the glory of God? He said to Martha. And what he was doing was he was seeking to educate their faith.

He was giving them a lesson in faith. And he was glad that he wasn't there. Now it's very interesting that it was Martha, practical Martha, not contemplative Mary, who brought up the subject of resurrection.

She, she brought up the subject of resurrection. It was Martha and not Mary who made the great confession. So even practical Martha, she wasn't without her devotional side either. She was different. She expressed in a different way and yet it was just as real.

Now Martha was the logical person. She's guided more by her intellect than by her emotions. And when the Lord comes to Martha, what does he do? He talks things through with her. He reasons it out with her and they have a little theological discussion together.

That's the way he meets her. When Mary comes, she's overcome with emotion. She can't say a word except to express her disappointment that he hadn't come. And what happens? That shortest verse in the Bible says really Jesus burst into tears.

How did he deal with emotional Mary? By reasoning with her? No, by weeping with her. And to me that's a very precious thing. The Lord knows our temperament. He knows our strengths. He knows our weaknesses.

And he deals with us according to our need. He reasoned with practical Martha. He wept with emotional Mary. And the Jews who were around there, they said behold how he loved her. He didn't stay away two days longer up north because he didn't love her.

No, it wasn't that. He wanted to teach them a lesson that they would never forget. Can you imagine the reaction of Mary and Martha as they stood outside that tomb? And the one, their loved one, who was a corrupting corpse, already decomposition had set in.

There was a repulsive odor. And they saw their brother come out when Jesus spoke the word and stand at the door of the grave. They saw the disciples take off the grave clothes. And there was their brother, safe and whole.

Can you imagine? As they sat around the breakfast table the next day, probably with the Lord with them, they said how glad we are that you didn't come as we expected you would. Wouldn't they feel the greatness of the privilege that the Lord of glory himself had raised their brother from the dead.

And the Lord still does what he did with Mary and Martha. He still deals with her and with us in the same way. And then we have the other story in Matthew chapter 26. We'll just read it because it's a very beautiful story.

Martha’s Activity and Mary’s Devotion

Now when Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive ointment. And she poured it on his head as he sat at the table. But when the disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, Why this waste?

For this ointment might have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor. But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. For you have always the poor with you, but you will not always have me.

In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial. Truly I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.

Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priest and said, What will you give me if I deliver him to you? Now here you have the very beautiful story of Mary's anointing of our Lord with the precious ointment.

The feast was being held in the home of Simon the leper, probably one whom our Lord has cleansed. It's been conjectured by some that Simon may have been the father of Mary and Martha and Lazarus, who had to live in a separate house because he was a leper.

Because you find Martha is the one who presides at this gathering. Whether that's so or not, we don't know. At this very moment, while Mary was doing this, you'll read that the authorities were meeting together to plot means how they could destroy Jesus.

And you have these two things going on at the same time. Here, in this part of the city, they're plotting how can we kill him. Here, you have our Lord being anointed with the precious ointment by the one who loved him so much.

Mary sees a long-sought opportunity. This wasn't something that was just the thought of the moment. This is something she obviously had thought for a long while. She had saved up this precious alabaster, beautifully cut alabaster flask of anointing oil.

And now she sees the opportunity of pouring it out on the Lord. Now, when they anointed in the East like that, they didn't use a whole bottle. A few drops was all that was necessary for the anointing in that way, the usual thing.

And the kind of anointing oil that she had was used only for kings or for great people. And we're told the value of it. When I tell you that the value of that flask of ointment was 300 days' work, what would you get here for 300 days' work?

You people would get, what, $40 ,000, would you? It was a tremendous sum. This was no mere, just a little gift. But as far as she was concerned, she didn't pour just a few drops. There was no calculating how few drops can I get away with.

No, the idea was how much can I give? And she poured the whole lot on it, 12 ounces on it. And I don't know whether someone has suggested that the 133rd Psalm was fulfilled. Well, the ointment flowed down to the fringe of his garments.

I don't know whether it did, but she anointed his head anyway and broke the flask on his head, the evidence of her love and her devotion. What a wonderful outpouring of love that was. And we have another practical man in the group, Judas.

