the Third Week after Easter
Daily Devotionals
Mornings and Evenings with Jesus
I will make mention of thy righteousness. - Psalms 71:16.
HERE let us inquire what we are to understand by God’s righteousness. Now, righteousness, in the Scripture, means his essential rectitude; as where it is said, “He is holy in all his ways and righteous in all his works.” And we may mention this righteousness of his, and his only, too, in all the difficulties arising from his administrations, in all the perplexities we feel with regard to many things: how sin entered into the world; what will be the condemnation and the state of the heathen; how it is that the gospel has spread so little, and a thousand other things which may occur, and concerning which we have no satisfaction; but we “will make mention of his righteousness,” and say, “Clouds and darkness are round about him, justice and judgment are the habitation of his throne.” “Is there unrighteousness with God? How then shall God judge the world?” Here, and here alone, is our relief in a multitude of perplexities and difficulties:-“The Judge of all the earth shall do-right.”
Sometimes the righteousness of God, especially in the Psalms, means his faithfulness. And thus Paul says “He is not unrighteous, to forget your work and labour of love.” He is not unrighteous to his promise, but he will do it. Hence David prays to be delivered from blood-guiltiness, and then says, “My tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.” Now, God has given in his word numberless promises; and it is well that in all these we can make mention of his righteousness,-that is, of his faithfulness. Hath he not promised that “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord”? Yes, and “the Lord is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent.” And with regard to all God’s promises, he assures us we can plead them from time to time, suing God at his own court:- “Remember the word upon which thou hast caused thy servant to hope.” “Do as thou hast said,” and what righteousness can be mentioned in comparison with his? that is, his faithfulness. “Let God be true, and every man a liar.”
But the word, the righteousness of God, often and more commonly means- especially in the New Testament-the method by which God makes a sinner righteous, and the way in which he justifies the ungodly who believe in Christ. “Now, the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe.” This is the righteousness of God, as he is the Author of it. “The righteousness of faith;” this is the apprehension of it. This is the righteousness which the apostle so much desired to be found in; and this is the righteousness which every Christian resolves to make mention of, and to make mention of only.
And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush turned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. - Exodus 3:2.
THIS immediately refers to the state of Israel in Egypt; they were greatly afflicted and oppressed. The Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and I am come down to deliver them.” God has always had a people for his name; and the Jewish Church and the Christian are substantially the same. And the bush burning with fire, yet unburnt, represented the Church of God blessed with his presence-suffering yet sustained, and exposed yet secure.
Observe, first, the emblem in which the Church is here held forth. Not a tall tree-not a lofty cedar of Lebanon, but a “bush,” a common bush; and very probably a bramble bush. If numbers and splendour are the marks of a true Church, where should we find for many ages the Church of God? Seldom in the Old Testament, never in the New. At this time it consisted of a number of slaves and brickmakers. And the prime ministers in the kingdom of Christ were a few fishermen taken from the lake of Galilee. The followers of our Saviour were the common people. “They heard him gladly.” “Have any of the rulers,” it was asked, “believed on him?”
Observe the condition in which it was found. “It was burning with fire.” Fire is in Scripture one of the emblems of distress and suffering. Hence we read, “Glorify God in the fires.” “I have also chosen thee in the furnace of affliction,” and of “fiery trials.” Israel was now grievously oppressed and persecuted. And this has ever been the case with the Christian Church. And we ought to call to remembrance the former times in which our forefathers, “of whom the world was not worthy,” suffered for God; and to be thankful for our exemption, and that we are permitted to “sit under our own vine, and under our own fig-tree, and none daring,” lawfully, “to make us afraid.” “In the world ye shall have tribulation,” says our Saviour; therefore, we find that private, personal, or relative privation and distresses may, under the providence of God, subserve the same purposes as did the persecutions of former times, and they actually do so.
Thirdly, Observe its preservation. It was “not consumed.” Thus the Church has continued till this hour. Other cities with their memorials have perished, but Mount Zion abideth for ever. The Saviour assures us that the “gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Yea, we see from history, the more it has been oppressed and persecuted the more it has multiplied and grown, and that the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church. And this is true of every individual believer, as well as of the whole Church of Christ. Not a limb from his body-not a child from his family-not a gem from his diadem has been destroyed, or ever shall be destroyed.
Observe, fourthly, The cause of this security. Why was it not consumed? Was it not combustible, and will not fire pervade and overcome everything? The cause was that the angel of the Lord was in the midst of it. “Cry out and shout, O inhabitant of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel,” says Isaiah, “in the midst of thee.” And David says, “God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved.” And thus saith the Lord, “I will be unto her a wall of fire round about her, and will be the glory in the midst of her.” And God is with his Church, and is in it now. He is with his people in their low estate; with them in their sufferings; in a way of sympathy, assistance, and succour. “In all their afflictions he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them.”
He still says, “I will be with thee in trouble;” and “when thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.”
