Daily Bible Notes: May, 19th
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 have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth.
Ecclesiastes 10:7
Upstarts frequently usurp the highest places, while the truly great pine in obscurity. This is a riddle in providence whose solution will one day gladden the hearts of the upright; but it is so common a fact, that none of us should murmur if it should fall to our own lot. When our Lord was upon earth, although He is the Prince of the kings of the earth, yet He walked the footpath of weariness and service as the Servant of servants: what wonder is it if His followers, who are princes of the blood, should also be looked down upon as inferior and contemptible persons? The world is upside down, and therefore, the first are last and the last first. See how the servile sons of Satan Lord it in the earth! What a high horse they ride! How they lift up their horn on high! Haman is in the court, while Mordecai sits in the gate; David wanders on the mountains, while Saul reigns in state; Elijah is complaining in the cave while Jezebel is boasting in the palace; yet who would wish to take the places of the proud rebels? and who, on the other hand, might not envy the despised saints? When the wheel turns, those who are lowest rise, and the highest sink. Patience, then, believer, eternity will right the wrongs of time.
Let us not fall into the error of letting our passions and carnal appetites ride in triumph, while our nobler powers walk in the dust. Grace must reign as a prince, and make the members of the body instruments of righteousness. The Holy Spirit loves order, and He therefore sets our powers and faculties in due rank and place, giving the highest room to those spiritual faculties which link us with the great King; let us not disturb the divine arrangement, but ask for grace that we may keep under our body and bring it into subjection. We were not new created to allow our passions to rule over us, but that we, as kings, may reign in Christ Jesus over the triple kingdom of spirit, soul, and body, to the glory of God the Father.
Evening
And he requested for himself that he might die.
1 Kings 19:4
It was a remarkable thing that the man who was never to die, for whom God had ordained an infinitely better lot, the man who should be carried to heaven in a chariot of fire, and be translated, that he should not see death - should thus pray, "Let me die, I am no better than my fathers." We have here a memorable proof that God does not always answer prayer in kind, though He always does in effect. He gave Elias something better than that which he asked for, and thus really heard and answered him. Strange was it that the lion-hearted Elijah should be so depressed by Jezebel’s threat as to ask to die, and blessedly kind was it on the part of our heavenly Father that He did not take His desponding servant at his word.
There is a limit to the doctrine of the prayer of faith. We are not to expect that God will give us everything we choose to ask for. We know that we sometimes ask, and do not receive, because we ask amiss. If we ask for that which is not promised - if we run counter to the spirit which the Lord would have us cultivate - if we ask contrary to His will, or to the decrees of His providence - if we ask merely for the gratification of our own ease, and without an eye to His glory, we must not expect that we shall receive. Yet, when we ask in faith, nothing doubting, if we receive not the precise thing asked for, we shall receive an equivalent, and more than an equivalent, for it. As one remarks, "If the Lord does not pay in silver, He will in gold; and if He does not pay in gold, He will in diamonds." If He does not give you precisely what you ask for, He will give you that which is tantamount to it, and that which you will greatly rejoice to receive in lieu thereof. Be then, dear reader, much in prayer, and make this evening a season of earnest intercession, but take heed what you ask.
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
John 9:26-41
26 They said to him again, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?"
27 He answered them, "I told you already, and you didn't listen. Why do you want to hear it again? You don't also want to become his disciples, do you?"
28 They insulted him and said, "You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.
29 We know that God has spoken to Moses. But as for this man, we don't know where he comes from."
30 The man answered them, "How amazing! You don't know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes.
31 We know that God doesn't listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshipper of God, and does his will, he listens to him.
32 Since the world began it has never been heard of that anyone opened the eyes of someone born blind.
33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing."
34 They answered him, "You were altogether born in sins, and do you teach us?" Then they threw him out.
35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and finding him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of God?"
36 He answered, "Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him?"
37 Jesus said to him, "You have both seen him, and it is he who speaks with you."
38 He said, "Lord, I believe!" and he worshipped him.
39 Jesus said, "I came into this world for judgement, that those who don't see may see; and that those who see may become blind."
