From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
daily devotional
Evening ...
Job 13:23
How many are mine iniquities and sins?
Have you ever really weighed and considered how great the sin of God's people
is? Think how heinous is your own transgression, and you will find that not
only does a sin here and there tower up like an alp, but that your iniquities
are heaped upon each other, as in the old fable of the giants who piled Pelian
upon Ossa, mountain upon mountain. What an aggregate of sin there is in the
life of one of the most sanctified of God's children! Attempt to multiply this,
the sin of one only, by the multitude of the redeemed, "a number which no man
can number," and you will have some conception of the great mass of the guilt
of the people for whom Jesus shed His blood. But we arrive at a more adequate
idea of the magnitude of sin by the greatness of the remedy provided. It is the
blood of Jesus Christ, God's only and well-beloved Son. God's Son! Angels cast
their crowns before Him! All the choral symphonies of heaven surround His
glorious throne. "God over all, blessed for ever. Amen." And yet He takes upon
Himself the form of a servant, and is scourged and pierced, bruised and torn,
and at last slain; since nothing but the blood of the incarnate Son of God
could make atonement for our offences. No human mind can adequately estimate
the infinite value of the divine sacrifice, for great as is the sin of God's
people, the atonement which takes it away is immeasurably greater. Therefore,
the believer, even when sin rolls like a black flood, and the remembrance of
the past is bitter, can yet stand before the blazing throne of the great and
holy God, and cry, "Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died; yea
rather, that hath risen again." While the recollection of his sin fills him
with shame and sorrow, he at the same time makes it a foil to show the
brightness of mercy-guilt is the dark night in which the fair star of divine
love shines with serene splendour.
Morning ...
1 Thessalonians 5:25
Brethren, pray for us.
This one morning in the year we reserved to refresh the reader's memory upon
the subject of prayer for ministers, and we do most earnestly implore every
Christian household to grant the fervent request of the text first uttered by
an apostle and now repeated by us. Brethren, our work is solemnly momentous,
involving weal or woe to thousands; we treat with souls for God on eternal
business, and our word is either a savour of life unto life, or of death unto
death. A very heavy responsibility rests upon us, and it will be no small mercy
if at the last we be found clear of the blood of all men. As officers in
Christ's army, we are the especial mark of the enmity of men and devils; they
watch for our halting, and labour to take us by the heels. Our sacred calling
involves us in temptations from which you are exempt, above all it too often
draws us away from our personal enjoyment of truth into a ministerial and
official consideration of it. We meet with many knotty cases, and our wits are
at a non plus; we observe very sad backslidings, and our hearts are wounded; we
see millions perishing, and our spirits sink. We wish to profit you by our
preaching; we desire to be blest to your children; we long to be useful both to
saints and sinners; therefore, dear friends, intercede for us with our God.
Miserable men are we if we miss the aid of your prayers, but happy are we if we
live in your supplications. You do not look to us but to our Master for
spiritual blessings, and yet how many times has He given those blessings
through His ministers; ask then, again and again, that we may be the earthen
vessels into which the Lord may put the treasure of the gospel. We, the whole
company of missionaries, ministers, city missionaries, and students, do in the
name of Jesus beseech you, "BRETHREN, PRAY FOR US."
Jeremiah 17:19-27
(19) Thus said the LORD unto me; Go and stand in the gate of the
children of the people, whereby the kings of Judah come in, and by the which
they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem; (20) And say unto them, Hear ye
the word of the LORD, ye kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants
of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates: (21) Thus saith the LORD; Take heed
to yourselves, and bear no burden on the sabbath day, nor bring it in by the
gates of Jerusalem; (22) Neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the
sabbath day, neither do ye any work, but hallow ye the sabbath day, as I
commanded your fathers. (23) But they obeyed not, neither inclined their ear,
but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear, nor receive instruction.
(24) And it shall come to pass, if ye diligently hearken unto me, saith the
LORD, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the sabbath day,
but hallow the sabbath day, to do no work therein; (25) Then shall there enter
into the gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David,
riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah,
and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: and this city shall remain for ever. (26) And
they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places about Jerusalem,
and from the land of Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the mountains, and
from the south, bringing burnt offerings, and sacrifices, and meat offerings,
and incense, and bringing sacrifices of praise, unto the house of the LORD.
(27) But if ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the sabbath day, and not to
bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day;
then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces
of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.
