Daily Bible Notes: November, 17th
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
To whom be glory for ever. amen" - Romans 11:36
"To whom be glory for ever." This should be the single desire of the Christian. All other wishes must be subservient and tributary to this one.
The Christian may wish for prosperity in his business, but only so far as it may help him to promote this - "To Him be glory for ever." He may desire to attain more gifts and more graces, but it should only be that "To Him may be glory for ever." You are not acting as you ought to do when you are moved by any other motive than a single eye to your Lord’s glory.
As a Christian, you are "of God, and through God," then live "to God."
Let nothing ever set your heart beating so mightily as love to Him. Let this ambition fire your soul; be this the foundation of every enterprise upon which you enter, and this your sustaining motive whenever your zeal would grow chill; make God your only object. Depend upon it, where self begins sorrow begins; but if God be my supreme delight and only object, "To me ‘tis equal whether love ordain My life or death - appoint me ease or pain."
Let your desire for God’s glory be a growing desire. You blessed Him in your youth, do not be content with such praises as you gave Him then.
Has God prospered you in business? Give Him more as He has given you more. Has God given you experience? Praise Him by stronger faith than you exercised at first. Does your knowledge grow? Then sing more sweetly. Do you enjoy happier times than you once had? Have you been restored from sickness, and has your sorrow been turned into peace and joy? Then give Him more music; put more coals and more sweet frankincense into the censer of your praise. Practically in your life give Him honour, putting the "Amen" to this doxology to your great and gracious Lord, by your own individual service and increasing holiness.
Evening
He that cleaveth wood shall be endangered thereby.
Ecclesiastes 10:9
Oppressors may get their will of poor and needy men as easily as they can split logs of wood, but they had better mind, for it is a dangerous business, and a splinter from a tree has often killed the woodman. Jesus is persecuted in every injured saint, and He is mighty to avenge His beloved ones. Success in treading down the poor and needy is a thing to be trembled at: if there be no danger to persecutors here there will be great danger hereafter. To cleave wood is a common every-day business, and yet it has its dangers ; so then, reader, there are dangers connected with your calling and daily life which it will be well for you to be aware of. We refer not to hazards by flood and field, or by disease and sudden death, but to perils of a spiritual sort. Your occupation may be as humble as log splitting, and yet the devil can tempt you in it. You may be a domestic servant, a farm labourer, or a mechanic, and you may be greatly screened from temptations to the grosser vices, and yet some secret sin may do you damage. Those who dwell at home, and mingle not with the rough world, may yet be endangered by their very seclusion. Nowhere is he safe who thinks himself so. Pride may enter a poor man’s heart; avarice may reign in a cottager’s bosom; uncleanness may venture into the quietest home; and anger, and envy, and malice may insinuate themselves into the most rural abode. Even in speaking a few words to a servant we may sin; a little purchase at a shop may be the first link in a chain of temptations; the mere looking out of a window may be the beginning of evil. O Lord, how exposed we are!
How shall we be secured! To keep ourselves is work too hard for us: only Thou Thyself art able to preserve us in such a world of evils. Spread Thy wings over us, and we, like little chickens, will cower down beneath Thee, and feel ourselves safe!
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
Romans 8:31-39
31 What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
32 He who didn't spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things?
33 Who could bring a charge against God's chosen ones? It is God who justifies.
34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36 Even as it is written, "For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter."
37 No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
38 For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from God's love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
IF GOD BE FOR US----!
Who else is worth naming? How much does anybody count? If the sun be on my side, why should I be dismayed at any icy obstacle that may rear itself in my way? Sun versus ice! God versus my impediments! Why should I fear? If the atmosphere is on my side, then even the opposing strength of iron will rust away into powder. "The breath of the Lord bloweth upon it," and if the holy breath, God's Holy Spirit, is for us, then the apparently invincible obstacle will crumble away into dust.
But we are deceived by mass, and we are forgetful of spirit. Mere size affrights us. We are dismayed by numbers. We forget the quiet, pervasive, all-powerful ministry of the Spirit of God. We are overwhelmed by the phenomena of tempest and earthquake and fire, and we forget that almightiness hides in the "still, small voice," in "the sound of a gentle stillness." God's breath is more than the fierce threatenings of embattled hosts. "If God be for us, who can be against us?" I will hide myself in His holy fellowship, and "none shall make me afraid."
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
November 17th.
My Saviour, may I be able to use words with deeper meaning every day! May I have increasing knowledge of the glory of
redemption! When I call Thee Saviour, may it be the calling of the redeemed heart! May there be the note of rejoicing in the speech!
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
For the Lord will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance.
Psalms 94:14
No, nor will he cast off even so much as one of them. Man has his cast-offs, but God has none; for his choice is unchangeable, and his love is everlasting. None can find out a single person whom God has forsaken after having revealed himself savingly to him.
This grand truth is mentioned in the psalm to cheer the heart of the afflicted. The Lord chastens his own; but he never forsakes them. The result of the double work of the law and the rod is our instruction, and the fruit of that instruction is a quieting of spirit, a sobriety of mind, out of which comes rest. The ungodly are let alone till the pit is digged into which they will fall and be taken; but the godly are sent to school to be prepared for their glorious destiny hereafter. Judgment will return and finish its work upon the rebels, but it will equally return to vindicate the sincere and godly. Hence we may bear the rod of chastisement with calm submission; it means not anger, but love.
- "God may chasten and correct,
But he never can neglect;
May in faithfulness reprove,
But he ne'er can cease to love."
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness.
Romans 5:21
Righteousness has had its conflict with evil, and has won in the fight.
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord.
Psalms 92:1
So opens a Psalm which has for its heading the words: "A Psalm, a Song for the Sabbath Day." This one is followed by five others without heading, and it is more than probable that this description applies to the six. Then follows a Psalm headed simply, "A Psalm," and then again one with no heading. It would be wrong to make any dogmatic assertion on the subject, but I suggest that these eight Psalms constitute an octave of perfect praise suitable to the Sabbath Day. In that way I like to read them. Their one theme is that of the Kingship of Jehovah. This first one celebrates the fact that Jehovah is set on high for evermore, and rejoices in the righteousness of His government of the world. I have stressed those opening words, constituting, as they do, an introduction to the Sabbath Song, whether the one Psalm or the eight. The statement seems an obvious one; no one will be inclined to contradict it. Yet how little we know of this highest function of worship, that of offering the pure sacrifices of praise. Go carefully and thoroughly through the ordinary services of our churches, whether the form be liturgical or what we designate free, or extempore, and note how small a part of them is devoted to the giving of thanks. We speak of our hymn-singing as a service of praise, when the great majority of our hymns merge into prayers or devout meditations. Even the Lord's Supper is often not what it should always be, namely, the Eucharist; that is, simply the Giving of Thanks. I believe that "it is a good thing to give thanks unto Jehovah," and that in its neglect we suffer serious loss.
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.