Daily Bible Notes: February, 10th
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
I know how to abound.
Philippians 4:12
There are many who know "how to be abased" who have not learned "how to abound." When they are set upon the top of a pinnacle their heads grow dizzy, and they are ready to fall. The Christian far oftener disgraces his profession in prosperity than in adversity. It is a dangerous thing to be prosperous. The crucible of adversity is a less severe trial to the Christian than the fining-pot of prosperity. Oh, what leanness of soul and neglect of spiritual things have been brought on through the very mercies and bounties of God! Yet this is not a matter of necessity, for the apostle tells us that he knew how to abound. When he had much he knew how to use it. Abundant grace enabled him to bear abundant prosperity.
When he had a full sail he was loaded with much ballast, and so floated safely. It needs more than human skill to carry the brimming cup of mortal joy with a steady hand, yet Paul had learned that skill, for he declares, "In all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry." It is a divine lesson to know how to be full, for the Israelites were full once, but while the flesh was yet in their mouth, the wrath of God came upon them. Many have asked for mercies that they might satisfy their own hearts’ lust.
Fulness of bread has often made fulness of blood, and that has brought on wantonness of spirit. When we have much of God’s providential mercies, it often happens that we have but little of God’s grace, and little gratitude for the bounties we have received. We are full and we forget God: satisfied with earth, we are content to do without heaven. Rest assured it is harder to know how to be full than it is to know how to be hungry - so desperate is the tendency of human nature to pride and forgetfulness of God. Take care that you ask in your prayers that God would teach you "how to be full." "Let not the gifts Thy love bestows Estrange our hearts from Thee."
Evening
I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto Me; for I have redeemed thee.
Isaiah 44:22
Attentively observe THE INSTRUCTIVE SIMILITUDE: our sins are like a cloud . As clouds are of many shapes and shades, so are our transgressions. As clouds obscure the light of the sun, and darken the landscape beneath, so do our sins hide from us the light of Jehovah’s face, and cause us to sit in the shadow of death. They are earth-born things, and rise from the miry places of our nature; and when so collected that their measure is full, they threaten us with storm and tempest. Alas! that, unlike clouds, our sins yield us no genial showers, but rather threaten to deluge us with a fiery flood of destruction. O ye black clouds of sin, how can it be fair weather with our souls while ye remain?
Let our joyful eye dwell upon THE NOTABLE ACT of divine mercy -"blotting out." God Himself appears upon the scene, and in divine benignity, instead of manifesting His anger, reveals His grace: He at once and for ever effectually removes the mischief, not by blowing away the cloud, but by blotting it out from existence once for all. Against the justified man no sin remains, the great transaction of the cross has eternally removed His transgressions from him. On Calvary’s summit the great deed, by which the sin of all the chosen was for ever put away, was completely and effectually performed.
Practically let us obey THE GRACIOUS COMMAND, "return unto me ."Why should pardoned sinners live at a distance from their God? If we have been forgiven all our sins, let no legal fear withhold us from the boldest access to our Lord. Let backslidings be bemoaned, but let us not persevere in them. To the greatest possible nearness of communion with the Lord, let us, in the power of the Holy Spirit, strive mightily to return.
O Lord, this night restore us!
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
Joshua 24:22-28
22 Joshua said to the people, "You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the LORD yourselves, to serve him." They said, "We are witnesses."
23 "Now therefore put away the foreign gods which are amongst you, and incline your heart to the LORD, the God of Israel."
24 The people said to Joshua, "We will serve the LORD our God, and we will listen to his voice."
25 So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem.
26 Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God; and he took a great stone, and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the LORD.
27 Joshua said to all the people, "Behold, this stone shall be a witness against us, for it has heard all the LORD's words which he spoke to us. It shall be therefore a witness against you, lest you deny your God."
28 So Joshua sent the people away, each to his own inheritance.
REGISTERING A VERDICT
"The Lord our God will we serve, and His voice will we obey."
Here was a definite decision. Our peril is that we spend our life in wavering and we never decide. We are like a jury which is always hearing evidence and never gives a verdict. We do much thinking, but we never make up our minds. We let our eyes wander over many things, but we make no choice. Life has no crisis, no culmination.
Now people who never decide spend their days in hoping to do so. But this kind of life becomes a vagrancy and not a noble and illumined crusade. We drift through our days, we do not steer, and we never arrive at any rich and stately haven.
It is therefore vitally wise to "make a vow unto the Lord." It is good to pull our loose thinkings together and to "gird up the loins of the mind." Let a man, at some definite place, and at some definite moment, make the supreme choice of his life.
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
February l0th.
My Father, help me to hear Thy voice to-day, when it speaks to me in humble duties, in common-place obligations, in the
ordinary courtesies of daily life.
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
For thou shalt be his witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard.
Acts 22:15
Paul was chosen to see and hear the Lord speaking to him out of heaven. This divine election was a high privilege for himself; but it was not intended to end with him, it was meant to have an influence upon others; yea, upon all men. It is to Paul that Europe owes the gospel at this hour.
It is ours in our measure to be witnesses of that which the Lord has revealed to us, and it is at our peril that we hide the precious revelation. First, we must see and hear, or we shall have nothing to tell; but when we have done so, we must be eager to bear our testimony. It must be personal: "Thou shalt be." It must be for Christ: "Thou shalt be Ids witness." It must be constant and all absorbing; we are to be this above all other things, and to the exclusion of many other matters. Our witness must not be to a select few who will cheerfully receive us; but to "all men" - to all whom we can reach, young or old, rich or poor, good or bad. We must never be silent like those who are possessed by a dumb spirit; for the text before us is a command, and a promise, and we must not miss it - "Thou shalt be his witness." "Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord." Lord, fulfil this word to me also!
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
Thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding.
Matthew 11:25
The keenest intellect and most cultured mind are unable to understand the mystery of redemption, and therefore cannot explain it to others. Whoever can say light has broken upon the Cross, and the eternal morning has dawned, is able to do so through the direct illumination of the Holy Spirit; and apart from that, there can be no witness and no service.
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
I will sing unto the Lord because He hath dealt bountifully with me.
Psalms 13:6
This is the final note in this Psalm. What a contrast it is to the opening note: "How long, O Jehovah ? Wilt Thou forget me for ever?" The song is a most glorious one, in its revelation of the progress of a soul from overwhelming despair to highest exultation. Examine that progress. In the Hebrew arrangement there are three strophes, and these reveal the stages of experience. In the first (verses 1 and 2), the sorrow of the singer is evident; God is apparently idle and indifferent; no help is found within; the enemy is triumphant. In the second (verses 3 and 4), the singer is in prayer, and the prayer is characterized by complete honesty and daring urgency. In the third (verses 5 and 6), sorrow is submerged in singing, prayer gives place to praise. What a wonderful revelation of God all this affords! The only explanation of this complete change of tone in the song is the fact of God, in Whose presence the man poured out his heart. Let us observe what the song thus reveals of God. First, His tender and understanding patience is seen, as He listens to the complaining of His servant. Then His power is manifested, as He attends to the prayer of the troubled one, and evidently answers it in a spiritual revelation - for this must be the explanation of the sudden ascent of the singer to the mountains of praise. Thus finally He is revealed as glorified in the confidence in Himself; which in honesty complains, in earnestness prays, and at last in a great assurance praises. Let the whole Psalm teach us that the place to discuss our sorrows is in the presence of the King; and that there we may be honest. He will transmute the dirge into a paean.
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.