And the other disciples, they thought it was rather a waste too. Well, you could have done with less than that, but Judas said, why, you could have sold that and got so much and given it to the poor. Not because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief.

And so here again you have the perfidy of Judas and the love of Mary expressed in that beautiful scene. As she broke the box of ointment, the flask of ointment, and wiped his hair with her feet. Now, women were not supposed to take down their hair in public.

And yet she was quite prepared, as an expression of her ardent love for Christ, to break social conventions even, in order to express her love. There was no measuring it out little by little. It was a spontaneous and a complete expression of her love.

Loveless hearts are always offended when there is a lavish outpouring of money. People look at it so often from the utilitarian point of view, and we can do that. But the Lord didn't look at it. He never suggested there was any waste at all.

He said to Judas, now, you have the poor with you always. You get plenty of opportunity of doing that, but me you will not have always. This is a unique occasion that has never occurred before in the history of the world and never will occur again.

And what this woman has done, this expression of her love and devotion, is of such a quality that it will go down through the ages, resounding to my glory. What a wonderful thing it was. Inspired, that act of hers has inspired thousands of people to act of loving devotion.

I suppose many of you have read some of Isabel Kuhn's books. I was with her when she was dying. She was dying of cancer in Philadelphia. And at the time she was there, her daughter was going out as a missionary to Thailand, where her father and mother had been.

And then when her mother was so ill, she felt she must stay at home with her mother. But her mother said, no, no, no, you must go. The people need you. Nothing is too precious for me to give to Jesus.

And so she sent her daughter away and wouldn't have her stay with her. That was breaking an alabaster flask of ointment on the Lord's head, wasn't it? Nothing too precious for Jesus. Well, there were others who came and they brought their spices.

Nicodemus brought a hundred pounds weight of precious spices. But he was too late. When he got there, the chrysalis was empty. Too late. And we can do that too. We can be too late. Sometimes we do it with our own folk.

We express our appreciation after instead of before. And our Lord said, you know, Mary is the only one of all my disciples, male or female, she's the only one who anticipated my death. And she, in this act of hers, she anointed me for the burial.

Now, you don't anoint people for the burial usually. They're embalmed after the burial. But she had foreseen this. And she said, now, if I'm not going to have the opportunity of performing the last rites, I can now give expression of my love while he's alive.

And so she did. And that's the reason that successive generations have thanked God for Mary's act of love and of devotion. And I believe it's good for us to think of that too in our relationship with other people.

Let us express our love, our appreciation while they're alive. And do things to show our love. When my wife was alive, we were in a very busy life. And we had several home responsibilities that kept her very, very much tied to home.

And we didn't have a great deal of time together. And it came to me, well, I'm not really doing what I ought to do. I ought to give more time. So I decided, I said to her one day, now, look, I'm going to never, as far as possible, never take any appointments on Tuesday between 12 and 2 o 'clock.

That's your time. And I'll take you. We'll go downtown and have lunch. You can get away from home and so on. And, you know, that became a very precious thing for us. It was taking time to love each other and have fellowship with each other.

And I was very glad afterwards when the Lord took her to know that I had, while we were alive, made special opportunities for us to enjoy each other. Now, you haven't got a mate. I haven't now either.

But there are ways in which we can express our love, our appreciation of others, and thoughtfully going out and do it before we separate or before they die or before it's all. There's something we can learn from it.

And Mary gave us that beautiful lesson. So here you have these two sisters, so different, and yet each of them loving the Lord. You can't say one loved him more than the other. Certain temperaments are able to express love in a way that others can't.

Some feel more inhibited. They worry because they can't sing hymns at others. For example, you take that hymn of Father Faber, O Jesus, Jesus, dearest Lord, forgive me if I say for very love thy sacred name a thousand times a day.

O wonderful that thou shouldst let so vile a heart as mine love thee with such a love as this and make so free with thine. Burn, burn, O love within my heart. Burn fiercely, night and day, till all the dross of earthly loves is burned and burned away.

And it goes on. My, but how many of us could really say that? That's not everybody's kettle of fish, is it? No, because we express it. We feel it differently. We express it differently, but not necessarily with any less reality.

The Lord recognizes, accepts differences of temperament, as he did with Martha and Mary. And when it's speaking about his relationship to them, it says Jesus loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus, all three of the singles.

