A Daily Devotional

[Soldier4Christ]

When...Then

“Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations.” (Deuteronomy 7:9)

Moses knew Israel would tend to succumb to various temptations in the Promised Land and encouraged them not only to obey God’s law but to use temptations as an opportunity for growth in character. Standing on the border, he proposed three “when...then” situations and exhorted the people to decide in advance how they would react.

“When the LORD thy God shall have brought thee into the land...to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildest not,...Then beware lest thou forget the LORD” (6:10, 12). Moses knew that a satisfied people, recipients of easy wealth, would forget the Lord. The remedy: “Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name” (v. 13), and “ye shall diligently keep the commandments of the LORD your God” (v. 17).

Next, “when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What mean the testimonies...which the LORD our God hath commanded you?” (v. 20), the fathers were to instruct them with: “The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand” (v. 21). “And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive” (v. 24).

God also knows our tendencies to compromise, and “when the LORD thy God...hath cast out many nations before thee,...thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them;...Neither shalt thou make marriages with them;...For they will turn away thy son from following me” (7:1-4).

In these and other situations, we would do well to follow Moses’ exhortation and decide beforehand how we will react. JDM

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Inspiration

“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” (2 Timothy 3:16)

The Bible insists its writers were supernaturally influenced by God to such an extent that their words were given divine accuracy. The unique word translated “inspiration” in our text could be rendered “God blowing” or “God puffing.” Peter speaks of “holy men of God” who “spake” as they were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21). David was conscious that his own “tongue” was speaking words that the Holy Spirit of the Lord gave him (2 Samuel 23:2). Jeremiah was given audible instruction and told to reproduce those words precisely (Jeremiah 30:1-2; 26:2), as was Isaiah (Isaiah 6:8-10), who clearly knew he was being controlled by God (Isaiah 59:21).

These are samplings of some 2,600 claims in the Old Testament for direct inspiration of the text of Scripture. God used several methods to make sure that His Word was “puffed” out, and on one occasion even wrote them with His own finger on tables of stone—twice (Exodus 31:18; 34:1). Those words were not only inspired but inscribed!

The writings of the 27 books of the New Testament are also full of declarations of God’s personal inspiration of the words. Jesus claimed to speak only what God the Father instructed Him to say (John 12:46-50). Paul knew he was given revelation (Ephesians 3:3-4) and insisted on equivalent standing with God’s commands (1 Thessalonians 2:13). Peter demanded remembrance of the apostles’ teachings (2 Peter 3:1-4, 15-16), John insisted on the accuracy of what he shared (1 John 1:1-3), and Jude verified the words of the other apostles (Jude 1:3, 17).

It seems we are confronted with an all-or-nothing proposition. Either all Scripture is inspired or none of it is. HMM III

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The Trumpet of God

“And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice.” (Exodus 19:19)

This is the first reference to trumpets in the Bible, and it is significant that the “voice” of the trumpet was coming not from man but from God. The setting was the awesome scene at Mount Sinai, when the Lord gave Moses the Ten Commandments for His people.

The last reference in the Old Testament to trumpets again refers to God’s trumpet. “And the LORD shall be seen over them, and his arrow shall go forth as the lightning: and the LORD God shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds of the south” (Zechariah 9:14).

The trumpet as used in Israel (Hebrew shofar) was made of rams’ horns and was used on many important occasions. One of the most notable was when the Israelites finally entered the Promised Land at Jericho. “So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and...the wall fell down flat,...and they took the city” (Joshua 6:20). These were human trumpets, of course, but they were sounded with the authority of God, and God gave the victory.

We also today can speak with the authority of God if we speak His Word plainly and clearly. But “if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?” (1 Corinthians 14:8).

We ourselves may soon hear the trumpet of God, for the return of Christ is drawing near. “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven...with the trump of God” (1 Thessalonians 4:16). As we are caught up to meet the Lord in the air, we (like John long ago) will hear a voice “as it were of a trumpet,” saying, “Come up hither” (Revelation 4:1), and then “shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17). HMM

[Soldier4Christ]

A Broken and Contrite Heart

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” (Psalm 51:17)

God prescribed a system of animal sacrifices for sin in the Old Testament. These sacrifices pointed forward to Jesus, who offered Himself as the once-for-all sacrifice for sin (Hebrews 10:11-12). King David understood the importance of the prescribed animal sacrifices but knew that what God truly wanted is a person’s heart.

