Do You Put Your Lamp Under A Basket?

    When Jesus was alone with His disciples, he asked them an
important question that is mentioned in Mark 4:21-23.  He said to
them, "Is a lamp brought to be put under a basket or under a bed?  Is
it not to be set on a lampstand?  For there is nothing hidden which
will not be revealed, nor has anything been kept secret but that it
should come to light.  If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear."

    Now, I would like to say that we should witness or we should live
our lives as a good example to others and that everything will be
cheerful and rosy.  That's what I had intended, but I found myself
carried in my spirit back into the Old Testament to the Book of Job. 
Job, probably the earliest written book in the Bible.

    Job was from the time of the Patriarchs which means that he lived
only a few hundred years after Noah's Ark landed and the population
re-established.  Job was quite wealthy but was also a godly man and
shunned evil.  He had seven sons and three daughters and had
possessions that consisted of 3,000 camels, 7,000 sheep, 500 yoke of
oxen, 500 female donkeys and a large household so that he was the
greatest man of all the people of the East.  Then tragedy struck!

    Job became caught in the struggle between Satan and the Lord God. 
His family destroyed, his fortune lost, everything gone.  Through it
all, Job still worshipped and praised God.  He was then hit by painful
boils that covered him from head to toe and reduced to the only
medical remedy known in those days, sitting in a heap of ashes and
opening the boils with sharp pieces of broken pottery.  Even then, he
wouldn't deny his faith in God.

    His wife tried to get him to just "curse God and die."  His
friends tried and tried to reason with him that since he was having a
hard time, he must have done something wrong or sinned.  Job remained
faithful through this whole time of testing.  When it was all over,
God again blessed him more than ever with worldly possessions and
family, but more importantly, with an intimate knowledge of God
himself.

    Now back to Jesus and the lamp.  Jesus is trying to tell us that
we all suffer many trials and problems just as He did, but if we
remain faithful, our light will shine out.  Our lights only fade when
we cover it by our unfaithfulness when we give in to those around us
who do not know either the scriptures or the power of God.

    "There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed."  Even though
the light looks very dim during our troubles, at the very time that
our understanding is trying every trick in the book to figure out what
is going on, still when it is all over, the reasons will become
evident.  Our light will once again shine brightly and we will be all
the closer to our Heavenly Father.  Jesus will be all the more real to
us because the obstructions to our faith are cleared away.  "If anyone
has ears to hear, let him hear."

Frank Cooke