Daily Bible Notes: April, 9th
The following daily bible notes for every day of the year, are taken from six public domain sources:
- "Morning and Evening" by Charles H.Spurgeon
- "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by John H.Jowett
- "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
- "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by Charles H.Spurgeon
- "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan
- An Evening Meditation from "Searchlights from the Word" by G. Campbell Morgan
1. "Morning and Evening" by C.H.Spurgeon
Morning
And there followed Him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented Him.
Luke 23:27
Amid the rabble rout which hounded the Redeemer to His doom, there were some gracious souls whose bitter anguish sought vent in wailing and lamentations - fit music to accompany that march of woe. When my soul can, in imagination, see the Saviour bearing His cross to Calvary, she joins the godly women and weeps with them; for, indeed, there is true cause for grief - cause lying deeper than those mourning women thought. They bewailed innocence maltreated, goodness persecuted, love bleeding, meekness about to die; but my heart has a deeper and more bitter cause to mourn. My sins were the scourges which lacerated those blessed shoulders, and crowned with thorn those bleeding brows: my sins cried "Crucify Him! crucify Him!" and laid the cross upon His gracious shoulders. His being led forth to die is sorrow enough for one eternity: but my having been His murderer, is more, infinitely more, grief than one poor fountain of tears can express. Why those women loved and wept it were not hard to guess: but they could not have had greater reasons for love and grief than my heart has. Nain’s widow saw her son restored - but I myself have been raised to newness of life. Peter’s wife’s mother was cured of the fever - but I of the greater plague of sin. Out of Magdalene seven devils were cast - but a whole legion out of me. Mary and Martha were favoured with visits - but He dwells with me. His mother bare His body - but He is formed in me the hope of glory. In nothing behind the holy women in debt, let me not be behind them in gratitude or sorrow. "Love and grief my heart dividing, With my tears His feet I’ll lave - Constant still in heart abiding, Weep for Him who died to save."
Evening
Thy gentleness hath made me great.
Psalm 18:35
The words are capable of being translated, "Thy goodness hath made me great." David gratefully ascribed all his greatness not to his own goodness, but the goodness of God. "Thy providence ," is another reading; and providence is nothing more than goodness in action. Goodness is the bud of which providence is the flower, or goodness is the seed of which providence is the harvest. Some render it, "Thy help ," which is but another word for providence; providence being the firm ally of the saints, aiding them in the service of their Lord. Or again, "Thy humility hath made me great." "Thy condescension" may, perhaps, serve as a comprehensive reading, combining the ideas mentioned, including that of humility . It is God’s making Himself little which is the cause of our being made great. We are so little, that if God should manifest His greatness without condescension, we should be trampled under His feet; but God, who must stoop to view the skies, and bow to see what angels do, turns His eye yet lower, and looks to the lowly and contrite, and makes them great. There are yet other readings, as for instance, the Septuagint, which reads, "Thy discipline" - Thy fatherly correction -"hath made me great;" while the Chaldee paraphrase reads, "Thy word hath increased me." Still the idea is the same. David ascribes all his own greatness to the condescending goodness of his Father in heaven. May this sentiment be echoed in our hearts this evening while we cast our crowns at Jesus’ feet, and cry, "Thy gentleness hath made me great." How marvellous has been our experience of God’s gentleness! How gentle have been His corrections! How gentle His forbearance! How gentle His teachings! How gentle His drawings!
Meditate upon this theme, O believer. Let gratitude be awakened; let humility be deepened; let love be quickened ere thou fallest asleep to-night.
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
Revelation 1:9-18
9 I John, your brother and partner with you in the oppression, Kingdom, and perseverance in Christ Jesus, was on the isle that is called Patmos because of God's Word and the testimony of Jesus Christ.
10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, like a trumpet
11 saying, "What you see, write in a book and send to the seven assemblies: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and to Laodicea."
12 I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. Having turned, I saw seven golden lamp stands.
13 And amongst the lamp stands was one like a son of man, clothed with a robe reaching down to his feet, and with a golden sash around his chest.
