Daily Devotionals

Mornings and Evenings with Jesus

Devotional: May 23rd

The great trumpet shall be blown. - Isaiah 27:13.

HERE let us contemplate the grandeur of the gospel. “The great trumpet:” it is elsewhere called a “great light,” a “great salvation.” “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord?” It is called the “glorious gospel.” There is a grandeur in the gospel of God, which soars far beyond all finite excellency and conception. The period of its introduction is called “the fulness of time.” All things from the beginning of the world were designed to prepare the way for it: as the period approached, God said, “Yet, once it is a little while, and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come.”

The gospel regards immediately the soul and eternity,-the only two things in the world which men despise and neglect. The gospel abounds with exceeding great and precious promises; it unfolds blessings that are incomprehensible in their nature and excellency; for “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” The apostle does not refer here to the treasures of glory, but to the provisions of the gospel; for he adds, “But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit.” Every thing compared with the gospel is trifling and mean.

True, the world often allures, but it is in the absence of thought; its power over us is derived from delusion. As soon as we can reflect, as soon as we enter into solitude, and when we are on the borders of the grave, oh, how the world diminishes and disappears! How amazed we are that it should ever acquire such influence over us! How surprised at the exertions, the sacrifices, we have made to carry any of its points! But now the gospel rises to an inconceivable value; it appears to our minds as the one thing needful. When a man is awakened and enlightened from above, all else falls in his esteem. Then the cry is not, “What shall I eat, or what shall I drink, or wherewithal shall I be clothed?” but, “What shall I do to be saved?” How shall I bow myself before the most high God? How shall I obtain justification unto life? How shall I obtain a title to heaven, and a meetness for it? No wonder the apostle calls this “the wisdom of God in a mystery.” Here we contemplate God as a God of love; here we see the greatness of his mighty power; here we see the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness to us; here he hath abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence; here we behold the image of the invisible God; here we see why Paul rejoiced in it, as being the “power of God to salvation to every one that believeth.” The Romans, to whom he addressed these words, delighted in power; and he extols the power of the gospel.

To use the beautiful amplification of these words by Dr. Watts, it is as if he had said, “I am not ashamed to believe it as a man; I am not ashamed to profess it as a Christian; I am not ashamed to preach it as a minister; I am not ashamed to publish it as an apostle; I am not ashamed to die for it as a martyr.”

A lively hope. 1 Peter 1:3.

THE “hope laid up for us in heaven” has entirely and only to do with life. All life is valuable, but there is a life which deserves the name-a life of justification, a life of sanctification, the life of God in the soul of man, the life everlasting. This hope has only to do with this life. It is a hope full of immortality. The Apostle here means that it is durable and growing. Other hopes die. We have buried many of our hopes already, and others are dropping off like leaves in autumn. But this hope can never decline, never diminish: it will not grow dim with the eye, nor dull with the ear of the body; but as the “outward man perishes, the inward man will be renewed day by day.”

Time is necessarily killing every other hope. Every day, every hour, takes something from our worldly possessions and enjoyments, and brings us nearer to the end of them; but the very reverse of this is the case with the Christian’s hope. Every day, every hour, instead of diminishing, increases it; brings us nearer to its fruition and perfection for ever. He means to tell us, that in this “lively hope” there is an efficiency. This hope can never be found in the soul inoperative. All real hope indeed is active and lively, according to its degree. Let us look at the energy of a Christian’s hope in trials; it is “an anchor of the soul, sure and stedfast:” holding us secure in the raging and buffeting of the sea and storm.

“A hope so much divine

May trials well endure.”

Let us view the vigour of this hope in worldly temptations. Moses not only endured the menaces of Pharaoh because he saw “Him who was invisible,” but “when he was come to years he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he had respect to the recompense of the reward.”

It is thus by faith the Christian overcomes the world. He can only be weaned from earth by finding and realizing something better. When the soul is satisfied with the goodness, and filled with the blessing of the Lord, the world allures in vain. See the vigour of this hope in duty. When is a Christian so active as when he feels “the joy of God’s salvation,” and can “rejoice in hope?” How this drives off dullness, and indifference, and sloth, and even drowsiness in religious concerns! How the Christian “worships God in the Spirit,” and is “fervent in Spirit, serving the Lord.” For the “joy of the Lord is our strength.” See the vigour of this hope in the Christian’s sanctification and holiness. He that “hath this hope purifieth himself even as he is pure,” as to measure, and degree, and quality; for the believer, “beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, is changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”