DAY UNTO DAY

By E. Littleton, Jr.

Daily devotionals for the month of November.

NOVEMBER 1

“For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with him”—Job 23:14.

(fourth meditation, see Oct. 30th).

Is it not true, even this morning? Have we not been brought to the beginning of another month of time? Has His goodness failed? Goodness and mercy have certainly followed us (Ps. 23:6), but undeserved. The explanation is: they were “appointed for us.” But who performed them? Has His grace wholly disappeared from our own hearts? Perhaps we are obliged to answer that question today with hesitation, or even with trembling. Then, if this be so, yet: has every vestige of hope left us? Have we done what we have all along been afraid of doing—made a complete shipwreck of faith? (l Tim. 1:19) and proved ourselves, to ourselves, to the Church of God and to the world, bastards? What would we sell even the little hope we have today for? Have we proved hypocrites from the beginning, deluding and being deluded? Is it not true that we are still upon praying ground, with—at the worst—a little hope in our hearts: and surrounded with mercies time and eternal? Is it not true that we have not yet been cut off in our sins and cast into the pit of total and irredeemable hopelessness; and that, as a real matter of fact, we are still holding on our way, though today it may not be “with rejoicing?” How is this? There is a cause for all things. It was “appointed for us.” What a good thing it was not merely appointed by ourselves. For had that been the case, assuredly we could not have performed it. Certainly the writer would not give a day’s purchase for his ability to perform it—(though he blesses love immortal and divine for, as he trusts, having inclined his heart unto and hitherto kept it, in however feeble a measure, inclined unto, the Lord). He would not give a shilling of the king’s coin for his ability to perform it one day—or a much less time. Yea, he is sure the same would have had to be said of David himself, of Paul himself, of Peter himself, and no less of Enoch himself, who “walked with God” (Gen. 5:24), but by the the power of God, and not his own (1 Pet. 1:5). It is all found to be thus, on this the opening of a new month, because He performeth it for us; and many such things for us are with Him, for these still are only some of them. How many blessings are appointed for the children of God! What a gallery the prospect of them by faith affords—the prospect of these divinely inscribed appointed representations of the goodness of God.—All performed and to be performed by the Divine Covenanter and Appointer, and all thus “sure to all the seed” (Rom. 4:16).

“We now desire to bless thy name,

And in our hearts record,

And with our thankful tongues proclaim,

The goodness of the Lord.” (gadsby’s, 459).

NOVEMBER 2

“For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with him”—Job 23:14.

(fifth meditation).

In our last meditation we dwelt much upon what—in confirmation of the above truth—the Lord had, we felt, done for us, was doing for us, and would still do for us. Some reader may say: the expression of these things, then entered into, was doubtless suited to the language of those hearts which are in the realisation of manifest and active hope and comfortable faith: which are in a state of soul comfort. But I am not thus: I am not in a state of soul comfort. The passage is barren to me. The comments on it are barren. My heart cannot go out with the confident portions of them. If they had been written in a disconsolate strain they would have suited me better. Circumstances with me are such that I am in a disconsolate condition. I must sit alone whilst others hold hopeful and cheering communion together. I am void of comfort in my soul, and that is the fact of the matter. To such, may not the words of the text be repeated: “He performeth the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with Him,” and the reminder made that amongst these appointed things is comfort for the disconsolate? How endless are the riches of His appointed mercies? What a gallery of representations of His goodness they open out? No exhibition of painter’s masterpieces could equal it in calls to admiration and praise—though we hesitate as to the fitness of the comparison, and especially owing to its meanness. Let us and the comfortless reader, listen to the great Appointer’s voice elsewhere: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,…to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness,…that He might be glorified, and they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations” (Is. 61:1, 3, 4). The wastes in sight, the wastes in faith, the wastes in hope, are all appointed to be built up; comfort for the comfortless, and the mourning is appointed, intended, purposed, provided, and to be performed. All hope—and it is good hope—is centred in Him, and “He performeth that which is appointed for us.”

“Here light descending from above,

Directs our doubtful feet;

Here promises of heavenly love

Our ardent wishes meet.”

“O might I doubt no more,

But in His pleasure rest;

Whose wisdom, love, and truth, and power,

Engage to make me blest!” (gadsby’s, 42 & 70).

NOVEMBER 3

“I am a companion of all them that fear thee”—Ps. 119:63.

Am I? It is a great thing to say. But evidently it is not too great a thing for some to say; for here is one who says it; and he, too, was not a presumptuous person: on the contrary, he was one much moved by the spirit of humility, and judging by the context, was in a very humble frame of mind when he said this. Though, therefore, he was a very humble person, and we may believe was very humble at the present time, yet he said, and doubtless felt it: “I am a companion of all them that fear thee.” If then, I, a poor sinner—and the reader who knows himself to be the same—nearly find that these words are upon our lips—have, perhaps, actually passed our lips, and been uttered, though now we feel almost abashed at what Satan says is our presumption and self delusion—let us not leave the sweet persuasion which is hovering about our spirits without trying to see if there be not after all some real grounds for it. And in the first place, we see who spoke these words, and are persuaded that he was what he said. And when we read the character, the feelings, the prayers, the meditations, even the fears, the grounds of his castings down, and also the grounds of his liftings up, the causes of his darkness, the causes of his seasons of light, the grounds of his hopes, as well as the grounds of his fears—in short, the experience of his spirit and notice where his eye was continually lifted up to (Ps. 121:1, 2), do we not find running through it all a strong resemblance to the experience of our own spirits?—indeed, is it not a resemblance so like, that, if our hearts be not created by the Creator of his, it is one of the most remarkable counterfeits ever known? But the sweet persuasion of faith seems to tell us that there is no counterfeit possessing all these actual ingredients, and although it seems much to say for a person speaking—as we hope we do now—under a spirit of humility before the Lord, still we feel—do we not?—almost constrained to exclaim:

“If endless life be thy reward,

We shall possess the same.”

