January 21
Whatever you know of God’s truth, do it. That is what the disciples were told in John 2:5, “Whatever He says to you, do it.” Above all, it is what the Lord says, “You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you” (Jn 15:14). We never read of purifying our souls in hearing the truth; we do read of those who purified their souls in obeying it (1 Pet 1:22). “He that has My commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves Me” (Jn 14:21). Obedience, you see, is the test of love. God has joined the two together. If we want to know the extent of our devotion to Christ, it can be exactly...
Read MoreJanuary 20
Sir Moses Montefiore was the most famous Jew in the 19th Century. Linked by marriage and business to the Rothschilds, he was knighted by Queen Victoria and renowned for his philanthropy. He had an aunt Lydia in Marseille who was a determined Jewess. One day she received a visit from J.P. Cohen, a Jewish believer. Noticing her Bible, he took it up and read Isaiah 53, then asked what she thought of it. “I should like to hear your opinion,” replied Miss Montefiore. Cohen recounts, “I told her I could unhesitatingly say that it referred to the life and death of the Messiah, and that it had been...
Read MoreJanuary 19
Let others keep quiet about hell if they wish—I dare not. I see it plainly in Scripture, and I must speak about it. What would you say about the man who saw his neighbor’s house burning and never raised the cry of “Fire”? Call it bad taste, if you like, to speak about hell. Call it being charitable to make things pleasant and soothe people with a constant lullaby of “peace and safety.” From such notions of taste and charity may I ever be delivered! My notion of charity is to warn men plainly of their danger. My notion of taste is to declare all the counsel of God. If I never spoke of hell, I...
Read MoreJanuary 18
Didn’t Jesus receive a sinful nature through His mother Mary? Mary was not “immaculately conceived” in her mother’s womb. The Bible does not teach this; Mary knew she needed a Savior (Lk 1:47). Besides, this doesn’t solve the problem—it only moves it back one generation. Human reasoning will always leave us with Job’s question: “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” (14:4). He answered his own query with the brief “not one.” He could not anticipate “the mystery of godliness…God was manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim 3:16). We take the words of the angel at face value: “The Holy Ghost...
Read MoreJanuary 17
When I look over an audience and think of the misery that you and I do not see, that He does see, I think I understand what it means, “When He saw the multitude, He was moved with compassion” (Mt 9:36). We ought to have more compassion. How many times I have had to upbraid myself for this…One day my wife told me that one of the children in my Sunday school had been drowned. I took my little girl, four years old, and started for the home…the mother sat by the dead child, stroking her hair…The husband sat in the corner—drunk. I looked after the woman’s simple requests all very mechanically,...
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