Daily Bible Notes: June, 25th
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
Get thee up into the high mountain.
Isaiah 40:9
Our knowledge of Christ is somewhat like climbing one of our Welsh mountains. When you are at the base you see but little: the mountain itself appears to be but one-half as high as it really is. Confined in a little valley, you discover scarcely anything but the rippling brooks as they descend into the stream at the foot of the mountain. Climb the first rising knoll, and the valley lengthens and widens beneath your feet. Go higher, and you see the country for four or five miles round, and you are delighted with the widening prospect. Mount still, and the scene enlarges; till at last, when you are on the summit, and look east, west, north, and south, you see almost all England lying before you. Yonder is a forest in some distant county, perhaps two hundred miles away, and here the sea, and there a shining river and the smoking chimneys of a manufacturing town, or the masts of the ships in a busy port. All these things please and delight you, and you say, "I could not have imagined that so much could be seen at this elevation." Now, the Christian life is of the same order. When we first believe in Christ we see but little of Him. The higher we climb the more we discover of His beauties. But who has ever gained the summit? Who has known all the heights and depths of the love of Christ which passes knowledge? Paul, when grown old, sitting grey-haired, shivering in a dungeon in Rome, could say with greater emphasis than we can, "I know whom I have believed," for each experience had been like the climbing of a hill, each trial had been like ascending another summit, and his death seemed like gaining the top of the mountain, from which he could see the whole of the faithfulness and the love of Him to whom he had committed his soul. Get thee up, dear friend, into the high mountain.
Evening
The dove found no rest for the sole of her foot.
Genesis 8:9
Reader, can you find rest apart from the ark, Christ Jesus? Then be assured that your religion is vain. Are you satisfied with anything short of a conscious knowledge of your union and interest in Christ? Then woe unto you. If you profess to be a Christian, yet find full satisfaction in worldly pleasures and pursuits, your profession is false. If your soul can stretch herself at rest, and find the bed long enough, and the coverlet broad enough to cover her in the chambers of sin, then you are a hypocrite, and far enough from any right thoughts of Christ or perception of His preciousness. But if, on the other hand, you feel that if you could indulge in sin without punishment, yet it would be a punishment of itself; and that if you could have the whole world, and abide in it for ever, it would be quite enough misery not to be parted from it; for your God - your God - is what your soul craves after; then be of good courage, thou art a child of God. With all thy sins and imperfections, take this to thy comfort: if thy soul has no rest in sin, thou are not as the sinner is! If thou art still crying after and craving after something better, Christ has not forgotten thee, for thou hast not quite forgotten Him. The believer cannot do without his Lord; words are inadequate to express his thoughts of Him.
We cannot live on the sands of the wilderness, we want the manna which drops from on high; our skin bottles of creature confidence cannot yield us a drop of moisture, but we drink of the rock which follows us, and that rock is Christ. When you feed on Him your soul can sing, "He hath satisfied my mouth with good things, so that my youth is renewed like the eagle’s," but if you have Him not, your bursting wine vat and well-filled barn can give you no sort of satisfaction: rather lament over them in the words of wisdom, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!"
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
Isaiah 24:1-12
1 Behold, the LORD makes the earth empty, makes it waste, turns it upside down, and scatters its inhabitants.
2 It will be as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the creditor, so with the debtor; as with the taker of interest, so with the giver of interest.
3 The earth will be utterly emptied and utterly laid waste; for the LORD has spoken this word.
4 The earth mourns and fades away. The world languishes and fades away. The lofty people of the earth languish.
5 The earth also is polluted under its inhabitants, because they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, and broken the everlasting covenant.
6 Therefore the curse has devoured the earth, and those who dwell therein are found guilty. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burnt, and few men are left.
7 The new wine mourns. The vine languishes. All the merry-hearted sigh.
8 The mirth of tambourines ceases. The sound of those who rejoice ends. The joy of the harp ceases.
9 They will not drink wine with a song. Strong drink will be bitter to those who drink it.
10 The confused city is broken down. Every house is shut up, that no man may come in.
11 There is a crying in the streets because of the wine. All joy is darkened. The mirth of the land is gone.
12 The city is left in desolation, and the gate is struck with destruction.
DESOLATIONS WROUGHT BY SIN
"The Lord hath spoken this word."