He loved them all. Well, there's a little study in temper and temperament. Dear old Martha allowed her temper to get away. Well, how he talks. I must put this out. Now take some of the questions. There was one I asked that isn't exactly on the subject that we are thinking of tonight, but one person asked, please expound the concept of walking in the spirit or walking by the spirit.

Walking in the Spirit Rather Than the Flesh

Since this is not a classical how-to sort of topic, I feel somewhat nebulous about the issue. Well, may I just very simply speak about walking is the term that's usually used for our daily living. If we walk in love, what does it mean?

It simply means that my life will be characterized in its attitudes and in its actions by love. My love will be the characteristic of my life. As I go about my daily life, I'll express love in my relationships and I'll express love in my actions.

I walk in love. If I walk in truth, what does it mean? It means that in my speech and in my relationships, I will speak the truth and I will be truthful in all my attitudes, in my speech, in my writing, in my relationships.

I will be characterized by truth. What does it mean to walk in the spirit? Perhaps you can get it best by thinking of its antithesis. What is it to walk in the flesh? When you're walking in the flesh, what are you doing?

Well, you know very well what it amounts to. When we walk in the flesh, we're responding to and obeying the passionate desires of the flesh. That's all. When the flesh comes with its solicitation, we welcome it and extend hospitality to it.

What does it do when we're walking in the spirit? We extend hospitality to the Holy Spirit. We walk about in the consciousness of His presence. We recognize the fact that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

We don't ignore Him, but we welcome Him, just as the carnal person welcomes the flesh and gives it every opportunity. Well, so we have that in our relationship to the Holy Spirit. We walk in the consciousness of His presence with us.

The person who's walking in the flesh, he responds to the promptings of the flesh and gives way to it. Well, we're walking with the spirit, we respond to the promptings of the spirit and we obey Him. And we depend upon Him for His help.

He's the counselor, so when we're walking in the spirit, we are asking His counsel. He's the helper, that's another rendering. Well, when we need help, we're looking to Him for help so that the Holy Spirit becomes the sphere and the atmosphere of our life.

We walk in the spirit. I think that's as simple as I can make it. It's the antithesis of walking in the flesh. If you walk in the flesh, well, you reap corruption. If you walk in the spirit, you reap life everlasting.

Honoring Parents While Following Christ’s Call

Another one. As single women of various ages, how should we be relating to our parents, especially in the light of Ephesians 6, 1 and 2? Well, you know, that's where it says that children, obey your parents and the Lord, honor your father and your mother.

Well, parents always remain parents. They're always our parents. There's no change in that relationship. Children, it's referring to children. It's not referring to single women there. It's male or female.

It doesn't make any difference. They're still parents. And you have responsibilities and relationship with your parents. Until adulthood, you are under parental control, and you are to obey your parents.

That's without any exception or equivocation. The child is to obey the parents. I was very interested to read that there's a…. The oldest piece of writing extant is in a museum in Turkey. And on that it says, Alas, children do not obey their parents as they used to.

That's the oldest piece of writing extant. So apparently there's not been much change over the years. But when one reaches adulthood, then one determines one's own life. There is a difference in relationship.

Filial love continues. It doesn't cease because we're older. There needs to be a filial expression of love to our parents. But filial love doesn't involve parental domination. And when we reach adulthood, I don't believe that we are under the control of our parents.

Our lives are now our own to control. We are to still retain the attitude, the filial relationship. But we are responsible and we are primarily responsible to God first. In Matthew 19, is it? I've got it down here somewhere.

Matthew 19, 29. Remember where it speaks about, No man hath left father or mother. For Christ's sake. There it's envisaged that a person will leave father and mother. Even although they are related, they leave them.

In Luke chapter 14, we're told to hate father and mother. That is, love them less than we love the Lord. And it's envisaged that in the interest of the Lord, at his direction, there are times when our obedience to Christ will involve leaving our parents, leaving our children too.

Well, the crunch comes when you've got aging parents. Now, I've had to face up to this a lot with our missionary ladies especially, and especially the single ladies. Of course, if you're single, you're not doing anything.

