Daily Devotionals

Mornings and Evenings with Jesus

Devotional: May 24th

They shall come to worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem. - Isaiah 27:13.

HERE we have the effect of the gospel’s influence. “We ever find this personal and public dedication to God in connection with the spread and influence of the gospel. “All the ends of the world,” says the prophet, “shall hear, and shall turn unto God; all nations whom thou hast made shall come unto thee, and worship thee, from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same; in every place men shall offer incense and a pure offering.” By the “holy mount” here is meant the church of God. And in this mount all who partake of gospel grace come to worship. Believers thus habitually worship God in the shop, in the warehouse, in the field; for

“Where’er they seek him, he is found;

And every place is hallow’d ground.”

They do so in private. This Christ has enjoined:-“Enter into thy closet, and shut thy door about thee, and pray to thy Father which is in secret.” He himself was the grand example of devotion, for we find him rising a great while before day for this purpose. How amazing is this! we should have been ready to think he had less need of devotional retirement than we have! Oh, when we have business with One who alone can help us, let us seek him and look to him only, saying,-

“Be earth with all her scenes withdrawn;

Let noise and vanity begone;

In secret silence of the mind,

My heaven, and there my God, I find.”

All these worship God in their families too. Like Joshua, they determine that they and their households shall serve the Lord. A most dreadful curse is annexed to this duty. Matthew Henry has remarked that “a house without prayer is like a house without a roof.” And who could live in such an exposed place? Oh, how many children, how many servants, may be blessed by this practice! What a source of checks would it present to the head of the family! Can family quarrels abide with family devotions? When God calls us, and bestows so many blessings upon us, we ought surely to worship him. In the sanctuary, also, each convert will say, “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.”

It is by domestic and public worship that the cause of religion is maintained in a country or in a neighbourhood. The careless, the idle, the curious, are attracted from no good motive perhaps at the first; but God meets them, and he is glorified in their salvation. The sanctuary is always open as an asylum into which the children of sorrow may enter and find relief. There sits a poor disconsolate widow; her little one stands by her knee; she wipes away her tears with a corner of her apron. Let her alone: her soul is troubled within her; she has turned in to hear that “a Father to the fatherless, and a Judge to the widow, is God in his holy habitation.”

How valuable is public worship too, as it checks the excessive distinctions of life! Here all are reminded of their original and final equality. The monarch remembers that he is a subject of the King of kings, and falls down, before the Lord his Maker; the judge kneels down by the side of the criminal, and says, “Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.”

By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. - Romans 5:12.

Taking mankind at large, it is supposed that one dies every second. How many have died during the last hour, during the last day, during the last week, and during the last year! Oh, the immensity of the aggregate of the dead since the Fall! But of all this number one died first; and there are several things pertaining to the first of our race who died worthy our attention. The first man that died, died young.

Had the course of nature been followed, Adam and Eve would have died before Abel; but Abel went first, as if in the very beginning God would prevent the presumption of those who reckon upon life because of their youth. There cannot be a more fallacious rule to go by. The very first person that ever died, died suddenly- without warning, without sickness, in the fullness of health and strength. It is true, his death was the effect of external violence; but we need not to be informed that we are perpetually exposed to accidents, and to the malice of wicked and invisible Spirits. A sudden death commonly excites surprise, but there is nothing really wonderful in it; the wonder is on the other side. And when we consider the structure of our body, the multiplicity of the delicate organs and vessels of which it consists, the brittleness of the human frame, the wonder is that we live a single day or a single hour.

There are sixty movements of the blood every minute, so that sixty times every minute the question is asked, “Shall I live or die?” The very first man that died was a good man, a man accepted of God, loved of God. It might seem strange that God should allow this; but it showed from the first that “no man knoweth love or hatred by all that is before him,” that there is no judging of the regards of God by external dispensations, and that all things come alike to all. “There is one event to the righteous and to the wicked.” It showed, also, that though death was the effect of the curse, it could be turned into a blessing; and the fact altogether looks favourably to the human race.

God would not suffer Satan to have the first fruits of death. The first man that entered the grave entered glory, and heaven was inhabited by a human being before hell was inhabited by one. The very first man that died was a martyr; not only was he religious, but he died for his religion. “Marvel not that the world hate you.” Yes, “if any man will live godly in Christ Jesus he shall suffer persecution.” We see how soon this wretched business commenced in the world. It is found in the family of Abraham, between Ishmael and Isaac, where he that was “after the flesh persecuted him that was after the Spirit.” But it was found much earlier.

We read that Cain killed his brother Abel, because his own works were evil and his brother’s righteous. He hated him because God loved him. It was “God testifying of his gifts,” and accepting his sacrifice, that was the only provocation of his resentment; and the “carnal mind is still enmity against God.”