In Psalm 51, David, who was described as “a man after [the LORD’s] own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14), demonstrated God’s heart in his attitude toward his own sin. The occasion of writing was David’s transgression with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11). He asked God to forgive his sins, both specifically in the matter of Bathsheba (“this evil,” v. 4) and in general (“blot out all mine iniquities,” v. 9). He recognized that sin was in his heart long before he committed adultery and praised his Creator by repenting of his rebellion against God’s commands.

David had committed two death penalty crimes: adultery (Leviticus 20:10) and murder (Genesis 9:6). No animal sacrifice could atone for David’s sin (Psalm 51:16; cf. Hebrews 10:4), yet God forgave him (2 Samuel 12:13). David’s words show a deep awareness of and contrition for his sin. Only when a person acknowledges his or her sin with “a broken and a contrite heart” (Psalm 51:17) can that person truly appreciate God’s forgiveness.

Praise God that Jesus Christ, the Creator of the universe, became a man and died to pay the penalty for sin, offering salvation to all who turn from sin to Jesus and trust in Him alone for salvation (John 1:14; 3:16; Romans 3:25; 2 Corinthians 5:21). Thanks to Jesus’ atoning work, “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). WP

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The Living Savior

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” (Romans 10:9)

There is a popular Christian song whose chorus ends with these words: “You ask me how I know He lives; He lives within my heart.” This may sound spiritual, but this is not how we know He lives! We are saved because of the objective fact that He died for our sins and then rose bodily from the tomb, triumphant over sin, death, the curse, and Satan, alive in His glorified body forevermore. It is this which we must believe in our hearts and confess with our lips. For Him to rise bodily from the grave means that He is nothing less than God, the very Creator Himself. It is only because of who He is that He could do what He did, and this is what we must believe in our hearts.

There are people who believe that Buddha lives in their hearts, or the spirit of “the gods” indwells their hearts, or even that “the Christ” is in their hearts, but “the heart is deceitful above all things” (Jeremiah 17:9). We can believe many things and feel many things that are not so. We know Jesus Christ is a living Savior not because we feel His presence in our hearts but because He rose from the grave on the third day and “shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days” (Acts 1:3). The gospel of our salvation does not rest on our feelings, nor on someone’s teachings, but on the objective, proven, certain facts of history. Jesus Christ is alive, whether anyone feels Him living in their hearts or not, and He is at this moment bodily in heaven at the right hand of the Father (e.g., Romans 8:34).

“Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). HMM

[Soldier4Christ]

The First Day of the Week

“And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.” (Acts 20:7)

Given the fact that everything about God’s Word was specifically inspired by its Author, it is appropriate that this important phrase, “the first day of the week,” occurs exactly eight times in the Bible. The first six of these (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2, 9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1, 19) all stress the fact that it was on this day that the greatest event in history (since the creation) had taken place. The creation of the universe had taken place on the first day of the week, and now its Creator had conquered sin and death itself on that day. In the Bible, of course, the number “seven” represents completeness, so “eight” represents a new beginning—a new creation, a resurrection.

The last two references tell us just how the early Christians remembered this day. Our text verse tells us this was a day on which the disciples assembled together, had a preaching service, and then “broke bread.” This was not a special assembly called just for Paul, for he had already been waiting there six days (see the previous verse). This was about 25 years after the resurrection itself, and the Jewish believers were evidently still observing the seventh day as a rest day, but then they also observed the first day of the week as the time to commemorate the Lord’s death in “breaking of bread” to celebrate His resurrection and especially to hear the preaching of His Word. The final reference tells us one other vital thing they did: “Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him” (1 Corinthians 16:2). The first day of the week should always be a time of remembering Him in these joyful ways, for He is our living Lord and Savior. HMM

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God Is Spirit

“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:24)

Mankind has always struggled with this aspect of God. The Second Commandment prohibited any attempt to represent God by any physical shape (Exodus 20:4-5). The triune God cannot be contained by finite attributes.

    “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (1 Timothy 1:17)
    “Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.” (1 Timothy 6:16)

Were it not for the Second Person of the Godhead, He whom the apostle John identifies as “the Word,” we would have no possibility of knowing God (John 1:1-14). Philip asked to see the Father, and the Lord Jesus replied: “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9).

But how can this be? Paul explained to the Philippian church that Jesus Christ emptied Himself, took on the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men (Philippians 2:7). Our Lord Jesus, our Redeemer and Savior, the same Creator who spoke the worlds into existence, “was made flesh” (John 1:14) in order to provide all that was necessary for the thrice-holy God to “be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Romans 3:26).

