Daily Bible Notes: September, 7th
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
And when they could not come nigh unto Him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay.
Mark 2:4
Faith is full of inventions . The house was full, a crowd blocked up the door, but faith found a way of getting at the Lord and placing the palsied man before Him. If we cannot get sinners where Jesus is by ordinary methods we must use extraordinary ones. It seems, according to Luke 5:19, that a tiling had to be removed, which would make dust and cause a measure of danger to those below, but where the case is very urgent we must not mind running some risks and shocking some proprieties. Jesus was there to heal, and therefore fall what might, faith ventured all so that her poor paralyzed charge might have his sins forgiven. O that we had more daring faith among us! Cannot we, dear reader, seek it this morning for ourselves and for our fellow-workers, and will we not try to-day to perform some gallant act for the love of souls and the glory of the Lord.
The world is constantly inventing; genius serves all the purposes of human desire: cannot faith invent too, and reach by some new means the outcasts who lie perishing around us? It was the presence of Jesus which excited victorious courage in the four bearers of the palsied man: is not the Lord among us now? Have we seen His face for ourselves this morning? Have we felt His healing power in our own souls? If so, then through door, through window, or through roof, let us, breaking through all impediments, labour to bring poor souls to Jesus. All means are good and decorous when faith and love are truly set on winning souls. If hunger for bread can break through stone walls, surely hunger for souls is not to be hindered in its efforts. O Lord, make us quick to suggest methods of reaching Thy poor sin-sick ones, and bold to carry them out at all hazards.
Evening
There is sorrow on the sea; it cannot be quiet.
Jeremiah 49:23
Little know we what sorrow may be upon the sea at this moment. We are safe in our quiet chamber, but far away on the salt sea the hurricane may be cruelly seeking for the lives of men. Hear how the death fiends howl among the cordage; how every timber starts as the waves beat like battering rams upon the vessel! God help you, poor drenched and wearied ones! My prayer goes up to the great Lord of sea and land, that He will make the storm a calm, and bring you to your desired haven! Nor ought I to offer prayer alone, I should try to benefit those hardy men who risk their lives so constantly. Have I ever done anything for them? What can I do? How often does the boisterous sea swallow up the mariner!
Thousands of corpses lie where pearls lie deep. There is death-sorrow on the sea, which is echoed in the long wail of widows and orphans. The salt of the sea is in many eyes of mothers and wives. Remorseless billows, ye have devoured the love of women, and the stay of households. What a resurrection shall there be from the caverns of the deep when the sea gives up her dead! Till then there will be sorrow on the sea. As if in sympathy with the woes of earth, the sea is for ever fretting along a thousand shores, wailing with a sorrowful cry like her own birds, booming with a hollow crash of unrest, raving with uproarious discontent, chafing with hoarse wrath, or jangling with the voices of ten thousand murmuring pebbles. The roar of the sea may be joyous to a rejoicing spirit, but to the son of sorrow the wide, wide ocean is even more forlorn than the wide, wide world. This is not our rest, and the restless billows tell us so. There is a land where there is no more sea - our faces are steadfastly set towards it; we are going to the place of which the Lord hath spoken. Till then, we cast our sorrows on the Lord who trod the sea of old, and who maketh a way for His people through the depths thereof.
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
Hebrews 11:1-6
1 Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, proof of things not seen.
2 For by this, the elders obtained testimony.
3 By faith, we understand that the universe has been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen has not been made out of things which are visible.
4 By faith, Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he had testimony given to him that he was righteous, God testifying with respect to his gifts; and through it he, being dead, still speaks.
5 By faith, Enoch was taken away, so that he wouldn't see death, and he was not found, because God translated him. For he has had testimony given to him that before his translation he had been well pleasing to God.
6 Without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing to him, for he who comes to God must believe that he exists, and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him.
EXPERIMENT AND EXPERIENCE
I like the marginal rendering of the introductory sentence of this great chapter. "Faith is the giving substance to things hoped for." Faith converts cloudy castles into substantial homes. Faith substantiates the unseen. Faith sucks the energy out of splendid ideals, and incorporates it in present and immediate life. Faith unfolds the eternal in the moment, the infinite in the trifle, the divine in the commonplace. Faith incorporates God and man. Yes, faith gives substance to "things hoped for," it brings them out of the air, and gives them reality and movement in the hard and common ways of earth and time.
And faith is also "the test of things not seen." By a test faith gains a conquest. By an experiment faith acquires an experience. By a great speculation faith makes a great discovery. "Try me now herewith, and prove Me!" It is an invitation to humble and sincere assumption. Try if it works! Make a hallowed experiment with the powers of grace.
Lord, incline me to make the gracious test! Let me stake my all upon the venture! Let me dare all in order that I may gain all! Let me sow bountifully, and so reap a bountiful harvest.
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
September 7th.
Gracious Lord, teach me how to obtain the secret wealth in all things. Direct me to the spiritual treasure in a flower.
May I know how to read the glory of the heavens! May I have that meekness which inherits the earth!
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
It shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said
unto them. Ye are the sons of the living God.
Hosea 1:10
Sovereign grace can make strangers into sons, and the Lord here declares his purpose to deal thus with rebels, and make them know what he has done. Beloved reader, the Lord has done this in my case; has he done the like for you? Then let us join hands and hearts in praising his adorable name.
Some of us were so decidedly ungodly that the Lord's Word most truly said to our conscience and heart, "Ye are not my people." In the house of God, and in our own homes, when we read the Bible, this was the voice of God's Spirit in our soul, "Ye are not my people." Truly a sad condemning voice it was. But now, in the same places, from the same ministry and Scripture, we hear a voice, which saith, "Ye are the sons of the living God." Can we be grateful enough for this? Is it not wonderful? Does it not give us hope for others? Who is beyond the reach of almighty grace? How can we despair of any, since the Lord has wrought so marvellous a change in us?
He who has kept this one great promise will keep every other; wherefore, let us go forward with songs of adoration and confidence.
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
And he went ... unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning ... unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first.
Genesis 13:3,4
Happy is the man who, having turned aside from the simple pathway of evident obedience, in the consciousness of his wrong goes back to first principles.
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is their God?
Psalms 79:10
The circumstances calling forth this song are practically identical with those which produced the seventy-fourth. Enemies had invaded the land, the Temple was desecrated, the city was in ruins, the people were slain, and the nation was the scorn of its foes. In considering that Psalm, we noted the viewpoint of faith. In spite of all the desolation, God was seen as King, working salvation. That declaration of faith is absent from this Psalm, but it is implicated in this word of appeal. The singer sees God reigning and working salvation, but the nations cannot see this. Their only proof of God is that of the prosperity of His people. In the hour of their adversity the nations will say, Where is their God? Here once more, as so perpetually in these holy writings, we see that the supreme anxiety of true souls is for the honour of the Divine Name. The cry of this Psalm is for deliverance from the enemies who are oppressing them and causing them suffering, but its deepest reason is that God should be honoured and vindicated. This is the true note. It is not easy to rise to its level. Selfishness strangely persists in our desiring and our praying. The measure in which it is consumed in a burning passion for the glory of God, is the measure both of our own strength of soul and our ability to co-operate with God in His work.
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.