Daily Bible Notes: December, 13th
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
Salt without prescribing how much.
Ezra 7:22
Salt was used in every offering made by fire unto the Lord, and from its preserving and purifying properties it was the grateful emblem of divine grace in the soul. It is worthy of our attentive regard that, when Artaxerxes gave salt to Ezra the priest, he set no limit to the quantity, and we may be quite certain that when the King of kings distributes grace among His royal priesthood, the supply is not cut short by Him . Often are we straitened in ourselves, but never in the Lord. He who chooses to gather much manna will find that he may have as much as he desires. There is no such famine in Jerusalem that the citizens should eat their bread by weight and drink their water by measure. Some things in the economy of grace are measured; for instance our vinegar and gall are given us with such exactness that we never have a single drop too much, but of the salt of grace no stint is made, "Ask what thou wilt and it shall be given unto thee." Parents need to lock up the fruit cupboard, and the sweet jars, but there is no need to keep the salt-box under lock and key, for few children will eat too greedily from that. A man may have too much money, or too much honour, but he cannot have too much grace. When Jeshurun waxed fat in the flesh, he kicked against God, but there is no fear of a man’s becoming too full of grace: a plethora of grace is impossible. More wealth brings more care, but more grace brings more joy. Increased wisdom is increased sorrow, but abundance of the Spirit is fulness of joy. Believer, go to the throne for a large supply of heavenly salt. It will season thine afflictions, which are unsavoury without salt; it will preserve thy heart which corrupts if salt be absent, and it will kill thy sins even as salt kills reptiles. Thou needest much; seek much, and have much.
Evening
I will make thy windows of agates.
Isaiah 54:12
The church is most instructively symbolized by a building erected by heavenly power, and designed by divine skill. Such a spiritual house must not be dark, for the Israelites had light in their dwellings; there must therefore be windows to let the light in and to allow the inhabitants to gaze abroad. These windows are precious as agates: the ways in which the church beholds her Lord and heaven, and spiritual truth in general, are to be had in the highest esteem. Agates are not the most transparent of gems, they are but semi-pellucid at the best: "Our knowledge of that life is small, Our eye of faith is dim." Faith is one of these precious agate windows, but alas! it is often so misty and beclouded, that we see but darkly, and mistake much that we do see.
Yet if we cannot gaze through windows of diamonds and know even as we are known, it is a glorious thing to behold the altogether lovely One, even though the glass be hazy as the agate. Experience is another of these dim but precious windows, yielding to us a subdued religious light, in which we see the sufferings of the Man of Sorrows, through our own afflictions. Our weak eyes could not endure windows of transparent glass to let in the Master’s glory, but when they are dimmed with weeping, the beams of the Sun of Righteousness are tempered, and shine through the windows of agate with a soft radiance inexpressibly soothing to tempted souls. Sanctification , as it conforms us to our Lord, is another agate window.
Only as we become heavenly can we comprehend heavenly things. The pure in heart see a pure God. Those who are like Jesus see Him as He is.
Because we are so little like Him, the window is but agate; because we are somewhat like Him, it is agate. We thank God for what we have, and long for more. When shall we see God and Jesus, and heaven and truth, face to face?
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
Leviticus 10:1-10
1 Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer, and put fire in it, and laid incense on it, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he had not commanded them.
2 Fire came out from before the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.
3 Then Moses said to Aaron, "This is what the LORD spoke of, saying, 'I will show myself holy to those who come near me, and before all the people I will be glorified.' " Aaron held his peace.
4 Moses called Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Uzziel the uncle of Aaron, and said to them, "Draw near, carry your brothers from before the sanctuary out of the camp."
5 So they came near, and carried them in their tunics out of the camp, as Moses had said.
6 Moses said to Aaron, and to Eleazar and to Ithamar, his sons, "Don't let the hair of your heads go loose, and don't tear your clothes, so that you don't die, and so that he will not be angry with all the congregation; but let your brothers, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the LORD has kindled.
