Gems from August 2017

THE DAY OF TROUBLE

"Call upon Me in the day of trouble:

I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorify Me.”

(Psalm 50:15)

It has been said that man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. (Job 5:7)  So that we may be quite sure a text such as this appeals to a great many.

It presents to us four points, each of which is worthy of consideration.

They are—first, “The day of trouble.”

Secondly, what we are to do in it: “Call upon Me.”

Next, what God will do in answer to our call: “I will deliver thee.”

Lastly, the end God has in view: “Thou shalt glorify Me.”

(Angels in White - Russell Elliott)

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August 1

“He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him.”

(John 14:21)

Neither you nor I were ever caught by Satan and tripped up, we never made a mistake in our history, that it was not the direct results of neglect of some part of the Word of God.

The Lord answered and defeated Satan in the wilderness as the result of having lived by the Word of God. When we have been beaten by Satan, it was because we had not obeyed the Word of the Lord, to go by.

I believe there is in the Word, divine guidance for your soul and mine, for every step of our history from first to last. 

There are principles to be found in it that would guide us at all times, if we were only subject to it.

(W. T. P. Wolston)

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August 2

“Where there is no vision, the people perish" [cast off restraint - JND]   (Proverbs 29:18)

When the modern man would be putting on his slippers, in retirement to sleep himself to death, Abraham put on his seven-league sandals and strode away from Ur of the Chaldees to Canaan.

At eighty, Moses (with Aaron at eighty-three) defied Pharaoh and delivered Israel so that they were redeemed from bondage.

Joshua at eighty-five concluded his military conquest.

And at seventy, Paul pressed toward the mark so that in his majestic final song he could sing, 

“I have fought . . . finished… kept,” and then add with rejoicing, “henceforth there is laid up.”

I have all that is stored up for me around their personalities and performances to inspire and enrich my endeavour.

Is that dwelling on the past?

Then let me dream of the future as the

saintly seer of Patmos who saw over a stretch 

of two centuries the Holy city—the new land and life.

The only way to remain young is to grow old gracefully.

Each age has something beautiful in it.

Don’t fight the fact that you are getting old—use it.

(Traveling Toward Sunrise)

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August 3

“Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.”

(John 1:29)

“BEHOLD YOUR SAVIOUR COME!"

We often hear these days the question, “What is the world coming to?”  It is an interesting subject and most of the discussion relieves the speakers but not the situation.

The chief theme of the Gospel is not what the world is coning to but rather the One who has come to the world.

It is also very popular now to behold the sin of the world.  There never was more of it and it never was more evident.  But John the Baptist was pointing out the cure for sin, the Lamb who came to take it away.

Of course, there is a very real sense in which men need to see their sin and themselves to be sinners. There has not been enough preaching on sin with that in view.

But the Gospel is Good News that the problem of our sin

finds its answer in the person of God’s Son.

He has been made sin—not a sinner or sinful, but sin—for us, though He knew no sin,

that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.  

Let us not be so taken up with beholding the sin of the world that we do not behold Him who came to take it away.

(Day by Day - Vance Havner)

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August 4

“I am the Lord, I change not.”

 (Malachi 3:6)

What peace it brings to the Christian’s heart to realize that our Heavenly Father never differs from Himself.  In coming to Him at any time we need not wonder whether we shall find Him in a receptive mood. He is always receptive to misery and need, as well as to to love and faith.

He does not keep office hours nor set aside periods when He will see no one. Neither does He change His mind about anything.  Today, this moment, He feels toward His creatures, toward babies, toward the sick, the fallen, the sinful, exactly as He did when He sent His only-begotten Son into the world to die for mankind. 

God never changes moods or cools off in His affections or loses enthusiasm. His attitude toward sin is now the same as it was when He drove out the sinful man from the eastward garden, and His attitude toward the sinner the same as when He stretched forth His hands and cried,

“Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”  

God will not compromise and He need not be coaxed.  He cannot be persuaded to alter 

His Word nor talked into answering selfish prayer.  In all our efforts to find God, to please Him, 

to commune with Him, we should remember that all change must be on our part.

“I am the Lord, I change not.”

We have but to meet His clearly stated terms, bring

our lives into accord with His revealed will, and His infinite 

power will become instantly operative toward us in the manner 

set forth through the gospel in the Scriptures of truth.

