the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Mornings and Evenings with Jesus
Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord. - Psalms 119:65.
THE Lord’s people will always have a good word to speak concerning their Lord and Saviour. If they are asked whether he has not been a good Master, they will tell us that he has never been unreasonable or severe in any of his demands. Ask them whether they have not had reason to speak well of his name: they will tell us, at the end of twenty, thirty, forty, or sixty years spent in his service, that he never has laid more upon them than he enabled them to bear. Our performances have been very poor, but he has smiled upon them, and has said, “She hath done what she could.” Some of his servants have been laid by through sickness, and could do nothing; but he has never sent them away to the hospital! No; but he has nourished them kindly at home. Some of them are now grown old, and can expect to do little or nothing for him now; but he has not forsaken them. He does not cast off his servants in the time of old age: he says, “I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth.”
And if we ask them whether he has not been to them a powerful Helper when they went to him pressed down with a sense of weakness, he said, “Fear thou not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God; I will strengthen thee, yea, I will help thee, yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” “My strength shall be made perfect in thy weakness,” and “as thy days so shall thy strength be.” They thought that such an approaching calamity would entirely overwhelm them, but with the season came the seasonable grace,- “Grace to help them in time of need.” They can now say, with David, “In the day when I cried thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul.”
And if we look back and see the stones we have erected all along the journey of life, some of them in secret places, but we know where to find them; some of them, perhaps, are now covered over with nettles and thorns; yet, removing these, we can read them again:- “Hitherto,” and “hitherto,” and “hitherto, hath the Lord helped me.” Yes; and has he not also been our kindest friend? “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.” Has this been too expressive of the tenderness of his consolation? When others have forsaken us, he has been with us even “in trouble,” and principally then.
As our Friend he has reproved us, but “faithful are the wounds of a friend;” and as Joseph, when he spoke roughly to his brethren, was obliged to turn away and weep, “for his bowels yearned within him,” so he has said, “Is Ephraim, my dear son, is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him.” He has corresponded with his people; he has visited them; and, when unable to go to his house, they have found him in the chamber of sickness, comforting them on the bed of languishing, and saying to their souls “I am thy salvation.”
And he has been to his servants, the best of portions. There was a time when we said, “The Lord is my portion, therefore will I hope in him;” “Whom have I in heaven but thee?” Our expectations from him, from that hour, were very large; and we were commanded to “ask, that we might receive, that our joy might be full.” And has he failed us? Has he not said to us, “Have I been a barren wilderness, a land of drought?”
And now, therefore, after so many past days, we are saying, He has done for me “exceeding abundantly above all that I could ask or think.”
Thou hast left thy first love. - Revelation 2:4.
WE should always make a difference between unavoidable infirmities and those declensions which, by the grace of God, we may escape. None of us advance as we ought to do; but this is still very distinguishable from turning into by-paths, or drawing back when in a proper road. How then are we to understand this charge? If we consider the words as applying to the Church of Christ in the present day collectively, then the charge may refer to the declension in the number and graces of the present race of professors, as compared with their predecessors; and this is no unusual thing.
The gospel, when introduced into a place, is commonly more successful at first. The Church resembles a newly-opened mine, which works freely at first, but afterwards requires much labour and yields little; so that by-and-by the owner abandons it, only leaving round the mouth some rubbish and cinders to tell the passengers there was once a mine. Everything in the Christian profession is prone to degenerate. Where is the denomination or church that has long remained in its glory? This reproof will apply also to individuals.
There were those who had fallen, and the charge is, the declension of their first love. In order to understand this, we may observe that a Christian’s feelings towards Divine things are commonly very lively and warm at first. They have the charm of novelty, and there is a simplicity of character which is lost afterwards, through changes arising out of new connections, new conditions, new circumstances, which by their intermixture debase, though they do not destroy, its nature. The young convert resembles a child, more remarkable for affectionate feelings than for knowledge or courage or anything solid; and such a character is very pleasing.
“A tree,” says Mr. Newton, “is most valuable in autumn, when laden with fruit; but more lovely in spring, when covered with blossoms.” God himself notices this in his address to the Jews by Jeremiah: “I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.” God loves a warm heart in religion. This is peculiarly desirable, and more acceptable to God than dull, dry indifference; man judgeth by the outward appearance, but God looketh at the heart. If Christ were to address us from heaven, might not his language be, concerning us-It is true you serve me; but it is rather from a sense of duty than privilege. It is true you hear my word, but not with that lively attention as at the beginning. It is true you observe my Sabbaths; but you do not hail them as heretofore, singing at their dawn,
“Welcome, sweet day of rest,
That saw the Lord arise,
Welcome to this reviving breast
And these rejoicing eyes.”
It is true you do not altogether “restrain prayer before God;” but where are those strong crying and tears by which it was once distinguished? where are those frequent and fervent ejaculations, “Lord, help me?” It is true you do not verbally deny me before men; but how often do you find it difficult to confess me? You sometimes wish to escape the shame of the cross; how then can you glory in it? You have not abandoned my cause; but where is the zeal that induced you to say, “Who is weak, and I am not weak! who is offended, and I burn not!” But we may understand the charge generally. It is said of Jehoshaphat that he walked in the first ways of his father David; and it is a sad implication that his first ways were his best ways. We have reason to believe that the king never equalled the shepherd in devotion.