14 His head and his hair were white as white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire.
15 His feet were like burnished brass, as if it had been refined in a furnace. His voice was like the voice of many waters.
16 He had seven stars in his right hand. Out of his mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining at its brightest.
17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. He laid his right hand on me, saying, "Don't be afraid. I am the first and the last,
18 and the Living one. I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever. Amen. I have the keys of Death and of Hades.
THE EVER-LIVING LORD
Let me take the simple words, and quietly gaze into the wonderful depths of their fathomless simplicity. An old villager used to tell me it would strengthen my eyes if I looked long into deep wells. And it will assuredly strengthen the eyes of my soul to gaze into wells like these.
"I am He that liveth." What a marvellous transformation it worked upon Dr. Dale, when one day, in his study, it flashed upon him, as never before, that Jesus Christ is alive! "Christ is alive!" he repeated again and again, until the clarion music filled all the rooms in his soul. "Christ is alive!"
"And was dead." Yes, the Lord has gone right through that dark place. There are footprints, and they are the footprints of the Conqueror, all along the road. "Christ leads me through no darker room than He went through before."
"And, behold, I am alive for ever more." "Jesus has conquered death and all its powers." Never more will it sit on a transient throne. Its power is broken, its "sting" has lost its poison, there isn't a boast left in its apparently omnivorous mouth! "Where's thy victory, O grave?" And here is the gospel for me - "Because I live ye shall live also."
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
April 9th.
My loving Lord, I would be more gentle! I touch the sores of the world roughly, and I increase the pain! Make me more
sensitive, that I may feel the griefs and failures of others, and touch them with the gentleness of Christ!
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.
Psalms 119:165
Yes, a true love for the great Book will bring us great peace from the great God, and be a great protection to us. Let us live constantly in the society of the law of the Lord, and it will breed in our hearts a restfulness such as nothing else can. The Holy Spirit acts as a Comforter through the Word, and sheds abroad those benign influences which calm the tempests of the soul.
Nothing is a stumbling-block to the man who has the Word of God dwelling in him richly. He takes up his daily cross and it becomes a delight. For the fiery trial he is prepared, and counts it not strange, so as to be utterly cast down by it. He is neither stumbled by prosperity, as so many are, nor crushed by adversity, as others have been; for he lives beyond the changing circumstances of external life. When his Lord puts before him some great mystery of the faith which makes others cry, "This is an hard saying; who can hear it?" the believer accepts it without question; for his intellectual difficulties are overcome by his reverent awe of the law of the Lord, which is to him the supreme authority to which he joyfully bows. Lord, work in us this love, this peace, this rest, this day.
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Genesis 1:2
The Holy Spirit is the Creator of beauty. He is revealed in the garnishing of the heavens, in the blue of the day, and in the darkness of night with all the splendours of stars scattered in profusion across it.
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
A chosen vessel unto Me.
Acts 9:15
How unexpected, and how surpassingly wise are the elections of God. "Saul breathing threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord": "A chosen vessel unto Me." Saul was a man of Tarsus, a Hebrew of Hebrews, and withal a free-born citizen of Rome. All his earliest years had been spent in the atmosphere of Tarsus, a city which was Greek in its outlook. He had been educated religiously, in the straitest of sects, that of the Pharisees. Through all his life, whether in Cilicia or Judaea, he had moved in the liberty of Roman citizenship. His youth had been clean: as touching the righteousness which is in the law he was blameless. He was free from all hypocrisy, and intense in his devotion to what he believed. This man was the chosen vessel of the Lord, to bear His name before Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. This is perhaps the supreme instance in the New Testament of how natural gifts and capacities are possessed by the Spirit, and made the media through which witness is borne to Christ. All those elements which made him the most powerful antagonist of Christianity became the forces which created the power of his protagonism. It was a critical hour for the Church. In the affairs of men critical hours are hours of uncertainty and therefore of peril. In the economy of God they are hours of victory, for He finds the man; and His gifts and callings are without repentance, for His wisdom is final and unclouded.
Note: To the best of our knowledge we are of the understanding that the above material, all published before 1926 and freely available elsewhere on the internet in various formats, is in the public domain.