From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] daily devotional
Evening ...
Psalm 72:19
Let the whole earth be filled with His glory; Amen, and Amen.
This is a large petition. To intercede for a whole city needs a stretch of
faith, and there are times when a prayer for one man is enough to stagger us.
But how far-reaching was the psalmist's dying intercession! How comprehensive!
How sublime! "Let the whole earth be filled with His glory." It doth not exempt
a single country however crushed by the foot of superstition; it doth not
exclude a single nation however barbarous. For the cannibal as well as for the
civilized, for all climes and races this prayer is uttered: the whole circle of
the earth it encompasses, and omits no son of Adam. We must be up and doing for
our Master, or we cannot honestly offer such a prayer. The petition is not
asked with a sincere heart unless we endeavour, as God shall help us, to extend
the kingdom of our Master. Are there not some who neglect both to plead and to
labour? Reader, is it your prayer? Turn your eyes to Calvary. Behold the Lord
of Life nailed to a cross, with th e thorn-crown about His brow, with bleeding
head, and hands, and feet. What! can you look upon this miracle of miracles,
the death of the Son of God, without feeling within your bosom a marvellous
adoration that language never can express? And when you feel the blood applied
to your conscience, and know that He has blotted out your sins, you are not a
man unless you start from your knees and cry, "Let the whole earth be filled
with His glory; Amen, and Amen." Can you bow before the Crucified in loving
homage, and not wish to see your Monarch master of the world? Out on you if you
can pretend to love your Prince, and desire not to see Him the universal ruler.
Your piety is worthless unless it leads you to wish that the same mercy which
has been extended to you may bless the whole world. Lord, it is harvest-time,
put in Thy sickle and reap.
Morning ...
Song of Solomon 1:4
The upright love Thee
Believers love Jesus with a deeper affection then they dare to give to any
other being. They would sooner lose father and mother then part with Christ.
They hold all earthly comforts with a loose hand, but they carry Him fast
locked in their bosoms. They voluntarily deny themselves for His sake, but they
are not to be driven to deny Him. It is scant love which the fire of
persecution can dry up; the true believer's love is a deeper stream than this.
Men have laboured to divide the faithful from their Master, but their attempts
have been fruitless in every age. Neither crowns of honour, now frowns of
anger, have untied this more than Gordian knot. This is no every-day attachment
which the world's power may at length dissolve. Neither man nor devil have
found a key which opens this lock. Never has the craft of Satan been more at
fault than when he has exercised it in seeking to rend in sunder this union of
two divinely welded hearts. It is written, and nothin g can blot out the
sentence, "The upright love Thee." The intensity of the love of the upright,
however, is not so much to be judged by what it appears as by what the upright
long for. It is our daily lament that we cannot love enough. Would that our
hearts were capable of holding more, and reaching further. Like Samuel
Rutherford, we sigh and cry, "Oh, for as much love as would go round about the
earth, and over heaven-yea, the heaven of heavens, and ten thousand worlds-that
I might let all out upon fair, fair, only fair Christ." Alas! our longest reach
is but a span of love, and our affection is but as a drop of a bucket compared
with His deserts. Measure our love by our intentions, and it is high indeed;
'tis thus, we trust, our Lord doth judge of it. Oh, that we could give all the
love in all hearts in one great mass, a gathering together of all loves to Him
who is altogether lovely!
Proverbs 31:8-9
(8) Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed
to destruction. (9) Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of
the poor and needy.
Basically, God says here, "Go to bat for the disadvantaged." However, He
admonishes us to judge righteously.
We know that there are people in the world who, perhaps because they have
too much time, money, or guilt on their hands, make it their duty to become
advocates for various causes, often doing it without regard for the possible
consequences. They may think they are supporting something that is good, but
they sometimes never think through what their support might mean and what will
result from it. If many of the causes out there were actually followed through
to the end, we would be living in a socialist or communist state, and no one
would like it. Nobody would be free.
Jesus says, "The poor you will always have with you." Because that is the
case, the question then becomes, "How best can we help them?" Remember Martha
and Mary and what Jesus had to say to Martha? "Martha, you are getting
overwrought about all this. But Mary has chosen the better thing" (Luke
10:38-42 paraphrased). Jesus is teaching that there is a point at which service
and good works become a distraction and a worry, crowding out the higher duties
of listening to Him.
