the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Spiritual Treasury For The Children of God
Many there be which say of my soul, There is no help for him in God. Selah.- Psalms 3:2.
Had David’s foes said of him, He deserves no help from God; he would readily have owned this as a great truth. As God’s children are comforted by the truth, so the enemy advances lies to distress them. When he attacks their faith and comfort, he boldly impeaches the love and faithfulness of their God. "No help for me in God!" O, my soul, wilt thou listen to this suggestion? Canst thou indulge such a thought one moment? Art thou beset with distress of soul, and surrounded with troubles and difficulties? Art thou singing a melancholy note? Selah, saith David: pause, consider this; lift up thy mind to attend; how dishonorable to thy God, how destructive to thy faith, peace, love, and holiness, is this! Know the voice of thy enemy. Hear the voice of thy Saviour. His word is adapted to thy circumstances, however distressing or desperate. "Thou hast destroyed thyself!" What is added? Perish in thine own undoings, take it for thy pains? No: for almighty love proclaims its own triumph; "But in me is thine help."- Hosea 13:9.
"Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward." When born again he finds more enemies and troubles than ever: a sinful nature burdens him, carnal lusts perplex him, Satan tempts and accuses him, unbelief besets and dejects him; but, most joyful truth, God is his dear Father, Jesus his precious Saviour, the Holy Spirit his loving comforter. Where should the poor sinner look? To whom should the exercised, afflicted soul go? Happy for him when with David, he goes with childlike simplicity, and tells his sorrowful complaints to his dear Saviour; "Lord, how are they increased that trouble me!
Many rise up against me." They say of my soul, "There is no help for me in God." The Saviour loves to hear his members’ complaints; he delights to redress them. Thus, when driven from all hope and help from within and without, then they honor him in faith and prayer. As when the little child is affrighted with lying stories, it flies to the arms of its father for safety, tells him of its fears, and thus its little heart gets ease; so David found it: his experienced heart cries out, "Thou, O Lord, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter-up of my head. Salvation belongeth unto the Lord; thy blessing is upon thy people." Thus, though a mournful complaint ushers in this-Psalm, yet it concludes in the joy and triumph of faith. "Though weeping may endure for a night, yet joy cometh in the morning."- Psalms 30:5.
Tho’ weeping for a night endure,
And foes distress my heart;
Yet in the morning joy is sure:
Our Saviour takes my part.
O, listen then unto his word,
In his sweet promise trust:
Thy foes shall flee before thy Lord,
Who faithful is and just.
The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth from all sin. 1 John 1:7.
Most precious truth for guilty sinners! Lord, help us most deeply to consider what is implied in these words. (1st.) See the exceeding sinfulness of sin. It has brought these dreadful evils upon us. 1st. Loss of God’s image. 2d. Obnoxiousness to his wrath. 3d. Rejection from his presence. For we are by sin totally unclean. The pollution of sin has brought the curse of God’s law upon us, armed his justice, shut his kingdom against us, and opened the gates of hell to us. The bitter cries and exquisite torments of the damned in hell, will eternally proclaim the malignancy of sin. The everlasting songs of the saints in glory, will for ever proclaim the praises of the Lamb, who washed them from their sins in his own blood. (2d.) This proves the curse and defilement of sin. The blood of Jesus Christ, and that alone, cleanseth from all its deepest stains. O the infinite love of the Son of God, to shed his blood for guilty sinners! O the infinite virtue of his precious blood, to cleanse us from all sin! Remember, God’s justice would have been eternally glorified, and thy soul eternally suffering his wrath due to thy sins, if the blood of his Son had not cleansed thee from all sin. Reflect on this, and say, canst thou think light of sin, or count the blood of Jesus of little value? O, see sin’s crimson dye, in the purple gore of the Son of God, which was shed to atone for it, and cleanse from it. (3d.) “Cleanseth us.” Not only hath cleansed and shall cleanse, but it continually doth so. It removes all the filth of sin from before God, and takes all the guilt of sin out of our consciences: so that we are perfectly clean, and without spot of sin in God’s sight, and perfectly freed from all condemnation for sin in our consciences. (4th.) “The blood of Jesus Christ.” This means the last act of the tragedy of the life of our anointed Saviour. His blood being the ransom of our souls, the price of our redemption, and the expiation of our sins. (5th.) “His Son:” the Son of God: very God of very God. Here let faith fix, and conscience be satisfied. Not only the blood of the Son of the Virgin, but it is the blood of the Son of God. Neither the greatness, nor the number of sins can remain in their guilt, nor expose any sinner to wrath, who believes in the Son of God. No guilt so great, but it can cleanse: no stain so deep but it can purge. Unbelief shuts blood out of the conscience. By faith we receive its cleansing virtue and peaceful effects on the soul.
Thy blood alone, Jehovah Man,
Doth cleanse our souls from guilt of sin;
This precious truth we’d ever scan,
For peace, and love, and joy within.
Come, let us sing, adore, and praise,
Ye sinners, who are foul as me,
The dying love, the precious grace,
Of Jesu’s suff’rings on the tree.
