Daily Bible Notes: November, 12th
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 trial of your faith.
1 Peter 1:7
Faith untried may be true faith, but it is sure to be little faith, and it is likely to remain dwarfish so long as it is without trials. Faith never prospers so well as when all things are against her: tempests are her trainers, and lightnings are her illuminators. When a calm reigns on the sea, spread the sails as you will, the ship moves not to its harbour; for on a slumbering ocean the keel sleeps too. Let the winds rush howling forth, and let the waters lift up themselves, then, though the vessel may rock, and her deck may be washed with waves, and her mast may creak under the pressure of the full and swelling sail, it is then that she makes headway towards her desired haven. No flowers wear so lovely a blue as those which grow at the foot of the frozen glacier; no stars gleam so brightly as those which glisten in the polar sky; no water tastes so sweet as that which springs amid the desert sand; and no faith is so precious as that which lives and triumphs in adversity. Tried faith brings experience. You could not have believed your own weakness had you not been compelled to pass through the rivers; and you would never have known God’s strength had you not been supported amid the water-floods. Faith increases in solidity, assurance, and intensity, the more it is exercised with tribulation. Faith is precious, and its trial is precious too.
Let not this, however, discourage those who are young in faith. You will have trials enough without seeking them: the full portion will be measured out to you in due season. Meanwhile, if you cannot yet claim the result of long experience, thank God for what grace you have; praise Him for that degree of holy confidence whereunto you have attained: walk according to that rule, and you shall yet have more and more of the blessing of God, till your faith shall remove mountains and conquer impossibilities.
Evening
And it came to pass in those days, that He went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.
Luke 6:12
If ever one of woman born might have lived without prayer, it was our spotless, perfect a Lord, and yet none was ever so much in supplication as He! Such was His love to His Father, that He loved much to be in communion with Him: such His love for His people, that He desired to be much in intercession for them.The fact of this eminent prayerfulness of Jesus is a lesson for us - He hath given us an example that we may follow in His steps. The time He chose was admirable, it was the hour of silence, when the crowd would not disturb Him; the time of inaction, when all but Himself had ceased to labour; and the season when slumber made men forget their woes, and cease their applications to Him for relief. While others found rest in sleep, He refreshed Himself with prayer. The place was also well selected. He was alone where none would intrude, where none could observe: thus was He free from Pharisaic ostentation and vulgar interruption. Those dark and silent hills were a fit oratory for the Son of God. Heaven and earth in midnight stillness heard the groans and sighs of the mysterious Being in whom both worlds were blended. The continuance of His pleadings is remarkable; the long watches were not too long; the cold wind did not chill His devotions; the grim darkness did not darken His faith, or loneliness check His importunity. We cannot watch with Him one hour, but He watched for us whole nights. The occasion for this prayer is notable; it was after His enemies had been enraged - prayer was His refuge and solace; it was before He sent forth the twelve apostles - prayer was the gate of His enterprise, the herald of His new work. Should we not learn from Jesus to resort to special prayer when we are under peculiar trial, or contemplate fresh endeavours for the Master’s glory?
Lord Jesus, teach us to pray.
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
Luke 22:54-62
54 They seized him, and led him away, and brought him into the high priest's house. But Peter followed from a distance.
55 When they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard, and had sat down together, Peter sat amongst them.
56 A certain servant girl saw him as he sat in the light, and looking intently at him, said, "This man also was with him."
57 He denied Jesus, saying, "Woman, I don't know him."
58 After a little while someone else saw him, and said, "You also are one of them!" But Peter answered, "Man, I am not!"
59 After about one hour passed, another confidently affirmed, saying, "Truly this man also was with him, for he is a Galilean!"
60 But Peter said, "Man, I don't know what you are talking about!" Immediately, while he was still speaking, a rooster crowed.
61 The Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the Lord's word, how he said to him, "Before the rooster crows you will deny me three times."
62 He went out, and wept bitterly.
THE FASHIONING OF A DENIAL
From Peter's denial I would learn the peril of the first cowardly surrender to sin. Surely Peter must have "trimmed" many times in the days which preceded his actual discipleship. Great crises do not make men, they reveal them. The men have been made in the smaller issues which go before. We march to our crises by a gradient, every step of which is a moral decision. The interior of the tree is secretly eaten away by white ants; the tempest reveals and completes the destruction.
And I would learn from Peter's denial the cumulative power of sins. One sin widens the road for a bigger one to follow. The second denial will be more vehement than the first. The third will add the element of blasphemy. Yes, every sin is a miner and sapper for a larger army in the rear. It not only does its own work, it prepares the way for its successor.
But I will connect this "dark betrayal night" with that sweet after-morning when the Lord and His denier met face to face by the lake. And that sweet morning of reconciliation is a possible experience for all the deniers of the Lord, and it is therefore possible for thee and me.
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
November 12th.
Father of all, I would remember the town in which I live. Bless all who rule and influence our common life.
Lead our leaders. May drunkenness and all lust be banished from our midst! May the goodwill of all help the holiness of each!
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
My people shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith the Lord.
Jeremiah 31:14
Note the "my" which comes twice: "My people shall be satisfied with my goodness."
The kind of people who are satisfied with God are marked out as God's own. He is pleased with them, for they are pleased with him. They call him their God, and he calls them his people; he is satisfied to take them for a portion, and they are satisfied with him for their portion. There is a mutual communion of delight between God's Israel and Israel's God.
These people are satisfied. This is a grand thing. Very few of the sons of men are ever satisfied, let their lot be what it may; they have swallowed the horse-leech, and it continually cries, "Give! give!" Only sanctified souls are satisfied souls. God himself must both convert us and content us.
It is no wonder that the Lord's people should be satisfied with the goodness of their Lord. Here is goodness without mixture, bounty without stint, mercy without chiding, love without change, favour without reserve. If God's goodness does not satisfy us, what will? What! are we still groaning? Surely there is a wrong desire within if it be one which God's goodness does not satisfy.
Lord, I am satisfied. Blessed be thy name.
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
Thou openest thine hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing.
Psalm 145:16
There is plenty in the world for every man to live in comfort, and all lack is the result of human mismanagement.
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
Whosoever goeth onward and abideth not in the teaching of Christ, hath not God.
2 John 9
Dr. Findlay has pointed out in his wonderful volume on the letters of John, that both the second and the third have to do with the subject of Christian hospitality. In this one, addressed to "the elect lady," perhaps a church, and perhaps a person, the persons to whom no Christian hospitality is to be extended are dealt with. These are described as "deceivers ... even they that confess not that Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh." It is with reference to such that this declaration is made. They were persons who claimed to be leaders; they were advanced thinkers, they were progressive. The Gnostic teachers of the time were claiming that while the Gospel of the historic Jesus might be all very well for unenlightened people, they had a profounder knowledge. Such were to receive no hospitality. In this warning, we find a principle of perpetual application. There is always room for advanced thinking, for progressive interpretation, for the things of Christ are as profound as God and life. We never ought to be content to tarry with the first principles of truth. We should in knowledge go on unto perfection. But there is one infallible test for such advanced thinking, for such progressive interpretation. It is that the advanced thinking do not contradict the first principles, or deny the fundamental facts of our faith - those of the historic Jesus, that of the fact that He came in the flesh. Such advanced thinking as denies these things, is not progress, but retrogression and apostasy.
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.