OCTOBER 12, 2023

 “…the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.” (Isaiah 1:20)

Every word that God has given us in the Bible claims our attention because of the infinite majesty of Him that has spoken it. When God speaks, every other voice ought to keep silent. “Keep silence before me, O islands.” (Isa. 41:1) “Be silent, O all flesh, before the LORD….” (Zech. 2:13) What voice is like His voice? “The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is full of majesty.” (Psa. 29:4) There are many voices calling out to us, many of them siren voices. Let them all be silenced by The Voice which speaks from above.

Let it not be said of you that you went through this life, God speaking to you in His Book, and you refusing to hear. It matters little whether or not you should hear the voice of the preacher except as he preaches the Word of God. It matters a great deal whether you listen to God or not. It is He Who made you; in His hands is your breath; and if He speaks, bid all others to keep silent, and tune your ears to hear Him, and be not rebellious. There is an infinite majesty about every line of Scripture, but especially about that part of Scripture in which the Lord speaks of Himself and His glorious plan of Salvation in the person of His dear Son Jesus Christ.

Surely, we are compelled to hear the Word of God from the fact of His unspeakable condescension to speak with us. It was quite something for God the Mighty Creator to bid us to look at the work of His hands, and listen to the voice of creation as it declares His glory throughout the world. (Psalm 19:1-4) But for God to speak through His prophets in the language of mortal man is even more wonderful. And then, that He should move holy men of old to write down His words in known languages to be translated into all tongues is more marvelous still. We have the Word of God in our language in a Book which we have in our possession. If you do not own a Bible, you have access to one and can easily purchase one for yourself. Can it be that the all-glorious Jehovah speaks to mortal man? How can it be that any should neglect to hear Him, or be indifferent to His Word? Yet, the tragic truth is that the most published book in the history of the world may also be the most neglected. The ox and the ass know their owners better than sinful men know their Creator. Yet, He will be known to those who will seek Him in His Word.

It is imperative that we give ear to the voice of God because of the intrinsic importance of what is spoken. “The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” When the Lord speaks, it is the voice of One Who dwells in infinity and eternity. Vain janglings are for mortal man, but the eternal God speaks nothing of vanity or frivolities. Yet, foolish men treat the Bible as if God were such a one as themselves. God speaks not as a man, “for He is not a man that He should lie (speak vanities), neither the son of man, that He should repent (or change His mind).” The Word of God deals with eternal realities. Do not treat it as if it is of secondary importance. Your eternal existence, your happiness, or your misery hang on how you treat that which the mouth of the Lord hath spoken. Jesus said, “Be careful how you hear.”Eternal life is promised to those who hear aright: “Hear and your soul shall live.”

Depend upon it; if “The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it,” there is an urgency, a pressing necessity. God speaks not to say that which might as well have remained unsaid. His voice indicates great urgency. “To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” If God speaks to you by His Word, you can be sure there is overwhelming cause for it. Satan will whisper to you that there is no urgency, but the apostle says, “…exhort one another daily, while it is called To day.” Our Savior said, “Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live.” (Isa. 55:3) “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Rom. 10:17)

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.