Daily Devotionals

Mornings and Evenings with Jesus

Devotional: June 21st

Ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence, and give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. - Isaiah 62:6-7.

WE have not only the example of the people of God to induce us to recommend religion to others, but we have the authority of God, whose will is binding on all his creatures, and from whose decision there is no appeal. Our Saviour enjoins it upon us, when we pray, to say, “Thy kingdom come,” as well as, “Give us this day our daily bread.” And if we notice the order of it, we shall find that he tells us to pray for the coming kingdom of God, before we ask for our daily bread. Then, also, we should remember that we have the blessing of the gospel not only for ourselves, but also for others. The possession of the gospel is not only a blessing to enjoy, but a talent to use; and we are therefore debtors to those who are destitute of it. Then benevolence should also plead for this practice.

We admire every kind of benevolence; we bless those who endeavour to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to heal the sick; but what, after all, is the body to the soul? Charity to the soul is the soul of charity. And he that “converteth a sinner from the error of his ways shall save a soul alive, and hide a multitude of sins.” Then the importance of the thing pleads for the practice too. We do not wonder that those who believe that people may be saved, or nearly as well saved, without the gospel as with it, should feel an indifference in this case; but that they who profess to believe that for those who are in darkness and in the regions of the shadow of death there is salvation in no other, that none cometh to the Father but by him, and who approve of the apostle’s meaning,- How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach except they be sent?-it is most astonishing that these people can feel any alter native between this belief and the obligation to employ all the means and resources in their power to spread the gospel!

Then, also, the experience we have had of the value and preciousness of the gospel ourselves should make us earnest to send it forth to others. Oh, what has it done for us! What was it relieved us under the burden that pressed our lives down to the ground? What was it that supported us under our trials, so that we said, Unless the Lord had been my delight, I should have perished in my affliction? And what has it done for us not only in spiritual things, but in temporal? What might we have been at this hour but for the gospel? If not in hell, our bodies might now have been hanging on the gallows, or we might have been in prison, or we might have appeared in penury and rags, instead of being able not only to enjoy the comforts of life but also to diffuse them.

And is it for us to be indifferent to the spread of the gospel? Then the possibility of the thing also should plead for it; for it is not an impracticable thing that is enjoined upon us. It is not a thing which requires miracles; then our strength might indeed be to sit still. But was it by miracles the gospel was first brought to this happy island? Was it by miracles it was sent to Greenland and the Eskimo? And was it by miracles that it was conveyed to the South Sea Islands? We have peculiar advantages to send it forth. We are not restrained by Government. We have the remedy that brings a cure in our possession, and we have the means to convey it to others, who are perishing, either by ourselves or by means of others. Let our daily prayer be, “Oh, send out thy light and thy truth.” But we must do something else if our prayers are either importunate or sincere; for they are neither, unless they induce us to adopt a line of conduct corresponding to the object, and dispose us to make use of the means which are conducive to it.

Of all our substance we are not the proprietors but the stewards, and it becomes a steward “to be found faithful.”

Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. - Galatians 2:16.

THERE are truths which are essential to religion, and which, so to speak, regard not the form of the windows and of the doorway, but the foundation itself, which regard not the railings and the ornaments of the bridge, but the keystone; which regard not those members of the body which may be injured or removed, while vitality remains, but the head, the breast, and the lungs. Such a doctrine is the fall of man, by which the human race are now all found in a state of guilt and depravity and helplessness. Such is the doctrine of justification by faith, the article, as Luther observes, by which a church stands or falls. And such is the doctrine in these words, which is most fully and clearly set forth in the New Testament, and particularly in this Epistle and in the Epistle to the Romans.

“Therein,” says the Apostle, speaking of the gospel, “is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, the just shall live by faith.” “Therefore, by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” But now the righteousness of God without the law, that is, without the works of the law, is manifest, being witnessed by the law (that is, Moses) and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith in Jesus Christ, which is unto ail and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. “By him, therefore,” said Peter to the Jews, “all that believe are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses;” and, says Paul, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth:”-“righteousness,” by rendering the obedience the law demands, and by suffering the penalty it denounces; for the penalty is as righteous and as divine as the precept. It is founded in eternal rectitude.

God could no more dispense with it than he could dispense with eternal rectitude; that is, do wrong. But, “is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.” This and this only is the way in which sinners can return to God, and become one with him again. “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.” And how? “In Christ Jesus. Ye who were sometimes afar off are made nigh by the blood of Christ, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness; that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”

All who believe in Jesus are interested in this inestimable blessing, and should rejoice in it. Following the example of the church in the days of Isaiah, “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God, for he hath clothed, me with the garments of salvation. He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.” Why should we be so affected with our external circumstances, however trying they may be? As subjects of this grace and the heirs of that glory which shall be revealed in us, we should

“Sing of his lore who sought us,

When far away from God,

The precious price that bought us

Was his atoning blood.”