“And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest;
as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”
(Isaiah 32:2)
To the weary traveller in a hot,
dry country there can be no greater comfort that the refreshing shade of a cool and towering rock.
Our text suggests a long journey, with trying winds, a tempest, a dry parched land.
It is the hot mid-afternoon.
There are miles ahead to be covered.
Perhaps even in our hurried days, we can at least imagine the slow plodding journey,
on foot or by animal, through the hot, dry valleys in a rainless summer.
Then the towering rock and its sheltering shade.
Quite naturally this came to tell of the protection of God.
“The Lord is my rock and my fortress.” (Psalm 18:2)
How true it is that we need God’s shelter along the journey of life.
His shadow and shelter are close at hand.
Then, strength, renewed, we can press on again with His help.
We must not count the shadow of the rock as the end of the journey.
It should merely be a resting place, so that with renewed strength we may finish what we have begun.
(Traveling Toward Sunrise)
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September 9
“For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him,
but also to suffer for His sake.”
(Philippians 1:29)
Tho’ the road may be rough where He leads me, still His footprints I plainly can trace,
And the trials I meet will seem nothing when I look in my dear Saviour’s face.
(Lizzie DeArmond 1842-1936)
What a privilege it is to have Christ as our Saviour!
Think of all the benefits we enjoy because we believe in Him.
They are of infinite value.
But note here something that we may not equate as a blessing.
We not only are to believe on Him,
but we are given the privilege of suffering for His sake.
When we think of all that He has done and suffered for us,
it certainly is a privilege to bear a little reproach for Him.
The early disciples (Acts 5:41)
rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His Name.
How do we assess the adversity that comes our way?
(Reg L. Jordan)
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September 10
THE SOVEREIGN REMEDY FOR DESPONDENCY
"Why are thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me?
Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him, Who is the health of my countenance, and my God.” (Psalm 42:11)
The cure for the depression occasioned by overwork, is rest;
for that caused by introspection, heart-occupation with the exalted Lord;
and for that which is sometimes brought on by trial,
a view of the beneficent purposes which God is accomplishing by its means.
But referring to Psalm 42:11, we have a sovereign remedy for despondency which never fails.
“Hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise Him, Who is the health of my countenance, and my God.”
Hope lightens the heart and enables us to endure;
praise brightens the face and enables us to sing away what we cannot reason away (Psalm 50:23).
"Whoso offereth praise glorifieth Me: and to him that ordereth his
conversation aright will I show the salvation of God.”
The volume of praise may be very small to begin with; but if you keep lifting up the face to God
that volume will steadily increase.
“Bless God for starlight and He will give you moonlight;
praise Him for moonlight and He will give you sunlight; thank Him for sunlight,
for His redeemed shall yet come to that land where they need not the light of the sun,
for the Lord God giveth them light for ever and ever.”
Trials may come and go; summer sunshine may be replaced by wintry gloom;
but He Who is the health of your countenance abides.
Above the door of a small hotel in one of the country towns of Arizona,
there is a huge sign-board bearing the words:
[“Free board every day the sun doesn’t shine.”]
(Heavens’s Cure for Earth’s Care)
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September 11
“What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.”
(Psalm 56:3)
The young champion of the Lord,
David, won many victories before he faced Goliath.
Everything depends on how I approach my supreme conflicts.
If I am careless in small combats,
I shall fail in the larger ones.
(Corrie ten Boom)
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September 12
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge:
but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
(Proverbs 1:7)
There is no true knowledge apart from the fear of the Lord.
All that pretends to the name, and ignores Him, is but folly.
It is well for “the young man” to bear this in mind when meeting the many pseudo-scientific theories now abroad.
Philosophers and savants have cast to the winds the fear of the Lord,
and ruled Him out of His own creation.
“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.”
Hence the abounding absurdities that are readily accepted by the ignorant as science and true philosophy.
Science means exact knowledge.
To call by such a name the wild guesses of evolutionists and infidel biologists is but word-prostitution.
Hypotheses, however original and erudite (learned knowledge got by study), are not science.
There never has been, and never will be, a conflict between the Bible and science.
The conflict comes in between the Bible and unbelievers’ vain theorizing;
as, also, between religious notions unsupported by Scripture and scientific facts.
(H.A. Ironside)
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September 13
“Feed the flock of God . . . taking the oversight thereof.”
(1 Peter 5:2)
Some shepherds just want the plaque on their door.
Real shepherds know that some sheep are wayward, wilful, and difficult to manage.
Some get sick and need to be nursed.
Some have horns and want to fight, other sheep get wounded and need healing.
Sometimes a true shepherd is made to look silly as he struggles to bring the flock into line.
Who would want to be a true shepherd?
Only someone who has been called to it by the Good Shepherd,
and someone who has a sacrificial love for the flock.
(Drew Craig)
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September 14
“And when He rose up from prayer, and was come to His disciples, He found them sleeping for sorrow. And said unto them, why sleep ye? rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.”
(Luke 22:45-46)
Thou canst not be long off thy watch, but the devil will hear on it.
The devil knew the apostle’s sleeping time, and then he desires leave to winnow them (Luke 22).
The thief riseth when honest men go to bed.
The devil begins to tempt when saints cease to watch. . . .
