Day 3 - Tuesday | Daily Devotions | Morning and Evening: Daily Readings | Connect the Testaments | My Utmost for His Highest | Thoughts for the Hour |

 Morning, November 5 Go To Evening Reading

“No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper.”

—Isaiah 54:17

This day is notable in English history for two great deliverances wrought by God for us. On this day, the plot of the Papists to destroy our Houses of Parliament was discovered in 1605.

“While for our princes, they prepare

In caverns deep, a burning snare,

He shot from heaven a piercing ray,

And the dark treachery brought to the day.”

Second, today is the anniversary of King William III's landing at Torbay, which quashed the hope of Popish ascendancy and secured religious liberty in 1688.

This day should be celebrated not by the saturnalia of striplings but by the songs of saints. Our Puritan forefathers most devoutly made it a particular time of thanksgiving. There is extant a record of the annual sermons preached by Matthew Henry on this day. Our Protestant feeling and love of liberty should make us regard its anniversary with holy gratitude. Let our hearts and lips exclaim, “We have heard with our ears, and our fathers have told us the wondrous things which thou didst in their day and in the old time before them.” Thou hast made this nation the home of the gospel, and when the foe has risen against her, thou hast shielded her. Help us to offer repeated songs for repeated deliverances. Grant us more and more a hatred of the Antichrist and hasten on the day of her extinction. Till then and ever, we believe the promise, “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper.” Should it not be laid upon the heart of every lover of the gospel of Jesus on this day to plead for the overturning of false doctrines and the extension of divine truth? Would it not be well to search our own hearts and turn out any of the Popish lumber of self-righteousness which may lie concealed therein?

Go To Morning Reading Evening, November 5

“Be thankful unto him, and bless his name.”

—Psalm 100:4

Our Lord would have all his people rich in high and happy thoughts concerning his blessed person. Jesus is not content that his brethren should think meanly of him; it is his pleasure that his espoused ones should be delighted with his beauty. We are not to regard him as a bare necessity, like bread and water, but as a luxurious delicacy, a rare and ravishing delight. To this end, he has revealed himself as the “pearl of great price” in its peerless beauty, as the “bundle of myrrh” in its refreshing fragrance, as the “rose of Sharon” in its lasting perfume, as the “lily” in its spotless purity.

As a help to high thoughts of Christ, remember the estimation that Christ is had beyond the skies, where things are measured by the correct standard. Think how God esteems the Only Begotten, his unspeakable gift to us. Consider what the angels think of him as they count it their highest honor to veil their faces at his feet. Consider what the blood-washed think of him as they sing his well-deserved praises day without night. High thoughts of Christ will enable us to act consistently with our relations towards him. The more loftily we see Christ enthroned, and the more lowly we are when bowing before the foot of the throne, the more truly shall we be prepared to act our part towards him. Our Lord Jesus desires us to think well of him and submit cheerfully to his authority. High thoughts of him increase our love. Love and esteem go together. Therefore, believer, think much of your Master’s excellencies. Study him in his primeval glory before he took upon himself your nature! Think of the mighty love which drew him from his throne to die on the cross! Admire him as he conquers all the powers of hell! See him risen, crowned, glorified! Bow before him as the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the mighty God, for only thus will your love to him be what it should.

 C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: Daily Readings (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896).

November 5: Of Fields and Temples

1 Kings 7:1–51; Mark 4:26–5:20; Proverbs 1:28–33

The building of Solomon’s temple and the growth of the kingdom of God are similar: Both require extensive labor. Both bring miraculous results. And in both efforts, the dredging and toil can proceed for weeks, months, or years before the fruits of the labor become apparent.

When the Bible describes the building of God’s temple, it mentions features and materials that would have been incredible at the time: “He built the House of the Forest of Lebanon … It was covered with cedar above … There were three rows of specially designed windows … All of the doorways and the doorframes had four-sided casings” (1 Kgs 7:2–5). Consider the logistical, expediting, and procurement hurdles that Solomon must have faced. How could one leader build a project that required the finest materials and the most highly skilled craftsmen from all over the known world, all in his lifetime? That it was completed is nearly miraculous. Even today, major architectural feats often take longer than a lifetime (e.g., Gaudi’s cathedral in Barcelona).

Like the construction of Solomon’s temple, what we, as Christians, build into other people’s lives is meant to happen miraculously. We labor for it, but the fruits are not ours—they are often unexplainable. Jesus once remarked, “The kingdom of God is like this: like a man scatters seed on the ground. And he sleeps and gets up night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows—he does not know how. The soil produces a crop by itself: first, the grass, then the head of grain, then the full grain in the head. But when the crop permits, he sends in the sickle [a tool for harvesting crops] right away, because the harvest has come” (Mark 4:26–29). We must continue to labor, knowing that the results will differ from what we expect. We must rely on the Spirit for the actual work.

What are you laboring at today? How may the results be different than what you expect?

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).

November 5th

Partakers of His sufferings

Rejoice, since ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings. 1 Peter 4:13.

If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a multitude of experiences that are not meant for you at all; they are intended to make you useful in His hands and to enable you to understand what transpires in other souls so that you will never be surprised at what you come across. ‘Oh, I can’t deal with that person.’ Why not? God gave you ample opportunity to soak before Him on that line, and you ‘barged off’ because spending time in that way seemed stupid.

The sufferings of Christ are not those of ordinary men. He suffered “according to the will of God,” not from the point of view we suffer from as individuals. Only when we relate to Jesus Christ can we understand what God is after in His dealings with us. It is part of Christian culture to know what God’s aim is. In the history of the Christian Church, the tendency has been to evade being identified with the sufferings of Jesus Christ; men have sought to procure the carrying out of God’s order by a shortcut of their own. God’s way is always the way of suffering, the way of the long, long trail.’

Are we partakers of Christ’s sufferings? Are we prepared for God to stamp our personal ambitions right out? Are we prepared for God to destroy our individual determinations by transfiguration? It will not mean we know precisely why God is taking us that way; that would make us spiritual prigs. We never realize what God is putting us through at the time; we go through more or less misunderstanding, and then we come to a luminous place and say, ‘Why, God has girded me, though I did not know it!’

 Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest: Selections for the Year (Grand Rapids, MI: Oswald Chambers Publications; Marshall Pickering, 1986).

November 5

Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God

2 Cor. 7:1

The Tree of Life, according to some of the old rabbinical legends, lifted its branches, by an indwelling motion, high above impure hands that were stretched to touch them; and until our hands are cleansed through faith in Jesus Christ, its richest fruit hangs unreachable, golden above our heads. The fullness of the life of Heaven is only granted to those who, drawing near Jesus Christ by faith on earth, have thereby cleansed themselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit.

Alexander Maclaren

 Samuel G. Hardman and Dwight Lyman Moody, Thoughts for the Quiet Hour (Willow Grove, PA: Woodlawn Electronic Publishing, 1997).