For years, the folk of the Kingdom of Judah walked in the
footsteps of their brethren in the Kingdom of Israel. However, a number of them
then took a different path. The result of that change, of course, is in itself
proof that God's Sabbath is a sign pointing to Him and His creation.
Jeremiah 17:19-27 records God's promise to a Sabbath-keeping
people. Here, He warns Jerusalem's inhabitants to "bear no burden on the
Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem; . . . nor do any work,
but hallow the Sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers" (verses 21-22). If
they heeded, God continues, "then shall enter the gates of this city kings and
princes sitting on the throne of David, . . . accompanied by the men of Judah
and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city shall remain forever" (verse
25). Conversely, Sabbath-breaking will have dire consequences: "But if you will
not heed Me to hallow the Sabbath day, ... then I will kindle a fire in its
gates, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be
quenched" (verse 27). (For the fulfillment of this prophecy, see Jeremiah 39:8;
II Chronicles 36:19.)
The people of Judah did not heed God's warning and, as a result,
"kings and princes" no longer sit "on the throne of David" in Jerusalem. God
moved the Davidic monarchy northwest to the British Isles, and the people He
moved to Babylon. Jerusalem burned.
Those who returned from Babylon after seventy years did not learn
their lesson. Nehemiah must have stood aghast at the Sabbath-breaking he
witnessed among post-exilic Jews. Nehemiah 13:15, 17-18 bears the record.
Nehemiah
. . . saw in Judah some people treading wine presses on the
Sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and loading donkeys with wine, grapes, figs,
and all kinds of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day.
And I warned them about the day on which they were selling provisions. . . .
"What evil thing is this that you do, by which you profane the Sabbath day? Did
not your fathers do thus, and did not our God bring all this disaster [i.e.,
the destruction of Jerusalem] on us and on this city? Yet you bring added wrath
on Israel by profaning the Sabbath."
Both Ezra and Nehemiah worked assiduously to teach the people to
keep holy God's Sabbath. It was during this time that the people of Judah took
a different path than those of Israel. For, while Israel never (no, not to this
day!) returned to the practice of Sabbath-keeping, the descendants of the tribe
of Judah (with Levi) came to keep it—albeit not perfectly. [After the days of
Ezra and Nehemiah, the Jews' religious leaders became so zealous in their
desire to observe the Sabbath properly that they made it a burden. They
eventually lost perspective: Failing to grasp the spirit of the fourth
commandment, they created hundreds of "do's and don'ts" to define its letter.
By Christ's time, their fanaticism had grown to the point that the Sabbath had
itself become an object of worship. Christ had to devote a fair portion of His
ministry to teaching the people that "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man
for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27).]
They kept it throughout the hideous Maccabean period and
throughout the long Roman occupation later. They kept it after the fall of
Jerusalem in AD 70. They kept it in the Diaspora—during the Dark Ages, the
Renaissance, and the Enlightenment. They kept it whether they dwelt in Europe,
Asia, the Middle East, or later, America. Many keep it to this day. Because
they do, they know who they are! They know who their patriarchs are.
Like a neon sign, the mark of the Sabbath, identifying Jews as
worshipping the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, shines brightly through the
ages, through the darkness of ghetto and oven, even piercing the murky gloom of
today's secularism and humanism. To a good extent, the experience of the Jews
shows that God's mark, the Sabbath, does in fact identify a people as
worshipping the God of the patriarchs.
Had the northern ten tribes "remember[ed] the Sabbath day, to
keep it holy" (Exodus 20:8) even half as well as the folk of Judah do, they
would today have a fair idea of their roots. Having forsaken the keeping of the
seventh-day Sabbath, the peoples of the Kingdom of Israel came, over time, to
forget the God of their fathers, as well as His revelation and His prophets.
"Beware," one of those prophets declares, "lest you forget the
LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt" (Deuteronomy 6:12). Forgetting
the God who separated them from the other nations, ten-tribed Israel, scattered
and wandering, became separated from their God and ultimately grew to be like
other nations. Becoming like them, Israel became lost among them. Beware.
Charles Whitaker
From Searching for Israel (Part Twelve): The Sign
.
=====================================================
daily devotional
Evening ...
Psalm 24:4
He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul
unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.
