the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
The Poor Man's Morning and Evening Portions
May 7—Morning—Hosea 14:7
"They shall revive as the corn."—Hosea 14:7.
Sweet promise to comfort a soul like mine, under so many and such frequent languishing graces! How often hath it appeared to my view as if the gracious seed had perished! It was small, indeed, in its first beginning, like the grain of mustard seed; and no sooner had it appeared, than I perceived it almost choked with the tares of corruption, unbelief, and Satan’s rubbish. I was soon led to suspect God’s work upon my soul. Surely, I said, this is not grace. Presently I could see no more of it. I was ignorant that by thus dying to self, the Holy Ghost was opening to my view the only living in Jesus. In a moment unlooked for, it revived as the corn. Ah, from whence is the source? Not from self, not from labours, not from exertions: can dead roots live? The Holy Ghost taught me this must be Jesus. Your life, he said, is hid with Christ in God. Here are the springs of grace: here, from hence, flow the streams of that river which make glad the city of God. Here then is faith’s view of God’s glory in Christ. Here is the promise. "They shall revive as the corn." And thus it is fulfilled. "In me," saith that precious Redeemer, "is thy fruit found." Mark this down, my soul. Both root and fruit are in one and the same, even Jesus. Spiritual attainments are in Jesus, not in the greenest buddings or fairest blossoms of our own labours. Live then, my soul, wholly upon Jesus, and then thou wilt revive as the corn. Suppose it trodden down; suppose the tares of the wicked rise to oppose it, yet if Jesus be the root, and the springs of grace in him flow, as they cannot but flow, to keep alive all the branches in him, there shall be, there must be at last, a glorious harvest. Oh what a volume doth the soul sometimes read at once in that short promise," Because I live, ye shall live also." Hail, hail, thou glorious root out of a dry ground; thou wilt send forth the golden ears for thine own garner. Thou wilt weed out every thing that annoys. Thou wilt water, and by the sweet influences of thy blood, thy word, and Spirit, thou wilt shine upon the standing corn. And when, by all thy gracious husbandry, for the whole work and glory is thine, thou hast caused the plentiful crop to hang down their heads in all the humbleness of self-abasement, as the token of ripeness; thou wilt command thine angel to put in the sickle of death, and take home every stalk and every grain of the precious seed to thy garner in heaven.
May 7—Evening—Revelation 2:10
"Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life."—Revelation 2:10.
My soul! thy last evening meditation, by faith, was on Pisgah’s top. This evening, do thou attend to what thy Saviour speaks in this scripture of the prospect of a prison. This forms the state and condition of the believer. The transition he is sometimes, and suddenly, called to make, is from the house of feasting to the house of mourning. He is here but in a wilderness at the best; and whatever accommodations he meets with by the way, the apartments of joy and sorrow are both under the same roof, and very often it is but a step from one to the other: yea, sometimes, and not unfrequently, when Jesus hath been feasting with his people, and they with him, before the cloth hath been taken away, and the blessing offered up, a reverse of circumstances hath followed.—But what saith thy Lord in this sweet scripture, (for it is a sweet one, if well considered)? "Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer." There is a fear which belongs to our very nature, and impossible wholly to be free from it; it is indeed part of ourselves. No creature of God but one, and that is the Leviathan, that we read of, is wholly free from it, Job 41:33. The blessed Jesus himself, when assuming our nature, condescended to take all the sinless infirmities of our nature, and therefore was subject in some degree to it; for we are told, that "he was made in the likeness of sinful flesh," Romans 8:3. Hence we read, that his holy soul, when in the garden, was "sore troubled, sore amazed, and very heavy." Listen, my soul, to these complaints of thy Redeemer! .And when at any time fear ariseth within at the conflicts of Satan, recollect how Jesus felt during his unequalled agony. One look, by faith, directed to him, as in the garden, will quiet all. "Having himself suffered, being tempted, he knows how to succour them that are tempted." But, besides this natural fear, to which our nature is subject, there is a sinful fear, which unbelief, doubt, and distrust too often bring into the soul. And it is this, if I mistake not, to which Jesus hath respect in his precept before us. All hell is up in arms, to harass and distress a child of God; and if the devil cannot deprive the believer of his heavenly crown, he will rob him as much as possible of his earthly comfort. Mark, then, my soul, what thy Jesus here proposeth for relief. The devil would cast thee into hell, if he could, but his rage can reach no farther than to a prison. He would cast the whole church, if he could, into it; but it shall be only some of the church. He would cause the confinement, if he could, to be for ever; but Jesus saith, it shall only be for ten days. And the Holy Ghost hath caused it to be left on record, as a thing much to be observed, that when the church was in Egypt, and Pharaoh would have kept the people in vassalage for ever; yet when the Lord’s time before appointed was arrived, "the self-same night, the Lord brought them forth with their armies," Exodus 12:41-42. Oh! it is a subject worthy to be kept in everlasting remembrance, that "the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation." Now, my soul, ponder well these things; and connect with them what Jesus hath connected with the subject in that sweet promise: "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." Precious Jesus! put thy fear in me; and the fear of man, which bringeth a snare, will depart. Be thou with me in trouble, and my trouble will be turned into joy. Should a prison shut me in; no prison can shut thee out. Every distressing thought will be hushed asleep, while, by faith, I hear my Lord speaking to me in those soul-comforting words: "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," Isaiah 41:10.
