December 19 - Morning"The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord." — Proverbs 16:33
If the disposal of the lot is the Lord's whose is the arrangement of our
whole life? If the a simple casting of a lot is guided by Him, how much
more the events of our entire life — especially when we are told by our
blessed Saviour: "The very hairs of your head are all numbered: not a
sparrow falleth to the ground without your Father." It would bring a holy
calm over your mind, dear friend, if you were always to remember this. It
would so relieve your mind from anxiety, that you would be the better able
to walk in patience, quiet, and cheerfulness as a Christian should.
When a
man is anxious he cannot pray with faith; when he is troubled about the
world, he cannot serve his Master, his thoughts are serving himself. If you
would "seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness," all things
would then be added unto you. You are meddling with Christ's business,
and neglecting your own when you fret about your lot and circumstances.
You have been trying "providing" work and forgetting that it is yours to
obey. Be wise and attend to the obeying, and let Christ manage the
providing. Come and survey your Father's storehouse, and ask whether
He will let you starve while He has laid up so great an abundance in His
garner? Look at His heart of mercy; see if that can ever prove unkind!
Look at His inscrutable wisdom; see if that will ever be at fault. Above all,
look up to Jesus Christ your Intercessor, and ask yourself, while He
pleads, can your Father deal ungraciously with you? If He remembers even
sparrows, will He forget one of the least of His poor children? "Cast thy
burden upon the Lord, and He will sustain thee. He will never suffer the
righteous to be moved."
My soul, rest happy in thy low estate, December 19 - Evening"And there was no more sea." — Revelation 21:1
Scarcely could we rejoice at the thought of losing the glorious old ocean:
the new heavens and the new earth are none the fairer to our imagination,
if, indeed, literally there is to be no great and wide sea, with its gleaming
waves and shelly shores. Is not the text to be read as a metaphor, tinged
with the prejudice with which the Oriental mind universally regarded the
sea in the olden times? A real physical world without a sea it is mournful
to imagine, it would be an iron ring without the sapphire which made it
precious.
There must be a spiritual meaning here. In the new dispensation
there will be no division — the sea separates nations and sunders peoples
from each other. To John in Patmos the deep waters were like prison
walls, shutting him out from his brethren and his work: there shall be no
such barriers in the world to come. Leagues of rolling billows lie between
us and many a kinsman whom to-night we prayerfully remember, but in
the bright world to which we go there shall be unbroken fellowship for all
the redeemed family. In this sense there shall be no more sea. The sea is
the emblem of change; with its ebbs and flows, its glassy smoothness and
its mountainous billows, its gentle murmurs and its tumultuous roarings, it
is never long the same.
Slave of the fickle winds and the changeful moon,
its instability is proverbial. In this mortal state we have too much of this;
earth is constant only in her inconstancy, but in the heavenly state all
mournful change shall be unknown, and with it all fear of storm to wreck
our hopes and drown our joys. The sea of glass glows with a glory
unbroken by a wave. No tempest howls along the peaceful shores of
paradise. Soon shall we reach that happy land where partings, and changes,
and storms shall be ended! Jesus will waft us there. Are we in Him or not?
This is the grand question. December 19 |