SEPTEMBER 26, 2023

 “And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.” (Deuteronomy 8:2)

These are the words of Moses, the leader of Israel and author of the Pentateuch, when he was near his death. They make up a part of what has been called his “swan song.” While not really a singer (though he wrote one song in the Bible) like the fabled swan, he began to sing around his death.

We should notice the focus of this address. It’s that of a saint who has spent his life lovingly caring for the people under his command, and his ruling passion is unyielding. He knows he is about to depart from them – he has already received his marching orders and knows he must follow. Knowing that he is about to leave the people, he is very anxious about their welfare and addresses them with deep earnestness.

Note, also, how practical his advice is. He knows how likely the people are to fall into the thoughts and superstitions of the day’s culture, how likely they might be to turn again to graven images and strange gods or fail in other ways. With his dying breath, he pleads with them to observe all the commandments of the Lord, to do them, and to cleave to Him.

Then, like a soon-departing old man, he talks about the past. The Lord has preserved him for a hundred and twenty years, and during the last forty years, he has been king in Jeshurun, and he cannot help reminding the people that the marvels God has truly accomplished must not be dead things to them. Instead, they must be treated as living mercies since they came from a living God, and these mercies must continue producing living gratitude and living service in them. This thought teaches us how, as we mature in life, we should become more and more inclined to practical holiness, drawing it from our own experience of the goodness of God. May we remember with gratitude all the lovingkindness of the Lord in our lives.

On top of how this charge applies to the Israelites; it is also a refreshing reminder for all of us. Over the forty years in the wilderness, the Israelites had faced numerous trials in less-than-ideal living conditions. But Moses encourages them to remember how the Lord led them – to humble and prove that their hearts are truly set on Him. We should not forget this charge when we face trials in our lives.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2023

 “Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat!” (Job 23:3)

There was a reality in Job’s faith. His was not a flimsy, superficial religion. It was not merely a sound creed. It was not based on theory or speculation, and neither was it a well-rounded system of doctrines and duties. There was something deep and Divine in Job’s faith. There was no pretense or hypocrisy with him, and if our religion be by the same pure and undefiled nature as his, there will be something powerful, spiritual, and supernatural about it – something that goes beyond notions and doctrines, however scriptural and correct they may be. If God the Holy Spirit be the Author of it, there will be a Divine reality that will not trifle with the solemn things of God, nor with our own immortal souls.

Let us look a little into the character of the man who is here speaking; the man referred to by God Himself at the beginning of this book as “My servant Job.” Job knew God. He had been highly favored of God. Upon that favored state he is now looking back with fond regret. “Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me…when by his light I walked through darkness…when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle.” (Ch. 29:2-4) Yes, Job knew God; he knew the presence of God. But those days of God’s sweet visitations and consolations, Job had lost. This wonderful blessing and the loss of it is implied in this pitiful heart-cry, “Oh that I knew where I might find him!”

In the first and second chapters, we find out how he lost those precious consolations that his soul had once enjoyed. But, up to the time of the circumstances recorded there, he had known but little of his own heart; the awful depths of nature’s depravity; knowing little of the temptations of Satan. The evil one began by taunting him: “Doth Job,” he asked, “fear God for naught?” He went on to say that if God should remove from him the hedge of Divine favor, which prevented the fiery darts, Satan would otherwise have afflicted his soul. It was after God took away the hedge that Job began to feel abandoned of God, and cried out, “Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat! I would order my cause before him…” But he knew not, for “He walked in darkness, and had no light.”

Job, then, had found the Lord, and now Job has lost Him too. You may depend upon it, for it is a solemn truth that none but living souls ever find the Lord, and none but living souls ever lose the Lord. None except those whose hearts God has touched ever know and feel the presence of God, or ever even come to mourn the loss of His presence. None but God’s children ever walk in the light of His countenance, and therefore only they can experience the dread darkness that Job here feels about him.

But the desire of Job’s soul is to find the Lord. And if he could but find Him, he would then pour out his soul before Him, and tell all his complaints. This is exactly what we need when we are tried, downcast, and discouraged. We need to find God! We must seek Him until we find Him. The Lord does not send trials for no reason. The Lord says, “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” (Jer. 29:13) “And I will be found of you, saith the LORD…” Job would find the Lord. He was as near as breathing all along. But we find Him in peace and comfort when we, like David, say, “Bring hither the ephod.” Job would discover that his true consolation was not in material things, nor even in family, but in the Lord Himself. Believer, if you are suffering some great trial, and it seems that the Lord has abandoned you, He hasn’t! He says to His tried child, “I will be found of you!” “Ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” Job said, “that I might come even to His seat!” Come, dear soul, to the blood-bought mercy seat.

SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

 “Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?” (Jeremiah 8:22)

The prophet, in the preceding verse, had said, “For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt…astonishment hath taken hold on me.” Why was he hurting so; why was he gripped with astonishment? Why was he so wounded in spirit? He gives a threefold reason. First, at the deep wounds under which Zion lay in anguish; secondly, at the greatness of the remedy that God had provided; and thirdly, with a condition so desperate and the remedy so great, why was the health of the daughter of his people not recovered?

