Daily Devotionals

Bowen's Daily Meditations

Devotional: May 21st

"The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." - Habakkuk 2:14.

The world with all its wisdom has not yet reached the platform where this humble servant of God stood more than two thousand years ago. But indeed, others had stood there before him. Isaiah had stood there and heard the song of the seraphim. Moses had stood there nearly a thousand years before, and heard the asseveration of the divine majesty, " As I live, all the earth shall be filled with my glory." It is the fashion with many to despise the stand-point of the ancient Israelites; nevertheless, it was the stand-point from which a number of them were permitted to see more of the future condition of the nations of the earth than the most sagacious politician is yet able to see.

What an idea of fulness does the contemplation of the sea convey to us! The basin of the sea is full. A very little added would cause a multitude of isles to disappear. The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof. All his works show forth his glory; and a long life might be spent in tracing a little leaf through all the ramifications of its eloquent history. But the Gospel is being published; and thousands of tongues are telling in many, many languages, the length and breadth, the depth and height of God’s immeasurable love in Christ. Still the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain; and the ministers of the gospel perpetually exclaim, " How long, Lord, how long?" The voices of the old prophets assure us that a race shall tread this earth in the latter days, whose eye shall have been anointed with eye salve to behold the full glory of God as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ, and to perceive the word " Bethel" written upon the face of universal nature. Every tree shall be to them a pillar in the temple of God; and every stone shall have written on it the ineffable name of God, The mountains shall bring peace, and the little hills shall yield joyously their contributions to the world-wide righteousness.

In this view a great interest attaches to this earth of ours, even to every particular locality of it. Concerning every place that we may visit, we have the assurance that a time will come when the redeemed shall walk there and hearken diligently to its song of emancipation, to its praises of God and the Lamb. We know, indeed, that sin and the works and memorials of sin are to be burnt out of the earth. We know, also, that our bodies shall sleep in dust and arise glorious. The resurrection of Christ is not only the guarantee of our resurrection, but of that of the material world which was made by him, and for him.

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