OCTOBER 10, 2023

 “Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man. But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy: and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple. Lead me, O LORD, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies; make thy way straight before my face.” (Psalm 5:6-8)

This fifth Psalm is another from the pen of David; however, we don’t have any specific evidence of the occasion of the writing other than the fact that he was beset by enemies and in peril amid violent men. Sadly, for David, this wasn’t an exceptional case. Who those violent men were is unimportant, for the proper object of the writing was to express sentiments to all who find themselves in similar circumstances. David does this by pointing toward, what should be, the real ground of trust for the people of God at such times.

God will destroy those who speak leasing or lies (leasing is the old Saxon word denoting falsehood). He will bring these people to perish through punishment for this iniquity. David’s idea, which is true, is that God can never and will never be able to support their cause or find favor in them. Therefore, these people must be overthrown and punished, since God cannot dwell with sin; it must be fully dealt with. God will hold in abomination those practicing this sin. God cannot take part in sin, nor will He countenance evil. The righteous, however, can appeal to every aspect of the Divine nature as grounds for confidence and trust.

While some men are characteristically wicked and have neither desire to serve God, nor access to God, and therefore, no reason to suppose their prayers will be heard, David and all of God’s children are assured that He will listen to us. “But as for me,” David writes, “I will come into thy house,” unlike those living in iniquity. He is permitted to enter the courts of the Lord from which he had now been driven away and his purpose is thus to acknowledge God. But through all the hardships, because of God’s abundant mercy, David felt assured that he would once again be permitted to enter God’s earthly courts and offer his vows and thanksgivings there.

In verse nine, David pleads that the Lord conduct him safely in the manifestation of the principles of justice and righteousness, which belong to His divine nature. David felt assured that his cause was righteous and that he might appeal to God on the grounds of the justness of that cause. Such a ground of appeal is always proper when we are in danger or trouble from the injustice of others. We may always ask God to interpose and to cause what is suitable to be done so that we may be vindicated in the face of our enemies. God will mark out, or make plain the path before us where He wants us to tread – the course in which He will deliver us. When we are all turned around and don’t know which way to go, we can always look up to God for guidance and direction.

OCTOBER 5, 2023

 “My people hath been lost sheep…” (Jeremiah 50:6)

“My people,” He says, “hath been lost sheep.” –  God’s people, whom He has chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the world. (Eph. 1:4) When God saves lost souls, He is not, as I have heard some preach, turning “goats” into “sheep.” They do not become His sheep by being found, nor did they cease to be sheep by being lost. They were sheep eternally in the mind of God, and their being lost did not alter nor destroy their character of being sheep. Neither does the wandering astray of one of God’s sheep from the fold turn that one into a goat. It may be lame, sick, and diseased, its fleece may be torn with briars or soiled with dirt, its appearance altered so that the shepherd may scarcely recognize it, but it is a sheep still, and ever shall be.

They are “lost sheep;” lost, undone, without hope, without strength; lost, having no power to find the way to glory. They are lost having no hope of ever reaching the heavenly shore, save under the immediate work and guidance of the Holy Spirit. When He takes up that work, just as the fingers of a man’s hand wrote the sentence of condemnation in the plaster on the wall of King Belshazzar’s palace, so does the Spirit of God write the word “LOST” upon the conscience of every lost sheep. And when He has written this word with power on their conscience, they are branded in such a manner that the impression is never to be erased until it is blotted out by the atoning blood of the Mediator.

In the two verses that precede the text, and in the text verse itself, we have a description of the way in which the Lord leads His people. They have been carried away, far astray. The cause of this is assigned to their false shepherds. “Their shepherds have caused them to go astray.” They are “going and weeping.” God has caused them to know the horrible state of their lostness. They are in the enemy land. They begin to “seek the Lord their God.” They are “asking the way to Zion, their faces thitherward.”This is the work of the Holy Spirit. Notice first, He brings a soul to know the horror of his lost state. He then causes that lost one to seek help – to seek the Lord. He causes him to “ask the way to Zion” – the heavenly Zion, yes, but the way there goes through the earthly Zion, the Church. “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.” (Mic. 4:2) The way to heaven is found in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ; in the Gospel that she is commissioned to preach. Oh, we beseech you, consider the awful danger of being lost; seek help – ask the way to Zion; seek the Lord your God. He is to be found in the Gospel, for “it is the power of God unto salvation for every one that believeth.” If you would know the way to Zion, please ask of them who are going there.