7 You shall not go out from the door of the Tent of Meeting, lest you die; for the anointing oil of the LORD is on you." They did according to the word of Moses.
8 Then The LORD said to Aaron,
9 "You and your sons are not to drink wine or strong drink whenever you go into the Tent of Meeting, or you will die. This shall be a statute forever throughout your generations.
10 You are to make a distinction between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean.
THE HOLY AND THE PROFANE
"Put difference between the holy and the unholy."
The peril of our day is that so many of these differences are growing faint. The holy merges into the unholy, and we can scarcely see the dividing line. Black merges into white through manifold shades of grey. Falsehood slopes into truth through cunning expediences and white lies. Lust merges into purity through conviviality and geniality and good-fellowship. So is one thing losing itself in another, and vivid moral distinctions are being obscured and effaced.
There is only one way to keep these native contrasts in vivid relief, and that is by living in the unsullied light of God's holy presence. "In Thy light shall we see light." Things are seen in their true colours only when we bring them before the great white throne. Fabrics seen in the gas-light reveal quite other shades when we bring them into the light of day. We must not make our distinctions in the gas-light of worldly standard and expediency; we must take them into His presence before whose radiance even the angels veil their faces, and we shall see things as they are, and we shall know "the difference between the holy and the profane."
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
December 13th.
Father of all mercies, fill my heart with Thine own grace. Save me from all hardness and unwise severity.
Give me the grace of gentleness. Make me kindly that I may be able to heal the sores I feel. May I put on the heart of compassion!
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
It shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.
Zechariah 14:7
It is a surprise that it should be so; for all things threaten that at evening time it shall be dark. God is wont to work in a way so much above our fears and beyond our hopes, that we are greatly amazed, and are led to praise his sovereign grace. No, it shall not be with us as our hearts are prophesying: the dark will not deepen into midnight, but it will on a sudden brighten into day. Never let us despair. In the worst times let us trust in the Lord who turneth the darkness of the shadow of death into the morning. When the tale of bricks is doubled Moses appears, and when tribulation abounds it is nearest its end.
This, promise should assist our patience. The light may not fully come till our hopes are quite spent by waiting all day to no purpose. To the wicked the sun goes down while it is yet day: to the righteous the sun rises when it is almost night. May we not with patience wait for that heavenly light, which may be long in coming, but is sure to prove itself well worth waiting for?
Come, my soul, take up thy parable and sing unto him who will bless thee in life and in death, in a manner surpassing all that nature has ever seen when at its best.
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
We have thought of thy loving kindness, O God.
Psalm 48:9
Can we not look back and see that some of the hours that throbbed with agony were the most blessed of all the hours of life? ... That affliction was my door to strength, that grave the prelude to resurrection power, that disappointment my finding His appointment, that lonely hour the one in which I found Jesus only.
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
There shall be delay no longer.
Revelation 10:6
Everything was now moving up to the sounding of the seventh trumpet, and the seer was prepared for what he was to see. First, there was given to him the vision of a strong angel, vested with authority, and declaring that there should be no further delay. The whole method of God with men through ages had been that of mystery and apparent delay. Now both would cease. Its ceasing would be according to the good tidings which He had declared to His servants the prophets; that is, it would issue in complete victory for all His purposes. But the processes would be those of further suffering, and the seer was symbolically prepared for this under the figure of the book which he was commanded to eat. It was the book of the Divine Word concerning these very things, containing unquestionably the messages which he would be called upon to deliver concerning many peoples and nations and tongues and kings. To a man called to such ministry there would be joy and bitterness. It is always so to those who deliver the messages of Divine judgment in true fellowship with the Lord Himself. All His delays are the result of His patience. When the hour strikes in which "delay shall be no more," God proceeds with the processes of His judgment, but never with delight. If He curse Jerusalem, it is always with a voice tremulous with the sorrow of His heart. The Lord delighteth in mercy, and judgment is His strange act; but when, in spite of grace and chastisement, man refuses to repent, then for the welfare of the race, and the fulfilment of His purposes of love, He will smite to destruction.
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.