Daily Bible Notes: September, 9th
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 will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.
Jeremiah 33:3
There are different translations of these words. One version renders it, "I will shew thee great and fortified things." Another, "Great and reserved things." Now, there are reserved and special things in Christian experience: all the developments of spiritual life are not alike easy of attainment. There are the common frames and feelings of repentance, and faith, and joy, and hope, which are enjoyed by the entire family; but there is an upper realm of rapture, of communion, and conscious union with Christ, which is far from being the common dwelling-place of believers. We have not all the high privilege of John, to lean upon Jesus’ bosom; nor of Paul, to be caught up into the third heaven. There are heights in experimental knowledge of the things of God which the eagle’s eye of acumen and philosophic thought hath never seen: God alone can bear us there; but the chariot in which He takes us up, and the fiery steeds with which that chariot is dragged, are prevailing prayers. Prevailing prayer is victorious over the God of mercy, "By his strength he had power with God: yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto Him: he found Him in Beth-el, and there He spake with us." Prevailing prayer takes the Christian to Carmel, and enables him to cover heaven with clouds of blessing, and earth with floods of mercy. Prevailing prayer bears the Christian aloft to Pisgah, and shows him the inheritance reserved; it elevates us to Tabor and transfigures us, till in the likeness of his Lord, as He is, so are we also in this world. If you would reach to something higher than ordinary grovelling experience, look to the Rock that is higher than you, and gaze with the eye of faith through the window of importunate prayer. When you open the window on your side, it will not be bolted on the other.
Evening
And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment.
Revelation 4:4
These representatives of the saints in heaven are said to be around the throne . In the passage in Canticles, where Solomon sings of the King sitting at his table, some render it "a round table." From this, some expositors, I think, without straining the text, have said, "There is an equality among the saints." That idea is conveyed by the equal nearness of the four and twenty elders. The condition of glorified spirits in heaven is that of nearness to Christ, clear vision of His glory, constant access to His court, and familiar fellowship with His person: nor is there any difference in this respect between one saint and another, but all the people of God, apostles, martyrs, ministers, or private and obscure Christians, shall all be seated near the throne , where they shall for ever gaze upon their exalted Lord, and be satisfied with His love. They shall all be near to Christ, all ravished with His love, all eating and drinking at the same table with Him, all equally beloved as His favourites and friends even if not all equally rewarded as servants.
Let believers on earth imitate the saints in heaven in their nearness to Christ. Let us on earth be as the elders are in heaven, sitting around the throne. May Christ be the object of our thoughts, the centre of our lives.
How can we endure to live at such a distance from our Beloved? Lord Jesu, draw us nearer to Thyself. Say unto us, "Abide in Me, and I in you"; and permit us to sing, "His left hand is under my head, and His right hand doth embrace me."
O lift me higher, nearer Thee, And as I rise more pure and meet, O let my soul’s humility Make me lie lower at Thy feet; Less trusting self, the more I prove The blessed comfort of Thy love.
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
Psalms 32
1 Blessed is he whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
2 Blessed is the man to whom the LORD doesn't impute iniquity, in whose spirit there is no deceit.
3 When I kept silence, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night your hand was heavy on me. My strength was sapped in the heat of summer. Selah.
5 I acknowledged my sin to you. I didn't hide my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the LORD, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah.
6 For this, let everyone who is godly pray to you in a time when you may be found. Surely when the great waters overflow, they shall not reach to him.
7 You are my hiding place. You will preserve me from trouble. You will surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah.
8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you shall go. I will counsel you with my eye on you.
9 Don't be like the horse, or like the mule, which have no understanding, who are controlled by bit and bridle, or else they will not come near to you.
10 Many sorrows come to the wicked, but loving kindness shall surround him who trusts in the LORD.
11 Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, you righteous! Shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart!
DEALING WITH SIN
Here is the burden of unconfessed sin. "When I kept silence my bones waxed old." There is nothing brings on premature age like secret sin. It keeps the mind in perpetual unrest, and a troubled mind soon makes the body old. The real nourisher of the body is a quiet and radiant soul. But let the soul be in chaos, and the body will soon be a ruin.
And here, too, is the healthy act of confession. "I acknowledged my sin unto Thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid." He retained no single germ of the whole unclean brood. He brought them out into the light one by one, as though he were emptying a noisome kennel. He brought them out, and named them, in the awful Presence of the Lord.
And here is the ministry of forgiveness, and therefore the miracle of restored health. Let me mark the rich variety of the descriptive words. "Forgiven!" "Covered!" "Imputed not!" It is all removed and obliterated, and the place of defilement and profanity becomes the holy temple of the Lord.
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
September 9th.
My loving Lord, I pray for all young Christians. May their sense of power exceed their sense of difficulty!
May they not be dismayed by the strength of the tempter! May their religious life ripen in the light of Thy grace!
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
Happy is the man that feareth alway.
Proverbs28:14
The fear of the Lord is the beginning and the foundation of all true religion. Without a solemn awe and reverence of God there is no foothold for the more brilliant virtues. He whose soul does not worship will never live in holiness.
He is happy who feels a jealous fear of doing wrong. Holy fear looks not only before it leaps, but even before it moves. It is afraid of error, afraid of neglecting duty, afraid of committing sin. It fears ill company, loose talk, and questionable policy. This does not make a man wretched, but it brings him happiness. The watchful sentinel is happier than the soldier who sleeps at his post. He who foreseeth evil and escapes it is happier than he who walks carelessly on and is destroyed.
Fear of God is a quiet grace which leads a man along a choice road, of which it is written, "No lion shall be there, neither shall any ravenous beast go up thereon." Fear of the very appearance of evil is a purifying principle, which enables a man, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to keep his garments unspotted from the world. In both senses he that "feareth alway" is made happy. Solomon had tried both worldliness and holy fear: in the one he found vanity, in the other happiness. Let us not repeat his trial, but abide by his verdict.
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
I am the Lord, I change not.
Malachi 3:6
Dispensations come and go, dawn and vanish; but God remains the same, underneath, with, and in each. Some people speak as though God had not only altered His methods, but His mind. I agree that He has changed His methods, but His mind, Never! ... He has always been a Father, He never changes.
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
So I let them go after the stubbornness of their heart.
Psalms 81:12
This Psalm constituted an introduction to a joyful feast, most probably the Feast of Tabernacles. It opens on the note of joy, and merges into messages of warning. Those later messages interpret the heart of God, as He is revealed as pleading with His people, and sighing over them with longing for their loyalty, for their own sakes. In referring to their disloyalties, to the fact that they had not hearkened to. His voice, this word was spoken: "So I let them go after the stubbornness of their heart." It reveals a constant method of God with His disloyal and disobedient children. When they will not go His way, He lets them go their way. But this does not mean that He abandons them. It is rather that He permits them to learn by the bitter results of their own folly what He would have had them know by communion with Himself. How constantly the people of God have gone after the stubbornness of their own hearts only to find sorrow and anguish; and yet how constantly through that experience they have learned the perfection of the Divine way! This is so, because He is the God of all grace. Nevertheless, His choice for us is that we should hearken to Him, and so be saved, not merely through the bitterness of failure, but from it.
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.