(A. W. Tozer)

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August 5

“Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them,

as Thou hast loved Me.”

(John 17:23)

Just suppose somebody stood up and declared this without Scriptural authority.

It would be too much to take in!

“That the world may know that Thou hast sent me, 

and hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me.”

Is that really true?

Does God the Father love me as much as He loves Jesus Christ?

Do you believe it, my sister?  Does He love you, my brother, as much as He loves Jesus Christ?

What an amazing truth this is!

I can understand that because He loves His Son He will take me 

into favour and give me a measure of affection because I believe in His Son.

But here I find there is no difference between the love the Father has for His own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love He has for His children of faith in Jesus Christ.

(H. A. Ironside) 

So near, so very near to God, nearer I could not be; 

For in the person of His Son, I am as near as He.

So dear, so very dear to God, dearer I could not be;

The love wherewith He loved His Son, such is His love to me.

(C. Paget)

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August 6

Choose you this day whom ye will serve.”

(Joshua 24:15)

As Joshua was nearing the end of his life, he gathered the children of Israel together at Shechem.

And there, from the lips of a man who was close to death, came an appeal

that throughout the centuries has moved the hearts of many.

Joshua said, “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve”.

This challenge, viewed in the light of the New Testament, 

suggests three outstanding lessons in regard to our salvation.

First, we must make a choice between God and the devil.

To refuse Christ leaves us automatically on the devil’s side.  

Jesus said, "He that is not with Me is against Me; 

and he that gathereth not with Me scattereth abroad” (Matthew 12:30).  

Second, this choice is a personal matter.  Joshua said, 

”Choose for your selves . . . whom you will serve.”  Through faith 

in Jesus Christ, we can be born again and made a child of God.  

But we must do the believing for ourselves. 

Third, there is an urgency in this charge. "Choose for yourselves this day.” 

not next month, not a week from today, not tomorrow, but this day. 

Have you made that all-important choice?

Have you trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as your 

Saviour?  If not, do so right now!  Remember, the choice is yours.

Salvation is available for everyone to choose;  

But if we do not take it now, that choice we just might lose.

(Selected)

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August 7

“David said to Abigail, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, 

which sent thee this day to meet me: and blessed be thy advice,

and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day.”

(1 Samuel 25:32-33)

"Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart:

so doth the sweetness of a man’s friend by hearty counsel.”

(Proverbs 27:9)

I want to give good measure running over,

And into angry hearts I want to pour

The answer soft that turneth wrath away,

Because I shall not pass again this way.

I want to give the oil of joy for tears,

The faith to conquer cruel doubts and fears;

Beauty for ashes may I give always—

Because I shall not pass again this way.

(Anon)

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August 8

“Oh, how I love Thy law!  It is my meditation all the day.”

(Psalm 119: 97)

It is well to meditate upon the things of God—because it is only by pondering the Scriptures, that we get the real nutriment out of them.  A man who hears many sermons—is not necessarily well-instructed in the faith.

We may read so many religious books that we overload our brains, and they may be unable to work under the weight of the great mass of paper and of printer’s ink. 

The man who reads but one book, and that book his Bible, and then meditates much upon it - will be a better scholar in Christ’s school than he who merely reads hundreds of books, and does not meditate at all!

Oh, that we might get into the very heart of the Word of God—   and get that Word into ourselves!

As I have seen the silkworm eat into the leaf and consume it, so ought we to do with the Word of the Lord—not crawl over its surface, but eat right into it until we have taken it into our inmost parts.

It is idle merely to let the eye glance over the words, or to recollect the poetic expressions, or the historic facts; but it is blessed to eat into the very soul of the Bible until, at last, you come to talk in Scriptural language, and your very style is fashioned upon scripture models—and, what is better still, your spirit is redolent with the words of the Lord!

“Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by Thy name, O Lord God of hosts.”

(Jeremiah 15:16)

(Charles Spurgeon)

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August 9

"And the priests . . . and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan.”

(Joshua 3:17)

After 40 years in the wilderness the people arrived at the Jordan in flood season.  Could there have been a worse time to cross?

The Lord told them to wait by the banks for three days—

perhaps to assess the situation and to unanimously 

agree that crossing was humanly impossible.

Are you facing an impossible situation?

Perhaps, as with the Israelites, the God of the 

impossible is now ready to “do wonders among you.”