NOVEMBER 4

“I am a companion of all them that fear thee”—Ps. 119:63.

(second meditation)

We stated in our last meditation reasons why we had a hope that we could join the Psalmist in these words. And if thus really able to do so, what a company we have been brought amongst! What a company we have been brought to, with whom to travel the road to Zion? And let us, therefore, try to recall—if they exist—some other grounds of resemblance between him, them and ourselves, who are now indulging the sweet hope that we are all of the same ransomed company. Do we not sometimes find ourselves companions with them in the peace of God? What is that which sometimes sweetly diffuses over our souls—a peace which the world and worldly things could never—with all their charms—bestow? What is that which sometimes speaks a peaceful calm into our troubled spirits which nothing but the power of God and a hope in God, could bestow? A spring of peace bestowed, perhaps, through some promise sweetly distilled within the heart; or perhaps some other comforting word of God’s revelation to His people: some word of divine assurance and encouragement, or some word upon which He has “caused us to hope” (Ps. 119:49) shed abroad with a divine influence in the heart? How sweet to be in the companionship where these things are vouchsafed. We are their companions in trouble, but do we know anything of their consolations? We trust we do. And are not even our troubles of the same sort, or productive of the same kind of effects, as theirs? Let us again examine those of David, and see if they are not. What kind of hopes have they? Are they not like ours? What kind of fears have they? Are they not like ours? What kind of desires have they? Are they not like ours? What is their food? Is it not like ours? Or do they seek that food which the spirits and hopes of the world feed on, and have we some peculiar desires for food which those who fear God never have? Is not, rather, in all and each of these things the resemblance remarkable between what is ours and what is that of “all them that fear” God? What resemblance is there in all these things between our cases and those of all them that serve the god of this world and crowd into the company of his slaves? Does there not appear some hope still that we are after all companions of the former?

“With them numbered may we be,

Now and to eternity!”

NOVEMBER 5

“It is time for thee, Lord to work”—Ps. 119:126.

It would seem almost presumptuous for David, or any poor sinner, to use such words to the Lord—to tell Him when it is time to work. But are there not occasions when such words are fitting? Has the reader never been in trouble—a trouble, perhaps, wherein he has for a long time done much, used all his efforts to cope with it, and having come to the end of all his resources, has been obliged to fall into the hands of the Lord and in effect to say: “It is time for thee, Lord, to work. I see that all my efforts fail me. My power will not do. Circumstances are wholly too much for anything I can do. It is not O, Lord, that I wish, like a fatalist, to leave unused any legitimate means placed at my command, or to shirk the performance of whatever thy fear and word tell me I ought to do, as legitimate means—but I find that I am powerless. Thou alone can’st do this. I must lie at thy feet and roll all the burden on to thee. It is time for thee—and thee alone—to work; and in thy work alone is my hope, and the hope of this is my only ground of comfort.” At such a time can we suppose that the Lord is displeased to hear His child say, in the filial leaning of faith unto Him: “It is time for thee, Lord, to work?” When we have been cast down, and—all other means conspiring against us—have been driven to the Lord in prayer for encouragement and comfort, have we not truly felt that that was the time for the Lord to work?—to work our encouragement and comfort—and have we not in effect, if not in these exact words, plainly told Him so—yea, repeated and pleaded it over and over again. When engaged in some undertaking which has been the subject of much concern and prayer, having now done all we could, have we not in effect—and even with comfort, perhaps—said: “Now, O Lord, there is no more left for me to do or attempt. I commit it all, and all I have done or attempted in the matter, into thy hands: my hope is in thee: it is time for thee to work. Be pleased to command thy blessing upon my efforts, or to bestow thine over-ruling power in this difficulty?” Profitable reflections concerning other occasions—of a different nature—yet coming within the scope of these words, will probably suggest themselves to the reader, as they do to the writer. It is good that we have the Lord to work for us—and that, as faith assures us—He never fails to work when it is time for Him to do so.

“Deep in unfathomable mines

Of never-failing skill,

He treasures up His bright designs,

And works His sovereign will.”

NOVEMBER 6

“I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not. I will lead them in paths that they have not known”—Is. 42:16.