It would seem as if the daughter of God’s people, that is, the Church of God (“the daughter of God’s people” is a Hebrew idiom for God’s people) was suffering under wounds that put them in need of a “balm,” and under serious diseases that should require a “physician.” This is just what sin has reduced the family of God to – “full of wounds and bruises and putrefying sores.” When Adam fell, he fell with a crash that, as it were, broke every bone, and bruised his flesh with wounds from head to toe. Man’s understanding, his conscience, and his affections were all terribly maimed. The fang of the old serpent sent deadly sin coursing through every vein and artery, penetrating the inmost soul and body.

Now, it was seeing and feeling this that made the Prophet cry, “I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me.” But it would seem that while he was thus overwhelmed with the awful sight of putrefying wounds and running sores and diseased bodies (spiritually speaking), he was reminded that God is the healer of sin-sick souls. He therefore cries out, “Is there no balm in Gilead?” It is a desperate case; must the patient die of her diseases? Must the poor sinner sink under his sin? Is there no hope for him? When the sinner wanders far away from God; when he has forgotten Him, neglected Him, repaid all His favors with ingratitude, requited all of His bounties and mercies with carnality and foolishness – is there no remedy? Must he perish under the load of iniquity and guilt? Is there no balm for such a sin-sick soul? Is there no Physician who can handle the hopeless cases?

What did this balm in Gilead actually signify? Gilead was a country beyond Jordan that was known for a certain tree of great value and rarity, which grew only there. From the trunk and branches of this tree distilled a gum which was known to have great healing qualities. It was the sort of thing that an ambassador might offer as a gift when negotiating for his King. Jacob would propitiate the chief lord of Egypt by sending “a little balm” with his sons when they returned taking Benjamin with them. (Gen. 43:11) This was a valuable gift because it was rare and because of its celebrated healing powers. The weeping Prophet saw the daughter of his people pining away in their iniquities, and knowing that there was a Divine Remedy; he cried out, using this metaphor, “Is there no balm in Gilead?” Must she die in her sins without seeking Him out, and without turning to Him for pardon and peace? God, Himself calls out to the sinner, “Turn ye, turn ye, why will you die?”

Spiritually viewed, what is this precious balm? Is it not the Savior’s blood – that precious blood that the Scriptures testify “cleanseth from all sin?” “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth from all sin.” It cleanses not from some sin, but all sin. This is indeed the balm when the conscience is cut, no matter what the nature of the sin. There is a balm and there is an almighty Physician, and if we are enabled by grace to put ourselves in His hands, He will deal with us in a most tender and gentle, and yet the most efficacious manner possible.

We can understand the Prophet’s astonishment, and thus his question: “Why then is not the health of my people recovered?” The bite of the old serpent is deadly! But there is a cure for the deadly disease of sin. There is a balm – the blood of Christ. There is a great Physician. Jesus Christ has never lost a patient. God Himself says, “Why will ye die?” Why would anyone die in his sins, when there is such a balm and such a Physician available?

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

 “And he said unto them, Where is your faith? And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another, What manner of man is this! for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him.” (Luke 8:25)

This response is quite marvelous. It is wonderful to behold how Jesus responded in the many different situations that Providence sent His way. But beyond that, it is good for us to understand why the Lord responded in this way. There is a way that seems right unto man, but the way of the Lord is always right.

Jesus asks His disciples this question immediately after they were battered by a storm. Jesus asks this question immediately after they begin to seek Him in great fear. Immediately after a time of great desperation, Jesus puts the question to each individual in the boat: “Where is your faith?” This is not how many men would answer their own immediately after such an occasion, but the Lord is not like other men. He has come to lead His own into the obedience of the faith. Many men would not answer in the same way that Christ answered because of unbelief. We may think, “If I press upon these men such a question at such a time, it may bring their destruction. They may not be able to handle it. They’ve already been crushed, why would I press upon them such a question and add to their difficulties?” But we men do not know better than the Lord. Rather, it is the Lord that is the All-Wise God!

What was the reason for Jesus’s response? As I have stated already, the Lord had come to lead His own into the obedience of the faith. The Lord did not have to fear. He has never thought that the elect’s salvation is dependent upon their strength. He has never worried about throwing His elect into fiery trials as if He should worry that “this trial will strip them of the salvation I promised them.” Jesus never had to fear in His responses because He knew that salvation belongs unto His Father. Jesus was leading them into the obedience of Faith. The obedience of faith is always worked out in two ways: 1. Being humbled, and, 2. Seeking and beholding the Lord. Faith is only apprehended through a right understanding of God’s Word, and this is not acquired without an honest view of self and a right view of the Lord!

1. By being humbled by the hand of the Lord. For the Lord resists the proud and exalts the humble. The fiery trials expose our unbelief. The fiery trials shed light on who we truly are. They do not hide back our faults or our shortcomings, but they expose the darkness so that it may become light.

2. We are driven to seek the face of the Lord and the Lord graciously reveals Himself unto us. We behold the only One Who is good. We behold the All-Sufficient God.

Our faith in Christ is always strengthened by being humbled and beholding the Lord. The Lord did not fear in responding the way that He did for He knew that His disciples thought too highly of themselves, and they needed to be brought low. The Tender Shepherd was working out their salvation even in this moment!