Daily Bible Notes: November, 23rd
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
Fellowship with Him.
1 John 1:6
When we were united by faith to Christ, we were brought into such complete fellowship with Him, that we were made one with Him, and His interests and ours became mutual and identical. We have fellowship with Christ in His love . What He loves we love. He loves the saints - so do we. He loves sinners - so do we. He loves the poor perishing race of man, and pants to see earth’s deserts transformed into the garden of the Lord - so do we. We have fellowship with Him in His desires . He desires the glory of God - we also labour for the same. He desires that the saints may be with Him where He is - we desire to be with Him there too. He desires to drive out sin - behold we fight under His banner. He desires that His Father’s name may be loved and adored by all His creatures - we pray daily, "Let Thy kingdom come and Thy will be done on earth, even as it is in heaven." We have fellowship with Christ in His sufferings . We are not nailed to the cross, nor do we die a cruel death, but when He is reproached, we are reproached; and a very sweet thing it is to be blamed for His sake, to be despised for following the Master, to have the world against us. The disciple should not be above His Lord. In our measure we commune with Him in His labours , ministering to men by the word of truth and by deeds of love. Our meat and our drink, like His, is to do the will of Him who hath sent us and to finish His work. We have also fellowship with Christ in His joys . We are happy in His happiness, we rejoice in His exaltation. Have you ever tasted that joy, believer? There is no purer or more thrilling delight to be known this side heaven than that of having Christ’s joy fulfilled in us, that our joy may be full. His glory awaits us to complete our fellowship, for His Church shall sit with him upon His throne, as His well-beloved bride and queen.
Evening
Get thee up into the high mountain.
Isaiah 40:9
Each believer should be thirsting for God, for the living God, and longing to climb the hill of the Lord, and see Him face to face. We ought not to rest content in the mists of the valley when the summit of Tabor awaits us.
My soul thirsteth to drink deep of the cup which is reserved for those who reach the mountain’s brow, and bathe their brows in heaven. How pure are the dews of the hills, how fresh is the mountain air, how rich the fare of the dwellers aloft, whose windows look into the New Jerusalem!
Many saints are content to live like men in coal mines, who see not the sun; they eat dust like the serpent when they might taste the ambrosial meat of angels; they are content to wear the miner’s garb when they might put on king’s robes; tears mar their faces when they might anoint them with celestial oil. Satisfied I am that many a believer pines in a dungeon when he might walk on the palace roof, and view the goodly land and Lebanon. Rouse thee, O believer, from thy low condition! Cast away thy sloth, thy lethargy, thy coldness, or whatever interferes with thy chaste and pure love to Christ, thy soul’s Husband. Make Him the source, the centre, and the circumference of all thy soul’s range of delight. What enchants thee into such folly as to remain in a pit when thou mayst sit on a throne? Live not in the lowlands of bondage now that mountain liberty is conferred upon thee. Rest no longer satisfied with thy dwarfish attainments, but press forward to things more sublime and heavenly.
Aspire to a higher, a nobler, a fuller life. Upward to heaven! Nearer to God! "When wilt Thou come unto me, Lord?
Oh come, my Lord most dear!
Come near, come nearer, nearer still, I’m blest when Thou art near."
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
1 Kings 8:37-53
37 "If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence, if there is blight, mildew, locust or caterpillar; if their enemy besieges them in the land of their cities; whatever plague, whatever sickness there is;
38 whatever prayer and supplication is made by any man, or by all your people Israel, who shall each know the plague of his own heart, and spread out his hands towards this house,
39 then hear in heaven, your dwelling place, and forgive, and act, and give to every man according to all his ways, whose heart you know (for you, even you only, know the hearts of all the children of men);
40 that they may fear you all the days that they live in the land which you gave to our fathers.
41 "Moreover concerning the foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, when he comes out of a far country for your name's sake
42 (for they shall hear of your great name, and of your mighty hand, and of your outstretched arm); when he comes and prays towards this house;
43 hear in heaven, your dwelling place, and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you for; that all the peoples of the earth may know your name, to fear you, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that this house which I have built is called by your name.
44 "If your people go out to battle against their enemy, by whatever way you shall send them, and they pray to the LORD towards the city which you have chosen, and towards the house which I have built for your name;
45 then hear in heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause.