How good it is that the Lord promises to lead the blind. We often refer to the great fittedness of the gospel to the case of poor sinners. Here is an instance. It promises leading for the blind—and such are we. Someone may say—and with, too, a thankful heart—“Yes, but by His mercy I believe I have had my eyes opened, and He has already led me, a poor sinner in the blindness of spiritual death, out of darkness into light. Therefore, whilst this promise is full of blessing in store for His yet unregenerate elect, I would rather today contemplate some portions of truth more applying to my own many needs.” But this promise will never lose its fulness till the whole of our wilderness journey is complete. How much of my future path do I know? Even today, tomorrow, this week, next week, next month (if my path last so long), how do I know what lies in it?—what turnings Satan and my own sinful heart may tempt me to take in it, and what turnings I must take if I am to be preserved, and if I am so to walk and act as shall accomplish, or bring me to, unknown—and perhaps rich—blessings and mercies designed by the Lord? I am blind—utterly and totally blind, to it all. Yet the wonderful promise here is that this poor blind being shall not miss in any of the essential turnings and twistings of the path! How is this? Is it because he is some miraculous person? No. He is a poor, weak, erring, in fact, extremely foolish worm of the earth. It is because his Lord and time and eternal Saviour promises that He will lead him, blind though he is, in this path—and in every way of it—though the way is unknown to him. Herein lies much—very briefly viewed—of the preciousness of this promise to me today. He led me, I trust, from darkness into light, but that, I am here led to feel assured, is not the ending of His gracious leading of me in my blindness.

“Many davs have passed since then;

Many changes I have seen;

Yet have been upheld till now;

Who could hold me up but Thou?” (gadsby’s, 376)

NOVEMBER 7

“I will lead them in paths that they have not known”—Is. 42:16.

If we are amongst those who have already been led out of darkness into light, how hopeful, how cheering, and at the same time, in many respects how solemnising it is to contemplate these future paths, briefly mentioned at the close of our yesterday’s meditation? Who has explored them? We have not. Many of them we have in the past—but in the future? Faith and hope open out their vistas of promised blessing, preservation, help, mercy, light, and many appearings of God in His goodness, both in the things of providence and of grace. But the real walking in them—the realisation of what lies in them, rests in the future. But that we shall walk in them, and see them is assured, for the promise here is that He will Himself lead us in them—and both they and their blessings are such as yet we “have not known.” May they not be called the “paths of righteousness” (Ps. 23:3) (though it may be in a somewhat extended sense) in which the Psalmist says “He leadeth me for His name’s sake?” They are the paths of the heavenly Shepherd of the sheep—and “He goeth before them” (John 10:4). Truly, in this sweet contemplation we are obliged to make a sudden stop and to remember that these paths are to be expected to include trial—it may be heavy weighted trial and great affliction—yet, even in this remembrance, is not the survey one marked with sources of consolation?—for even here the promise is that He will lead us, and so (as is added in the same verse) “will not forsake us.” Yet, the believer looks upon this promise and even remembering that trial and tribulation are to be experienced, darkness to be encountered, and perhaps inexplicable complications to be walked through, is at times constrained to say with the Psalmist, in the sweet confidence of faith: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (Ps. 23:6).

“Thou hast helped in every need;

This emboldens me to plead;

After so much mercy past,

Can’st thou let me sink at last?” (gadsby’s, 376).

NOVEMBER 8

“The works of the LORD are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein”—Ps. 111:2.

A worldly poet once wrote: “Man, know thyself—all wisdom centres there.” And this, amongst carnal minds, would frequently rank as a very high water-mark of wisdom. It is profound philosophy; and it also expresses what to a large extent occupies the minds and governs the most sagacious researches of the deepest thinkers amongst men whose horizon is bounded by carnal reason and by the limits of its sense-constrained excursions. But there are certain people who have been led to discover deeper regions of research than these. It is, to them, not sufficient to understand themselves (and even this they are much at a loss to do). Their great fields of research are the works of the Lord. In these do their meditations move—and here they find both rest and satisfaction for the utmost yearnings of the soul. Truly they yearn for further knowledge, and in this sense their rest and satisfaction may be said to be qualified. But it is no feverish yearning. No presumptuous yearning. They desire more, and are restfully sure of the desire being fully satisfied in due time. But there is present rest and satisfaction in these divine fields of meditation. How sweet to have been brought to find a delight in the works of the Lord. To meditate upon His wonders. To adore the depths of His grace. To sweetly search into the depths of what He has provided, as wrapped up in His promises—wherein are the dawnings of unexplored great things, as well as many precious ones which are plain. They say: “I love thy testimonies” (Ps. 119:119). “How I love thy law! It is my meditation all the day” (Ps. 119:97). “Unless thy law had been my delight, I should have perished in mine affliction” (ver. 92). The treasures of God’s “Law”—His word—wherein are set forth, revealed, and promised, the works of the Lord concerning, towards, and on behalf of poor sinners, are sought out “of them; they find pleasures new and old in them; and by them it often is that He restoreth their souls,” and in these researches it is that in the words of the Psalmist, “He maketh them to lie down in green pastures,” and leadeth them beside the still waters” of His love, His promises, His peace, and builds their faith and spirits up afresh with newly-watered divine hopes, and in such contemplations it is they often see that—

“In every state secure,

Kept as Jehovah’s eye,

’Tis well with them while life endure,

And well when called to die.” (gadsby’s, 412).

NOVEMBER 9

“Show me thy ways, O Lord”—Ps. 25:4.