Outward practical holiness is a very precious mark of grace. It is to be
feared that many professors have perverted the doctrine of justification by
faith in such a way as to treat good works with contempt; if so, they will
receive everlasting contempt at the last great day. If our hands are not clean,
let us wash them in Jesus' precious blood, and so let us lift up pure hands
unto God. But "clean hands"will not suffice, unless they are connected with "a
pure heart." True religion is heart-work. We may wash the outside of the cup
and the platter as long as we please, but if the inward parts be filthy, we are
filthy altogether in the sight of God, for our hearts are more truly ourselves
than our hands are; the very life of our being lies in the inner nature, and
hence the imperative need of purity within. The pure in heart shall see God,
all others are but blind bats. The man who is born for heaven "hath not lifted
up his soul unto vanity." All men have their joys, by which their souls are
lifted up; the worldling lifts up his soul in carnal delights, which are mere
empty vanities; but the saint loves more substantial things; like Jehoshaphat,
he is lifted up in the ways of the Lord. He who is content with husks, will be
reckoned with the swine. Does the world satisfy thee? Then thou hast thy reward
and portion in this life; make much of it, for thou shalt know no other joy.
"Nor sworn deceitfully." The saints are men of honour still. The Christian
man's word is his only oath; but that is as good as twenty oaths of other men.
False speaking will shut any man out of heaven, for a liar shall not enter into
God's house, whatever may be his professions or doings. Reader, does the text
before us condemn thee, or dost thou hope to ascend into the hill of the Lord?
Morning ...
Romans 1:7
Called to be saints.
We are very apt to regard the apostolic saints as if they were "saints" in a
more especial manner than the other children of God. All are "saints" whom God
has called by His grace, and sanctified by His Spirit; but we are apt to look
upon the apostles as extraordinary beings, scarcely subject to the same
weaknesses and temptations as ourselves. Yet in so doing we are forgetful of
this truth, that the nearer a man lives to God the more intensely has he to
mourn over his own evil heart; and the more his Master honours him in His
service, the more also doth the evil of the flesh vex and tease him day by day.
The fact is, if we had seen the apostle Paul, we should have thought him
remarkably like the rest of the chosen family: and if we had talked with him,
we should have said, "We find that his experience and ours are much the same.
He is more faithful, more holy, and more deeply taught than we are, but he has
the selfsame trials to endure. Nay, in some respects he is more sorely tried
than ourselves." Do not, t hen, look upon the ancient saints as being exempt
either from infirmities or sins; and do not regard them with that mystic
reverence which will almost make us idolators. Their holiness is attainable
even by us. We are "called to be saints" by that same voice which constrained
them to their high vocation. It is a Christian's duty to force his way into the
inner circle of saintship; and if these saints were superior to us in their
attainments, as they certainly were, let us follow them; let us emulate their
ardour and holiness. We have the same light that they had, the same grace is
accessible to us, and why should we rest satisfied until we have equalled them
in heavenly character? They lived with Jesus, they lived for Jesus, therefore
they grew like Jesus. Let us live by the same Spirit as they did, "looking unto
Jesus," and our saintship will soon be apparent.
2 Thessalonians 2:4
(4) Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or
that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing
himself that he is God.
This man is so egotistical about himself that he becomes the enemy of
everything worshipped as god. He even sets himself up in the Temple of God. Why
does he do this? To receive the recognition that he feels is his due. There are
several clues here that help us to identify this person further. The first is
that he exalts himself above every so-called god. Notice what this same apostle
says in another place:
For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as
there are many gods, and many lords), yet for us [Christians] there is only one
God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus
Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live. (I Corinthians
8:5-6)
What we have clarified, when compared to II Thessalonians 2:4, is that
there is, in reality, only one God. But there are many so-called gods—that is,
demons or inanimate objects that people worship as gods. The man of sin exalts
himself over the true God and the so-called gods. When this is compared with
the last clause, "he sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is
God," there is no other honest conclusion that can be reached but that this is
the Temple in Jerusalem.
The apostle is using language that is in no way figurative. Everything
that has been given so far, as part of this sign, is literal. The man is
literal, the falling away is literal, and are we now asked to suspend that
literality and believe that the Temple is suddenly figurative? That the Temple
is the church?
The temple is located in Jerusalem, which is the focal point of three
religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. This means the man of sin will
play a prominent role in the city of Jerusalem—which is real and literal—in the
future, which emphasizes that these are events of worldwide significance. The
contrast the apostle makes is between this man, who exalts himself against
so-called gods, and the wretched blasphemy of comparing himself as greater than
the Reality, God Himself.
John W. Ritenbaugh
From A Place of Safety? (Part 3)
.