(M. MacMullen)

Got any rivers you think are uncrossable?

Got any mountains you can’t tunnel through?

God specializes in things thought impossible;

And does the things that others cannot do.

(Oscar C. Eliason)

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August 10

“And Joseph nourished his father, and his brethren, and all his father’s household, with bread, according to their families.”

(Genesis 47:12)

“And they said, Thou hast saved our lives: let us find grace in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh’s servants.”

(Genesis 47:25)

But not only were people saved by Joseph, but they prospered under Joseph. This we see set forth in the history of Israel and his sons.

The Lord Jesus does a great deal more for His people than save them from the world’s famine.

He brings us into a good land, a heavenly country, and blesses us with spiritual blessings, and as we enter into those spiritual blessings we shall grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

(Hamilton Smith)

Trembling, we had hoped for mercy—some lone place within His door;

But the crown, the throne, the mansion, all were ready long before.

And in past and distant ages, in those courts so bright and fair,

Ere we were, was He rejoicing, all He won with us to share.

(Mrs. Bevan)

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August 11

“Teach me Thy way, O Lord; I will walk in Thy truth:

unite my heart to fear Thy name.”

(Psalm 86:11)

If we are honest, the little book of Jonah hits most of us very hard indeed, but what comfort it may bring to our wounded souls to remember that Jonah’s God is our God.

We have to confess that the same patience, grace and mercy that followed Jonah from start to finish has also followed us from the start, and we doubt not that it will continue with us to the end. 

May He deliver us from our disobedience and self-will, from our sulks and from our tempers! May He form and fashion us like unto Himself, and give us a true estimate of the real value of gourds and souls of men; and make us vessels, sanctified, and meet for the Master’s use!

(G. Christopher Willis)

O teach us more of Thy blest ways, Thou holy Lamb of God!

And fix and root us in Thy grace, as those redeemed by blood.

O tell us often of Thy love, of all Thy grief and pain;

And let our hearts with joy confess that thence comes all our gain.

For this, O may we freely count what’er we have but loss;

The dearest object of our love, compared with thee, but dross.

Engrave this deeply on our hearts with an eternal pen,

That we may, in some small degree, return Thy love again.

(Hutton)

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August 12

“Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."

(2 Timothy 2:15)

“Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned; 

renew our days as of old." 

(Lamentation 5:21)

At the foot of a cliff under the windows of the Castle at Miramar, at a depth of eighty feet below the surface of the clear waters of the Adriatic, is a a cage fashioned by divers in the face of the rock.

In that cage are some of the most magnificent pearls  in existence.

They belong to the Archduchess Rainer. The gems had become “sick” and had been losing their colour; and experts were unanimous in declaring that the only way to restore their original brilliancy was to submit them to a prolonged immersion in the depths of the sea.

They lay there for a number of years; and, when I last read of them, they were gradually regaining their former unrivalled oriency. Which things are a parable.

Although the children of God are not of the world, they are in the world; and the constant tendency of the influences, by which they are surrounded there, is to make them loose touch with the Unseen and Eternal. 

The consequence is that the fine gold is apt to become dimmed; and the Christian life, to be robbed of its fragrance and bloom.  To counteract this tendency is one of the supreme purposes of the devotional reading of the Bible.  That sacred exercise is as necessary to the well-being of the soul, as is the daily supply of water and nutriment to the plant or the flower.

(The Wonderful Word - George Henderson)

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August 13

The Greatest Blessing

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again 

unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”  (1 Peter 1:3)

Day after day He showers us with blessings, night after night His bounty overflows. Joy unto joy His boundless love is adding, Gift unto gift His faithfulness bestows.

Behind us all the past with good is studded, star-points of light in memory’s darkening skies, And faring onward to the unknown future, before us still new constellations rise.

But when the sun springs forth in radiant splendour and floods the world with glory and with light, How swift the shadows flee! How melts the darkness! How pale the stars that seemed so fair and bright!

So when we let Him in—the Life Abundant—fling wide the doors and drop the hindering bars, He comes, the Giver, all His gifts transcending, as doth the sun the rushlights of the stars.

(Annie Johnson Flint)

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August 14

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

(1 John 1:9)

Too often, alas! we have to be occupied with our failures and infirmities.