No doubt one of the fundamental branches of meaning in these words is enlightenment and instruction in the paths of God. Besides this, they suggest to the mind the prayer that God would lead us in the ways in which He would have us to walk in His fear, and that to this end He would show us these ways. In another place He promises to do this: to “bring the blind by a way that they know not;” and to “lead them in paths that they have not known” (Is. 42:16). Into the deeper, or more general, signification of these latter words, this is not an adequate occasion for entering. But they also, it must be concluded, embrace a showing to His chosen ones (followed by a leading in) of the paths of His will, His fear, and His purposes. Do we not at times find our hearts the subjects of a tender and filial desire to walk only in the paths of His fear and His choice?—in short, of a sweetly softened desire to walk only in those paths, in those ways and manners, which are pleasing to Him? Yet we are conscious of our need of guidance into them. We fear that either our lack of wisdom, our lack of discernment, or our lack of knowledge (apart from lack of strength to go), may lead us to go into paths which are not these, even though we have a desire to avoid them; and we are conscious that He knows them, and, taught by His Spirit when we lack knowledge to seek wisdom from “the Father of lights” (Jas. 1:17), we cry to Him that He would show us these paths. Is this not a gracious spirit of enquiry to be in? If found much dwelling in this spirit before Him, with a—in this spirit—habitual “looking unto Jesus” for this particular divine guidance, may we not hope to be led with much lovingkindness into those paths wherein we would walk, and to be preserved from many steps and turnings wherein our erring hearts and judgments and the great tempter constantly waylay our steps with false guidance? Thus,then, may it be our frequent—but, though frequent, sincere—prayer: “Show me thy ways, O Lord.” If this be so, we are sure also to pray for strength to walk in His ways when shewn.

“He guides, and moves our steps,

For though we seem to move,

His Spirit all the motion gives,

By springs of fear and love.” (gadsby’s, 308)

NOVEMBER 10

“Teach me thy paths”—Ps. 25:4.

Yesterday our meditation was founded upon the prayer that the Lord would “show us His ways.” The present prayer of the Psalmist would seem to be somewhat of an extension of this. If there is any petition in the word of God which is often upon the lips of all the Lord’s quickened children, this is surely one of the most pre-eminently so. They feel that they have—by sovereign goodness—been led out of darkness into light. That they have been led into the paths of the Lord. That, in the words of the Psalmist elsewhere, they have been led into, and trust they are still being led in, “the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake” (Ps. 23:3). But how much is their conscious ignorance of them? On occasions when His fear and love are in sweet exercise, no one could persuade them out of the fact that they love them: but the shallowness of their knowledge of them, of their entrance into the divine realities of them, of their small measure of “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge” of them (Eph. 1:17), of the imperfect “enlightenment of the eyes of their understanding” (ver. 18), of their small experience of “the exceeding greatness of His power,” of their small felt acquaintance with “the working of His mighty power” (ver. 19) in their hearts and in their spiritual understanding of the things and the paths of the Divine life, make them to cry out at times, as Isaiah did in different circumstances: “Woe is me!” (Is. 6:5)—“Teach me thy paths!” is their prayer. Such a soul without such a prayer cannot be conceived. But thankful, surely, should be the heart in which it has been truly raised. It is seeking for an increase of divine teaching. For an increase of the bestowal of the “knowledge of Him whom to know is life eternal.” For greater entrance into conformity to Him. And though we be of the feeblest of His flock, did such a prayer ever enter into the ear of Divine love unregarded? Have we ever thought and fully realised what we are doing at such a time? We are praying for that which is well pleasing to Him! And of such a prayer, what does He say? This—and no less: “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?” (Luke 11:13).

“The soul that with sincere desires

Seeks after Jesus’ love,

That soul the Holy Ghost inspires

With breathings from above.” (gadsby’s, 30).

NOVEMBER 11

“Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord; that walketh in His ways”—Ps. 128:1.

Blessing is pronounced upon those who fear the Lord. But this is often our great concern: We do not feel, at times, so much need—or any need at all—of being assured that blessing is the certain portion of those who fear the Lord. That at such times we are sure of. But our concern is whether we fear the Lord. We know that we shall be told that if we have faith, we do fear the Lord. Some will even upbraid us and say it is all our own fault—all this concern: all our own fault if we do not have faith. That we have only to believe, and so on; with many variations of the same strain of upbraiding for being ourselves, and ourselves only, the means of all our trouble—and if we are lost at last, of being the means of the eternal loss of our souls. Some of us may not always be able to clearly reply to all this, and an incisive master of reasoning may for the moment confound us so far as argument is concerned. But there is something in our souls which answers it, and cannot make friendship with it. There is even with the feeblest established of us, a secret sense within our hearts that somehow all this is too shallow and unreal for us to rest upon. We feel convinced that there is something deeper in the fear of the Lord than is thus set before us. We feel sure that the fear of the Lord is something of a deep and fundamental nature, and nothing will satisfy us but an experimental discovery of that fundamental change in our hearts. And this we feel will produce some evidences there. Frames and feelings are not our eternal salvation, but we are sure that the fear of the Lord will produce feeling. And we at such times want to know if we possess any of this feeling, although our hope may at other times manifest itself by the simplest outgoings of our souls to the Lord in the sweet confidence of faith and in a precious rest in Him. But here is some help for us in discovering if we really fear the Lord: we are walking in His ways. For our mutual edification and confirmation—if we are amongst those who are thus walking—we would desire tomorrow to enquire as to what is the particular kind of walking thus referred to.

“Lord, decide the doubtful case;

Thou who art thy people’s Sun,

Shine upon thy work of grace,

If it be indeed begun.” (gadsby’s, 283).

NOVEMBER 12

“Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord; that walketh in His ways”—Ps. 128:1.

(second meditation).