The saint’s sleeping time is Satan’s tempting time; every fly dares venture to creep on a sleeping lion.
No temptation so weak but is strong enough to foil a Christian that is napping in security.
Samson asleep, and Delilah cut his locks.
King Saul asleep, and the spear is taken away from his very side, and he never the wiser.
Noah asleep, and his graceless son has a fit time to discover his father’s nakedness.
Eutycus asleep, nods, and falls from the third loft, and is taken up for dead.
The Christian asleep may soon lose his spiritual strength,
be robbed of his spear, and his nakedness discovered by graceless men, to the shame of his profession.
Yea, he may fall from a high loft of profession, so low, into scandalous practices,
that others may question whether there be any life of grace in him.
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(The writings of William Gurnall (1617-1679) has been left in it its original script)
September 15
”Bid me come unto Thee on the water.”
(Matthew 14:28)
Perhaps it is night in your soul — as dark as ever it can be.
It would not be so bad if you could even distinctly see the waves of the
troubled sea on which you are tossing.
You do not know where you are.
All seems vague and uncertain and wretched and confused.
And though the Lord Jesus is very near you, though He has come to you,
walking on the water, and has said,
“It is I, be not afraid,”
you cannot see him, and you are not at all sure it is His voice;
or if it is, that He is speaking to you.
So, of course, you are “troubled.”
And if, in this trouble, you go on trying to steer and row for yourself,
these same waves will prove themselves to be awful realities,
and you will be lost in the storm.
Do not venture that; but venture out,
through the darkness and upon the waves at the bare word of Jesus.
(Opened Treasures - Francis Ridley Havergal)
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September 16
“Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth.”
(John 17:17)
The Acquisition of Divine Truth is never at the expense of another.
Each truth only enhances another.
(Rochfort Hunt)
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September 17
“That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye,
being rooted and grounded in love . . .”
(Ephesians 3:17)
The prayer is that the Christ may “dwell” in our hearts.
We are not to treat Him as a visitor to be entertained on some special occasion,
but as One that has an abiding place in our hearts.
This can only be by faith, for faith looks out to Christ and as
He is before us an object He will have a dwelling-place in our hearts.
The One who is the centre of all God’s counsels will thus become the centre of our thoughts.
“The supreme object to God becomes the supreme object to us.”
What a witness for God we each should be if our lives were governed
by one engrossing object, and that object Christ.
(Hamilton Smith)
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September 18
“He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all,
how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things.”
(Romans 8:32)
What a thought! “All things . . . with Christ”- in fellowship with Him.
Health or sickness—poverty or riches, I am in each state with Him;
and have Him in each state.
According to the apostle’s reasoning, the greater includes the lesser,
and the lesser is possessed and enjoyed with the greater.
Should the Christian be so reduced in circumstances,
as that a dry crust and a cup of cold water were his richest repast,
yet ye could triumphantly say, such as it is, I have it with Christ, and Christ with it.
From the lowest condition on earth to the highest pinnacle in glory,
we have all with Christ, and our richest blessing is to be one with Him.
So wondrous—so real—so perfect, is our oneness with Christ,
the church’s Head, that the apostle says,
“I am crucified with Christ."
(Andrew Miller)
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September 19
“And the Lord said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho . . .
And when ye hear the sound of the trumpet . . .
the wall of the city shall fall down flat.”
(Joshua 6:2,5)
The trumpet meant destruction for Jericho but salvation for Rahab.
The trumpet was sweet to those in her house.
For 2000 years God has been silent,
but soon the silence will be broken with the mighty
trumpet blast of Christ’s return.
For believers, it will be sweet release;
for the lost it will be unmitigated disaster.
Will it mean destruction or salvation for you?
(Neil Dougal)
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September 20
“Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth;
for I am God, and there is none else.”
(Isaiah 45:22)
LOOKING UNTO JESUS as long as we remain on the earth,
unto Jesus from moment to moment,
without allowing ourselves to be
distracted by memories of a
past which we should leave behind us,
nor by occupation with a future of which we know nothing.
(Theodore Monod (1874) -Translated from the French by Helen Willis)
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September 21
“And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai,
and present thyself there to Me in the top of the mount."
(Exodus 34:2)
Having communed with the Heavenly Father in the garden of prayer when the dew of blessing
awaits at sunrise is a reminder of a certain valley in Romania
where they grow nothing but roses for the Vienna market.
The perfume of that valley in the time of the rose crop
is such that if you go into it for a few minutes,
wherever you go the rest of the day,
people know where you have been.
The fragrance goes with you.
Meeting Him in the morning causes the fragrance of
His presence to go with you throughout the entire day.
(Streams in the Desert)
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September 22
“My God shall supply all your need according to
His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”
(Philippians 4:19)
Look at these words carefully.
It does not say He will supply our wants.
There are many things we want that God has not promised to give.
It is our need, and all our need.
My children often want many things they do not get;
but I supply all they need, if it is in my power to do it.
I do not supply all their wants by any means.
And so, though God may withold from us many things that we desire,
He will supply all our need.
There can come upon us no trouble or trial in this life, but
God has grace enough to carry us right through it,
if we will only go to Him and get it.
But we must ask for it day by day.
“As thy days, so shall thy strength be” (Deuteronomy 33:25)
(D.L. Moody)
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