the Fourth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
John Gossner's Treasury
And what one nation in the earth is like thy people, even like Israel which thou redeemedst to thee? 2 Samuel 7:23. And what nation is there so great that hath statutes and judgments so righteous? Deuteronomy 4:8. He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Psalms 147:20.
Thus the Israelites praised themselves more fortunate than all the other people on earth. They were the most fortunate also, at least all the true children of Israel; for they possessed divine privileges and had their God as close as they could have Him, according to God’s dispensation in the old covenant. But soon it was said, "The people which shall be created shall praise the Lord" (Psalms 102:19). “I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved" (Hosea 2:23; Romans 9:24), that is, I will cast off the Jewish people and gather unto me a people from among the Gentiles. And concerning this people it is said, “I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people" (2 Corinthians 6:16). "Thy people also shall be all righteous" (Isaiah 60:21). After He had gathered this new people it was said, "Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light: which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy" (1 Peter 2:9-10). With the glory of this new covenant, or of Christianity, nothing else can be compared. Only let us walk in it, as is becoming, and really taste the grace and the blessedness which a child of God may possess! May this be your care and endeavor! Do not glory in what you are not nor in what you do not possess. One appropriates to himself so easily the beautiful, glorious words one reads in the Bible and thereupon forgets to seek to come into possession of the thing itself. Blessed, glorious, and great, is he who is a true Christian, who really possesses and enjoys that which is promised to the Christian.
Glorious things of Thee are spoken,
Zion, city of our God;
He whose Word can not be broken,
Formed thee for His own abode.
On the Rock of Ages foundered,
What can shake thy sure repose?
With salvation’s walls surrounded,
Thou mayest smile at all thy foes.
