Gems from October 10- 20, 2016

“. . . the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.  For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.” 

(1 Thessalonians 5:1-2)  

I remember reading years ago of a gentleman who said that one day in every month he went to a certain city, a place where there were great steel mills.  These mills were going constantly, pounding, pounding, pounding, and he wondered how people could sleep; but the citizens were so used to the noise that it did not bother them.

He could get no sleep during the one night a month which he spent in that town. Then one time, in the middle of the night, something happened to the electric power, and in a moment the mills stopped.  Suddenly the whole town woke up.  They were so used to the noise that it put them to sleep.

Well, the world has heard the gospel down through the centuries and still sleeps on.  But some day the “Church” of God will be gone, and the gospel as now preached will be silenced.  Then the world will wake up to find that it is just entering upon the day of the Lord. 

The day of the Lord will so come as a thief in the night. (Note verse quoted above, (1 Thessalonians 5:1-2)

(H.A. Ironside)

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October 10

Crucified With Christ

"I am crucified with Christ;"

(Galatians 2:20-21)

Crucified with Christ were “our old man” (Rom 6.6), and “I” (Gal 2.20). 

There are only two races of people: Adam’s and Christ’s. “Our old man” refers to Adam’s race 

and anyone who is not “in Christ” (through faith) is “in Adam”. 

Sin had so corrupted Adam’s race that it was incapable of pleasing God, and at the cross He judged it. That judgment clearly extended to us individually as belonging to Adam’s fallen race.

This is a humbling thing. We have nothing of ourselves in which we can boast before God. 

The life we now live is through faith in the Son of God who “loved me, and gave Himself for me”. 

There were people around Galatia who were boasting in thinking that they could and should 

add to what Christ had done for them by law keeping, but Paul shows us that all 

that we have is from the Son of God because He gave Himself for us.

Somebody once said that the only reasonable response to “Himself for me” is, “me for Himself”. 

This is the response of love to the love of Calvary. 

He gave all and demands our all.

(Christian Living Today)

Were the whole realm of nature mine That were an offering far too small; 

Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my heart, my life, my all! 

(Isaac Watts)

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October 11

Hast Thou Heard Him, Seen Him, Known Him?

“Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying unto Him, Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.  When Jesus therefore saw her weeping . . . He groaned in the spirit, and was troubled. . . . Jesus wept.”

(John 11:32-35) 

Hast thou heard Him, seen Him, known Him? Is not thine a captured heart?

Chief among ten thousand own Him, joyful choose the better part.

Idols once they won thee, charmed thee, lovely things of time and sense;

Gilded thus does sin disarm thee, honeyed lest thou turn thee thence.

What has stripped the seeming beauty from the idols of the earth?

Not a sense of right or duty, but the sight of peerless worth.

Not the crushing of those idols, with its bitter void and smart;

But the beaming of His beauty, the unveiling of His heart.

Who extinguishes their taper till they hail the rising sun?

Who discards the garb of winter till the summer has begun?

'Tis the look that melted Peter, ’tis the face that Stephen saw,

'Tis the heart that wept with Mary, can alone from idols draw:

Draw and win and fill completely, till the cup o'erflow the brim;

What have we to do with idols who have companied with Him?

(Miss Ora Rowan - 1834-1879)

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October 12

The Three-Fold Promise

“They shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall 

run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”

(Isaiah 40:31)

Oh, wonderful promises given to those who wait on the Lord;

Strength for the faint who have fallen, power for weakness outpoured.

Blessed the three fold assurance thrilling the soul like a song:

They shall mount up as the eagles on wide wings and swift wings and strong;

Run with the stride of the racer, leaping unwearied and free,

Till he comes to the end of his journey and the crown of his effort shall see.  

But the word for the worn and the weary, who know not the rapture of wings, 

Who know not the joy of the runner, what infinite comfort it brings!

Walk and not faint; the slow steppings, the plodding dull round of the days,

The toil and the heat and the burden, the wearying halts and delays.

Oh, promise for those who are walking, who falter and stumble and fall,

The courage, the strength and the patience, this is the sweetest of all.

(Annie Johnson Flint)

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October 13

“For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness,

and their sins and their iniquities will I

remember no more.”

(Hebrews 8:12)

The “I will” statements of God in Hebrews 8:8-12 are in stark contrast with the “I will” declarations of Lucifer.

"For thou  (Lucifer) hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, 

I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: 

I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: 

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; 

I will be like the most High.” 

(Isaiah 14:13-14)

God extends promises and covenants for the purpose of saving,

restoring, and blessing repentant sinners.

Satan had no goal of helping others, but rather desired 

heavenly preeminence, the worship of creation,

and the authority to rule it.

He wanted to be God.

May we humbly align our “I wills” to God’s will and follow 

His example of being others-focused in service.

To God be the glory!

(Warren Henderson)

“To God be the glory, great things He hath done,

So loved He the world that He gave us His Son.”

(Fanny J. Crosby)

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October 14

“But now hath God set the members every one of them 
in the body, as it hath pleased Him.”

(1 Corinthians 12:18)

It is a mistake to suppose that all the members of the body of Christ are called 

to places of prominence, or that any member

can select his place in the body.

It is wholly and absolutely a matter of divine appointment.

It is not one man appointing another; still less is it a man 

appointing himself.

It is divine appointment, or nothing, yea, worse than nothing, 

a daring usurpation of divine rights.