Comforting is this declaration at times. Though anxieties and downcastings may surround us: though this be our condition perhaps even to-day, yet blessed—though tried, cast down, perplexed; weak, perhaps, and weary—yet blessed is everyone that feareth the Lord; and this being by divine declaration, no other declaration can make him otherwise, not even the declarations of his own downcast heart, or the depressing declarations of his surrounding circumstances. But are we walking in His ways—and with what manner of walk?—for, as mentioned yesterday, this is seen to be one of the prominent indications as to whether we are indeed and of a truth amongst those who fear the Lord, concerning whom this upholding declaration is made. Some recalling of the manner of this walking may be overruled to the helping of us in our self-examination. We, then—if of these real walkers—do not walk in and amongst these ways with an aversion to them; with a hatred to them; with a desire that they did not exist; neither without any interest in them. On the contrary, we walk in them with love (with heart love) to them, and with heart-love to Him; with heart-love to what is in them; because there is that in them which our hearts can enter into and do at times enter into: and which can enter into, and does at times enter into, our hearts; because, instead of being without any interest for us, we have a vital and living interest in them; because they lead to Him, who is the central life and animating Spirit of them. We do not walk in them (merely) as a duty, not as a task, not as a means of appeasing a God whom we are secretly averse to, or perhaps openly in terror of; not to quieten our conscience; not because we must have a religion of some sort and could not rest in our beds if we were not trying to satisfy our consciences and an angry God in this way somehow: not because it is respectable, and we have a good deal of self respect—right in its way, but a poor object, if the only one of our religion; not because it gives us a name to live, and perhaps means gain in our business and other time advantages to us. Why and how do we walk in them? We walk in them because they draw forth the love of our hearts, because He whom we love Himself walks in them, because our hearts warm to them: because we often find that “here my best friends, my kindred, dwell, here God, my saviour, reigns;” because the power of God enables us to walk in them; because they are formed by Him, lead to Him—and they are the paths of Eternal Life; and lastly, because, whilst walking therein, we sometimes feel sensibly enabled to say: “The Lord is my shepherd”—“He leadeth me in the paths of Righteousness for His name’s sake”: and we in consequence hope with the Psalmist to “dwell in the house of the Lord for ever” (Ps. 23:1, 2, 3, 6). Is this our manner of walking? Does it accord with anything known to our hearts? If so, are we not bound to join with the poet and say:

“For the wonders He has wrought,

Let us now our praises give:

And, by sweet experience taught,

Call upon Him while we live.” (gadsby’s, 397)

NOVEMBER 13

“And He taught”—mark 11:17.

He taught. The incarnate Word (John 1:1). His teaching fell upon the ears of all. But there were two classes of hearers. Some were quickened, softened and drawn. Some were hardened and driven in their hearts farther than ever from Him. Yet the outward teaching was the same. Some of the latter class did not openly revile Him, perhaps; and no doubt a good many simply waited to see how the popular wind would blow; deciding in their hearts that, as popular feeling might pronounce, and as might thus answer the purpose of keeping them in good countenance in religious circles, as well, perhaps, as in social and business respects, so they would—or would not—profess themselves His followers. Others were so hardened by His teaching that, led on by Satan, they sought to destroy Him, yet now and at other times feared to do so openly, and also, we know, were kept from ability to do so, by the Divine counsels and His overruling power. Such is the condition also today. The incarnate Word is not visibly with us, manifested in the flesh. His teaching in the written Word is. There are—as then—two classes of hearers of it, and these we have already described. As they were then, so are they now; with the exception that now it is generally popular—religiously, socially, in business—to profess respect and adherence to His teaching; whilst, nevertheless, if the slaves of Satan were totally unrestrained by all laws and His power, they would destroy Him through His Word, His worship, and His people from the face of the earth. Yet there are a few whose hearts are quickened, softened, and drawn by His teaching in the written Word. How is this? As it was then: He comes into their hearts by it in power. He clothes His teaching with Divine efficacy. He causes “His Doctrine to drop” into their hearts “as the rain and His speech to distil as the dew” (Deut. 32:2). He comes to them in and through it as an almighty life-giving Saviour, their hearts become His followers and the seat of His loving operations, and they will nevermore be snatched from Him, neither will He ever leave them, and the end of it all will be, they will dwell with Him for ever. How full of infinite mercy is such a gracious visitation of His word to the heart of a poor sinner! Is it ours? Which of these hearers do we belong to? We trust our feeling prayer is:

“May we receive the word we hear,

Each in an honest heart;

Hoard up the sacred treasure there,

And never with it part.

Revive the parched with heavenly showers;

The cold with warmth divine;

And as the benefit is ours,

Be all the glory thine.” (gadsby’s, 455).

NOVEMBER 14

“There is none good but one, that is God”—Mark 10:18.