If ever the workings of indwelling sin be suffered to rise to the 

surface, we must deal with God about them,

for He cannot go on with sin.

He can forgive it, and cleanse us from it—

He can restore our souls by the gracious ministry of our great 

High Priest—but He cannot go on in company with a single sinful thought.

A light or foolish thought, as well as an unclean or covetous one,  is 

amply sufficient to mar a Christian’s communion, and interrupt his worship.

(Food for the Desert)

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August 15

“Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able 

to stand against the wiles of the devil.”

(Ephesians 6:11)

The devil is transformed into an angel of light, and he seeks to deceive us.

Here we read of the wiles of the devil.  The word, “wile,” is the very one from which we get the  English word “method,” but it implies a subtle method or craftiness. 

He is an old campaigner; he has been at the business of deceiving men and women for at least six millenniums, and he knows exactly how to approach every individual soul as he comes with his crafty method.

We are to stand against the wiles of the devil, recognizing this, that we wrestle not against flesh and blood.  We have no quarrel with men, no fight with our fellow-beings, we are not wrestling with flesh and blood but against principalities, and powers.  These are the principalities of fallen angels who are marshalled under the skull and cross-bones banner of the devil himself.

“Against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”  

It might be translated, “Against the world-rulers of this darkness.”  Who are the world rulers of this darkness?  They are the great evil powers, evil angels, who are seeking to control the hearts of those in authoritative positions in the world, to hinder men and women from subjecting themselves to the truth of God.

(H. A. Ironside)

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August 16

“Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth 

take heed lest he fall.”

(1 Corinthians 10:12)

We have been saved as far as deliverance from the guilt of our sin is concerned, but we are now to be saved practically by conformity to Christ and subjection to the Word of God, that thus we may be fitted in the fullest possible sense for fellowship with Him.

May God give us to be on our guard, to remember

that we cannot put the sword out of our hand,

that we cannot rest upon past victories 

as long as we are in this scene.

And yet there is no reason for discouragement because,

as our faith and trust is centred in Christ,

we may know that

“Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.”

(1 John 4:4)

(Selected)

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August 17

"Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south, blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out!”   
(Song of Solomon 4:16)

Look at the meaning of this prayer a moment. Its root is found in the fact that, as delicious odours may lie latent in a spice tree, so graces may lie unexercised and undeveloped in a Christian’s heart.

There is many a plant of profession; but from the ground there breathes forth no fragrance of holy affections or of godly deeds.  The same winds blow on the thistle bush and on the spice tree, but it is only one of them which gives out rich odours.

Sometimes God sends severe blasts of trial upon His children to develop their graces. Just as torches burn most brightly when swung to and fro; just as the juniper plant smells sweetest when flung into the flames; so the richest qualities of a Christian often come out under the north wind of suffering and adversity.

Bruised hearts often emit the fragrance that God loveth to smell.

(Streams in the Desert)

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August 18

“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things . . . are of 

good report" (or sweet to speak of)”

(Philippians 4:8)

Whatsoever things are lovely, or loveable.

Oh, that we might have our minds occupied with such things!

Oh, that we might meditate on the gracious, winsome things in the saints, and in others about us!

  

Oh, that we might put the most favourable construction

on every report we hear.

Love thinketh no evil.  Love believeth all things: not the evil things, but the good ones: and where it cannot actually believe all the good it would like, it at least hopeth all things: it hopes the good report is true, and the evil one false.

Notice there is not the slightest suggestion we should meditate on the evil report: but only on the good.

“Above all things have fervent love among yourselves:

for love shall cover the multitude of sins.”

(1 Peter 4:8)

With the sins and evil reports covered by love,

we will be free to meditate on whatsoever things are of good report.

(G. C. Willis)

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August 19

“To him that is afflicted pity should be showed from his friend.”

(Job 6:14)

“They whom I loved are turned against me.” (Job 19:19)

“It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.”

(Psalm 118:9)

Do your friends despise, forsake you? 

Take it to the Lord in prayer!

In His arms he’ll take and shield you;

Your will find a solace there.

Blessed Saviour, Thou hast promised

Thou will all our burdens bear;

May we ever, Lord, be bringing

All to Thee in earnest prayer.

(J. Scriven)

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August 20

“For ye have need of patience.”

(Hebrews 10:36)

There are times when great waves of trouble sweep over us, wave upon wave.

