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Today's Devotional

Whoever is not with me is against me —Matthew 12:30 (NIV).

Here we have the friends of Christ—the enemies of Christ—and the impossibility of neutrality.

The friends of Christ. —They believe in him. The great requirement of the gospel is, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” The Father sent him, the Son came, and the gospel is published, that men may believe in him. “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness.” However good otherwise any one may be, if he neglect this, he is guilty of the condemning sin....The world is divided into two great armies— the army of Christ, and the army of Satan; and all the friends of Jesus are openly on his side....They exert themselves to help forward his cause....They see two great heaps in the world—a heap of happiness, and a heap of misery— and they constantly strive to lessen the heap of misery, and add to the heap of happiness.

The enemies of Christ.— Those are his enemies who are openly opposed to him. The infidel makes reason his guide....The practical atheist does not deny the truth of revelation, but he lives as if he had no soul to be saved or lost....as if there were no day of reckoning. Those are [also] his enemies whose conduct is inconsistent with their profession. A professed friend, with an unchanged heart, is dangerous to the cause of Christ. An Achan in the camp does more injury to religion than a hundred open foes. Those are his enemies who are undecided....the weight of their influence is on the side of sin, and not on the side of Christ.

The impossibility of neutrality.— Reason as well as Scripture teaches this....How can a man love sin, and love Christ at the same time, when sin was the very thing which Christ came to destroy? All, then, who let religion alone, are the enemies of Christ. In the light of the cross, neutrality is impossible. On the cross Jesus gave the greatest display of his love to men: that love demands all our hearts, and it cannot take less; and if that love does not conquer us, nothing else will. Neutrality is impossible when we think of the day of judgment. The two classes of men will then be apparent; but as we sow now, we shall reap then; and if we are not on Christ’s side now, how can we expect a place on his right hand....?

About the author and the source

When Hugh Baird wrote Beaten Oil, it was with the intent of explaining more fully the Scripture he selected for the day than did most other devotional books.