Jesus insisted “no man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him” (John 6:44). Salvation is not possible unless “he that cometh to God [believes] that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). Jesus Himself told the Samaritan woman, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” HMM III

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God Is Holy

“Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?” (Exodus 15:11)

The awesome vision of the throne that God gave Isaiah included a short description of the seraphims. They stood above the throne announcing, “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:3). They are cited again in Revelation 4:8 constantly saying, “Holy, holy, holy, LORD God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.”

Apparently, the holiness of God is all-consuming.

Both the Hebrew and Greek words for “holy” used in Scripture are strong descriptions of separateness, a dedicated detachment from all else. “Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy” (Revelation 15:4). “There is none holy as the LORD: for there is none beside thee: neither is there any rock like our God” (1 Samuel 2:2).

It is this absolute and unique transcendence that sets the Creator of the universe above and beyond all others: “For I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me” (Isaiah 46:9). Although there are “gods many, and lords many” (1 Corinthians 8:5), and the “desperately wicked” heart of man (Jeremiah 17:9) twists the “glory of the uncorruptible God” (Romans 1:23) into every vile image possible, “Jesus Christ [is] the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8).

Since God is holy, you and I can trust Him without reservation or doubt. “For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen” (2 Corinthians 1:20). Since God is holy, we can be totally confident that our souls are secure in God, “with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17). HMM III

[Soldier4Christ]

Opening the Ear

“Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.” (Psalm 40:6)

That Psalm 40 is primarily a Messianic psalm speaking mainly about the work of Christ is evident from its quotation as such in Hebrews 10:5-10. The psalm is prophesying particularly of His incarnation, as He says: “Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me” (Psalm 40:7).

Burnt offerings and sin offerings had indeed been required from God’s people under the law, but these were not an end in themselves. These sacrifices were meaningless unless they were offered out of a willing heart, obedient expressions of submission to a forgiving God.

That was the implication of the “opened ear,” a symbolic expression indicating one’s willingness thenceforth to hear only the voice of his master and to submit to His will in all things. If a freed bondservant “shall plainly say, I love my master...I will not go out free: Then his master shall...bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever” (Exodus 21:5-6). This was the testimony of the coming Messiah, as reported in our text.

Then note its application as recorded in Hebrews 10:5: “Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me.” That is, the phrase “mine ears hath thou opened” is translated by the Holy Spirit as “a body hast thou prepared me.” The perfect submission of the Son to the Father required that He become a man, with a very special human body prepared by His Father. Then Psalm 40:7 becomes (in Hebrews 10:7): “Lo, I come...to do thy will, O God....By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:9-10). HMM

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Accepted in the Beloved

“To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.” (Ephesians 1:6)

This wonderful verse assures that all who have been saved by God’s grace have been “accepted” by the Lord. However, this is not just a marginal acceptability. The Greek word occurs only one other time in the New Testament, and there it appears in the words of the angel Gabriel to Mary. “Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women” (Luke 1:28). That is, we are not merely accepted, we are highly favored by God!

This is not because of our own personal merits, of course. It is because God sees us as in His Son; He loves us because He loves Him, and we are in Him.

Although Christ is called God’s “beloved Son” seven times in the New Testament (each time directly by the Father Himself), there is only one other time when He is spoken of simply as “the beloved.” This is in Matthew 12:18 (quoting Isaiah 42:1), “Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him.”

The love of God the Father for His beloved Son is the root source of every other love in the universe, for it is the one love that is eternal. “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). This is what it means to be highly favored in the beloved! This was the prayer of Christ on His way to Gethsemane the night before He went to the cross.

We who are in Him are predestined to be with Him in glory, to behold His glory, and forever, as redeemed sinners saved by grace through faith, to be “to the praise of the glory of his grace” (today’s text). HMM

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Buried with Him

“Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4)

The burial of Christ after His death was extremely important for two reasons. First, it assures us that His death was a physical death and that His resurrection was a bodily resurrection. Second, His burial—like His death and resurrection— has profound doctrinal and practical significance for the believer’s individual life.

All this is pictured, as our text points out, by the ordinance of baptism, displaying symbolically the death of Christ for sin and the death of the believer to sin, then the burial of the corruptible body of flesh (which, for all but Christ, returns to dust in accordance with God’s primeval curse). And finally, the resurrection, demonstrating Christ’s eternal victory over sin and death, and, in the case of the believer, the beginning of the new life in Christ.