Thus, we need to remember that, even though we want to do good works,
they will never save us. They are a fruit of righteousness. They are not the
ultimate goal or the end. They just show that we have inculcated into us part
of God's character, and the natural outgrowth of that is good works (see
Ephesians 2:10).
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
From 'If I Have Not Charity'
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daily devoitonal
Evening ...
1 Thessalonians 2:18 Satan hindered us.
Since the first hour in which goodness came into conflict with evil, it has
never ceased to be true in spiritual experience, that Satan hinders us. >From
all points of the compass, all along the line of battle, in the vanguard and in
the rear, at the dawn of day and in the midnight hour, Satan hinders us. If we
toil in the field, he seeks to break the ploughshare; if we build the wall, he
labours to cast down the stones; if we would serve God in suffering or in
conflict-everywhere Satan hinders us. He hinders us when we are first coming to
Jesus Christ. Fierce conflicts we had with Satan when we first looked to the
cross and lived. Now that we are saved, he endeavours to hinder the
completeness of our personal character. You may be congratulating yourself, "I
have hitherto walked consistently; no man can challenge my integrity." Beware
of boasting, for your virtue will yet be tried; Satan will direct his engines
against that very virtue for which you are the most famous. If you have been
hitherto a firm believer, your faith will ere long be attacked; if you have
been meek as Moses, expect to be tempted to speak unadvisedly with your lips.
The birds will peck at your ripest fruit, and the wild boar will dash his tusks
at your choicest vines. Satan is sure to hinder us when we are earnest in
prayer. He checks our importunity, and weakens our faith in order that, if
possible, we may miss the blessing. Nor is Satan less vigilant in obstructing
Christian effort. There was never a revival of religion without a revival of
his opposition. As soon as Ezra and Nehemiah begin to labour, Sanballat and
Tobiah are stirred up to hinder them. What then? We are not alarmed because
Satan hindereth us, for it is a proof that we are on the Lord's side, and are
doing the Lord's work, and in His strength we shall win the victory, and
triumph over our adversary.
Morning ...
Isaiah 59:5 They weave the spider's web.
See the spider's web, and behold in it a most suggestive picture of the
hypocrite's religion. It is meant to catch his prey: the spider fattens himself
on flies, and the Pharisee has his reward. Foolish persons are easily entrapped
by the loud professions of pretenders, and even the more judicious cannot
always escape. Philip baptized Simon Magus, whose guileful declaration of faith
was so soon exploded by the stern rebuke of Peter. Custom, reputation, praise,
advancement, and other flies, are the small game which hypocrites take in their
nets. A spider's web is a marvel of skill: look at it and admire the cunning
hunter's wiles. Is not a deceiver's religion equally wonderful? How does he
make so barefaced a lie appear to be a truth? How can he make his tinsel answer
so well the purpose of gold? A spider's web comes all from the creature's own
bowels. The bee gathers her wax from flowers, the spider sucks no flowers, and
yet she spins out her material to any length. Even so hypocrites find their
trust and hope within themselves; their anchor was forged on their own anvil,
and their cable twisted by their own hands. They lay their own foundation, and
hew out the pillars of their own house, disdaining to be debtors to the
sovereign grace of God. But a spider's web is very frail. It is curiously
wrought, but not enduringly manufactured. It is no match for the servant's
broom, or the traveller's staff. The hypocrite needs no battery of Armstrongs
to blow his hope to pieces, a mere puff of wind will do it. Hypocritical
cobwebs will soon come down when the besom of destruction begins its purifying
work. Which reminds us of one more thought, viz., that such cobwebs are not to
be endured in the Lord's house: He will see to it that they and those who spin
them shall be destroyed for ever. O my soul, be thou resting on something
better than a spider's web. Be the Lord Jesus thine eternal hiding-place.
Ephesians 2:2
(2) Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this
world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now
worketh in the children of disobedience:
The Bible uses spirit to designate an invisible, immaterial, powerful
influence whose characteristics are absorbed and then exhibited in the
attitudes and conduct of the general population of a given people.
