Daily Bible Notes: May, 31st
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
The king also himself passed over the brook Kidron.
2 Samuel 15:23
David passed that gloomy brook when flying with his mourning company from his traitor son. The man after God’s own heart was not exempt from trouble, nay, his life was full of it. He was both the Lord’s Anointed, and the Lord’s Afflicted. Why then should we expect to escape? At sorrow’s gates the noblest of our race have waited with ashes on their heads, wherefore then should we complain as though some strange thing had happened unto us?
The KING of kings himself was not favoured with a more cheerful or royal road. He passed over the filthy ditch of Kidron, through which the filth of Jerusalem flowed. God had one Son without sin, but not a single child without the rod. It is a great joy to believe that Jesus has been tempted in all points like as we are. What is our Kidron this morning? Is it a faithless friend, a sad bereavement, a slanderous reproach, a dark foreboding? The King has passed over all these. Is it bodily pain, poverty, persecution, or contempt? Over each of these Kidrons the King has gone before us. "In all our afflictions He was afflicted." The idea of strangeness in our trials must be banished at once and for ever, for He who is the Head of all saints, knows by experience the grief which we think so peculiar. All the citizens of Zion must be free of the Honourable Company of Mourners, of which the Prince Immanuel is Head and Captain.
Notwithstanding the abasement of David, he yet returned in triumph to his city, and David’s Lord arose victorious from the grave; let us then be of good courage, for we also shall win the day. We shall yet with joy draw water out of the wells of salvation, though now for a season we have to pass by the noxious streams of sin and sorrow. Courage, soldiers of the Cross, the King himself triumphed after going over Kidron, and so shall you.
Evening
Who healeth all thy diseases.
Psalm 103:3
Humbling as is the statement, yet the fact is certain, that we are all more or less suffering under the disease of sin. What a comfort to know that we have a great Physician who is both able and willing to heal us! Let us think of Him awhile to-night. His cures are very speedy - there is life in a look at Him; His cures are radical - He strikes at the centre of the disease; and hence, His cures are sure and certain. He never fails, and the disease never returns . There is no relapse where Christ heals; no fear that His patients should be merely patched up for a season, He makes new men of them: a new heart also does He give them, and a right spirit does He put with them. He is well skilled in all diseases. Physicians generally have some specialite . Although they may know a little about almost all our pains and ills, there is usually one disease which they have studied above all others; but Jesus Christ is thoroughly acquainted with the whole of human nature.
He is as much at home with one sinner as with another, and never yet did He meet with an out-of-the-way case that was difficult to Him. He has had extraordinary complications of strange diseases to deal with, but He has known exactly with one glance of His eye how to treat the patient. He is the only universal doctor; and the medicine He gives is the only true catholicon, healing in every instance. Whatever our spiritual malady may be, we should apply at once to this Divine Physician. There is no brokenness of heart which Jesus cannot bind up. "His blood cleanseth from all sin." We have but to think of the myriads who have been delivered from all sorts of diseases through the power and virtue of His touch, and we shall joyfully put ourselves in His hands. We trust Him, and sin dies; we love Him, and grace lives; we wait for Him and grace is strengthened; we see Him as he is, and grace is perfected for ever.
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
1 Corinthians 12:12-19
12 For as the body is one, and has many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ.
13 For in one Spirit we were all baptised into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free; and were all given to drink into one Spirit.
14 For the body is not one member, but many.
15 If the foot would say, "Because I'm not the hand, I'm not part of the body," it is not therefore not part of the body.
16 If the ear would say, "Because I'm not the eye, I'm not part of the body," it's not therefore not part of the body.
17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the smelling be?
18 But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body, just as he desired.
19 If they were all one member, where would the body be?
CONNECTION AND CONCORD
"By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body."
It is only in the spirit that real union is born. Every other kind of union is artificial, and mechanical, and dead. We can dovetail many pieces of wood together and make the unity of an article of furniture, but we cannot dovetail items together and make a tree. And it is the union of a tree that we require, a union born of indwelling life. We may join many people together in a fellowship by the bonds of a formal creed, but the result is only a piece of social furniture, it is not a vital communion. There is a vast difference between a connection and a concord.
Many members of a family may bear the same name, may share the same blood, may sit and eat at the same table, and yet may have no more vital union than a handful of marbles in a boy's pocket. But let the spirit of a common love dwell in all their hearts and there is a family bound together in glorious union.
And so it is in the spirit, and there alone, that vital union is to be found. And here is the secret of such spiritual union. "By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body." The Spirit of God, dwelling in all our spirits, attunes them into glorious harmony. Our lives blend with one another in the very music of the spheres.
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
May 31st.
My Father, I would remember all who have the control and teaching of little children. Bless all the teachers of our
land. Give them a great conception of their calling. May they confirm their teaching by the gracious influence
of their lives!
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
John 16:33
My Lord's words are true as to the tribulation. I have my share of it beyond all doubt. The flail is not hung up out of the way, nor can I hope that it will be laid aside so long as I lie upon the threshing-floor. How can I look to be at home in the enemy's country, joyful while in exile, or comfortable in a wilderness? This is not my rest. This is the place of the furnace, and the forge, and the hammer. My experience tallies with my Lord's words.
I note how he bids me "be of good cheer." Alas! I am far too apt to be downcast. My spirit soon sinks when I am sorely tried. But I must not give way to this feeling. When my Lord bids me cheer up I must not dare to be cast down.
What is the argument which he uses to encourage me? Why, it is his own victory. He says, "I have overcome the world." His battle was much more severe than mine. I have not yet resisted unto blood. Why do I despair of overcoming? See, my soul, the enemy has been once overcome. I fight with a beaten foe. O world, Jesus has already vanquished thee; and in me, by his grace, he will overcome thee again. Therefore am I of good cheer, and sing unto my conquering Lord.
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?
Romans 10:14
There is but one excuse for idolatry, namely, ignorance; and there are cases in which even that fails to justify. If a man does not know God, he cannot worship Him; but if he lives in a place where he may have the light if he will, then the last excuse for idolatry is swept away.
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
Unto Him that is able.
Jude 24
These are words full of comfort, and they are pre-eminently fitted as the last to be considered in these New Testament letters. They introduce a great doxology, and suggest the inspiration of it. The whole value of this letter of Jude is that it warns us against apostasy, as it shows the perils thereof. Through all these writings we have been considering, in many ways and in various applications, "the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints." To deny that faith is to perish. That faith is denied most definitely, not by intellectual dissent, but by practical disobedience. What can be more important than this should be brought home to us, as it is in this vivid writing. And yet the peril is very real, and withal it is most insidious. How shall we guard against it? How shall we be true to the faith, in face of the forces which seek to destroy it? The answer is here at the end. There is One Who is "able to guard us from stumbling." And He is "the only God our Saviour." He is the One in Whom our faith is centred. He is our faith. Then the final responsibility is the initial activity. We must still live by confidence in Him. We must keep ourselves in the love of God, by building up ourselves on our most holy faith, and by praying in the Holy Spirit. As we do so, He is able to guard us.
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.