Daily Devotionals

Mornings and Evenings with Jesus

Devotional: October 29th

Who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. - 1 Peter 2:9.

THE state referred to was one of great wickedness, wretchedness, weakness, and vice. This state is common to all mankind by nature. For, naturally, men are not found in different states, but in different degrees of the same state; all descended from the same source; and “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” Not one.

This, therefore, applies to the subjects of divine grace as well as others. “We were sometimes foolish and disobedient, walking in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another;” and after this the kindness and love of God through Christ towards man appeared. They therefore often look (but not half often enough) “to the rock whence they were hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence they were digged.” For they are not left where they were found. “They were dead, but are alive again; they were lost, but are found;” they were afar off, but they are made nigh; they were once darkness, but are now made light in the Lord, for he hath called them out of darkness into his marvellous light.

Observe the medium of their deliverance from this state. God himself called them. When men would execute their purposes they stand in need of instruments, and with all these, sometimes numerous and various, they fail in accomplishing their enterprise. But when God works, none can let or hinder. It is enough for God, in the production of his designs, to speak. It was so in the first creation: he only “spoke and it was done, he commanded and it stood fast.” He said, “Let there be light, and there was light.” He called things which were not, and they appeared. It is the same in the dispensation of his providence. He calls, it is said, for a sword, and it leaps out of its scabbard, and thousands arm themselves with instruments of destruction; he calls for a famine, and cleanness of teeth stalks throughout the land; he calls for a pestilence, and the cholera comes, and says, Whom shall I strike next? It is the same in all the operations of his grace.

He therefore derives his character from this:-“Faithful is he who hath called you, who also will do it.” This spirit cometh not from him who calleth you. Now, here our divines distinguish a twofold call. The one is common to all who are addressed by conscience, by afflictions, by reproofs, and by the examples of the wise and good, and by having opportunities to hear and to read the Scriptures of truth. But then there is another call, which they distinguish as internal and effectual. It is so because it is heard in the very conscience, and is obeyed from the heart; because now the end is answered:-they hear, and their souls live.

When God says, “Seek ye my face,” they answer, “Thy face, Lord, will I seek.” He calls on them to “forsake the foolish and live, and walk in the way of understanding,” and they comply; he calls upon them to believe on the name of the only begotten Son of God, and they are soon at his feet, crying, “Lord, save, or I perish;” he calls them to come out of darkness, and they obey.

Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God. - Romans 6:11.

CHRISTIANS are herein reminded of what they are. The Apostle would have them form a correct estimate of themselves: “Reckon yourselves” as such, says he. And there are three reasons to be assigned for this. We should reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God, in order to maintain the conduct that is suitable to such. For our conduct should correspond with our character and condition. The way to know what we ought to do is to ascertain what we are; for our duties grow out of our conditions and relations. “If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.” “Seeing ye look for these things, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness.” Christians are not to live like others; more is expected from them than from others. Therefore let us be concerned to “walk worthy of God, who has called us unto his kingdom and glory.”

Secondly, We should thus reckon ourselves to be such, in order that we may be kept from wondering at the treatment of such. By their principles and practice, Christians censure and condemn the world, and if we oppose them they will oppose us as far as they have the power. They wish to be in darkness, and hate the light that Christian conduct flashes upon them. They wish to be asleep, and they dislike to be aroused; nor will they easily forgive the disturbance. The Saviour says, “Marvel not if the world hate you; ye know that it hateth me.” And why did it hate him? What he said to the Jews he could now say to many empty and inconsiderate professors of religion who live so much in the world: “The world cannot hate you” (because they were so much like it), “but me it hateth, because I testify of it that the works thereof are evil.”

Thirdly, We are to reckon ourselves as being thus “dead” and “alive,” in order that we may rejoice in the portion of such. “Oh, how great is the goodness which God has laid up for them that fear him; which he has wrought for them that trust in him before the sons of men.” If the world frowns on us, he smiles. If they condemn us, he is near to justify us. Such a death and such a life as this demands self-denial and sacrifices, which will be more than indemnified if there be any meaning and truth in the Scriptures.

We may be losers in his service, but we can never be losers by it. “There is no man who hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God’s sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time and in the world to come life everlasting;” for “the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory, and no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.”