There are calm times when all goes peacefully, and then suddenly something distressing happens.

Satan seems to be having things all his own way.  Sometimes

those whom we wholly trusted disappoint us terribly,

and we are tempted to say, 

“Whom can I trust?”

But this is fatal.  There are many on whom we can count even in the worst times.

Let us never look only at the clouds and forget the blue in the sky. 

There is far more blue than gray.

We are here because we are needed to fight through to victory.  We never asked for ease.

Well, this is not ease, so it is what we expected—not play, 

but war.  It is and always must be a fight of faith.

Hebrews 2:9 has a word for us;

We see Jesus . . . CROWNED.  

Nothing can touch that.  We follow an undefeated Lord.

Love won on Calvary.

But we have need of patience.  Give us Thy patience, Lord. 

(Whispers of His Power - Amy Carmichael)

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August 21

“Men ought always to pray and not to faint.”  
(Luke 18:1)

Paul exhorts “that men pray every where” (1 Timothy 2:8).

Here we are exhorted to pray “at all seasons.”  Prayer is the 

constant attitude of dependence upon God.

Under all circumstances, in all places, and at all times, we are to pray. Prayer however, may become a mere formal expression of need; it is therefore linked with “supplication”, which is is the earnest cry of the soul conscious of its need.  It is, moreover, to be under the guidance of the Spirit, and to be accompanied with the faith that watches for God’s answer.

When Peter was in prison “prayer was made without ceasing unto God for him.”

But apparently the church failed somewhat in “watchfulness”, for when God answered their prayer it was only with difficulty that they believed that Peter was free.

Further, pray in the Spirit will embrace “all saints”, and yet come down to the need of a special servant. So the Apostle exhorts the Ephesian saints not only to pray for  

“all saints”, but also for himself.

(Hamilton Smith)

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August 22

“I will trust and not be afraid.”

(Isaiah 12:2)

Satan gets entrance for his full power in the soul the moment there is a shade of distrust in God.

When unbelief is in action it only produces troubles and sorrows.

When there remains in the heart any groan which is not uttered to God as to a God of grace, any distrust of Him, it is the flesh and work of the enemy. . . .

We may be cast down at times (although scarcely ever without some want of faith) and yet everything goes on well if we bring it all to God.

Anxiety which anticipates evil is not the faith which faces the difficulties through which God sees well to make us pass.

When the soul is distressed or cast down, that is not sin in itself.

But sin comes in when there is distrust of God.

(J. N. Darby)

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August 23

“His heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord.”

(Psalm 112:7)

“Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.”

(John 11:5)

We may always trust the tenderness of the Lord, and fail as we may we may trust Him.

The Spirit brought home to me the other morning an old scripture with great power.

“Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.”

(John 11:5). 

In this very chapter Martha does nothing save to blunder, and exhibit her blindness to the glory of the Person of her Lord, and yet the chapter is prefaced by the statement that Jesus loved her.

It touched me deeply as I saw a little of the significance of the statement, and it taught me that the Lord’s love to us rises above all our failures, and that, therefore,
we may count upon it and rest in it at all times.

(Edward Dennett)

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August 24

“He hath filled the hungry with good things;

and the rich He hath sent empty away.”

(Luke 1:53)

And hungry souls there are, that find and eat God’s manna day by day,  And glad they are, their life is fresh and sweet, for as their food are they.

(C. T. S.)

Our unceasing cry to God should be for power, power, power, 

spiritual power—without this all is thorough vanity.

We must either be gathering with Christ or scattering abroad.

If we are not engaged for Christ, we are engaged 

against Him—to do nothing for Christ

is to do something for Satan.

(C. H. Macintosh)

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August 25

"Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”

(1 Corinthians 15:51-52)

Our long-expected change from mortality to immortality will take place “in a moment”.

The Greek word for a moment is “en atomo”, meaning in an atom of time.

In the smallest possible amount of time, we will be changed at the trumpet’s blast.

How exciting when our mortal bodies shall put on immortality.

“We shall be changed.”

As we await the moment of transformation, let us live as those who have 

experienced the change of the new birth.

(Arnot McIntee) 

The Lord Himself shall come, and shout the quickening word;

Thousands shall answer from the tomb, 

"Forever with the Lord.” 

(Anon)

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August 26

“My soul thirsteth for God.”

