Daily Bible Notes: April, 28th
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
Remember the word unto Thy servant, upon which Thou hast caused me to hope.
Psalm 119:49
Whatever your especial need may be, you may readily find some promise in the Bible suited to it. Are you faint and feeble because your way is rough and you are weary? Here is the promise -"He giveth power to the faint." When you read such a promise, take it back to the great Promiser, and ask Him to fulfil His own word. Are you seeking after Christ, and thirsting for closer communion with Him? This promise shines like a star upon you -"Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." Take that promise to the throne continually; do not plead anything else, but go to God over and over again with this -"Lord, Thou hast said it, do as Thou hast said." Are you distressed because of sin, and burdened with the heavy load of your iniquities? Listen to these words -"I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions, and will no more remember thy sins." You have no merit of your own to plead why He should pardon you, but plead His written engagements and He will perform them. Are you afraid lest you should not be able to hold on to the end, lest, after having thought yourself a child of God, you should prove a castaway? If that is your state, take this word of grace to the throne and plead it: "The mountains may depart, and the hills may be removed, but the covenant of My love shall not depart from thee." If you have lost the sweet sense of the Saviour’s presence, and are seeking Him with a sorrowful heart, remember the promises: "Return unto Me, and I will return unto you;" "For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee." Banquet your faith upon God’s own word, and whatever your fears or wants, repair to the Bank of Faith with your Father’s note of hand, saying, "Remember the word unto Thy servant, upon which Thou hast caused me to hope."
Evening
All the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted.
Ezekiel 3:7
Are there no exceptions? No, not one. Even the favoured race are thus described. Are the best so bad? - then what must the worst be? Come, my heart, consider how far thou hast a share in this universal accusation, and while considering, be ready to take shame unto thyself herein thou mayst have been guilty. The first charge is impudence , or hardness of forehead, a want of holy shame, an unhallowed boldness in evil. Before my conversion, I could sin and feel no compunction, hear of my guilt and yet remain unhumbled, and even confess my iniquity and manifest no inward humiliation on account of it. For a sinner to go to God’s house and pretend to pray to Him and praise Him argues a brazen-facedness of the worst kind! Alas! since the day of my new birth I have doubted my Lord to His face, murmured unblushingly in His presence, worshipped before Him in a slovenly manner, and sinned without bewailing myself concerning it. If my forehead were not as an adamant, harder than flint, I should have far more holy fear, and a far deeper contrition of spirit. Woe is me, I am one of the impudent house of Israel. The second charge is hardheartedness , and I must not venture to plead innocent here. Once I had nothing but a heart of stone, and although through grace I now have a new and fleshy heart, much of my former obduracy remains. I am not affected by the death of Jesus as I ought to be; neither am I moved by the ruin of my fellow men, the wickedness of the times, the chastisement of my heavenly Father, and my own failures, as I should be. O that my heart would melt at the recital of my Saviour’s sufferings and death. Would to God I were rid of this nether millstone within me, this hateful body of death. Blessed be the name of the Lord, the disease is not incurable, the Saviour’s precious blood is the universal solvent, and me, even me, it will effectually soften, till my heart melts as wax before the fire.
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
1 Samuel 17:28-37
28 Eliab his oldest brother heard when he spoke to the men; and Eliab's anger burnt against David, and he said, "Why have you come down? With whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your pride, and the naughtiness of your heart; for you have come down that you might see the battle."
29 David said, "What have I now done? Is there not a cause?"
30 He turned away from him towards another, and spoke like that again; and the people answered him again the same way.
31 When the words were heard which David spoke, they rehearsed them before Saul; and he sent for him.
32 David said to Saul, "Let no man's heart fail because of him. Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine."
33 Saul said to David, "You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth."
34 David said to Saul, "Your servant was keeping his father's sheep; and when a lion or a bear came, and took a lamb out of the flock,
35 I went out after him, and struck him, and rescued it out of his mouth. When he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and struck him, and killed him.