This is the declaration of Jesus. It would not appear to accord with the contention of some that man can of himself please God. Let such look the facts barely in the face—though ever so clear a representation of them we know will not penetrate the heart with saving illumination unless accompanied with divine power. Yet, “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17), through which conveys His power. And here truly is the word of God Himself. “There is none good but one, that is God.” Then it is certain this does not include this person who says he can of himself please God. It also excludes the possibility of his ever becoming, later on, thus able to do so. To do so he must either now, or later (and that before he enters heaven) become good. And Jesus declares there is none such—not even he (the poor sinner of whom we speak). He that offendeth even in one point of the law is guilty of all, further declares His word (Jas. 2:10)—he has broken the law,—and is by that alone (in and of himself) for ever undone. And this he does in either thought, word, or deed, many times a day. For even the thought of foolishness is sin (Prov. 24:9). Yet a holy God and the demands of Justice cannot be approached with a single sin upon the sinner. Where does he stand, then? Where is his hope of pleasing God and Justice? Is it that God is love? But are not Holiness and Justice equally His unchangeable attributes? Can this poor sinner destroy—or hope to destroy—one of the eternal attributes of God and leave the others? Then he stands totally outside the pale of hope. No spot of sin can enter heaven. He cannot undo his past sins—and if he could, he will sin again today, and tomorrow, and for the rest of his life. Yet he hopes to appear before a holy God and to please Him. But it is God himself here speaking and He declares that which confirms all this with damning conclusiveness—that there is none good, not even this poor sinner. Thus it is clear, then, that unless he can enter a holy heaven clothed in some other dress than his own dress, heaven he will never behold. The fact is, O poor sinner!—writer included—if we are sailing for heaven on such a sea, the abyss of eternal destruction will be our certain port of arrival—and never the immortal streets of heaven shall we behold. There is none good but one—and may we be led to fly to Him as lost and ruined sinners, to be covered with His robe of righteousness woven, expressly for sinners who have none of their own.

“Jesus, thy blood and righteousness

My beauty are, my glorious dress;

’Midst naming worlds, in these arrayed,

With joy shall I lift up my head.”

NOVEMBER 15

“A man of sorrows”—Is. 53:3.

And hast thou sorrows, hast thou pain:

Do darkness and distress

Full oft within thy spirit reign,

And all thy path possess?

Thy trouble seems, perchance, more dark

Than others’ e’er can be:

More void of hope’s upholding mark,

More filled with mystery.

The sorrows which o’er others press,

Though needing strength divine,

Wear not thy pain’s peculiar dress:

Seem nought compared with thine.

It is, perchance, a woe which thou

Must feel and bear alone:

The weight ’neath which thy spirits bow

To none besides is known.

So were the sorrows of thy Lord—

In kind: but not in size!

He, too, thy succour will accord,

And wipe thy drooping eyes.

Thy load is heavy, and thy grief

Seems more than thou can’st bear?

But, see! thy Lord was sorrow’s Chief!

And He thy woes will share.

Forget not what thy Saviour bore,

But know that He doth see

Thy sufferings, and will yet restore

The light of life to thee.

And if thy suffering heart rebel,

Think, whilst it murmurs thus,

That He endured the throes of hell—

And left heaven’s joys for us!

Yet may we seek to say like Him,

Who bent ’neath wrath divine,

Although our sight be dark and dim:

“Not my will, Lord, but Thine.”

—E.L.

NOVEMBER 16

“These words spake Jesus”—john 17:1.

These words, as they stand before him in the Divine page, have seemed very sweet at present to the writer, and he trusts they may be so to the reader. His silent prayer in contemplating upon them and their context has been: “Dear Jesus, who didst speak these blessed words, be pleased to bless me with all the blessings thou dost bestow upon those whom Thou favourest, upon whom thy love rests—those precious blessings which Thou here hast spoken concerning them, together with all those others which are the Divine inheritance of those whom Thou lovest with an eternal and unchanging love.” “These words spake Jesus.” Have we any interest in the words which Jesus spake? If so, of what nature is it? Amongst them are these: “I pray not for the world, but for them which Thou hast given me” (ver. 9). What is our interest in those words of His? Is it in the first part of the sentence—and is our portion thus found to be that of those for whom He does not pray? If so, although not stated here, our portion is fully revealed to us in another part of His word, and is as follows: “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God” (Ps. 9:17). What a solemn interest—if this be it—we have in the words which He spake. “These words spake Jesus.” If such be our interest in them, He says that there are other words, also, which He will one day speak to us, before an assembled world, which, are these: “Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41). But is this our interest in the words which Jesus spake? Is it not our hope that we have an interest in the second part of the sentence referred to? “I pray…for them which Thou hast given me, for they are Thine.” Is it not, indeed, that our interest is in all the unspeakable blessings and marks of time and eternal favour spoken by Him in the words of the chapter following our text? And what have we done that He should speak such words concerning us? Can we understand why He should speak them concerning us? The truth is that we shall never fully understand the depth of that love which caused Him to speak them—and all His other declarations of blessing—concerning such death-deserving sinners as we are until that prayer which He spake is fulfilled: “Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory” (ver. 24) “These words spake Jesus.”

“God only knows the love of God:

O that it now were shed abroad

In this poor stony heart!

For this I sigh, for this I pine;

This only portion, Lord, be mine;

Be mine this better part.” (gadsby’s, 249).

NOVEMBER 17

“These words spake Jesus”—john 17:1.

(second meditation).

