Daily Bible Notes: January, 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
And so all Israel shall be saved.
Romans 11:26
Then Moses sang at the Red Sea, it was his joy to know that all Israel were safe. Not a drop of spray fell from that solid wall until the last of God’s Israel had safely planted his foot on the other side the flood. That done, immediately the floods dissolved into their proper place again, but not till then. Part of that song was, "Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed." In the last time, when the elect shall sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and of the Lamb, it shall be the boast of Jesus, "Of all whom thou hast given me, I have lost none." In heaven there shall not be a vacant throne. "For all the chosen race Shall meet around the throne, Shall bless the conduct of His grace, And make His glories known."
As many as God hath chosen, as many as Christ hath redeemed, as many as the Spirit hath called, as many as believe in Jesus, shall safely cross the dividing sea. We are not all safely landed yet: "Part of the host have crossed the flood, And part are crossing now."
The vanguard of the army has already reached the shore. We are marching through the depths; we are at this day following hard after our Leader into the heart of the sea. Let us be of good cheer: the rear-guard shall soon be where the vanguard already is; the last of the chosen ones shall soon have crossed the sea, and then shall be heard the song of triumph, when all are secure. But oh! if one were absent - oh! if one of His chosen family should be cast away - it would make an everlasting discord in the song of the redeemed, and cut the strings of the harps of paradise, so that music could never be extorted from them.
Evening
He was sore athirst, and called on the Lord, and said, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of Thy servant: and now shall I die for thirst?
Judges 15:18
Samson was thirsty and ready to die. The difficulty was totally different from any which the hero had met before. Merely to get thirst assuaged is nothing like so great a matter as to be delivered from a thousand Philistines! but when the thirst was upon him, Samson felt that little present difficulty more weighty than the great past difficulty out of which he had so specially been delivered. It is very usual for God’s people, when they have enjoyed a great deliverance, to find a little trouble too much for them. Samson slays a thousand Philistines, and piles them up in heaps, and then faints for a little water! Jacob wrestles with God at Peniel, and overcomes Omnipotence itself, and then goes "halting on his thigh!"
Strange that there must be a shrinking of the sinew whenever we win the day. As if the Lord must teach us our littleness, our nothingness, in order to keep us within bounds. Samson boasted right loudly when he said, "I have slain a thousand men." His boastful throat soon grew hoarse with thirst, and he betook himself to prayer. God has many ways of humbling His people. Dear child of God, if after great mercy you are laid very low, your case is not an unusual one. When David had mounted the throne of Israel, he said, "I am this day weak, though anointed king." You must expect to feel weakest when you are enjoying your greatest triumph. If God has wrought for you great deliverances in the past, your present difficulty is only like Samson’s thirst, and the Lord will not let you faint, nor suffer the daughter of the uncircumcised to triumph over you. The road of sorrow is the road to heaven, but there are wells of refreshing water all along the route. So, tried brother, cheer your heart with Samson’s words, and rest assured that God will deliver you ere long.
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
Matthew 18:7-14
7 "Woe to the world because of occasions of stumbling! For it must be that the occasions come, but woe to that person through whom the occasion comes!
8 If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off, and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life maimed or crippled, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into the eternal fire.
9 If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into the Gehenna of fire.
10 See that you don't despise one of these little ones, for I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.
11 For the Son of Man came to save that which was lost.
12 "What do you think? If a man has one hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, doesn't he leave the ninety-nine, go to the mountains, and seek that which has gone astray?
13 If he finds it, most certainly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine which have not gone astray.
14 Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.
THE VALUE OF ONE SOUL
What an infinite value the Lord attaches to one soul! "And one of them be gone astray!" I thought He might never have missed the one! And yet the Eastern shepherd says that out of his great flock he can miss the individual face. A face is missing, as though a child were absent from the family circle. When a soul is wandering in the far country there is an awful gap in the Father's house! Is thy place empty? Is mine?
And mark the pangs of the Shepherd's quest. He "goeth into the mountain and seeketh!" The Eastern shepherd goes out in tempest, and in rocky ravine, or in thorny scrub that tears the hands and feet, he seeks and finds his sheep. And my Lord sought me, in stony and thorny places, in the darkness of Gethsemane, and in the awful desolations of The Hill.
And the Shepherd found His sheep, and He returns across the hills singing the song of the triumph of grace -
- "And up from the mountains, thunder-riven,
And up from the rocky steep,
A cry arose to the gates of heaven,
'Rejoice! I have found My sheep!'
And the angels echo around the throne,
'Rejoice! for the Lord brings back His own!'"
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
January 21st.
My Father, I thank Thee for the word "morning": the long night shall end: sorrow itself shall be worn out: the tears of the
darkness shall glisten as the dew in the morning light.
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.
Exodus 7:5
The ungodly world is hard to teach. Egypt does not know Jehovah, and therefore dares to set up its idols, and even ventures to ask - "Who is the Lord?" Yet the Lord means to break proud hearts, whether they will or not. When his judgments thunder over their heads, darken their skies, destroy their harvests, and slay their sons, they begin to discern somewhat of Jehovah's power. There will yet be such things done in the earth as shall bring sceptics to their knees. Let us not be dismayed because of their blasphemies, for the Lord can take care of his own name, and he will do so in a very effectual manner.
The salvation of his own people was another potent means of making Egypt know that the God of Israel was Jehovah, the living and true God. No Israelite died by any one of the ten plagues. None of the chosen seed were drowned in the Red Sea. Even so, the salvation of the elect, and the sure glorification of all true believers, will make the most obstinate of God's enemies acknowledge that Jehovah he is the God.
Oh, that his convincing power would go forth by his Holy Spirit in the preaching of the gospel, till all nations shall bow at the name of Jesus, and call him Lord!
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
My grace is sufficient for thee, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
2 Corinthians 12:9
All the wind that blows, the rain that splashes, the changes of atmosphere that tell upon the oak, are child's play compared to the mental anguish and heart-break that have swept across your life; and yet you have endured.
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
Now in the morning as He returned to the city, He hungered.
Matthew 21:18
This ever seems to me to be one of the statements in which we find the merging in our Lord of the physical and the spiritual. There is no doubt that He was conscious of physical hunger, but His action shows that His supreme consciousness was that of His passion for righteousness. Quite apart from the significance of what He did in the sphere of His mission, this is a most arresting revelation of the truth concerning His personality. He was perfectly human and therefore physically hungry, for hunger is a sign of health. But the deeper note is that because He was so perfectly human, the supreme things of life, which are the spiritual, were still dominant, and His action shows how to Him the physical is ever sacramental, and the medium of the spiritual. This is an ideal of life which we do well to consider. We are terribly in danger, in actual life, of separating between the physical and the spiritual. To put it quite bluntly, we too often lose our spiritual sense when we are physically hungry, or forget our physical needs when spiritually hungry. This is all wrong. In proportion as we are truly submitted to the mastery of our Lord there will be no such one-sidedness of experience. To live the Christ-life is in very deed, whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, to do all to the glory of God. Then every power of the physical becomes an expression of the spiritual.
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.