From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] daily devotional
Evening...
2 Samuel 2:26
Knowest thou not that it will be bitterness in the latter end?
If, O my reader! thou art merely a professor, and not a possessor of the
faith that is in Christ Jesus, the following lines are a true ketch of thine
end. You are a respectable attendant at a place of worship; you go because
others go, not because your heart is right with God. This is your beginning. I
will suppose that for the next twenty or thirty years you will be spared to go
on as you do now, professing religion by an outward attendance upon the means
of grace, but having no heart in the matter. Tread softly, for I must show you
the deathbed of such a one as yourself. Let us gaze upon him gently. A clammy
sweat is on his brow, and he wakes up crying, "O God, it is hard to die. Did
you send for my minister?" "Yes, he is coming." The minister comes. "Sir, I
fear that I am dying!" "Have you any hope?" "I cannot say that I have. I fear
to stand before my God; oh! pray for me." The prayer is offered for him with
sincere earnestness, and the way of salvation is for the ten-thousandth time
put before him, but before he has grasped the rope, I see him sink. I may put
my finger upon those cold eyelids, for they will never see anything here again.
But where is the man, and where are the man's true eyes? It is written, "In
hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment." Ah! why did he not lift up his
eyes before? Because he was so accustomed to hear the gospel that his soul
slept under it. Alas! if you should lift up your eyes there, how bitter will be
your wailings. Let the Saviour's own words reveal the woe: "Father Abraham,
send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my
tongue, for I am tormented in this flame." There is a frightful meaning in
those words. May you never have to spell it out by the red light of Jehovah's
wrath!
Matthew 4:8-9
(8) Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and
sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; (9) And saith
unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship
me.
John 14:30
(30) Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world
cometh, and hath nothing in me.
This and the other verses we have read clearly show that Satan is the
ruler of this present evil world, but he retains that power only by God's
express permission. God has assigned Satan 6,000 years in which to rule over
mankind. When that time expires, Christ will forcibly intervene in world
affairs and reestablish the government of God on earth. He will then rule the
world for the next 1,000 years. Thus God's plan spans a period of one prophetic
"week," since a day is as a thousand years with God, and a thousand years as a
day ( II Peter 3:8).
God has said to Satan, in effect: "Six 'days' shalt thou labor, and do
all thy work: but the seventh 'day' is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it
thou shalt not do any work" ( Exodus 20:9-10). The first six days of this
prophetic week God has turned over to Satan, and given him free reign to
influence and deceive.
Satan's work is a labor of deception—of deceiving mankind—of turning
God's truth upside down—causing honest, sincere people to accept a counterfeit
for the genuine—deceiving people to sin. And how successfully he has worked at
his occupation for nearly 6,000 years!
We are now nearing the end of Satan's six millennial days of work. And
the coming seventh millennial day shall be the Sabbath of the Lord God. That
"day" will not belong to Satan. It belongs to God. In it, Satan shall not do
any work. He will be chained, restrained, and thrown into the symbolic
"bottomless pit" ( Revelation 20:1-3). He will not be allowed to deceive anyone
during the Millennium.
When Christ returns to earth, He will seize rulership from the
archdeceiver who has deceived and swayed humanity. Christ will then restrain
the builder and ruler of this world's civilization and bind him for 1,000 years!
Staff
From Is This the Only Day of Salvation?
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daily devotional
Evening...
Matthew 22:42
What think ye of Christ?
The great test of your soul's health is, What think you of Christ? Is He to
you "fairer than the children of men"-"the chief among ten thousand"-the
"altogether lovely"? Wherever Christ is thus esteemed, all the faculties of the
spiritual man exercise themselves with energy. I will judge of your piety by
this barometer: does Christ stand high or low with you? If you have thought
little of Christ, if you have been content to live without His presence, if you
have cared little for His honour, if you have been neglectful of His laws, then
I know that your soul is sick-God grant that it may not be sick unto death! But
if the first thought of your spirit has been, How can I honour Jesus? If the
daily desire of your soul has been, "O that I knew where I might find Him!" I
tell you that you may have a thousand infirmities, and even scarcely know
whether you are a child of God at all, and yet I am persuaded, beyond a doubt,
that you are safe, since Jesus is great in your esteem. I care not for thy
rags, what thinkest thou of His royal apparel? I care not for thy wounds,
though they bleed in torrents, what thinkest thou of His wounds? are they like
glittering rubies in thine esteem? I think none the less of thee, though thou
liest like Lazarus on the dunghill, and the dogs do lick thee-I judge thee not
by thy poverty: what thinkest thou of the King in His beauty? Has He a glorious
high throne in thy heart? Wouldst thou set Him higher if thou couldst? Wouldst
thou be willing to die if thou couldst but add another trumpet to the strain
which proclaims His praise? Ah! then it is well with thee. Whatever thou mayst
think of thyself, if Christ be great to thee, thou shalt be with Him ere long.
"Though all the world my choice deride,
Yet Jesus shall my portion be;
For I am pleased with none beside,
The fairest of the fair is He"
Luke 18:9-14
(9) And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves
that they were righteous, and despised others: (10) Two men went up into the
temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. (11) The Pharisee
stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other
men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. (12) I
fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. (13) And the
publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven,
but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. (14) I tell
you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every
one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall
be exalted.
The publican's is the language of the poor in spirit. We do not belong
anywhere except alongside the publican, crying out with downcast eyes, "God be
merciful to me a sinner!" John Calvin, the sixteenth-century theologian whose
teachings form the basis of Reformed Protestantism, wrote, "He only who is
reduced to nothing in himself, and relies on the mercy of God is poor in
spirit" (Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark and Luke, p.
261).
Notice how Jesus brought out that the underlying attitude of the Pharisee
was reliance in self. He boasted before God of all his "excellent" qualities
and works, things he evidently thought would earn him God's respect. His vanity
about these things then motivated him to regard others as less than himself. So
we see that self-exaltation is the opposite of poor in spirit.
Poor in spirit is contrary to that haughty, self-assertive, and
self-sufficient disposition that the world so much admires and praises. It is
the reverse of an independent and defiant attitude that refuses to bow to
God—that determines to brave things out against His will like Pharaoh, who
said, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice . . .?" ( Exodus 5:2). A
person who is poor in spirit realizes that he is nothing, has nothing, can do
nothing—and needs everything, as Jesus said in John 15:5, "Without Me you can
do nothing."
In his commentary, The Sermon on the Mount, Emmett Fox provides a
practical description of what "poor in spirit" means:
To be poor in spirit means to have emptied yourself of all desire to
exercise personal self-will, and, what is just as important, to have renounced
all preconceived opinions in the whole-hearted search for God. It means to be
willing to set aside your present habits of thought, your present views and
prejudices, your present way of life if necessary; to jettison, in fact,
anything and everything that can stand in the way of your finding God. (p. 22)
Poverty of spirit blooms as God reveals Himself to us and we become aware
of His incredible holiness and towering mercy in even calling us to be forgiven
and invited to be in His Family—to be like Him! This understanding awakens us
to the painful discovery that all our righteousness truly is like filthy rags
by comparison ( Isaiah 64:6); our best performances are unacceptable. It brings
us down to the dust before God. This realization corresponds to the Prodigal
Son's experience in Luke 15:14 when "he began to be in want." Soon thereafter,
Jesus says, he "came to himself" (verse 17), beginning the humbling journey
back to his father, repentance, and acceptance.
John W. Ritenbaugh
From The Beatitudes, Part Two: Poor in Spirit
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