Daily Devotionals

Mornings and Evenings with Jesus

Devotional: November 19th

I have laid help upon one that is mighty. - Psalms 89:19.

WE observe, First, That He on whom our help is laid is equal to the engagement. Many a one has been appointed to an office the duties of which he has been inadequate to fulfil. The enterprise has thereby failed; and if the man has not involved himself in ruin, he has not escaped reflection and reproach; for there is nothing that disgraces a man more than incompetency in this respect; when the work is voluntary, and he has engaged in it without accomplishing the same, “all that pass by begin to mock, saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.”

Observe, Secondly, That God’s appointment of a person to a work is a pledge of its final accomplishment. God said to Gideon, “Go in this thy might.” What might? His own? He was threshing in a barn. No; but, Go in the might with which I have invested thee, and thou shalt be adequate to the work to which I have called thee and send thee to accomplish. So said God of Cyrus, “He is my anointed. I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates.” His appointment was a proof that he should succeed. So it is in the highest degree with our Lord and Saviour. But this does not go far enough.

The Saviour’s ability to save is not relative only, but personal. He has “the Spirit without measure.” He is not only human, but divine. “All things were made by him, and he upholdeth all things.” Well therefore may it be said of him that he is “mighty to save.” His is the power of God, and this gives infinite value to his mediation; hence was he able to procure eternal salvation for us. “He trod the wine-press alone.” “By his one offering up of himself he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.” He said, when he died, “It is finished,” and it was finished forever. He is able to save, moreover, seeing the whole dispensation of the Spirit is lodged in his hands and administered at his pleasure.

So it is said in the Acts of the Apostles, after a notable display of the Holy Spirit’s influence, “Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the gift of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth that which ye now see and hear.” All the miracles were performed in his name. All the operations of divine grace are through him. Hence be says, “This people have I formed for myself.” We may well, therefore, say, with the Psalmist, “Thou hast a mighty arm; strong is thine hand, and high is thy right hand.” Thou art “mighty to save,”- “able to save to the uttermost.” We should remember this with regard to others, and never despair of the conversion of any. And we should remember this with regard to ourselves. Are our sins great and numerous? He can save even the chief of sinners.

“This powerful blood did once atone,

And now it pleads before the throne.”

“The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.” He can, by his influences, so mighty is he, penetrate the darkest understanding and enlighten it. He can subdue the most rebellious. He can take away the stony heart and give us out of our flesh a heart of flesh.

Truth came by Jesus Christ. - John 1:17.

WHAT is truth? This is a question Pilate once asked, but did not wait for an answer. And it is a question which many still ask, and with regard to the result they betray equal carelessness. The shortest and easiest way of answering the question according to some would be for each religious party to exhibit its own creed, and censure and exclude the claimants of every other. But candour would lead a man to conclude that all parties have it partially, and that none have it wholly. Thus it is with philosophers with regard to nature; metaphysicians with regard to mind; and historians with regard to facts.

The gospel is a system too vast for a finite mind to take in at once, and people have used it as children use a large mirror: unable to carry the whole, they break it in pieces, all of them going away with a fraction: one calls out, “I have the glass;” a second says, “I have the glass;” and a third says, “No, but I have the glass.” The fact is, the glass consisted of all these parts. But let us now (though no one has a large portion) reunite all these, that we may possess the mirror undefiled and uninjured. And we need not feel any kind of embarrassment with regard to truth. It is not the creed of any party church, or council. It is what all who are Christians profess to receive. It is the gospel itself, and this truth came by Jesus Christ.

Let us glance at four articles. First, There is the truth of performance in distinction from engagement. The promise made to the fathers is everywhere to be met with in the Old Testament. Yet there is a difference between the existence of the promise and its fulfilment. Therefore our Saviour, addressing his disciples, comparing their state not with the heathen but with the Jews, says, “Many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; but blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear.”

Secondly, There is the truth of reality in distinction from prefiguration. This truth came by Jesus Christ. The Jews were children; God treated them as infants are treated who have pictures placed over their lessons in order to allure, to impress, and to explain. Their senses were addressed as well as their understanding. The Jews had various types and ceremonies, which the Apostle called “a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things,” not the reality. A shadow depends upon the body, derives its form from the body, but it has no power in itself, and is an obscure and imperfect representation of the substance. This was precisely the case with the law, its carnal ordinances and observances had no efficiency to save or to sanctify; the value of the services were derived entirely from their relation to the Messiah, but for whom they would never have been established, but for whom they would have had no use, therefore in themselves would have been unprofitable, and vain, and absurd. But by the aid of these, however, the Spiritual among the Jews were enabled to hold communion with God, though in what degree it is impossible to decide. As to ourselves, they are full of pleasing and interesting instruction.

Having the clue we can explain them; having the reference we can perceive the resemblance. We are in possession of the truth of all these, the truth of the paschal Lamb; “it is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world;” the truth of the manna is the true bread which came down from heaven; the truth of the rock that followed the Jews in the wilderness, for that rock was Christ;” the truth of the altar and mercy-seat of the Tabernacle and of the Temple, for “Christ is all and in all.”

Thirdly, There is the truth of certainty in distinction from error and falsehood. This came by Jesus Christ. What was heathenism? an assemblage of falsehoods-false gods, false temples, false sacrifices, false hopes, and false fears. A great deal of them was indeed originally derived from revelation, but it was obscured so that the Apostle tells us it was “turning the truth of God into a lie.”

Lastly, There is the truth of importance in distinction from all other truths. This truth came by Jesus Christ. If many things were as true as they are perfectly false they would be unworthy our principal earnestness, for what good have they done, or can they do, compared with “repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ?” This is truth;-truth emphatically, as our Saviour says, “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.”