The same truth appears again in Colossians 2:12: “Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.” Although these are the only New Testament passages where the doctrinal implications of Christ’s burial are specifically mentioned, the spiritual truths taught thereby permeate all the Scriptures. If our old bodies of sin are—at least positionally—already in the grave, then it is altogether grotesque for them still to be walking around in sin. “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection” (Romans 6:5). We shall (not “should,” as misleadingly rendered in our text) walk in newness of life, triumphant daily over sin through the implanted resurrection life of our victorious Savior. HMM

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He Knows

“I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first.” (Revelation 2:19)

Seven times in the letters to His seven representative churches in Revelation 2 and 3, the Lord Jesus says: “I know thy works” (Revelation 2:2, 9, 13, 19; 3:1, 8, 15). Whatever we are doing—or not doing—He knows!

Sometimes such knowledge can bring—or at least should bring—great consternation. He knows, for example, all our hypocrisies: “I know...that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead” (Revelation 3:1). He also knows when our outward display of religious activity masks a real heart-attitude of compromising self-interest. “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot” (Revelation 3:15).

Yet, He also knows when our service is genuine and our testimony is God-glorifying and faithful. “I know...thy labour, and thy patience....I know...thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith” (Revelation 2:2, 13).

Of these seven testimonies of His knowledge, the central one is in our text. He knows when we really love Him, for the “charity” mentioned is nothing less than agape, or unselfish love. He knows all about our sincere “service” and true “faith” in His Word, as well as our “patience” of hope.

Perhaps the most precious of His assurances, however, is that to the suffering church at Smyrna. “I know thy...tribulation, and poverty” (Revelation 2:9). When He says that He knows, the sense is that He understands, because He has been through it all Himself. Therefore, “we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:15-16). HMM

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God Is Omnipotent

“Ah Lord GOD! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee.” (Jeremiah 32:17)

The Genesis record of creation generates more hostility among men than any other message. Even secular atheists claim to respect the humanitarian teachings of Jesus, but they bristle irrationally when the Lord Jesus is identified as the Creator. Perhaps this is because the evidence for God’s omnipotence is displayed so openly and vividly by the “greatness of his might” (Isaiah 40:26).

The God who can speak the billions of galaxies into existence with the “breath of his mouth” (Psalm 33:6) is a God who can cast ungodly men into eternal hell for their defiance and rebellion against “the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 1:4). Conversely, the God who “stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing” (Job 26:7) is able to “save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him” (Hebrews 7:25).

No wonder the psalmist expresses the praise that all men should declare: “Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts. I will speak of the glorious honour of thy majesty, and of thy wondrous works. And men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts: and I will declare thy greatness” (Psalm 145:3-6).

When the Lord Jesus was formally invested at the great assembly around the throne, the entire throng burst into the song “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created” (Revelation 4:11). Each of us would do well to carry that song in our hearts every day. HMM III

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The Watchers

“I saw in the visions of my head upon my bed, and, behold, a watcher and an holy one came down from heaven.” (Daniel 4:13)

It is only in this chapter of Daniel (see also verses 17 and 23) that certain angelic beings called “watchers” are mentioned. Whether the term applies to all God’s holy angels or only to a certain order of angels has not been revealed in Scripture.

However, we do know that at least some of the angels, if not all of them, are intensely occupied with observing events among humans here on Earth. For example, Paul said that he and the other apostles had been made “a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men” (1 Corinthians 4:9).

The word “spectacle” in this verse is actually “theatre” and is so translated the only other time it is used in the New Testament (Acts 19:29, 31). It is sobering, as well as surprising, to realize that Christians—especially Christian leaders—are on a stage, as it were, being carefully watched by an audience that even includes the angels.

Paul also cautioned Christian women to maintain a covering on their heads “because of the angels” (1 Corinthians 11:10). Perhaps the watching angels are also included in the great “cloud of witnesses” who observe us as we “run with patience the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).

But why should these mighty angels, these “holy ones,” these heavenly “watchers,” have such a “desire to look into” these things here on Earth (1 Peter 1:12)? Perhaps they are anxious, like us, to “see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God” (Ephesians 3:9-10). HMM

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Christ the King

“Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords.” (1 Timothy 6:15)

Of the many descriptive titles of the Lord Jesus Christ, perhaps the most significant is that of King because this speaks of His universal dominion. The day is coming when “every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth” (Philippians 2:10).

First of all, since He created all things, He is the King of creation. “For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also. The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land” (Psalm 95:3-5).

In a special sense, of course, He is the King of the Jews. “He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:33).

He is also our King of redemption, having set us free from the kingdom of the wicked one. He “hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14).

There is a day coming in which all the kings of the earth shall unite against Him. “These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful” (Revelation 17:14). “And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron....And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS” (Revelation 19:15- 16). Until then, let us serve Him as King and submit to Him as Lord. HMM