Daily Bible Notes: September, 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
Bring him unto me.
Mark 9:19
Despairingly the poor disappointed father turned away from the disciples to their Master. His son was in the worst possible condition, and all means had failed, but the miserable child was soon delivered from the evil one when the parent in faith obeyed the Lord Jesus’ word, "Bring him unto me." Children are a precious gift from God, but much anxiety comes with them. They may be a great joy or a great bitterness to their parents; they may be filled with the Spirit of God, or possessed with the spirit of evil.
In all cases, the Word of God gives us one receipt for the curing of all their ills, "Bring him unto me." O for more agonizing prayer on their behalf while they are yet babes! Sin is there, let our prayers begin to attack it.
Our cries for our offspring should precede those cries which betoken their actual advent into a world of sin. In the days of their youth we shall see sad tokens of that dumb and deaf spirit which will neither pray aright, nor hear the voice of God in the soul, but Jesus still commands, "Bring them unto me." When they are grown up they may wallow in sin and foam with enmity against God; then when our hearts are breaking we should remember the great Physician’s words, "Bring them unto me." Never must we cease to pray until they cease to breathe. No case is hopeless while Jesus lives.
The Lord sometimes suffers His people to be driven into a corner that they may experimentally know how necessary He is to them. Ungodly children, when they show us our own powerlessness against the depravity of their hearts, drive us to flee to the strong for strength, and this is a great blessing to us. Whatever our morning’s need may be, let it like a strong current bear us to the ocean of divine love. Jesus can soon remove our sorrow, He delights to comfort us. Let us hasten to Him while He waits to meet us.
Evening
Encourage him.
Deuteronomy 1:38
God employs His people to encourage one another. He did not say to an angel, "Gabriel, my servant Joshua is about to lead my people into Canaan - go, encourage him." God never works needless miracles; if His purposes can be accomplished by ordinary means, He will not use miraculous agency. Gabriel would not have been half so well fitted for the work as Moses. A brother’s sympathy is more precious than an angel’s embassy.
The angel, swift of wing, had better known the Master’s bidding than the people’s temper. An angel had never experienced the hardness of the road, nor seen the fiery serpents, nor had he led the stiff-necked multitude in the wilderness as Moses had done. We should be glad that God usually works for man by man. It forms a bond of brotherhood, and being mutually dependent on one another, we are fused more completely into one family.
Brethren, take the text as God’s message to you. Labour to help others, and especially strive to encourage them. Talk cheerily to the young and anxious enquirer, lovingly try to remove stumblingblocks out of his way.
When you find a spark of grace in the heart, kneel down and blow it into a flame. Leave the young believer to discover the roughness of the road by degrees, but tell him of the strength which dwells in God, of the sureness of the promise, and of the charms of communion with Christ. Aim to comfort the sorrowful, and to animate the desponding. Speak a word in season to him that is weary, and encourage those who are fearful to go on their way with gladness. God encourages you by His promises; Christ encourages you as He points to the heaven He has won for you, and the spirit encourages you as He works in you to will and to do of His own will and pleasure. Imitate divine wisdom, and encourage others, according to the word of this evening.
2. "My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year" by J.H.Jowett
Jeremiah 17:5-11
5 The LORD says: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man, relies on strength of flesh, and whose heart departs from the LORD.
6 For he will be like a bush in the desert, and will not see when good comes, but will inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, an uninhabited salt land.
7 "Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, and whose confidence is in the LORD.
8 For he will be as a tree planted by the waters, who spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes, but its leaf will be green, and will not be concerned in the year of drought. It won't cease from yielding fruit.
9 The heart is deceitful above all things and it is exceedingly corrupt. Who can know it?
10 "I, the LORD, search the mind. I try the heart, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings."
11 As the partridge that sits on eggs which she has not laid, so is he who gets riches, and not by right. In the middle of his days, they will leave him. At his end, he will be a fool.