46 If they sin against you (for there is no man who doesn't sin), and you are angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near;
47 yet if they repent in the land where they are carried captive, and turn again, and make supplication to you in the land of those who carried them captive, saying, 'We have sinned, and have done perversely; we have dealt wickedly;'
48 if they return to you with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies, who carried them captive, and pray to you towards their land, which you gave to their fathers, the city which you have chosen, and the house which I have built for your name;
49 then hear their prayer and their supplication in heaven, your dwelling place, and maintain their cause;
50 and forgive your people who have sinned against you, and all their transgressions in which they have transgressed against you; and give them compassion before those who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them
51 (for they are your people, and your inheritance, which you brought out of Egypt, from the middle of the iron furnace);
52 that your eyes may be open to the supplication of your servant, and to the supplication of your people Israel, to listen to them whenever they cry to you.
53 For you separated them from amongst all the peoples of the earth, to be your inheritance, as you spoke by Moses your servant, when you brought our fathers out of Egypt, Lord GOD."
THE STRANGER
Yes, indeed, what space has "the stranger" in my supplications? Has he any place at all? Are my intercessions private enclosures, intended only for the select among my friends? Do I ever open the door to anyone outside my family circle? Are my ecclesiastical sympathies large enough to include "outsiders" from afar? What do I do with "the stranger"?
There is nothing which keeps prayer sweet and fresh and wholesome like the letting in of "the stranger"! To let a new guest sit down at the feast of my intercession is to give my own soul a most nutritious surprise. It is a most healthy spiritual habit to see to it that we bring in a new "stranger" every time we pray. Let me be continually enlarging the circle of hospitality! Let some new and weary bird find a resting-place in the branches of my supplications every time I hold communication with God.
A prayer which has no room for "the stranger" can have little or no room for God.
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
November 23rd.
My Saviour, this is Thy day. May I use it for Thy glory! Teach me the meaning of true worship. Show me how to approach Thee.
May I have the spirit of reverence that I may be able to apprehend! May it be a day of festival for the heart!
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
The Lord thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little.
Deuteronomy 7:22
We are not to expect to win victories for the Lord Jesus by a single blow. Evil principles and practices die hard. In some places it takes years of labour to drive out even one of the many vices which defile the inhabitants. We must carry on the war with all our might, even when favoured with little manifest success.
Our business in this world is to conquer it for Jesus. We are not to make compromises, but to exterminate evils. We are not to seek popularity, but to wage unceasing war with iniquity. Infidelity, Popery, drink, impurity, oppression, worldliness, error; these are all to be "put out."
The Lord our God can alone accomplish this. He works by his faithful servants; and, blessed be his name, he promises that he will so work. "Jehovah thy God will put out those nations before thee." This he will do by degrees, that we may learn perseverance, may increase in faith, may earnestly watch, and may avoid carnal security. Let us thank God for a little success, and pray for more. Let us never sheathe the sword till the whole land is won for Jesus.
Courage, my heart! Go on little by little, for many littles will make a great whole.
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.
Isaiah 1:2
The Fatherhood of God was a fact before the coming of Jesus. He illuminated it for men, so that since His coming they have understood it as never before. Though men had wandered and lost their sense of relationship, God was ever their Father, and His presence their home.
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
His right hand, and His holy arm, hath wrought salvation for Him. The Lord hath made known His salvation.
Psalms 98:1, 2
Still the theme is the same, that of the reign of Jehovah. This song opens and closes in almost the same words as in Psa. 96. Here the central matter for which praise is offered is the salvation which results from the reign of this God. It moves in three measures: first, the salvation of God's people Israel, and that in righteousness; second, the consequent discovery of His Kingship by all the earth; and third, the gladness of Nature as it expresses the greatness of God. In these words at the beginning of the song two great truths concerning human salvation emerge. The first statement is that salvation is God's work; His right hand, and His holy arm, hath wrought "salvation for Him." The idea is that salvation was in His purpose; He desired it; He willed it. That being so, it was imperative that He should provide. Whatever needed to be done, He must do. The singer rejoiced that Jehovah had provided what He desired. Here the heart of truth concerning salvation, in all the Gospel fullness of the term, is revealed. God desired the salvation of men. Men could not provide salvation. Then He wrought in a mystery of love and holiness and power; and so salvation is made possible. The second statement is that He has made known His salvation. He has revealed it to men, and in its victories He makes it known more and more perfectly. Thus this Hebrew singer celebrated a truth the full value of which he hardly recognized. Here we have in the first statement, a declaration concerning those profound activities within the Deity, out of which human salvation is possible; and in the second, a declaration which covers the ground of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. In Philippians 2:5-11, we find the New Testament light on this passage.
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.