We would repeat our self-made enquiry of yesterday: Have we any interest in the words which Jesus spake? If so, of what nature is it? Is it that of those for whom He here prays? If so, what a solemn and blessed interest ours is! Let us once more regard the words here spoken—concerning (if thus be our interest) us, and remember that “these words spake Jesus,” the same Jesus who now regards our, perhaps, solitary path (Ps. 107:4). Let us seek to remember for our comfort, too, some of the many other words which “Jesus spake.” Let us seek for our encouragement, too, to recall some of the many other words which “Jesus spake” expressly for our encouragement. Being, perhaps, in need of help, let us seek to remember, too, some of the many promises of help which “Jesus spake.” Being in need of teaching—of being taught “the truth as it is in Jesus” (Eph 4:21)—of being established in eternal verities alone: for we would not for all the kingdoms of the earth be found at last to have built upon sand: upon anything but the solid rock of Divine truth!—being, and feeling fervently to be in need, of such teaching and divine leading in the things of the kingdom of God, in the things which pertain to our eternal salvation, let us seek also to remember some of the promises of such teaching which “Jesus spake,” and pray for faith to sweetly rest upon them, whilst diligently seeking it in the means He has provided, and promised to clothe with power to that end. For this solemn felt need of unerring teaching in Divine realities is often a conscious burden in the writer’s heart, which he is constantly obliged to carry to the Lord—and doubtless it is so with many a reader. When the eternal solemnities at stake in the matter of this right leading are remembered, how precious are these promises of divine guidance which “Jesus spake”—of the promise of the teaching of the Holy Spirit of all truth to “them that ask” Him? (Luke 11:13). How precious are the words—sown throughout the divine revelation—which “Jesus spake?” Who shall utter for us our thanks if our interest in them is that of Sons of God? (l John 3:1, 2). We cannot, and are only able to join the poet and say:

“Weak is the effort of my heart;

And cold my warmest thought,

But when I see thee as thou art,

I’ll praise thee as I ought.”

NOVEMBER 18

“These words spake Jesus”—john 17:1.

(third meditation).

To have a living interest in the words which “Jesus spake” is to have an interest in the words of eternal life (ver. 2, 3). And is it not our hope that we have such an interest? Here is the field of our soul’s contemplation from time to time: and from thence our spirits at times arise refreshed and our hopes find themselves renewed. There we are given from time to time to find that for which we hunger. There we find the water for which we thirst; for there, have we not found His promise fulfilled, that He will be “as rivers of water in a dry place” (Is. 32:2), the nourishing and life-giving streams whereof water the divine expanses of the words of life? Wandering here, in spirit (amongst the divine pages), with perhaps, weary steps, how many a sorrowing child of God has felt the waterings of these streams to flow, and found comfort at some step from: “These words spake Jesus?” How many an afflicted one—cut off from the public assemblies of the saints, shut out from that which others possess, harassed with suffering, perhaps, and with no visible source of comfort or help from flesh and blood, has found his or her spirit upheld, in contemplation upon some portion or portions of these expanses, by: “These words spake Jesus?”—When, walking in spirit here, there has distilled into his heart the sweet recollection that “These words spake Jesus:” “Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory” (ver. 24); And at how many other steps of his suffering contemplations he has, perhaps, in places far removed from each other, derived strength and consolation from: “These words spake Jesus.” How precious are many and many words of divine comfort, and the reflection that “these words spake Jesus!” What would the whole book of Divine Life be were it not the veritable speech of the living God?—What an empty beating of the air, like all the delusions of the world. But no such lot is that of God’s people. They have been brought to rest upon unspeakable blessings and comforts and with the consoling and energising reflection of faith that all “these words spake, Jesus,” who was “with God,” and “was God” (John 1:1), and is God, “and hath made us kings and priests unto God;” to whom “be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.” (Rev. 1:6).

“What Christ has said must be fulfilled;

On this firm rock believers build;

His word shall stand, His truth prevail,

And not one jot nor tittle fail.” (gadsby’s, 352).

NOVEMBER 19

“I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world”—John 17:6.

Has He?—that is, has he unto us? For surely we have no other means of knowing whether we are amongst those which have been “given him out of the world.” Those who declare that the doctrines of sovereign grace received in the heart lead to licentiousness, and to such language as: “I am saved and therefore can live as I list”; “If I am to be saved, I am to be saved, and if I am to be lost I am to be lost, and therefore I am in no concern about the matter,” are greatly deceived concerning the real effect of those truths in the heart. Truly their real recipients believe concerning God’s redeemed people that “God hath from the beginning chosen them to salvation.” but they also know that it is “through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: whereunto He called you by our gospel, (2 Thess. 2:13, 14), and they want to know—and that constantly—that this work of sanctification has been begun in their hearts—to know something there of the work of this calling—in short, if He has “manifested His name unto them,” as He surely will to those who have been “given Him out of the world”; and failing any presence of such evidence—and especially if they found themselves comfortably living a licentious life, or living in a state of godless presumption and substantial fatalism, totally alien to the tender conscience of godly fear—where would be the evidence—the least present and manifest hope—to their souls that they are amongst those who He here says have been “given Him out of the world,” and to whom He “manifests His name?” Those only who merely profess these truths, but have never had them implanted in the heart, will—if any do—perhaps be led by them through the power of Satan, to licentiousness and fatalism. Those who truly possess them in the heart—contrary to human reason as it may seem—find them:

“An unctuous light to all that’s right,

A bar to all that’s wrong,”

and the very constraining power of Christ to godliness and fervent love, and to the outgoings of spiritual life to Him in the soul. Instead of being the most careless, they are the most spiritually concerned persons in the world; in proof of which: is there one of such who reads these lines, whose most solemn concern is not to feel sure that He has “manifested His name unto them,” that is, has manifested, not to their intellects, but to their hearts, that which He is, and as theirs? What interest have we then, in these words of eternal life: “I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world?” Has His name become unspeakably precious to us? Not if—as some would say—we are living a life of licentiousness and fatalistic indifference. But is not “the life which we now live in the flesh” one which we “live by the faith of the Son of God who (we hope) loved us and gave Himself for us?” Our hope is that He has “manifested His name” unto us, and so as He “does not unto the world,” else why do we sometimes so sweetly sing in our hearts:

“Dear name! the rock on which I build;

My shield and hiding place;

My never-failing treasury, filled

With boundless stores of grace.”