THE NEVER-WITHERING LEAF
Let me look at "the blessed man" in the interpreting symbol of this healthy and graceful tree.
The blessed life is a life of vast resource. "As a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river." It is not watered by an occasional shower, it is unceasingly bathed by the vitalizing flood. Its rootlets are always drinking the nutritious waters of grace. The blessed life is planted on the banks of that wonderful river which takes its rise in the great white throne.
And just because of these boundless supplies, the blessed life is undisturbed in times of grave crisis and emergency. "He shall not see when heat cometh." He shall be cool when the unblessed are hot and fever-stricken. He shall "keep his head" in times of general panic. His powers of endurance shall make the world wonder! He shall "hold out" when everybody else is faint.
So shall there be nothing "sere and yellow" about him. "His leaf shall be green." His faith, and hope, and love shall remain fresh and beautiful even in "the dark and cloudy day."
3. "Yet Another Day - A Prayer for Every Day of the Year" by John H.Jowett
September 17th.
My Father, Thy mercies reach even unto the clouds. Even amid the changeable Thy love is constant. When it seems to be
absent it is often present in richest abundance. Help me to believe in Thee. Help me to trust.
4. "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith" by C.H.Spurgeon.
The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
Psalms 92:12
These trees are not trained and pruned by man: palms and cedars are "trees of the Lord," and it is by his care that they flourish; even so it is with the saints of the Lord, they are his own care. These trees are evergreen and are beautiful objects at all seasons of the year. Believers are not sometimes holy and sometimes ungodly: they stand in the beauty of the Lord under all weathers. Everywhere these trees are noteworthy: no one can gaze upon a landscape in which there are either palms or cedars without his attention being fixed upon these royal growths. The followers of Jesus are the observed of all observers: like a city set on a hill they cannot be hid.
The child of God flourishes like a palm tree, which pushes all its strength upward in one erect column without a single branch. It is a pillar with a glorious capital. It has no growth to the right or to the left, but sends all its force heavenward, and bears its fruit as near the sky as possible. Lord, fulfil this type in me.
The cedar braves all storms, and grows near the eternal snows, the Lord himself filling it with a sap which keeps its heart warm and its boughs strong. Lord, so let it be with me, I pray thee. Amen.
5. "The Morning Message" by G.Campbell Morgan.
O woman, great is thy faith.
Matthew 15:28
In all social relationships His action was such as to reveal God's Will in an entirely new light to men, thus revolutionising human thought and human society ... Let the mind dwell for one moment on His unvarying attitude towards women; and then remember how, since the years of His human life, woman the world over has lived in a new realm, for the day of her final emancipation dawned with His appearing.
6. "An Evening Meditation" taken from "Searchlights from the Word" by G.Campbell Morgan.
Blessed be the Lord for evermore. Amen, and Amen.
Psalms 89:52
This is the Doxology with which the third Book of Psalms ends. In this Book the dominant names of God have been Elohim and Jehovah, the latter predominating. They have all set Him forth as the Mighty-Helper. This final note of praise emphasizes the fact of His grace as helping the needy. In this last Psalm the whole idea of the Book emerges in one great statement: "I have laid help upon one that is mighty" (verse 19); and the whole movement of the song makes the Doxology the more significant. The key-notes of the Psalm are the "faithfulness" and "kindness" of God. Round these all its movements gather, of praise, of prayer, and of lamentation. The first part celebrates the glory of the covenant which God made with His King. The second mourns the failure to realize the benefits of that covenant in the midst of which the singer lived. In this latter movement there is urgency in the prayer that the reproach may be removed, but there is no questioning of the faithfulness of God, nor of His kindness. Thus the soul who has come to a knowledge of God as the Mighty-Helper will worship Him in a perpetual Doxology on the darkest day, remembering His covenant, and being assured that whatever may be the experiences of the moment, in the long issue He will be vindicated. Thus the men of faith render Him ceaseless worship.
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.