Truth For Life Program
Alistair Begg Devotional
C. H. Spurgeon Devotional
One-Year Bible Reading Plan
Audio Player“Friend of sinners.” That’s one of the many names given to Jesus, because He pursues the lost, regardless of social or cultural barriers. Listen to Truth For Life as Alistair Begg examines an extraordinary encounter between Jesus and an immoral outcast.
From the Sermon
The Path of Unbelief
In the Garden of Gethsemane, as the soldiers approached to arrest the man who the Jewish leaders had decided must now die, the central figure was of course the Lord Jesus. But Judas played a key part—and teaches us a hard lesson.
Judas’s betrayal of Christ reveals a deep hypocrisy rooted in a deeper denial. His treachery serves as a warning of how a heart, though seemingly close to God, hardens as it travels down the path of unbelief—a path marked by betrayed trust and corrupt company.
The Garden of Gethsemane was not just any garden. The disciples appeared to know it well. For Jesus and the Twelve it was a place of fellowship, of relaxation, and, doubtless, of many happy memories. And yet it was in this beautiful place that Judas betrayed Christ. It’s quite staggering that he would choose a place of such intimacy in which to perform an act of such infamy, like an adulterer who breaks the marriage bond in their own marriage bed.
Picture Judas walking along the path and leading a group of soldiers and Jewish officials (John 18:3). He who was so dreadfully lost spiritually became a guide: the blind leading the blind. The path of unbelief is a lonely place that often begs for the false comfort of hopeless companionship.
The garden was a beautiful, tranquil place, but it nevertheless witnessed a heinous event. When we think of the places where we’ve been tempted to betray Christ—on a lovely vacation, in the comfort of our homes, even in places where Christ has previously met with us, blessed us, wooed us, and won us—we clearly see our heart’s perversity in our willingness to join Judas in his betrayal.
Let Judas’s example remind us that we must all be on guard. There is no room for complacency in the Christian life, no matter what you have done and seen and no matter what your standing in your church. After all, Judas had lived with Jesus for three years, had seen His miracles, and had heard His teaching. Yet still he betrayed Him. “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12).
How do we remain followers and avoid the tragic path taken by Judas? As the word of God implores again and again, we must beware a slowly growing hard-heartedness that causes us to drift down the path of unbelief. Instead, we need to listen to the Holy Spirit as He guides us. We need to pray that we would find a tenderness in our hearts, an openness in our minds, and a prompting in our spirits telling us, “Now, go ahead and embrace this Christ!”
The hard lesson of Judas is that only by God’s grace can we remain standing. So pray that you would never be found among the traitors: Save me, Lord, from the real temptations to doubt and deny You. Show me the wonder of Your protection and provision, and renew my assurance that You will lose none of those whom the Father has given You.
How is God calling me to think differently?
How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?
What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?
11fI am the good shepherd. The good shepherd glays down his life for the sheep. 12He who is ha hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and ileaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and jscatters them. 13He flees because khe is a hired hand and lcares nothing for the sheep. 14mI am the good shepherd. nI know my own and omy own know me, 15pjust as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and qI lay down my life for the sheep. 16And rI have other sheep that are not of this fold. sI must bring them also, and tthey will listen to my voice. So there will be uone flock, vone shepherd. 17wFor this reason the Father loves me, xbecause yI lay down my life that I may take it up again. 18zNo one takes it from me, but yI lay it down aof my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and bI have authority to take it up again. cThis charge I have received from my Father.”
19dThere was again a division among the Jews because of these words. 20Many of them said, e“He has a demon, and fis insane; why listen to him?” 21Others said, “These are not the words of one who is oppressed by a demon. gCan a demon open the eyes of the blind?”
I and the Father Are One
22At that time the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, 23and Jesus was walking in the temple, hin the colonnade of Solomon. 24So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are ithe Christ, jtell us plainly.” 25Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. kThe works that I do lin my Father's name bear witness about me, 26but myou do not believe because you are not among my sheep. 27nMy sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28oI give them eternal life, and pthey will never perish, and qno one will snatch them out of my hand. 29My Father, rwho has given them to me,1 sis greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of tthe Father's hand. 30uI and the Father are one.”
Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg, published by The Good Book Company, thegoodbook.com. Used by Truth For Life with permission. Copyright © 2021, 2022, The Good Book Company.
The Sleepless Guardian
You will not fear the terror of the night.