40 Those of the Pharisees who were with him heard these things, and said to him, "Are we also blind?"
41 Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, 'We see.' Therefore your sin remains.
THE ROCK OF EXPERIENCE
The Lord gains a witness, and a stalwart witness too! First, he stood upon his own inalienable experience. "One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see." Second, he drew his own firm inferences from the beneficence of the work. And, in the third place, he reached his grand conclusion. "If this man were not of God, He could do nothing." A grand testimony, and given by one who "dared to stand alone!"
And the witness gained a Friend. "Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and when He had found him...." Our Lord is always seeking the outcasts. He never abandons the abandoned. When the faithful witness is driven into the wilderness he finds "a table spread" before him "in the presence of his enemies." The man who had recovered his sight was cast out, but on the threshold he met his Lord!
And further sight was given. By the first sight he could see his parents, by the second sight he saw the Son of God. The film was first removed from his eyes, and then from his soul, and he saw "the glory of the Lord." "And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped Him."
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
May 19th.
Holy Lord, may I dwell in the secret place to-day! May I be conscious of the Holy of Holies in all that I do!
May the Holy Spirit pervade all my affairs! May nothing be common or unclean! May everything be bright with the beauty of holiness!
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
Therefore thus saith the Lord, If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth the precious
from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth.
Jeremiah 15:19
Poor Jeremiah! Yet why do we say so? The weeping prophet was one of the choicest servants of God, and honoured by him above many. He was hated for speaking the truth. The word which was so sweet to him was bitter to his hearers, yet he was accepted of his Lord. He was commanded to abide in his faithfulness, and then the Lord would continue to speak through him. He was to deal boldly and truthfully with men, and perform the Lord's winnowing work upon the professors of his day, and then the Lord gave him this word, "Thou shalt be as my mouth."
What an honour! Should not every preacher, yea, every believer, covet it? For God to speak by us, what a marvel! We shall speak sure, pure truth; and we shall speak it with power. Our word shall not return void; it shall be a blessing to those who receive it, and those who refuse it shall do so at their peril. Our lips shall feed many. We shall arouse the sleeping and call the dead to life.
O dear reader, pray that it may be so with the writer, and with all the sent servants of our Lord.
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
Ye have been put to grief in manifold trials, that the proof of your faith ... might be found unto praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 1:6,7, R.V.
Power bestowed, becomes truly powerful when it has been tested through the process of temptation. What is seen in perfection in Christ, is a lesson that men do well to lay to heart. Fulness of the Spirit becomes the power of the Spirit, through processes of testing. Herein is revealed the value of the trials and temptations that beset the pathway of the Christian worker.
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
I must go on My way today, and tomorrow, and the day following.
Luke 13:33
These words of our Lord were uttered in an hour when the Pharisees, desiring to get rid of Him, told Him that Herod was seeking His life. They form part of His answer to them and to Herod. They reveal His own undisturbed outlook upon His work, and the quiet intrepidity of His devotion. The "today" and the "tomorrow" were days in which He would continue unhindered the exercise of His ministry of beneficial power. The "day following" was "the third day," in which He was to be "perfected." Looking back, as we are able to do, we know that the "third day" was the way of the Cross and all that issued from it. That third day was arranged by the counsel of God, and not by the opposition of men. To Him the whole pathway of power, and the perfecting through suffering, was marked out by God, and no hostility of rulers or malice of kings could deflect Him by a hair's breadth from that pathway. In this consciousness lay the secret of His strength. In proportion as His disciples are in true fellowship with Him they too may take their way without perturbation or hesitancy along the path of life and service. No hostile power is strong enough to prevent them doing whatever work is appointed to them; and if presently the pathway leads through apparent defeat and much suffering, it is still the pathway of power, and thus they come to perfecting. This sense of a "Covenant ordered in all things and sure," is the secret of victorious life. To realize that we are in the will of God, is to be delivered from any care about the secondary things of circumstances. If sometimes we seem to be in their grip, we know all the time that they are in the grip of God.
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.