So your responsibility is to look after your parents. Other children at home, well, they may have important positions, but you're not doing anything. You're just Christian work. It doesn't matter. And that really, it's surprising how often that is the viewpoint.

Now, that's the person. Oh, they should give up their job. They're not doing anything important. We're earning money. And I've often found that our lady workers have a really agonizing decision to make.

Where does my responsibility lie? Now, there's no easy answer. There's no one, two, three, and this at all. You've got to pray it through and think it through. And every case is different. Here you've got several children at home.

And you're away somewhere else in another place, away from home. Those other children are equally responsible with you as far as your parents are concerned. And they should do their, if they're sympathetic, of course, they'll do it.

But sometimes they're not. And remember in the case of the man who wanted to follow the Lord and said, Suffer me first to go and say goodbye to my family. You know what the Lord said to him? He said, Let the dead bury their dead, but go thou and preach the kingdom.

What he was saying was this. Where he said, Let the dead bury their dead, it didn't mean that this fellow's father was dead. That is just a common saying. George Adam Smith, Professor George Adam Smith, said that when he was in Palestine, a man said that very thing to him.

Oh, let me go bury my father. His father wasn't dead, but what he meant was, I've got family responsibilities to attend to. And what our Lord was saying to that man was, Put me first. There are others who are dead to the kingdom.

Let the dead bury their dead. They're not concerned with the kingdom. There are other members of the family. Your father will get buried all right. The family things will be taken care of. But you, you go and preach the kingdom.

Now that's a very tough saying. And sometimes you've got to face up to that. Is this really, does the Lord really want me to go and assume those home responsibilities? Or is he calling me, even with the disapproval of my family, to go ahead and preach the kingdom?

Well, that's something that you have to discern for yourself. Nobody else can do it for you. But the Lord can show you, and if he's really calling you to do it, he'll look after the other side for you.

On the other hand, it may be that you're the only one. Because no one else can care for your aging parents. And then it may, well, be your responsibility to go and do it. That's out of filial love. Well, if that's the will of God, then you do it.

And the Lord will be with you in it. But I think that we've got to recognize that we owe something to God as well as to our parents. We're not to neglect our filial responsibilities. But we're not to allow those who are dead to the kingdom to shuffle off on us responsibilities which may rightfully be theirs.

I think that's the best I can say about it. Now, has somebody else got any contribution to make on that or any challenge on it? No, you can't make them, no. But you can make them face up to it, though.

I mean, you can. What I mean is you don't just supinely succumb to it without making an endeavor. If they're there on the spot, they're equally responsible with you. And I've seen too much of that happen, really, where the Christian worker has been imposed upon very badly.

Well, I don't know that there's no scriptural definition that I know. But I would say that once you reach the stage, for example, when you reach college stage, you're out from under the if you're in your parents' home and there, well, you conform to the rules of the home.

But if they're away from home and so on, I would feel that that would be a stage, yes. Well, in that case, they still they would have a special responsibility to the parents. I'd like to hear other viewpoints on it.

I don't know the answer. What do you think, Jerry, on this?

It's altogether different. Yeah. It's not a responsibility at all. Yeah.

I think that's the way I would feel about it too. But it's each case is different. You can't just say there's the line, 18, and you're finished. But when they get up to that stage, they are really making they ought to be making their own decisions.

Christian Lifestyle in a Materialistic Society

The next one, you give some guidelines concerning lifestyle and standard of living for the Christian in a materialistic society. Well, that's a very pertinent question today, isn't it? And it's a question that many young people are taking very seriously.

And I think a lot of our delinquency comes stems from our rebellion against the lush lavishness of our affluent society. But the Bible teaches by principles. It's got no one, two, three, four, you'll do this and don't do that.

But it teaches by principles. And I think that we've got to find out what are the principles governing our lifestyle. For example, you take this one, be content with such things as you have. Now, that is a fairly comprehensive statement, isn't it?

That covers a pretty wide area. Be content with such things as you have. Don't listen to every TV advertisement and say, I must get something better, bigger, longer, shorter, higher, deeper, and so on.

Because that's the society we're living in. But the Christian's not to be like that. You've got the necessities, right? I'd be content with that. Another one, Paul says, I have learned whatever my circumstances to be content.