What is this "terror"? It may be the cry of fire or the noise of thieves or intrigued appearances or the shriek of sudden sickness or death. We live in the world of death and sorrow; we may anticipate facing ills and difficulties during the night as well as in the glare of the noonday sun. This should not alarm us, for whatever the terror may be, the promise is that the believer shall not be afraid. Why should he be?
Let us put this more closely—why should we? God our Father is here, and will be with us all through the lonely hours. He is an almighty Watcher, a sleepless Guardian, a faithful Friend. Nothing can happen without His direction, for even hell itself is under His control. Darkness is not dark to Him. He has promised to be a wall of fire around His people—and who can break through such a barrier?
Unbelievers may well be afraid, for they have an angry God above them, a guilty conscience within them, and a yawning hell beneath them. But we who rest in Jesus are saved from all these by His rich mercy. If we give way to foolish fear, we will dishonor our testimony and lead others to doubt the reality of godliness. We ought to be afraid of being afraid, in case we should grieve the Holy Spirit by foolish distrust. Down, then, you dismal forebodings and groundless apprehensions—God has not forgotten to be gracious, nor held back His tender mercies. It may be night in the soul, but there need be no terror, for the God of love does not change.
Children of light may walk in darkness, but they are not therefore cast away. No, they are now enabled to prove their adoption by trusting in their heavenly Father in a way that hypocrites cannot do.
Though the night be dark and dreary,
Darkness cannot hide from Thee;
You are He, who, never weary,
Watchest where Your people be.
Devotional material is taken from Morning and Evening, written by C. H. Spurgeon, revised and updated by Alistair Begg. Copyright © 2003, Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org. Used by Truth For Life with written permission.
Daily Bible Reading for April 22
Blessings for Obedience
1“You shall not make sidols for yourselves or erect an timage or upillar, and you shall not set up a vfigured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the Lord your God. 2wYou shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.
3x“If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, 4then yI will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 5zYour threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing. And ayou shall eat your bread to the full and bdwell in your land securely. 6cI will give peace in the land, and dyou shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. And eI will remove harmful beasts from the land, fand the sword shall not go through your land. 7You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. 8gFive of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. 9hI will turn to you and imake you fruitful and multiply you and will confirm my covenant with you. 10You shall eat jold store long kept, and you shall clear out the old to make way for the new. 11kI will make my dwelling1 among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. 12lAnd I mwill walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. 13nI am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. oAnd I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.
Punishment for Disobedience
14p“But if you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments, 15if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but qbreak my covenant, 16then I will do this to you: I will visit you with panic, with rwasting disease and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. And syou shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. 17I will tset my face against you, and uyou shall be struck down before your enemies. vThose who hate you shall rule over you, and wyou shall flee when none pursues you. 18And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again xsevenfold for your sins, 19and I will break ythe pride of your power, and I zwill make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. 20And ayour strength shall be spent in vain, for byour land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.
21c“Then if you walk contrary to me and will not listen to me, I will continue striking you, sevenfold for your sins. 22And dI will let loose the wild beasts against you, which shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you few in number, so that eyour roads shall be deserted.
23“And fif by this discipline you are not turned to me cbut walk contrary to me, 24gthen I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins. 25And hI will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute vengeance for the covenant. And if you gather within your cities, iI will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. 26jWhen I break your supply2 of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven and shall dole out your bread again by weight, and kyou shall eat and not be satisfied.
27“But lif in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me, 28then I will walk contrary to you min fury, and I myself will discipline you xsevenfold for your sins. 29nYou shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. 30And oI will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and pcast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and my soul will abhor you. 31And I will qlay your cities waste and will rmake your sanctuaries desolate, and sI will not smell your pleasing aromas. 32And tI myself will devastate the land, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be uappalled at it. 33And vI will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.
34w“Then the land shall enjoy3 its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies' land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths. 35As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it. 36And as for those of you who are left, xI will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The ysound of a zdriven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues. 37They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though none pursues. And ayou shall have no power to stand before your enemies. 38And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. 39And those of you who are left shall brot away in your enemies' lands because of their iniquity, and also because of the iniquities of their fathers they shall rot away like them.
40“But if cthey confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they dcommitted against me, and also in walking contrary to me, 41so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if then their euncircumcised heart is fhumbled and they make amends for their iniquity, 42then I will gremember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will hremember the land. 43But wthe land shall be abandoned by them and enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them, and they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they spurned my rules and their soul abhorred my statutes. 44Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, iI will not spurn them, neither will I abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and jbreak my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God. 45But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, kwhom I brought out of the land of Egypt lin the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the Lord.”