Course is an influence of which we can be much more aware. We can
compare it to a path, riverbed, or highway, suggesting a way by which or in
which something flows. It is a means to an end, a result, which may be a
destination or an action. Course, under the heading "tendency" in Roget's
International Thesaurus, has synonyms such as "thoughts," "disposition,"
"character," "nature," "makeup," "bent," "slant," "frame of mind," "attitude,"
"inclination," "drift," "mindset," and "perspective." It is helpful to
understand "the course of this world" by rephrasing it as "the disposition of
this world," "the character of this world," "the nature of this world," or "the
makeup [mindset, attitude, perspective, etc.] of this world."
In the apostle Paul's usage of this word, "course" is the whole mass of
elements that encompass the conduct and attitudes of the times, the zeitgeist.
It would not be the same all over the world because its expression in people
would differ depending upon many factors. However, in Paul's writings, its
elements will invariably be carnal and evil because the spiritual source,
Satan, is always evil.
We can begin to understand this more practically by realizing that
someone from France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, or Iraq, though carnal, would not
be as inclined to see, understand, and react to a given situation exactly as an
American would. The specifics of what affects their minds will differ. Though
all are of the world, the things that make up one nation's course will impress
themselves on other nationalities somewhat differently.
Regardless of nationality, the course of this world greatly enhances
the self-centered pull that we are born with, and becomes our nature. It is
from this that we must be converted, the largely unrecognized foundation of our
pre-conversion attitudes and conduct, and it is the same force still motivating
us when we behave carnally. Despite conversion, it remains within us,
compressed like a spring ready to leap into action and reveal itself in
carnality once again.
A prime characteristic of this world's course—exhibited worldwide,
regardless of culture—is that it is habitually self-centered rather than
God-centered. This is due to the underlying spirit beings who are its heart and
soul, the key elements in communicating the course of this world into humanity.
Through a simple illustration, we can perceive how it became this way. Genesis
1:31 reads, "Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very
good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day." God's statement of
satisfaction in all He had made at the end of the sixth day of creation
includes Adam and Eve's nature, as by this time they were already created.
Thus, in the beginning, mankind's nature is designated by our Creator
as, "very good." Genesis 3 records the episode that began the transformation of
their basic nature to the extremes of self-centeredness we witness today. Man's
nature was not created evil, but it became evil through the influence of
another spirit—besides God—that Adam and Eve chose to follow without any
interference from their Creator.
Once they committed to that initial step, the course of this world
began. By the second generation, murder had occurred (Genesis 4:8), and by the
Flood, men were so evil that they were "only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5).
It is this same peak of evil toward which this world and its multiple courses
are being driven. All of this takes place because of the communication,
reception, and acceptance of evil concepts from an evil source.
II Timothy 3:13 reveals a general principle still working as we
"progress" toward the return of Jesus Christ: "But evil men and impostors will
grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived." Improving character and
conduct in any given culture are temporary, indeed very brief, when observed
within a survey of all of man's history.
The same process of moral deterioration that concluded with the Flood
was quickly restarted shortly after its waters receded, and it persists to this
day, as each person is born into this world and exposed to the same spirit and
to the variety of courses that influenced Adam and Eve and all their progeny.
Because we are made of flesh, we are born with a slight pull toward self, but
not with the corruption that later develops and reveals itself in our conduct.
Contrary to Catholic Church teaching, evil is not passed on through
procreation, but by the spirit of the age through the course of this evil
world. It is transferred to us primarily through the cultures into which we are
born, all of which are carnal to the core.
It is the responsibility of converted parents to God and to their
children to ensure that the right spirit prevails in their homes so their
children can be properly nurtured. People grasp this to some degree when they
observe that, "The apple doesn't fall very far from the tree," or "Like father,
like son." Unless parents make a concerted, persistent effort to change and
live as God commands, they will succeed only in passing on copies of themselves.
This world's Christians, in an effort to evade responsibility for the
evil in them, have instead blamed God for creating man this way. God is
responsible to a degree, in that He has not yet chosen to halt Satan's
deceptions. Nevertheless, God did not make us this way. Mankind, represented by
Adam and Eve, chose to submit to Satan, and all of their descendants, including
us, have also chosen to become evil under the sway of the same evil spirit that
offered our first parents the choice. This creates and accounts for "the course
of this world."
John W. Ritenbaugh
From Communication and Leaving Babylon (Part Two)
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