(Food for the Desert)

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October 15

“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)

UNTO JESUS and not to our position in the Christian Church, 

to the family to which to we belong, to our baptism,

to the education which we have received,

to the doctrine which we profess,

to the opinion which others have formed of our piety,

or to the opinion which we have formed of it ourselves.

Some of those who have prophesied in the Name

of the Lord Jesus will one day hear Him say: “I never knew you” (Matthew 7:22, 23); 

but He will confess before His Father and before His angels

even the most humble of those who

have looked unto Him.

(Theodore Monod - 1874)

-Translated from the French by Helen Willis

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October 16

Stage by Stage

“And Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys by the commandment 

of the Lord: and these are their journeys according to their goings out.”

(Number 33:2)

Numbers 33 is a chapter in the Bible we might pass by without reflection. It appears to be nothing more than a long list of places tracing Israel’s pilgrimage from Rameses in Egypt to their arrival in the plains of Moab.  But it must be important because it’s the only section in Numbers that follows with the words: “Moses wrote . . . by the commandment of the Lord." 

Why keep a record of this?  Could it be that this list provides a framework upon which the Israelites emerging from the wilderness could retrace that forty year journey in their thoughts and recall God’s faithfulness at each location?

I envision an Israelite father, sitting near a campfire, reminiscing with his son: “I will never forget Rephidim! I was dying of thirst, nothing but sand and sage for hundreds of miles.  Then God directed Moses to take his staff and strike a rock—actually a hard slab of flint.  I thought, What a futile gesture; he’ll never get anything out of that stone.  But to my amazement water gushed out of that rock! A generous flow that satisfied the thirst of the thousands of Israelites.  I’ll never forget that day."

Psalm 114:8 “Which turned the rock into a standing water, the flint into a fountain of waters.”

Numbers 20:8 “Speak ye unto the rock . . . and it shall give forth his water . . .”

Reflect on your life—stage by stage—and remember all the ways 

God has shown you His faithful love.  

(David Roper) 

Count your many blessings, name them one by one. (Johnson Oatman Jr.) 

God’s faithfulness extends to all generations.

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“Our Daily Bread, RBC Ministries, Copyright (2016), Grand Rapids, MI. Reprinted permission."

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October 17

“Be careful (anxious) for nothing.”

(Philippians 4:6)

It is always weakness to be fretting and worrying, 

questioning and mistrusting.  Can we gain anything by it?

Do we not unfit ourselves for action, and unhinge our minds for 

wise decision?  We are sinking by our struggles when we might float by faith.

Oh, for grace to be quiet!

Oh, to be still and know that Jehovah is God!

The Holy One of Israel must defend and deliver His own.

We may be sure that every word of His will stand, though the mountains should depart.

He deserves to be confided in. 

 Come, my soul, return unto thy rest, and 

lean thy head upon the bosom of the Lord Jesus.

Peace thy inmost soul shall fill 

Lying still!

(Streams in the Desert)

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October 18

"Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me more than these?

He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord; Thou knowest that I love Thee.

He saith unto him, Feed My lambs.” 

(John 21:15)

Three hundred years ago Samuel Rutherford wrote:

“No greater testimony of our love to Christ can be, than to feed carefully and faithfully His lambs.”

And Didon wrote: “We have a great need nowadays of self-sacrificing souls

 to teach the young generation by their very lives.”

The little children of Jerusalem, exactly like little children everywhere, 

noticed what their elders did, and did it too.

They did in the afternoon what their elders had done on Palm Sunday morning—

The children were crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David (Matthew 21:15). 

Children generally reflect those who are about them.

Their clear eyes look through what we say to what we are.

Often there is nothing of sacrifice in our task of bringing up children.

But our Lord Jesus knew what it would cost Peter to feed His 

lambs, and He knows what it costs some of us.

He overlooks nothing, forgets nothing. 

And He says of each hidden sacrificial act,

”Ye have done it unto Me” 

(Matthew 25:40). 

(Whispers of His Power - Amy Carmichael)

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October 19

“Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able 

to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.” 

(Ephesians 6:16) 

A fiery dart is not a sudden desire to gratify some lust which arises from the flesh within; it is rather 

a diabolical suggestion from without that would raise a doubt as to the goodness of God. 

Satan hurled a "fiery dart” at Job when, in his terrible trial, his wife suggested that 

he should “curse God, and die.”  Job quenched this fiery dart with the shield

of faith, for he said, “Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and 

shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:9-10). 

The devil still uses the trying circumstances of life in his endeavour to shake our confidence

in God and to drive us from God.  Faith uses these very circumstances to 

draw near to God and thus triumphs over the devil.

Again, Satan may seek to instil some abominable thought into the mind, 

some infidel suggestion that burns into the soul and darkens the 

mind. Such thoughts are not quenched by human reasonings, 

or by falling back on “feelings” or “experiences”, 

but by simple faith in God and His word. 

(Hamilton Smith)

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October 20

“Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, 

rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do.” 

(1 Timothy 1:4)

Today we still need to beware of systems that do not build up our souls, 

but instead of that only serve to get Christians occupied with unprofitable questions.

There are some people who delight to argue.

John Bunyan has said, “Some love the meat; some love to pick the bones.”

And you will find people who delight in the bones of vital doctrines 

but get very little nourishment from the truth of God’s Word, 

because, instead of being occupied with Christ, 

they are occupied with various side issues.

Now Timothy was to warn the saints to beware of things like that.

That which builds up the people of God is heart-occupation with Christ.  

If we are taken up with Him we will become increasingly like Him.

(Selected)

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October 21

October 22