(Psalm 42:2)

I believe it is joy to the heart of Christ when He sees us, as it were,

compelled to turn to Him.

He loves us so much that he is jealous of our

turning elsewhere.

When you are near Christ you cannot speak of your service. 

The more we are with Christ, self will retire,

and Christ will take His rightful place.

He has His place in heaven. 

Oh, that He might have it in our hearts.

(E. P.  Corrin)

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August 27

OUR LIPS KEPT FOR JESUS

Keep my lips, that they may be filled with messages from Thee.

“Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth;

keep the door of my lips.”

(Psalms 141:3)

The days are past forever when we said, “our lips are our own.”

Now we know that they are not our own.

And yet how many of my readers often have the miserable consciousness that they have 

“spoken unadvisedly with their lips!”  How many pray, “keep the door of my lips!”

when the very last thing they think of expecting is that they will be kept!

They deliberately make up their minds that hasty words, or foolish words, or exaggerated words,

according to their respective temptations, must and will slip 

out of that door, and that it can’t be helped.

The extent of the real meaning of their prayer was merely that not quite so many might slip out. 

As their faith went no farther, the answer went no farther, and so the door was not kept.

Do let us look the matter straight in the face.

Either we have committed our lips to our Lord, or we have not. 

This question must be settled first.  If not, oh, do not let another hour pass!  

Take them to Jesus, and ask Him to take them.

(Frances Ridley Havergal)

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August 28

Work and Rest

“I have filled him with the Spirit . . . to work.”

(Exodus 31:3-4)

"The sabbath of rest.”

(Exodus 31:15)

O may Thy Spirit teach my hands to toil, lest I be idle, or, unskilled, should spoil

With witless haste the task ordained to me.  O teach me how to work, and work with Thee.

O may Thy Spirit teach my heart to rest; tranquil to share with Thee Thy sabbath blest;

Resting from all my work and want and care, resting in Christ, for Thou art resting there.

(Bells & Pomegranates - James M. S. Tait)

N.J. Hiebert - 6823 

August 29

“It pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief: when Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.”

(Isaiah 53:10)

Our blessed Lord might have come into this world of sin and sorrow.

He might have become a man.  He might have been baptized in the Jordan—

anointed by the Holy Spirit—tempted of Satan in the wilderness.

He might have gone about doing good.  He might have lived and laboured, wept and prayed, and, 

at the close, gone back to heaven again, thus leaving us involved in deeper gloom than ever.

He might, like the priest or the Levite, in the parable, have come and looked upon us in our wounds and misery, pass by on the other side and returned alone to the place whence He came.

And what if He had?

What, but the flames of an everlasting hell, for you and me?

For, be it well remembered, that all the living labours of the Son of God—

His amazing ministry—His days of toil and His nights of prayer—His tears, 

His sighs, His groans—the whole of His life-work, from the manger up to, but short 

of the Cross, could not have blotted out one speck of guilt from a human conscience.

“Without shedding of blood is no remission.”  

(Hebrews 9:22)

(C. H. Mackintosh)

N.J. Hiebert - 6824   

August 30

“He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, 
and hangeth the earth upon nothing.”

(Job 26:7)

“What is man, that Thou art mindful of him . . .?" (Psalms 8:4)

How rich I am!

God is the Creator of the whole universe, yet is holding my life in His hands.

He ever guides the constellations of stars, and at the same time remembers man.

Wind and water also obey Him.  And this is my God, my Father.  I am His child.

Nobody is like this Lord, and He loves me.

How rich I am! 

(This Day is the Lord’s - Corrie Ten Boom) 

N.J. Hiebert - 6825

August 31

There is none greater in this house than I (Joseph); neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?  (Genesis 39:9)

When our son went to university we looked for books to help him face the 

“Sodom and Gomorrah” of college life.

One sentence I read struck me forcibly,

“if a young person truly knows the Lord he will make it!

But if that one does not really know Christ in a personal way,

all your advice, as a parent, will not help.”

When far from home and loved ones, what will keep a young believer from sin?

Only a personal relationship with the Saviour and a close walk

with God will enable them to overcome temptation. 

(David Croudace)

He that loves us bears us through, and makes us more than conquerors too.

Faith hath an overcoming power; that triumphs in the trying hour.

(Anon)

N.J. Hiebert - 6826

September 1