Day 4 - Wednesday | Daily Devotions | Morning and Evening: Daily Reading | Connect the Testaments | My Utmost for His Highest | Thoughts for the Quiet Hour |
Morning, October 15 Go To Evening Reading
“But who may abide the day of his coming?”
—Malachi 3:2
His first coming was without external pomp or show of power, and yet in truth, few could abide its testing might. Herod and all Jerusalem with him were stirred at the news of the wondrous birth. Those who supposed themselves to be waiting for him showed the fallacy of their professions by rejecting him when he came. His life on earth was a winnowing fan, which tried the great heap of religious profession, and few enough could abide the process. But what will his second advent be? What sinner can endure to think of it? “He shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.” When in his humiliation he did but say to the soldiers, “I am he,” they fell backward; what will be the terror of his enemies when he shall more fully reveal himself as the “I am?” His death shook the earth and darkened heaven. What shall be the dreadful splendour of that day in which, as the living Saviour, he shall summon the quick and dead before him? O that the terrors of the Lord would persuade men to forsake their sins and kiss the Son lest he be angry! Though a lamb, he is yet the lion of the tribe of Judah, rending the prey in pieces; and though he breaks not the bruised reed, yet will he break his enemies with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. None of his foes shall bear up before the tempest of his wrath, or hide themselves from the sweeping hail of his indignation. Still, his beloved blood-washed people look for his appearing with joy, and hope to abide it without fear: to them he sits as a refiner even now, and when he has tried them they shall come forth as gold. Let us search ourselves this morning and make our calling and election sure, so that the coming of the Lord may cause no dark forebodings in our mind. O for grace to cast away all hypocrisy, and to be found of him sincere and without rebuke in the day of his appearing.
Go To Morning Reading Evening, October 15
“But the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou redeem him not, then shalt thou break his neck.”
—Exodus 34:20
Every firstborn creature must be the Lord’s, but since the ass was unclean, it could not be presented in sacrifice. What then? Should it be allowed to go free from the universal law? By no means. God admits of no exceptions. The ass is his due, but he will not accept it; he will not abate the claim, yet he cannot be pleased with the victim. No way of escape remained but redemption—the creature must be saved by the substitution of a lamb in its place; or if not redeemed, it must die. My soul, here is a lesson for thee. That unclean animal is thyself; thou art justly the property of the Lord who made thee and preserves thee, but thou art so sinful that God will not, cannot, accept thee; and it has come to this, the Lamb of God must stand in thy stead, or thou must die eternally. Let all the world know of thy gratitude to that spotless Lamb who has already bled for thee, and so redeemed thee from the fatal curse of the law. Must it not sometimes have been a question with the Israelite, which should die, the ass or the lamb? Would not the good man pause to estimate and compare? Assuredly, there was no comparison between the value of the soul of man and the life of the Lord Jesus, and yet the Lamb dies, and man, the ass, is spared. My soul, admire the boundless love of God to thee and others of the human race. Worms are bought with the blood of the Son of the Highest! Dust and ashes redeemed with a price far above silver and gold! What a doom had been mine had not plenteous redemption been found! The breaking of the neck of the ass was but a momentary penalty, but who shall measure the wrath to come, to which no limit can be imagined? Inestimably dear is the glorious Lamb who has redeemed us from such a doom.
C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: Daily Readings (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896).
Ezekiel 30:1–31:18; Revelation 14:14–15:8; Job 37:1–8
If you were to ask five people at random, “How do you picture God?” you would receive five very different answers. A social network prompt to “describe God in one word” confirms this idea, resulting in more than 50 answers. For John, that one word was logos or “Word.” Ultimately, God is far too complex to fit into human language. His personality is too diverse to capture in a painting. His intricacy of character far surpasses ours.
God can feel the full spectrum of emotion and can articulate who He is using the full spectrum of vocabulary. He can encounter us in any way He sees fit. Where we may be able to change only our hair color, glasses, or general way of speaking, He can change anything.
Throughout the books of Ezekiel and Revelation, we see diverse descriptions of God. They are so different that, by analogy, they could range from a mannerist painting of Jesus to a surrealist or modern one. Ezekiel 30:1–8 depicts Yahweh as a warrior, whereas in Rev 14:14–20, we see God using messengers to glean a crop and bring fire. The images vary even more when we peek into the next chapter, where a warring God sends His angels to bring plagues (Rev 15:1–8).
There is not one depiction of God in the Bible, and any attempt to create one is an ill-conceived effort. We know much about Him, but we’re not capable of understanding Him fully. As we attempt to picture God, we should be aware that our words about Him and visions of Him are shortsighted compared to who He actually is. Yet one thing we do know for sure is that He, our indescribable creator, desires to enter into a relationship with His creation (e.g., John 15–17).
How do you picture God? How do you describe Him?
John D. Barry
John D. Barry and Rebecca Kruyswijk, Connect the Testaments: A One-Year Daily Devotional with Bible Reading Plan (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012).
October 15th
The key to the missionary message
And He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. 1 John 2:2.
The key to the missionary message is the propitiation of Christ Jesus. Take any phase of Christ’s work—the healing phase, the saving and sanctifying phase; there is nothing limitless about those. “The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!”—that is limitless. The missionary message is the infinite significance of Jesus Christ as the propitiation for our sins, and a missionary is soaked in that revelation.
The key to the missionary message is the remissionary aspect of Christ’s life —not His kindness, His goodness, or His revelation of the Fatherhood of God. The great, limitless significance is that He is the propitiation for our sins. The missionary message is not patriotic; it is irrespective of nations and of individuals; it is for the whole world. When the Holy Ghost comes in, He does not consider my predilections; He brings me into union with the Lord Jesus.
A missionary is wedded to the charter of his Lord and Master; he has not to proclaim his own point of view, but to proclaim the Lamb of God. It is easier to belong to a coterie that tells what Jesus Christ has done for me, or to become a devotee to Divine healing, a special type of sanctification, or the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Paul did not say—‘Woe is unto me, if I do not preach what Christ has done for me,’ but—“Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!” This is the Gospel—“The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!”
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest: Selections for the Year (Grand Rapids, MI: Oswald Chambers Publications; Marshall Pickering, 1986).
October 15
Let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet, the hope of salvation
1 Thess. 5:8
Faith, love, and hope—these three form the defensive armor that guards the soul, and these three make self-control possible. Like a diver in his dress who is let down to the bottom of the wild, far-weltering ocean, a man whose heart is girt by faith and charity, and whose head is covered with the helmet of hope, may be dropped down into the wildest sea of temptation and of worldliness, and yet will walk dry and unharmed through the midst of its depths, and breathe air that comes from a world above the restless surges. Faith will bring you into communication with all the power of God. Love will lead you into a region where all the temptations around you will be touched as by Ithuriel’s spear, and will show their own foulness. And Hope will turn away your eyes from looking at the tempting splendor around, and fix them upon the glories that are above. And so the reins will come into your hands in an altogether new manner, and you will be able to be king over your own nature in a fashion that you did not dream of before, if only you will trust in Christ and love Him, and fix your desires on the things above. Then you will be able to govern yourself when you let Christ govern you.
Alexander Maclaren
Samuel G. Hardman and Dwight Lyman Moody, Thoughts for the Quiet Hour (Willow Grove, PA: Woodlawn Electronic Publishing, 1997).
Comments