But the Lord here speaks of His people as having “forgotten their resting place.” God is, therefore, making an appeal to His people who had known the sweet rest and comforts of His Church and had gone astray. This sheds some light on the fact that God’s sheep were lost “on the mountains” where their false shepherds had led them. God’s sheep are lost in the first instance because of the fall – they are lost from their very conception. In this case, however, it is rather the straying away of sheep who have known the fold, than of those that had never known the voice of the Good Shepherd. Thus, it corresponds with the parable of the lost sheep. (Luke 15:4-6) In either case, the situation is one of grave danger. Professed sheep, who have gone astray, dare not presume while they are “away on the mountains,” lest they be found, in fact, to be of that number to whom Jesus said, “Ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep.” He said quite clearly, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:27)

OCTOBER 3, 2023

 “And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase. I am the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.” (Leviticus 25:35-38)

What should we do when someone we know has fallen on hard times? How should we help this person? Before diving into how to treat this person, we must identify who is being discussed. While initially, Moses identifies this person as “thy brother,” he is speaking in a general sense. He is not talking about only helping those of the same blood as you or even those of the same nation as you, but instead of helping all people as you would family members or those of the same nature as men. This is much like when people are referred to as “neighbors” in scripture. The reference is not talking about literally the people who live near you, but treating all you encounter like this. Moses spells this out when he says,“though he be a stranger, or a sojourner,” implying that the instructions aren’t only for an actual relative but all people in general. All men are to be looked upon and treated as brethren, for we “…have all one father.” (Mal. 2:10)

Now that we know the subject of the command, we look at how we are commanded to act because, though this person is poor and distressed, he is still your brother and should be treated as such. By sympathy, we need to pity (whether that be monetarily, spiritually, or even health-wise) our poor brothers and sisters. By service, taking them in and doing for them, and by supply, giving them all you can according to what ails them.

Those you have aided should never be indebted to you (the usury of v.35). In other words, you should never help someone with the expectation of being paid back. Think of this person, again, as a member of your own family who is hurting and how you would never hold whatever “goodness” you’ve shown them over their heads. Like the Good Samaritan of the parable in Luke chapter 10, we should never help a person out of an expectation of some return, but because he was a man in a tough spot. There is no Biblical reason for the lender to share with the borrower for a profit. This command is given to relieve people experiencing poverty, to whom it is sometimes as great a charity to lend freely as it is to provide.

It is ultimately up to those who have received mercy to show mercy to others. If God can be gracious and show us undeserved mercy, we should not withhold that same grace from our fellow man.

SEPTEMBER 28, 2023

 “For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? is it not in that thou goest with us? so shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.” (Exodus 33:16)

The transaction that is recorded in this chapter is perhaps the most remarkable of any that we find in the history of the children of Israel. Consider the circumstances and what precedes this interview between Moses and God. It was after they had so sadly worshipped the golden calf, after they had provoked the Lord by their base idolatry, that He suffers Himself to be prevailed upon by the prayers of Moses, the typical Mediator, to show forth His mercy and grace; and not, in His own words, “Consume them in the way.”

What was it that called forth this appeal from the mouth of Moses? The Lord had said to him, “Depart, and go up hence, thou and the people which thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which I sware unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob…” (Ex. 33:1)

The Lord, by this speech, puts the children of Israel into the hands of Moses. It is as if He was saying, “I will fulfill my promise; I said I would take them to the land of Canaan, and I will do so, but I will renounce the direct charge of them. I will fulfill My promise to Abraham, so that none shall call Me unfaithful, yet My presence shall not go with them. I relinquish charge of them.” This was the most cutting stroke that God could have given to Moses, for his soul, like every child of God, was so deeply penetrated and possessed with a sense of his own helplessness and nothingness, that such words from the mouth of the Lord seemed a deathblow to all his hopes. It was this, therefore, that led him to plead so earnestly with the Lord. He says, “If Thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.” He would sooner have stayed where he was and die in the wilderness without moving a single step forward than to be deprived of God’s presence. He would rather God did not fulfill His promise at all than to deny him His presence. What would life be without the Lord? Why go to the Promise Land at all? Heaven would not be heaven if our precious Savior were not there.

Thus Moses, as the Psalmist says, “Stood before the Lord in the breach.” (Psa. 106:23) He was the typical Mediator, and the Lord condescended to hear his prayer. God assured him that His presence would go with him, and that He would give him rest. This precious promise led Moses to offer the prayer contained in the text, this affectionate and powerful plea with Jehovah: “Wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people (notice how Moses, like Christ our Mediator always include the people) have found grace in thy sight? is it not that thou goest with us? so shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.”

How wonderful is this text! First, it assures us that the original source and fountain of every spiritual blessing that the soul receives for time and eternity is God’s amazing grace – “That I and thy people have found grace in thy sight.” Then, the chief blessing of finding grace in God’s sight is the knowledge of His presence. “Wherein shall it be known?” – Both with God’s people and with others. And then we see that the fruit and effect of God’s manifest presence is separation. “So shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.”

What is the cause of this separation? It wasn’t merely because of different doctrines, or because they worshipped the living God rather than dead idols; nor was it merely because they had the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant. These were indeed reasons, but not the chief reason. The chief reason, that which Moses brings forward in this text, is that God’s presence was with them in their assemblies, and in the hearts of His people. Awareness of God’s presence will keep Christians separate from the world. (See II Cor. 6:14-18)