Daily Devotionals

Mornings and Evenings with Jesus

Devotional: November 7th

These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them. - Isaiah 42:16.

THE people of God, as they themselves acknowledge, deserve to be forsaken, and they often say, “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.” They may think themselves forsaken, and we have instances of this upon record: thus, Zion said, “The Lord hath forsaken me, and my God hath forgotten me.” “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, she may forget; yet will I not forget thee.” So Asaph said, “Will the Lord cast off forever? will he be favourable no more?” So David acknowledges, “I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes: nevertheless, thou heardest my supplications when I cried unto thee.” But they may be forsaken. God himself speaks of this in his word; but let us observe the period:-“For a small moment have I forsaken thee.” So it is in the apprehension of faith; so it always is very short compared with eternity.

Then observe the manner of his forsaking them; for, however this may be explained, it must be consistent with his assurance of not forsaking them. Now, there are three ways in. which God may forsake his people and yet the promise here made to the Jews remain substantially the same. First, In their outward condition, and he leaves them, saying, as he goes, “I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offences and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early.” Then he can reduce them in their circumstances, bereave them of their dearest relatives, remove their possessions and enjoyments, and leave them bare and destitute. But all this is compatible with his presence, for he has expressly said, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” God is expressly and peculiarly with his people in trouble.

Secondly, As to enjoyment of spiritual comfort. “Oh,” said one of old, “when wilt thou comfort me?” But when these spiritual consolations are suspended, there are great searchings of heart, much that shows the Spirit of God to be with them; for these anxieties come not from nature.

Thirdly, As to the exercise of grace,-not the existence thereof. Here we may refer to Hezekiah and Peter, though Peter’s faith did fail as to its exercise, yet not as to its principle. Though weak in himself, the Christian, reposing on the arm of Omnipotence, “shall not faint, or, fainting, shall not die.” “Yea, though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand.” What says the apostle to the Romans?-“I am persuaded that neither life, nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. - John 16:33.

THIS is a commendation of Christianity. The Christian’s course is not darkness, but light: it will bear examination. The evidences of our religion are not arguments but facts. Prophecies are not messages like the heathen oracles; they were delivered ages before their accomplishment, and some of them are accomplishing now. The miracles recorded in the Scriptures were not done in secret places and alone, so that they could not be gainsayed or denied; but they were performed in public, before the face even of enemies. The promises by which believers are incited and comforted are as real as they are valuable, and therefore the parties interested in them are “able to give a reason of the hope that is in them.” The world is like Jael standing at the door of the tent in the evening, spreading the mantle, and bringing out the butter in a lordly dish, but hiding the hammer and nail till she had smote the nail fast into the temples of Sisera.

But it is not thus with Christianity as to the dangers or sacrifices which it may require; instead of concealing these, it tells us from the beginning we shall have tribulation, that if any man believe in Christ he shall suffer persecution. The Saviour calls upon us to count the cost and calculate the labour of the journey, and see whether we have resources to bear the expense of the one and undergo the fatigues of the other. Christianity does not encourage its converts by flattery, it does not comfort its sufferers by denying their trials, it allows them to feel them, and it allows them to feel them heavily, but it does enough to animate them under them all. It can enable the Christian to dispense with the world and the things of the world; the world that is everything to others.

As to carnal men, when they are deprived of their outward possessions, they say with Micah, “You have taken away my gods, and what have I more?” But the Christian “having nothing, yet possesses all things.” The Christian must be a very wonderful man, a man of unbounded, of infinite resources. His mouth is filled with marrow and fatness. He can dispense with plenty, and say, “Though the fig-tree does not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” He can dispense with liberty, and say, having the presence of God, he desireth not the presence of the world. He can dispense with health and say, God “maketh all my bed in my sickness.” He can dispense with life and say, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”

He can dispense with the whole universe; and when the heavens pass away with a great noise, and the elements melt with fervent heat standing upon the ashes of the universe, he can exclaim, I look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.