Daily Devotionals

Mornings and Evenings with Jesus

Devotional: January 1st

And the LORD said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward. - Exodus 14:15.

WE may consider this command three ways:-First, In reference to the journey of the Israelites. Now, to judge of this command, we have only to reflect upon the condition of the people; the army of Pharaoh was behind them, and the sea was immediately before them, and to go forward would be to advance into the sea itself; but we may observe that God’s commands are so many intimations and assurances of success. “Go forward,” saith God to Moses. Did he say, “What, Lord, and be drowned in the sea?” No; but they went forward, and the waters opened before them, and they passed through the sea as on dry ground. Now all this is very instructive and interesting. It teaches us to do all things in religion “without murmurings and disputings,” and that nothing more becomes us than a childlike disposition, exercising implicit confidence in God, and unquestioning obedience to his commands. And this will apply to declarations as well as to commands. What he has revealed we are to believe on the authority of the Speaker. It will also apply to the dispensations of divine providence. When any of these seem to be at variance with our views, we are to remember that “all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth.”

Secondly, Let us consider this command in reference to ourselves, for if Christians, we are on our way from Egypt to Canaan, “seeking a better country, even a heavenly;” and it becomes us to be always advancing in “the way everlasting.” Christians are therefore enjoined to “go forward.” It is an awful thing when instead of this any go backward. The Ephesians went backward, and so were called to “repent” and do their “first works,” and to exemplify their “first love,” or lose the privileges with which they were indulged. Christian went back in order to find and fetch the roll which had dropped from his bosom while he slept in the arbour. Alas! how far many Christians have gone back and are ready to say-

“Where is the blessedness I knew,

When first I saw the Lord?”

It is also a sad thing for Christians, instead of going forward to be only stationary. Let us then go forward, fighting the good fight of faith, laying hold on eternal life.

Thirdly, Let us view this command in reference to the progress of time. Time is always advancing. The hour-glass, the day or week, the years all “go forward.” We are another year nearer now than at the beginning of the past year. Nearer where-what? Conscience, answer. But how are we to go forward?

Let us take the following admonitions for our march-first, go forward with humbleness of mind; let us not go strutting into the new year as if we had been acting wisely, worthily, or meritoriously throughout the past year, but with penitent reflections upon the sins of our weekday, and of our Sabbath-day sins, so that we may gratefully acknowledge that “it is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.”

And therefore, Secondly, With gratitude in remembrance of his mercies. They have been “new every morning.” What preserving, supplying, supporting, and satisfying mercies have we daily received. Thirdly, Under a sense of present aid; in opposition to our complainings and murmurings, distinguishing between our deserts and supplies.

Fourthly, With a firm confidence as to what may befall us in the future. His promises more than meet all our circumstances, and provide for all contingencies of futurity, for we know who hath said, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee,” and that as our day so shall our strength be.

Fifthly, With earnest and constant prayer; neglecting prayer, our souls will be constantly exposed to danger, whereas if we abound in this, our souls will “prosper and be in health.” Let us then be coming daily to the “throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and grace to help us in every time of our need;” and, lastly, with frequent, thoughts of our journey’s end. And it will have an end, and we are brought one year nearer to it.

We may die this year If we are Christians, we may this year get rid of a wicked world without, and a wicked heart within, and be introduced to Him whom our souls love, and see him as he is, and be like him, and be with him forever, evermore.

In that day shall there he … a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord. - Isaiah 19:19.

WHILE passing from one annual period to another, this remarkable and significant prediction concerning Egypt may serve to remind us of the obligation under which we lie to rear a pillar of remembrance and memorial unto the Lord our God. “At the border” of the new year, therefore, First, Let us, in the Spirit and design of the action, set up a pillar on which to record our past sorrows. This will tend to keep us in remembrance that while

“Every sigh and every pain

Are but the fruit of sin,”

our sorrows are designed for our benefit; that, as it is “good for a man to bear the yoke,” so it is good to remember it. The remembrance of these will sober our future prospects and lower our earthly hopes, while it will encourage us by showing that, though we may be “cast down” we may not be “destroyed,” and though we may be “troubled on every side,” yet we may not be “distressed.”

Secondly, Let us set up a pillar on which to record our temporal deliverances. David remembered the hill Mizar- probably the scene of some signal deliverance-Hezekiah composed a writing on his recovery from sickness, and gave it to the leader of the psalmody, in order that it might be sung in the temple, and he said: “The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day;” and Paul said, “He who hath delivered doth deliver, and he, we trust, will yet deliver us.” We, too, have been helped in our straits, and supplied every morning and evening with needed mercies. Let us take care to keep ourselves sensible of our obligations to God for his interposition.

“Why should the wonders he hath wrought,

Be lost in silence and forgot?”

Again, let us record on this pillar of remembrance our Spiritual benefits-such as the Son of his love, the Spirit of his Son, the throne of his grace, the word of his truth, and the exceeding great and precious promises thereof, which are “yea and amen in Christ Jesus.” All Christians have some red-letter days in the almanack of their experience, and times of love to remember and to be grateful for. Oh, what a “time of love” was that when he said unto us “Live;” when he “called us out of darkness into his marvellous light;” when he poured the balm of hope into the bosom of despair, and enable us to say, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”

“Many days have passed since then,

Many changes I have seen;

But have been upheld till now-

Who could hold me up but Thou?”

But we have been upholden in our work and warfare. What snares laid for our souls he has broken, and what “times of refreshing have come” to us “from the presence of the Lord.” At his throne, in his house, and at his table, how often have his comforts delighted our souls; and his promises have been fulfilled in our experience, meeting our wants and woes, our weaknesses and diseases. “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.”

“Here I raise my Ebenezer,

Hither by thy help I’m come;

And I hope by thy good pleasure

Safely to arrive at home.”