NOVEMBER 20

“That they may behold my glory”—John 17:24.

That who may? His glory will be beheld by a countless multitude, when He shall come on that solemn day “in the glory of His Father, with His angels” (Matt. 16:27). How great will be the vision of this manifestation of His glory! How solemnly awful? For the effect of it will be that they will call upon the mountains and rocks to fall on them and to hide them from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne (Rev. 6:16). And favoured shall we be if we are not ourselves amongst that number. Is it these—and this view of His glory—that are here referred to? No. It is a far different people and a far different view of His glory. This is only a portion of the glory to be beheld and experienced by His saints (whilst the view of His glory by the lost will rest in its awfulness); for His greatest glory will be beheld and enjoyed spiritually, which it will be eternally. It doth not yet appear what we shall be, though we know we shall be like Him (1 John 3:2; Luke 9:29, 30, 31; Matt. 17:2, 3); but this we know also, that our spirits will find in Him a fulness of Divine, eternal and blessed satisfaction. The view of His glory referred to is even that view which is reserved for those of whom He spoke when He said: “Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am” (ver. 24.) This view is to be beheld when at last they are dwelling with Him in the abode of everlasting love prepared for them (John 14:2), “eternal in the heavens.” The mind, even in the sweetest moments of access of faith and kindling love, sometimes views this blessed prospect with exceedingly solemn awe; yet it is remembered that the perfection and expanding of our beings—our spirits—so as to enable us to dwell with full capacity of fittedness in such glorified spiritual entrances into His beauty and glory, in such surroundings, rests with Him, who [Being one with the Father] is the Fulness even of His own glory, and of all creations of glory, and is easily able to bestow upon us then those immortal powers and those immortal capacities of sensibility, depth and grasp of realisation, that strength of vision, those glorified spiritual capacities of love, conception, delight, holiness and peace of spirit, which will render us as much happily and sweetly at home with Him then as we sometimes now feel at special seasons when approaching Him at a Throne of Grace—on those special occasions where our hearts are at times melted with love, with a heart-dissolving measure of the spirit of adoption, with a sense of His loving smile in our hearts, and of His boundless favour towards us. Even so much at home in His presence, when we “behold His glory” at last, is His power able to make us—for: “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Gen. 18:14, &c.) “So shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thess.4:17). What is this prospect! But this subject we must defer for further contemplation tomorrow. May we be favoured with that upholding measure of hope enabling us to anticipate by faith with the poet that we soon—

“There with our powers expanded,

Shall dwell where Jesus is.” (gadsby’s, 483).

NOVEMBER 21

“That they may behold my glory”—John 17:24.

(second meditation).

His condition upon earth was one of suffering and humiliation for their sakes. There it is one of glory—they will “behold His glory:” His glory who is the glory of Heaven, and whose glory will also clothe and fill the saints and all the “prepared place” (John 14:2, 3), with that infinite glory of which He is the Fulness and Centre. Eternal life imparted has already bestowed within us (if we are the manifest favoured subjects of it) those spiritual capacities enabling us even now—and which will then, empowered and enlarged by Him, still enable us—to behold His glory; for we “now with open face” (if renewed characters) behold “as in a glass” spiritually His glory. (2 Cor. 3:18). But this is the limited view given in time, and with time’s limited capacities. But the view then is to be “glory”—not time—not Grace—but then in the measure of glory; both with regard to the glory to be beheld and enjoyed, and with regard to the glorified measure of enlargement of capacities with which we shall be enabled to behold and enjoy it. The view of His glory referred to was a little touched upon in our meditation of yesterday. If amongst those for whom He here prays, we shall not only behold His glory, but shall be able to behold it. It will not so dazzle us as to blind or confound us. We shall be able to behold it: and that, too, not in such a manner as to paralyse the capacities of our souls, and make us feel as unfit—but so as to draw us and fill us with love and holy, peaceful delight, and the fullest sense that we are now at home. For all the work of Christ—indeed, all the counsels, the emanations of love, and operations of the Trinity from before the foundation of the world [i] have been directed upon the object of choosing, keeping and fitting us for this blissful moment, and the eternity of the same new existence which is to follow. The assured fulfilment of the prayer, therefore, is to bring us expressly that we may be completely and with infinite comfort at home as tenderly loved children in His glorified presence and surroundings of infinite glory which, though they will be (some in kind and some in felt measure), new to us, are those which He has expressly designed that we shall dwell with and in, and will also, therefore, expressly fit us to dweil with and in—for has He not even said: “I will…receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also;” and: “I go to prepare a place for you?” (John 14:3). Are we to suppose, or even fear, that we shall feel as strangers when we reach the divine dwelling place which He shed His heart’s blood that we might reach—and when we behold His glory and His face who has loved us all this time with such love and tenderness—with such self-sacrificing designs for His child’s happiness—that it sometimes crumbles our hearts with love to contemplate? Truly, no. He is taking us there expressly that we may be—and that in conscious feeling—happily and sweetly at home. It is our love and society, and His own nature in us manifested in innumerable—yea infinite—ma