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Daily devotions for 09-26-2005:
Devotion: Morning and Evening
Morning Title: Justified by Christ
Evening Title: Simplicity in the Gospel
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Morning: Justified by Christ
"Just, and the justifier of him which believeth." --Romans 3:26
Being justified by faith, we have peace with God.
Conscience accuses no longer. Judgment now decides for the sinner instead of
against him.
Memory looks back upon past sins, with deep sorrow for the sin, but yet with no
dre ad of any
penalty to come; for Christ has paid the debt of His people to the last jot and
tittle, and
received the divine receipt; and unless God can be so unjust as to demand
double payment for one debt, no soul for whom Jesus died as a substitute can
ever be cast into hell. It seems to be one of the very principles of our
enlightened nature to believe that God is just; we feel that it must be so, and
this gives us our terror at first; but is it not marvellous that this very same
belief that God is just, becomes afterwards the pillar of our confidence and
peace! If God be just, I, a sinner, alone and without a substitute, must be
punished; but Jesus stands in my stead and is punished for me; and now, if God
be just, I, a sinner, standing in Christ, can never be punished. God must
change His nature before one soul, for whom Jesus was a substitute, can ever by
any possibility suffer the lash of the law.
Therefore, Jesus having taken the place of the believer--having rendered a full
equivalent to
divine wrath for all that His people ought to have suffered as the result of
sin, the believer can shout with glorious triumph, "Who shall lay anything to
the charge of God's elect?" Not God, for He hath justified; not Christ, for He
hath died, "yea rather hath risen again." My hope lives not because I am not a
sinner, but because I am a sinner for whom Christ died; my trust is not that I
am holy, but that being unholy, He is my righteousness. My faith rests not upon
what I am, or shall be, or feel, or know, but in what Christ is, in w hat He
has done, and in what He is now doing for me. On the lion of justice the fair
maid of hope rides like a queen.
Evening: Simplicity in the Gospel
"Who of God is made unto us wisdom." --1 Corinthians 1:30
Man's intellect seeks after rest, and by nature seeks it apart from the Lord
Jesus Christ. Men of education are apt, even when converted, to look upon the
simplicities of the cross of Christ with an eye too little reverent and loving.
They are snared in the old net in which the Grecians were taken, and have a
hankering to mix
philosophy with revelation. The temptation with a man of refined thought and
high education is to depart from the simple truth of Christ crucified, and to
invent, as the term is, a more
intellectual doctrine.
This led the early Christian churches into Gnosticism, and bewitched them with
all sorts of
heresies. This is the root of Neology, and the other fine things which in days
gone by were so
fashionable in Germany, and are now so ensnaring to certain classes of divines.
Whoever you are, good reader, and whatever your education may be, if you be
the Lord's, be
assured you will find no rest in philosophizing divinity. You may receive this
dogma of one great thinker, or that dream of another profound reasoner, but
what the chaff is to the wheat,
that will these be to the pure word of God. All that reason, when best guided,
can find out is but the A B C of truth, and even that lacks certainty, while in
Christ Jesus there is
treasured up all the fulness of wisdom and knowledge.
All attempts on the part of Christians to be content with systems such as
Unitarian and
Broad-church thinkers would approve of, must fail; true heirs of heaven must
come back to the
grandly simple reality which makes the ploughboy's eye flash with joy, and
glads the
pious pauper's heart--"Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners."
Jesus satisfies the most elevated intellect when He is believingly received,
but apart from Him the mind of the regenerate discovers no rest.
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." "A good understanding
have all they
that do His comman dments."
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Daily devotions for 09-25-2005:
Devotion: Morning and Evening
Morning Title: Untried Means
Evening Title: Sleeping and Waking
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Morning: Untried Means
"For I was ashamed to require of the king a band of soldiers and horsemen to
help us against the enemy in the way: because we had spoken unto the king,
saying, The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek Him; but His
power and His wrath is against all them that forsake Him." --Ezra 8:22
A convoy on many accounts would have been desirable for the pilgrim band, but a
holy shame-facedness would not allow Ezra to seek one. He feared lest the
heathen king should think his
professions of faith in God to be mere hypocrisy, or imagine that the God of
Israel was not able to preserve His own worshippers. He could not bring his
mind to lean on an arm of flesh in a matter so evidently of the Lord, and
therefore the caravan set out with no visible protection,
guarded by Him who is the sw ord and shield of His people. It is to be feared
that few believers
feel this holy jealousy for God; even those who in a measure walk by faith,
occasionally mar the lustre of their life by craving aid from man. It is a most
blessed thing to have no props and no buttresses, but to stand upright on the
Rock of Ages, upheld by the Lord alone.
Would any believers seek state endowments for their Church, if they remembered
that the Lord is dishonoured by their asking Caesar's aid? as if the Lord could
not supply the needs ; of His own cause! Should we run so hastily to friends
and relations for assistance, if we remembered that the Lord is magnified by
our implicit reliance upon His solitary arm? My soul, wait thou only upon God.
"But," says one, "are not means to be used?" Assuredly they are; but our fault
seldom lies in their neglect: far more frequently it springs out of foolishly
believing in them instead of believing in God. Few run too far in neglecting
the creature's arm; but very many sin greatly in making too much of it. Learn,
dear reader, to glorify the Lord by leaving means untried, if by using them
thou wouldst dishonour the name of the Lord.
Evening: Sleeping and Waking
"I sleep, but my heart waketh." --Song of Solomon 5:2
Paradoxes abound in Christian experience, and here is one--the spouse was
asleep, and yet she was awake. He only can read the believer's riddle who has
ploughed with the heifer of his experience. The two points in this evening's
text are--a mournful sleepiness and a hopeful wakefulness. I sleep. Through sin
that dwelleth in us we may become la x in holy duties, slothful in religious
exercises, dull in spiritual joys, and altogether supine and careless. This is
a shameful state for one in whom the quickening Spirit dwells; and it is
dangerous to the highest degree. Even wise virgins sometimes slumber, but it
is high time for all to shake off the bands of sloth. It is to be feared that
many believers lose their strength as Samson lost his locks, while sleeping on
the lap of carnal security.
With a perishing world around us, to sleep is cruel; with eternity so near at
hand,&nb sp;it is
madness. Yet we are none of us so much awake as we should be; a few
thunder-claps would do us all good, and it may be, unless we soon bestir
ourselves, we shall have them in the form of war, or pestilence, or personal
bereavements and losses. O that we may leave for ever the couch of fleshly
ease, and go forth with flaming torches to meet the coming Bridegroom!
My heart waketh. This is a happy sign. Life is not extinct, though sadly
smothered. When our renewed heart struggles against our natural heaviness, we
should be grateful to sovereign grace for keeping a little vitality within the
body of this death. Jesus will hear our hearts,
will help our hearts, will visit our hearts; for the voice of the wakeful heart
is really the
voice of our Beloved, saying, "Open to me." Holy zeal will surely unbar the
door.
"Oh lovely attitude! He stands
With melting heart and laden hands;
My soul forsakes her every sin;
And lets the heavenly stranger in."
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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