December 4 - Morning"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." December 4 - Evening"Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." — Romans 8:23
This groaning is universal among the saints: to a greater or less extent we
all feel it. It is not the groan of murmuring or complaint: it is rather the
note of desire than of distress. Having received an earnest, we desire the
whole of our portion; we are sighing that our entire manhood, in its trinity
of spirit, soul, and body, may be set free from the last vestige of the fall;
we long to put off corruption, weakness, and dishonour, and to wrap
ourselves in incorruption, in immortality, in glory, in the spiritual body
which the Lord Jesus will bestow upon His people.
We long for the
manifestation of our adoption as the children of God. "We groan," but it is
"within ourselves." It is not the hypocrite's groan, by which he would
make men believe that he is a saint because he is wretched. Our sighs are
sacred things, too hallowed for us to tell abroad. We keep our longings to
our Lord alone. Then the apostle says we are "waiting," by which we learn
that we are not to be petulant, like Jonah or Elijah, when they said, "Let
me die"; nor are we to whimper and sigh for the end of life because we are
tired of work, nor wish to escape from our present sufferings till the will
of the Lord is done.
We are to groan for glorification, but we are to wait
patiently for it, knowing that what the Lord appoints is best. Waiting
implies being ready. We are to stand at the door expecting the Beloved to
open it and take us away to Himself. This "groaning" is a test. You may
judge of a man by what he groans after. Some men groan after wealth —
they worship Mammon; some groan continually under the troubles of life
— they are merely impatient; but the man who sighs after God, who is
uneasy till he is made like Christ, that is the blessed man. May God help
us to groan for the coming of the Lord, and the resurrection which He will
bring to us. December 4 |