Daily Bible Notes: June, 14th
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
Delight thyself also in the Lord.
Psalm 37:4
The teaching of these words must seem very surprising to those who are strangers to vital godliness, but to the sincere believer it is only the inculcation of a recognized truth. The life of the believer is here described as a delight in God, and we are thus certified of the great fact that true religion overflows with happiness and joy. Ungodly persons and mere professors never look upon religion as a joyful thing; to them it is service, duty, or necessity, but never pleasure or delight. If they attend to religion at all, it is either that they may gain thereby, or else because they dare not do otherwise. The thought of delight in religion is so strange to most men, that no two words in their language stand further apart than "holiness" and "delight." But believers who know Christ, understand that delight and faith are so blessedly united, that the gates of hell cannot prevail to separate them. They who love God with all their hearts, find that His ways are ways of pleasantness, and all His paths are peace. Such joys, such brimful delights, such overflowing blessednesses, do the saints discover in their Lord, that so far from serving Him from custom, they would follow Him though all the world cast out His name as evil. We fear not God because of any compulsion; our faith is no fetter, our profession is no bondage, we are not dragged to holiness, nor driven to duty. No, our piety is our pleasure, our hope is our happiness, our duty is our delight.
Delight and true religion are as allied as root and flower; as indivisible as truth and certainty; they are, in fact, two precious jewels glittering side by side in a setting of gold. "‘Tis when we taste Thy love, Our joys divinely grow, Unspeakable like those above, And heaven begins below."
Evening
O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face... because we have sinned against Thee.
Daniel 9:8
A deep sense and clear sight of sin, its heinousness, and the punishment which it deserves, should make us lie low before the throne. We have sinned as Christians. Alas! that it should be so. Favoured as we have been, we have yet been ungrateful: privileged beyond most, we have not brought forth fruit in proportion. Who is there, although he may long have been engaged in the Christian warfare, that will not blush when he looks back upon the past? As for our days before we were regenerated, may they be forgiven and forgotten; but since then, though we have not sinned as before, yet we have sinned against light and against love - light which has really penetrated our minds, and love in which we have rejoiced. Oh, the atrocity of the sin of a pardoned soul! An unpardoned sinner sins cheaply compared with the sin of one of God’s own elect ones, who has had communion with Christ and leaned his head upon Jesus’ bosom. Look at David! Many will talk of his sin, but I pray you look at his repentance, and hear his broken bones, as each one of them moans out its dolorous confession! Mark his tears, as they fall upon the ground, and the deep sighs with which he accompanies the softened music of his harp! We have erred: let us, therefore, seek the spirit of penitence. Look, again, at Peter!
We speak much of Peter’s denying his Master. Remember, it is written, "He wept bitterly." Have we no denials of our Lord to be lamented with tears? Alas! these sins of ours, before and after conversion, would consign us to the place of inextinguishable fire if it were not for the sovereign mercy which has made us to differ, snatching us like brands from the burning. My soul, bow down under a sense of thy natural sinfulness, and worship thy God. Admire the grace which saves thee - the mercy which spares thee - the love which pardons thee!
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
Hebrews 10:16-22
16 "This is the covenant that I will make with them: 'After those days,' says the Lord, 'I will put my laws on their heart, I will also write them on their mind;' " then he says,
17 "I will remember their sins and their iniquities no more."
18 Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.
19 Having therefore, brothers, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus,
20 by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh,
21 and having a great priest over God's house,
22 let's draw near with a true heart in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our body washed with pure water,
THE LAW IN THE HEART
"I will put My laws into their hearts."
Everything depends on where we carry the law of the Lord. If it only rests in the memory, any vagrant care may snatch it away. The business of the day may wipe it out as a sponge erases a record from a slate. A thought is never secure until it has passed from the mind into the heart, and has become a desire, an aspiration, a passion. When the law of God is taken into the heart, it is no longer something merely remembered: it is something loved. Now things that are loved have a strong defence. They are in the "keep" of the castle, in the innermost custody of the stronghold. The strength of the heart is wrapped about them, and no passing vagrant can carry them away.
And this is where the good Lord is willing to put His laws. He is wishful to put them among our loves. And the wonderful thing is this: when laws are put among loves they change their form, and His statutes become our songs. Laws that are loved are no longer dreadful policemen, but compassionate friends. "O! how I love Thy law!" That man did not live in a prison, he lived in a garden, and God's will was unto him as gracious flowers and fruits. And so shall it be unto all of us when we love the law of the Lord.
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
June 14th.
My Father God, teach me how to hate. May I have a hatred of all sin! May I turn from sin, not only because it is
unlawful, but because I loathe it! May sin never taste sweet! May it be as bitterness in my mouth!
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
For the Lord will not forsake his people for his great name's sake; because it hath pleased the Lord to make you his people.
1 Samuel 12:22
God's choice of his people is the reason for his abiding by them, and not forsaking them. He chose them for his love, and he loves them for his choice. His own good pleasure is the source of their election, and his election is the reason for the continuance of his pleasure in them. It would dishonour his great name for him to forsake them, since it would either show that he made an error in his choice, or that he was fickle in his love. God's love has this glory, that it never changes, and this glory he will never tarnish.
By all the memories of the Lord's former loving-kindnesses let us rest assured that he will not forsake us. He who has gone so far as to make us his people, will not undo the creation of his grace. He has not wrought such wonders for us that he might leave us after all. His Son Jesus has died for us, and we may be sure that he has not died in vain. Can he forsake those for whom he shed his blood? Because he has hitherto taken pleasure in choosing and in saving us, it will be his pleasure still to bless us. Our Lord Jesus is no changeable Lover. Having loved his own, he loves them to the end.
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
Fear not ... I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.
Revelation 1:17,18
O suffering saints, and all who approach the shadow-land, fear not, fear not! Trust Him utterly, be faithful, confiding, even unto death, and through the dark chambers of death and of Hades, He will lead to light. Christ never tells us not to fear until He Himself has fathomed all the mystery.
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee.
Psalms 55:22
These are wonderful words, and their constant use by the people of God shows how great their value, and how profound a philosophy of life they contain. This becomes the more remarkable a word when the burden of the singer is borne in mind. Kirkpatrick has truthfully said "Despair, sorrow, indignation, faith find expression by turns in this pathetic record of persecution embittered by the treachery of an intimate friend." A mere selection of some of the words used to describe the consciousness of the singer will help us to discover the weight of the burden - terrors, fearfulness, trembling, horror - these are not soft words. Or again, gather out some of the words describing the conditions giving rise to these things - violence, strife, iniquity, mischief, wickedness, oppression, guile - these are terrible words. Then at the heart of the song occurs one of the most pathetic passages in literature, as descriptive of the most poignant agony. The inspirer and instigator of the trouble was a man, the singer's equal, his companion, his familiar friend. This was the burden. With the weight of it upon him, he yet uttered these great words, and who shall doubt that they were expressive of his experience? To cast the burden upon Jehovah is not to be rid of it, but it is to find One Who carries, sustains the burden-bearer, and so the burden also, in a fellowship of love and might. It always seems to me that a wonderful commentary on this word of the Old Testament is found in Paul's description of his experiences (2 Cor. 4:7-9 and 16-18). The experience of suffering was not taken away from the servant of God, but he was sustained, and so made strong enough to resist its pressure, and through it to make his service more perfect. This is how God ever sustains us in the bearing of burdens.
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.