MATTHEW 8:22, C. H. Cayce “But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.” Perhaps it would be better to give some of the connection. Beginning with verse 18 we have the following language: “Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about Him, He gave commandment to depart unto the other side. And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head. And another of His disciples saith unto Him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.”
We do not think the idea is intended to be taught here that if our father or mother dies a physical or corporeal death we should not bury them, or see after their burial. It is right and proper for us to perform our duty toward them, not only in this particular, but also while they are living. We think this language teaches that we should let nothing come between us and our duty to God. We should not let father, mother, nor anything else come between us and our blessed Saviour. He has done for us what father and mother, or even all the world, could not do for us. While our fathers and mothers and friends are all good and kind to us, and perhaps have been, and would be, glad to do for us everything in their power to promote our happiness and well being, yet they could not do for us what the adorable Redeemer has done. This being true, we should not allow anything to come between us and our service to Him. Our duty to the Lord should be considered first. We should “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. We “ought to obey God rather than man.”
Sometimes we are ready and anxious to find some excuse for not serving the Lord, but our excuses are not sufficient. We have often thought that if we would, all of us, be always as ready to remove the excuses we might think we had for not serving the Lord as we are to look for them as reason for not engaging more in His service, we would all get along much better. If we would always try as hard to serve the Lord as we sometimes try to find an excuse for not doing so, how much better it would be for us, and how much better we would all get along.
If it is necessary for us to forsake father, mother, brother, sister, wife, children, houses and lands in order to serve the Lord, and do what He requires at our hands, we should do that. “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”— Luke 14:26, “So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.”— Luke 14:33. “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”— Matthew 10:37. These all teach that we should let our service to the Lord be first; we should not serve the world first, and then serve the Lord afterward, or when we cannot serve the world, but we should let our duty to our Saviour be first and the world second. We should not allow anything of a worldly nature to keep us from serving the Lord. Of course we may sometimes be providentially hindered, by illness or misfortune, so we cannot render such service to the Lord as we would wish; but we should not look for excuses for our failures and try to ease our conscience with the thought that we are providentially hindered, when we could go on in the Lord’s service very well in the face of the little obstacles which may be in our way. The Primitive Baptist, May 29, 1906