the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Bowen's Daily Meditations
" The redeemed of the Lord shall return and come with singing unto Zion, and everlasting joy shall be upon their head." - Isaiah 51:11.
Time and again the Lord brought back his ancient people from captivity, even those that valued the liberty of returning; and each time perhaps they thought it was the final redemption of which the prophets had spoken such glorious things, and were looking for crowns of everlasting joy. But in the times preceding the first advent of the Messiah they discovered by bitter experience that it was possible for them to be enslaved even in their own land, in the midst of Jerusalem, in the courts of the temple; to be enslaved by Jews, by high-priests; and to be as wretched in Zion as ever they had been in Babylon. In the days of Christ how sadly were they oppressed. Not by the Romans; Christ scarcely made any allusion to them, knowing that the Jews were suffering from a far severer bond age. He made known to them the true Zion of refuge and the true redemption, when he said " Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest."
The redeemed of the Lord shall return, effectually redeemed from all iniquity, triumphant over sin and misery, crowned with glory, honor, and immortality. If you ask, when? I reply that it shall be in the day when the New Jerusalem cometh down from God out of heaven, and in the day when the manifestation of the sons of God taketh place. " Ye are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief."
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