36 Your servant struck both the lion and the bear. This uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, since he has defied the armies of the living God."
37 David said, "The LORD who delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine." Saul said to David, "Go! The LORD will be with you."
PREPARING FOR GREAT ENCOUNTERS
This young champion of the Lord had won many victories before he faced Goliath. Everything depends on how I approach my supreme conflicts. If I have been careless in smaller combats I shall fail in the larger. If I come, wearing the garlands of triumph won in the shade, the shout of victory is already in the air! Let me look at David's trophies before he removed Goliath's head.
He had conquered his temper. Read Eliab's irritating taunt in the twenty-eighth verse, and mark the fine self-possession of the young champion's reply! That conquest of temper helped him when he took aim at Goliath! There is nothing like passion for disturbing the accuracy of the eye and the steadiness of the hand.
He had conquered fear. "Let no man's heart fail because of him." There was no panic, there was no feverish and wasteful excitement. There was no shouting "to keep the spirits up!" He was perfectly calm.
And he had conquered unbelief. He had a rich history of the providential dealings of God with him, and his confidence was now unclouded and serene. He had known the Lord's power when he faced the bear and the lion. Now for Goliath!
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
April 28th.
Merciful God, I pray for all men and women whose lives are attended with many failures. Be merciful to all who have never
tasted the sweets of earthly success. Save them from bitterness of heart. May the sense of Thy companionship be an infinite compensation!
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
2 Corinthians 6:16
Here is a mutual interest. Each belongs to each. God is the portion of his people, and the chosen people are the portion of their God. The saints find in God their chief possession, and he reckons them to be his peculiar treasure. What a mine of comfort lies in this fact for each believer!
This happy condition of mutual interest leads to mutual consideration. God will always think of his own people, and they will always think of him. This day my God will perform all things for me; what can I do for him? My thoughts ought to run towards him, for he thinketh upon me. Let me make sure that it is so, and not be content with merely admitting that so it ought to be.
This, again, leads to mutual fellowship. God dwells in us, and we dwell in him; he walks with us, and we walk with God. Happy communion this!
Oh, for grace to treat the Lord as my God: to trust him, and to serve him, as his Godhead deserves! Oh, that I could love, worship, adore, and obey Jehovah in spirit and in truth; this is my heart's desire. When I shall attain to it, I shall have found my heaven. Lord, help me! Be my God in helping me to know thee as my God, for Jesus' sake.
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
I am the resurrection and the life.
John 11:25
The living risen Christ is the Centre of the Church's creed, the Creator of her character, and the Inspiration of her conduct. His resurrection is the clearest note in her battle-song. It is the sweetest, strongest music amid all her sorrows. It speaks of personal salvation.
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
So we came to Rome.
Acts 28:14
The "so" of that statement refers to much more than the story of the voyage. It goes back at least to the occasion when in Ephesus Paul had said: "I must also see Rome." Since then probably three years had elapsed, and what strange experiences of bonds and afflictions he had passed through! At last he arrived in the imperial city as a prisoner, and Luke wrote: "So we came." The conviction that he would arrive had been challenged again and again by circumstances, and once perhaps when shut up in the castle in Jerusalem that conviction had been shaken. Then the Lord stood by him and assured him, and from that time there is not the slightest evidence of any tremor. Thus the "so" has more in it than the reference to the trying circumstances and the long delay. It referred also and principally to the power of the Lord, against which the hostility of Jerusalem, the vagaries of governors, and the wrath of the elements, were all alike powerless. And so it ever is. A man walking in a Divinely-marked pathway is perfectly safe. If it be the will of God that we should reach a certain place, and do a certain piece of work for Him, nothing can prevent our arriving, nothing can hinder our doing that work, save disobedience. The way of our coming, and the circumstances of our arrival may not be what we had anticipated, but we shall arrive, and God's purpose will be served.
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.