Daily Bible Notes: December, 21st
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
Yet He hath made with me an everlasting covenant.
2 Samuel 23:5
This covenant is divine in its origin . "HE hath made with me an everlasting covenant." Oh that great word HE! Stop, my soul. God, the everlasting Father, has positively made a covenant with thee; yes, that God who spake the world into existence by a word; He, stooping from His majesty, takes hold of thy hand and makes a covenant with thee. Is it not a deed, the stupendous condescension of which might ravish our hearts for ever if we could really understand it? "HE hath made with me a covenant." A king has not made a covenant with me - that were somewhat; but the Prince of the kings of the earth, Shaddai, the Lord All-sufficient, the Jehovah of ages, the everlasting Elohim, "He hath made with me an everlasting covenant."
But notice, it is particular in its application . "Yet hath He made with ME an everlasting covenant." Here lies the sweetness of it to each believer. It is nought for me that He made peace for the world; I want to know whether He made peace for me ! It is little that He hath made a covenant, I want to know whether He has made a covenant with me . Blessed is the assurance that He hath made a covenant with me! If God the Holy Ghost gives me assurance of this, then His salvation is mine, His heart is mine, He Himself is mine - He is my God .
This covenant is everlasting in its duration . An everlasting covenant means a covenant which had no beginning, and which shall never, never end. How sweet amidst all the uncertainties of life, to know that "the foundation of the Lord standeth sure," and to have God’s own promise, "My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips." Like dying David, I will sing of this, even though my house be not so with God as my heart desireth.
Evening
I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers’ skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk.
Ezekiel 16:10
See with what matchless generosity the Lord provides for His people’s apparel. They are so arrayed that the divine skill is seen producing an unrivalled broidered work , in which every attribute takes its part and every divine beauty is revealed. No art like the art displayed in our salvation, no cunning workmanship like that beheld in the righteousness of the saints. Justification has engrossed learned pens in all ages of the church, and will be the theme of admiration in eternity. God has indeed "curiously wrought it." With all this elaboration there is mingled utility and durability, comparable to our being shod with badgers’ skins . The animal here meant is unknown, but its skin covered the tabernacle, and formed one of the finest and strongest leathers known. The righteousness which is of God by faith endureth for ever, and he who is shod with this divine preparation will tread the desert safely, and may even set his foot upon the lion and the adder. Purity and dignity of our holy vesture are brought out in the fine linen . When the Lord sanctifies His people, they are clad as priests in pure white; not the snow itself excels them; they are in the eyes of men and angels fair to look upon, and even in the Lord’s eyes they are without spot. Meanwhile the royal apparel is delicate and rich as silk . No expense is spared, no beauty withheld, no daintiness denied.
What, then? Is there no inference from this? Surely there is gratitude to be felt and joy to be expressed. Come, my heart, refuse not thy evening hallelujah! Tune thy pipes! Touch thy chords! "Strangely, my soul, art thou arrayed By the Great Sacred Three!
In sweetest harmony of praise Let all thy powers agree."
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
Luke 2:8-20
8 There were shepherds in the same country staying in the field, and keeping watch by night over their flock.
9 Behold, an angel of the Lord stood by them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
10 The angel said to them, "Don't be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be to all the people.
11 For there is born to you today, in David's city, a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.
12 This is the sign to you: you will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth, lying in a feeding trough."
13 Suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army praising God, and saying,
14 "Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will towards men."
15 When the angels went away from them into the sky, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem, now, and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us."
16 They came with haste, and found both Mary and Joseph, and the baby was lying in the feeding trough.
17 When they saw it, they publicised widely the saying which was spoken to them about this child.
18 All who heard it wondered at the things which were spoken to them by the shepherds.
19 But Mary kept all these sayings, pondering them in her heart.
20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, just as it was told them.
THE LORD OF WORKING MEN
And so the good news was told to shepherds, to working men who were toiling in the fields. The coming King would hallow the common work of man, and in His love and grace all the problems of labour would find a solution.
The Lord of the Christmas-tide throws a halo over common toil. Even Christian people have not all learnt the significance of the angels' visit to the lonely shepherds. Some of us can see the light resting upon a bishop's crosier, but we cannot see the radiance on the ordinary shepherd's staff. We can discern the hallowedness of a priest's vocation, but we see no sanctity in the calling of the grocer, or of the scavenger in the street. We can see the nimbus on the few, but not on the crowd; on the unusual, but not upon the commonplace. But the very birth-hour of Christianity irradiated the humble doings of humble people. When the angels went to the shepherds, common work was encircled with an immortal crown.
And it is in the Lord Jesus that all labour troubles are to be put to rest. If we work from any other centre we shall arrive at confusion confounded. "I have the keys."
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
December 21st.
Lord of all grace, may Thy kindly Spirit work in the secret places of my life! I would be Thine in the inward parts.
I would have no secret chamber of my own. I would give Thee every room of my life. Search me and know me, and make me entirely Thine.
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.
Micah 7:19
God never turns from his love, but he soon turns from his wrath. His love to his chosen is according to his nature, his anger is only according to his office he loves because he is love, he frowns because it is necessary for our good. He will come back to the place in which his heart rests, namely, his love to his own, and then he will take pity upon our griefs and end them.
What a choice promise is this - "He will subdue our iniquities"! He will conquer them. They try to enslave us, but the Lord will give us victory over them by his own right hand. Like the Canaanites, they shall be beaten, put under the yoke, and ultimately slain.
As for the guilt of our sins, how gloriously is that removed! "All their sins," - yes, the whole host of them; "thou wilt cast" - only an almighty arm could perform such a wonder; "into the depths of the sea" - where Pharaoh and his chariots went down. Not into the shallows out of which they might be washed up by the tide, but into the "depths" shall our sins be hurled. They are all gone. They sank into the bottom like a stone. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
Whosever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
James 2:10
Men are apt to think that if there be ten commandments, of which they obey nine, such obedience will be put to their credit, even though they break the tenth. That, however, is to misunderstand God's purpose of perfection for man, and the consequent perfection of His law ...
It is by 'every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, man doth live.'
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great.
Revelation 18:2
This word John heard proclaimed with a mighty voice by an angel who came out of heaven having great authority. It is rather a description of Babylon as she is seen from the height of the heavenly order, than a pronouncement of her doom. It is necessarily a pronouncement of doom, but it reveals the reason of the doom. She is fallen. Her condition is that of being a habitation of demons, the prison-house of unclean spirits. As the carcase of a bird with broken wings, fallen to earth, becomes infested with the life of corruption which is in itself death, Babylon is declared to be the place in which all violence and spiritual corruption of the worst type abides. Therefore is she fallen, and Heaven always sees her as fallen, even in hours when she seems to be triumphant. The words of Jesus inevitably recur to the mind: "I beheld Satan as lightning fallen from heaven." The fall of Babylon outwardly and manifestly will produce entirely opposite effects on earth and in heaven. The whole earth is plunged into mourning. Kings and merchants and masses will bewail the unutterable overthrow, for all the investments of ungodliness will be destroyed. But in that fall Heaven will rejoice, for in it, saints, apostles, prophets are vindicated and crowned. The last paragraph in this chapter declares the reason of the Divine wrath against Babylon. Her princes are "of the earth," that is, godless in their rule. Her sorceries have deceived the nations. She is full of the blood of those whom she has slain. Therefore, and because of the Throne, and the One Who sitteth upon it, and of the Lamb Who exercises His power and authority - Babylon is fallen.
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.