Daily Bible Notes: October, 28th
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 chosen you out of the world.
John 15:19
Here is distinguishing grace and discriminating regard; for some are made the special objects of divine affection. Do not be afraid to dwell upon this high doctrine of election. When your mind is most heavy and depressed, you will find it to be a bottle of richest cordial. Those who doubt the doctrines of grace, or who cast them into the shade, miss the richest clusters of Eshcol; they lose the wines on the lees well refined, the fat things full of marrow. There is no balm in Gilead comparable to it. If the honey in Jonathan’s wood when but touched enlightened the eyes , this is honey which will enlighten your heart to love and learn the mysteries of the kingdom of God. Eat, and fear not a surfeit; live upon this choice dainty, and fear not that it will be too delicate a diet. Meat from the King’s table will hurt none of His courtiers. Desire to have your mind enlarged, that you may comprehend more and more the eternal, everlasting, discriminating love of God. When you have mounted as high as election, tarry on its sister mount, the covenant of grace. Covenant engagements are the munitions of stupendous rock behind which we lie entrenched; covenant engagements with the surety, Christ Jesus, are the quiet resting-places of trembling spirits. "His oath, His covenant, His blood, Support me in the raging flood; When every earthly prop gives way, This still is all my strength and stay."
If Jesus undertook to bring me to glory, and if the Father promised that He would give me to the Son to be a part of the infinite reward of the travail of His soul; then, my soul, till God Himself shall be unfaithful, till Jesus shall cease to be the truth, thou art safe. When David danced before the ark, he told Michal that election made him do so. Come, my soul, exult before the God of grace and leap for joy of heart.
Evening
His head is as the most fine gold, His locks are bushy, and black as a raven.
Song of Solomon 5:11
Comparisons all fail to set forth the Lord Jesus, but the spouse uses the best within her reach. By the head of Jesus we may understand His deity, "for the head of Christ is God" and then the ingot of purest gold is the best conceivable metaphor, but all too poor to describe one so precious, so pure, so dear, so glorious. Jesus is not a grain of gold, but a vast globe of it, a priceless mass of treasure such as earth and heaven cannot excel. The creatures are mere iron and clay, they all shall perish like wood, hay, and stubble, but the everliving Head of the creation of God shall shine on for ever and ever. In Him is no mixture, nor smallest taint of alloy. He is for ever infinitely holy and altogether divine. The bushy locks depict His manly vigour. There is nothing effeminate in our Beloved. He is the manliest of men. Bold as a lion, laborious as an ox, swift as an eagle. Every conceivable and inconceivable beauty is to be found in Him, though once He was despised and rejected of men. "His head the finest gold; With secret sweet perfume, His curled locks hang all as black As any raven’s plume."
The glory of His head is not shorn away, He is eternally crowned with peerless majesty. The black hair indicates youthful freshness, for Jesus has the dew of His youth upon Him. Others grow languid with age, but He is for ever a Priest as was Melchisedek; others come and go, but He abides as God upon His throne, world without end. We will behold Him to-night and adore Him. Angels are gazing upon Him - His redeemed must not turn away their eyes from Him. Where else is there such a Beloved? O for an hour’s fellowship with Him! Away, ye intruding cares! Jesus draws me, and I run after Him.
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
Proverbs 3:13-26
13 Happy is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gets understanding.
14 For her good profit is better than getting silver, and her return is better than fine gold.
15 She is more precious than rubies. None of the things you can desire are to be compared to her.
16 Length of days is in her right hand. In her left hand are riches and honour.
17 Her ways are ways of pleasantness. All her paths are peace.
18 She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her. Happy is everyone who retains her.
19 By wisdom the LORD founded the earth. By understanding, he established the heavens.
20 By his knowledge, the depths were broken up, and the skies drop down the dew.
21 My son, let them not depart from your eyes. Keep sound wisdom and discretion:
22 so they will be life to your soul, and grace for your neck.
23 Then you shall walk in your way securely. Your foot won't stumble.
24 When you lie down, you will not be afraid. Yes, you will lie down, and your sleep will be sweet.
25 Don't be afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it comes;
26 for the LORD will be your confidence, and will keep your foot from being taken.
PLEASANTNESS AND PEACE
"Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace."
In the ways of the Lord I shall have feasts of "pleasantness." But not always at the beginning of the ways. Sometimes my faith is called upon to take a very unattractive road, and nothing welcomes me of fascination and delight. But here is a law of the spiritual life. The exercised faith intensifies my spiritual senses, and hidden things become manifest to my soul - hidden beauties, hidden sounds, hidden scents! Faith adds a mysterious "plus" to my powers, and "all things become new."
And in the ways of the Lord I shall also find the gracious gift of peace. Not that the road will be always smooth, but that I may be always calm. I can be unperturbed when "all around tumultuous seems." I can journey in holy serenity, because the Lord of the road is with me. For peace consists, not in friendliness of circumstances, but in friendship with the Lord.
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
October 28th.
My Saviour, may I walk with Thee in sanctified joy to-day! May the light never die out of my face! If disappointment
should come to me, may my very defeat be glorified! May my fellows see Thy glory whether I am travelling through the noontide or the night!
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
And it shall be forgiven them; for it is ignorance.
Numbers 15:25
Because of our ignorance we are not fully aware of our sins of ignorance. Yet we may be sure they are many, in the form both of commission and omission. We may be doing in all sincerity, as a service to God, that which he has never commanded, and can never accept.
The Lord knows these sins of ignorance every one. This may well alarm us, since in justice he will require these trespasses at our hand; but on the other hand, faith spies comfort in this fact, for the Lord will see to it that stains unseen by us shall yet be washed away. He sees the sin that he may cease to see it by casting it behind his back.
Our great comfort is that Jesus, the true priest, has made atonement for all the congregation of the children of Israel. That atonement secures the pardon of unknown sins. His precious blood cleanses us from all sin. Whether our eyes have seen it and wept over it, or not, God has seen it, Christ has atoned for it, the Spirit bears witness to the pardon of it, and so we have a threefold peace.
O my Father, I praise thy divine knowledge, which not only perceives my iniquities, but provides an atonement which delivers me from the guilt of them, even before I know that I am guilty.
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
Mighty through God.
2 Corinthians 10:4
The world is coming to recognise that not the voluptuary who buries himself in material things, nor the ascetic who attempts to strengthen spirituality by the destruction of the material, presents the true ideal; but rather the man who is at home on the earth, while yet conscious of the infinite spaciousness of things around, ... who touches all the things of today in the consciousness of infinite issues.
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
This He said, signifying by what manner of death He should die.
John 12:33
This is the Holy Spirit's interpretation of the words which our Lord had just uttered. They were triumphant words, claiming a coming victory over the prince of the world, and His own lifting up out of the earth to a place of universal power. This, then, was the manner of His death - that is to say, this was the nature of His death. It was triumphant death. We may miss the whole value of the statement if we think only of the fact of the Cross on the human level. It gives us at once to see that the human murder of Jesus was a secondary thing. His death was not in weakness, but in strength; not the death of defeat, but that of triumph. He died to cast out the authority and power of evil in which the world was enslaved. He died to create a centre, coming to which, men would enter into freedom and life. The manner of His death was in that sense unique. None other had so died. His is the one and only death which is in itself victorious. And now all who are gathered to Him around that Cross, receiving its pardon, receive also its gift of life; and so they also triumph in their dying. To die in Christ is to rise with Him into complete victory over the prince of the world, and to find the fulfilment of life. The first experience is spiritual, and immediate to the trusting soul. The final experience comes when we fall asleep in Him, and find the awakening in His presence to be the triumph.
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.