46mThese are the statutes and rules and laws that the Lord made between himself and the people of Israel through Moses non Mount Sinai.
The Steadfast Love of the Lord
1hShout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous!
iPraise befits the upright.
2Give thanks to the Lord with the jlyre;
make melody to him with jthe harp of kten strings!
3Sing to him la new song;
play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.
4For the word of the Lord is upright,
and all his work is done in mfaithfulness.
5He nloves righteousness and justice;
othe earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.
6By pthe word of the Lord the heavens were made,
and by qthe breath of his mouth all rtheir host.
7He gathers the waters of the sea as sa heap;
he tputs the deeps in storehouses.
8Let all the earth fear the Lord;
let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him!
9For uhe spoke, and it came to be;
he commanded, and it stood firm.
10The Lord vbrings the counsel of the nations to nothing;
he frustrates the plans of the peoples.
11wThe counsel of the Lord stands forever,
the plans of his heart to all generations.
12xBlessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,
the people whom he has ychosen as his heritage!
13The Lord zlooks down from heaven;
he sees all the children of man;
14from awhere he sits enthroned he blooks out
on all the inhabitants of the earth,
15he who fashions the hearts of them all
and observes all their deeds.
16cThe king is not saved by his great army;
a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
17dThe war horse is a false hope for salvation,
and by its great might it cannot rescue.
18Behold, ethe eye of the Lord is on those who fear him,
fon those who hope in his steadfast love,
19that he may gdeliver their soul from death
and keep them alive in hfamine.
20Our soul iwaits for the Lord;
he is our jhelp and kour shield.
21For our heart is lglad in him,
because we mtrust in his holy name.
22Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us,
even as we hope in you.
Death Comes to All
1But all this I laid to heart, examining it all, chow the righteous and the wise and their deeds are din the hand of God. Whether it is love or hate, man does not know; both are before him. 2eIt is the same for all, since fthe same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil,1 to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As the good one is, so is the sinner, and he who gswears is as he who shuns an oath. 3This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that ethe same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and hmadness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead. 4But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. 5For the living know that they will die, but ithe dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for jthe memory of them is forgotten. 6Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun.
Enjoy Life with the One You Love
7Go, keat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.
8lLet your garments be always white. Let not moil be lacking on your head.
9Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your nvain2 life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your oportion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. 10Whatever your hand finds to do, pdo it with your might,3 qfor there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.
Wisdom Better Than Folly
11rAgain I saw that under the sun sthe race is not to the swift, nor tthe battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and uchance vhappen to them all. 12For man wdoes not know his time. Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and xlike birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are ysnared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them.
13I have also seen this example of wisdom under the sun, and it seemed great to me. 14There was a little city with few men in it, and a great king came against it and besieged it, building great siegeworks against it. 15But there was found in it za poor, wise man, and he by his awisdom delivered the city. Yet no one remembered that poor man. 16But I say that bwisdom is better than might, though cthe poor man's wisdom is despised and his words are not heard.
17The words of the wise heard in dquiet are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools. 18eWisdom is better than weapons of war, but fone sinner destroys much good.
Greeting
1Paul, a servant1 of God and aan apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and btheir knowledge of the truth, cwhich accords with godliness, 2din hope of eternal life, which God, ewho never lies, fpromised gbefore the ages began2 3and hat the proper time manifested in his word3 ithrough the preaching jwith which I have been entrusted kby the command of God our Savior;
4To Titus, lmy true child in ma common faith:
nGrace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.
Qualifications for Elders
5oThis is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and pappoint elders in every town as I directed you— 6qif anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife,4 and his children are believers5 and not open to the charge of rdebauchery or insubordination. 7For an overseer,6 sas God's steward, must be above reproach. He must not tbe arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent uor greedy for gain, 8but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, vand disciplined. 9He must whold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in xsound7 doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.
10For there are many who are insubordinate, yempty talkers and deceivers, especially those of zthe circumcision party.8 11They must be silenced, since athey are upsetting whole families by teaching bfor shameful gain what they ought not to teach. 12cOne of the Cretans,9 a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.”10 13This testimony is true. Therefore drebuke them esharply, that they fmay be sound in the faith, 14gnot devoting themselves to Jewish myths and hthe commands of people iwho turn away from the truth. 15jTo the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and kunbelieving, nothing is pure; but both ltheir minds and their consciences are defiled. 16mThey profess to know God, but they ndeny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, ounfit for any good work.
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