"The Lord hath spoken this word," and it is a word of judgment. It unveils some of the terrible issues of sin.
See the effects of sin upon the spirit of man. "The merry-hearted do sigh." Life loses its wings and its song. The buoyancy and the optimism die out of the soul. The days move with heavy feet, and duty becomes very stale and unwelcome. If only our ears were keen enough we should hear many a place of hollow laughter moaning with troubled and restless sighs. The soul cannot sing when God is defied.
But see another effect of sin. "The earth moaneth." That is a frequent note in Bible teaching. The forces of nature are mysteriously conditioned by the character of man. When man is degraded, nature is despoiled. The beauty of the garden is checked when man has lost his crown. "The whole creation groaneth in pain," waiting for the manifestation of the children of God.
Sin spreads desolation everywhere. When I sin, I become the centre of demoralizing forces which influence the universe. And so let me ever pray, "Deliver me from evil."
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
June 25th.
Loving Father, I pray for all who are groping after the light May they seek in the right place and in the right way!
May they surrender their wills to the doing of Thy will, that their eyes may be washed from all defilement!
May they have purity of heart that they may see Thee!
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God
ascending and descending upon the Son of man.
John 1:51
Yes, to our faith this sight is plain even at this day. We do see heaven opened. Jesus himself has opened that kingdom to all believers. We gaze into the place of mystery and glory, for he has revealed it to us. We shall enter it soon, for he is the way.
Now we see the explanation of Jacob's ladder. Between earth and heaven there is a holy commerce; prayer ascends, and answers come down, by the way of Jesus, the Mediator. We see this ladder when we see our Lord. In him a stair-way of light now furnishes a clear passage to the throne of the Most High. Let us use it, and send up by it the messengers of our prayers. We shall live the angelic life ourselves if we run up to heaven in intercession, and lay hold upon the blessings of the covenant, and then descend again to scatter those gifts among the sons of men.
This choice sight which Jacob only saw in a dream we will turn into a bright reality. This very day we will be up and down the ladder each hour; climbing in communion, and coming down in labour to save our fellow-men. This is thy promise, O Lord Jesus, let us joyfully see it fulfilled.
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
Many there be that say, Who will shew us any good? Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us.
Psalm 4:6, R.V.
In all ages, in all lands, and under all circumstances of life, man desires and seeks after happiness. It is very doubtful if a single exception can be found to this rule in the ranks of the human family.
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
I will pay Thee my vows.
Psalms 66:13
This is another song of praise, in two movements. The first is national (1-12), and celebrates a Divine deliverance from trouble, while recognizing that the trouble itself was a part of the Divine method, a chastisement through which the nation was brought into a wealthy place. The second is personal (13-20), and perhaps in it the king, who in the earlier part had spoken of and for his people, spoke of and for himself. The singer had been heard; God had attended to the voice of the prayers he had uttered in the day of his distress. In that day of distress he had made vows to the Lord, and now in the day of prosperity he remembers them and comes into the House of his God with burnt-offerings to fulfil his vows. There is an important principle in these words. The soul of man in hours of distress constantly makes promises to God as to what it will do if He will deliver out of that distress. Such vows are entirely voluntary, and they are not necessary. They do not affect the action of God in the least. Prayer does that, but not vows. But when the voluntary vow is made, it becomes an obligation from which the one making it must not attempt to escape. This was explicitly enacted in the Law. The provision will be found in Leviticus 27. There it is clearly laid down that vows in respect of persons, beasts, houses, fields, are entirely optional; but when made, are compulsory. The life of fellowship with God into which we are admitted through Christ, makes vows more than ever unnecessary. They, however, are not forbidden. Only let never forget that when made, they must be fulfilled. The reason is not in God, but in us. To fail to keep faith with God is to suffer deterioration of character.
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.