BibleWare/BibWare.bin/bibstudy/morneven.exe/ME12.AM

Text File | 1993-09-05 | 64KB | 1,208 lines

* 12/01/AM

"Thou hast made summer and winter."
                                                   --Psalm 74:17

   My soul begin this wintry month with thy God. The cold snows
and the piercing winds all remind thee that He keeps His
covenant with day and night, and tend to assure thee that He
will also keep that glorious covenant which He has made with
thee in the person of Christ Jesus. He who is true to His Word
in the revolutions of the seasons of this poor sin-polluted
world, will not prove unfaithful in His dealings with His own
well-beloved Son.

   Winter in the soul is by no means a comfortable season, and
if it be upon thee just now it will be very painful to thee: but
there is this comfort, namely, that _the Lord_ makes it. He
sends the sharp blasts of adversity to nip the buds of
expectation: He scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes over the
once verdant meadows of our joy: He casteth forth His ice like
morsels freezing the streams of our delight. He does it all, He
is the great Winter King, and rules in the realms of frost, and
therefore thou canst not murmur. Losses, crosses, heaviness,
sickness, poverty, and a thousand other ills, are of the Lord's
sending, and come to us with wise design. Frosts kill noxious
insects, and put a bound to raging diseases; they break up the
clods, and sweeten the soul. O that such good results would
always follow our winters of affliction!

   How we prize the fire just now! how pleasant is its cheerful
glow! Let us in the same manner prize our Lord, who is the
constant source of warmth and comfort in every time of trouble.
Let us draw nigh to Him, and in Him find joy and peace in
believing. Let us wrap ourselves in the warm garments of His
promises, and go forth to labours which befit the season, for it
were ill to be as the sluggard who will not plough by reason of
the cold; for he shall beg in summer and have nothing.

* 12/02/AM

"Thou art all fair, my love."
                                           --Song of Solomon 4:7

   The Lord's admiration of His Church is very a wonderful, and
His description of her beauty is very glowing. She is not merely
_fair_, but "_all_ fair." He views her in Himself, washed in His
sin-atoning blood and clothed in His meritorious righteousness,
and He considers her to be full of comeliness and beauty. No
wonder that such is the case, since it is but His own perfect
excellency that He admires; for the holiness, glory, and
perfection of His Church are His own glorious garments on the
back of His own well-beloved spouse. She is not simply pure, or
well-proportioned; she is positively lovely and fair! She has
actual merit! Her deformities of sin are removed; but more, she
has through her Lord obtained a meritorious righteousness by
which an actual beauty is conferred upon her. Believers have a
positive righteousness given to them when they become "accepted
in the beloved" (Eph. 1:6). Nor is the Church barely lovely,
she is _superlatively_ so. Her Lord styles her "Thou fairest
among women." She has a real worth and excellence which cannot
be rivalled by all the nobility and royalty of the world. If
Jesus could exchange His elect bride for all the queens and
empresses of earth, or even for the angels in heaven, He would
not, for He puts her first and foremost--"fairest among women."
Like the moon she far outshines the stars. Nor is this an
opinion which He is ashamed of, for He invites all men to hear
it. He sets a "behold" before it, a special note of exclamation,
inviting and arresting attention. "_Behold_, thou art fair, my
love; _behold_, thou art fair" (Song of Sol. 4:1). His opinion
He publishes abroad even now, and one day from the throne of His
glory He will avow the truth of it before the assembled
universe. "Come, ye blessed of my Father" (Matt. 25:34), will be
His solemn affirmation of the loveliness of His elect.

* 12/03/AM

"There is no spot in thee."
                                           --Song of Solomon 4:7

   Having pronounced His Church positively full of beauty, our
Lord confirms His praise by a precious negative, "There is no
spot in I thee." As if the thought occurred to the Bridegroom
that the carping world would insinuate that He had only
mentioned her comely parts, and had purposely omitted those
features which were deformed or defiled, He sums up all by
declaring her universally and entirely fair, and utterly devoid
of stain. A spot may soon be removed, and is the very least
thing that can disfigure beauty, but even from this little
blemish the believer is delivered in his Lord's sight. If He had
said there is no hideous scar, no horrible deformity, no deadly
ulcer, we might even then have marvelled; but when He testifies
that she is free from the slightest spot, all these other forms
of defilement are included, and the depth of wonder is
increased. If He had but promised to remove all spots by-and-by,
we should have had eternal reason for joy; but when He speaks of
it as already done, who can restrain the most intense emotions
of satisfaction and delight? O my soul, here is marrow and
fatness for thee; eat thy full, and be satisfied with royal
dainties.

   Christ Jesus has no quarrel with His spouse. She often
wanders from Him, and grieves His Holy Spirit, but He does not
allow her faults to affect His love. He sometimes chides, but it
is always in the tenderest manner, with the kindest intentions:
it is "my love" even then. There is no remembrance of our
follies, He does not cherish ill thoughts of us, but He pardons
and loves as well after the offence as before it. It is well for
us it is so, for if Jesus were as mindful of injuries as we are,
how could He commune with us? Many a time a believer will put
himself out of humour with the Lord for some slight turn in
providence, but our precious Husband knows our silly hearts too
well to take any offence at our ill manners.

* 12/04/AM

"I have much people in this city."
                                                    --Acts 18:10

   This should be a great encouragement to try to do good, since
God has among the vilest of the vile, the most reprobate, the
most debauched and drunken, an elect people who must be saved.
When you take the Word to them, you do so because God has
ordained you to be the messenger of life to their souls, and
_they must_ receive it, for so the decree of predestination
runs. They are as much redeemed by blood as the saints before
the eternal throne. They are Christ's property, and yet perhaps
they are lovers of the ale-house, and haters of holiness; but if
Jesus Christ purchased them He will have them. God is not
unfaithful to forget the price which His Son has paid. He will
not suffer His substitution to be in any case an ineffectual,
dead thing. Tens of thousands of redeemed ones are not
regenerated yet, but regenerated they must be; and this is our
comfort when we go forth to them with the quickening Word of
God.

   Nay, more, these ungodly ones are prayed for by Christ before
the throne. "Neither pray I for these alone," saith the great
Intercessor, "but for _them also which shall believe_ on Me
through their word." Poor, ignorant souls, they know nothing
about prayer for themselves, but Jesus prays for them. Their
names are on His breastplate, and ere long they must bow their
stubborn knee, breathing the penitential sigh before the throne
of grace. "The time of figs is not yet." The predestinated
moment has not struck; but, when it comes, _they shall obey_,
for God will have His own; _they must_, for the Spirit is not to
be withstood when He cometh forth with fulness of power--_they
must_ become the willing servants of the living God. "My people
shall be willing in the day of my power." "He shall justify
many." "He shall see of the travail of His soul." "I will divide
him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with
the strong."

* 12/05/AM

"Ask, and it shall be given you."
                                                   --Matthew 7:7

   We know of a place in England