DAILY DEVOTIONALS: 4.25.16

Remember His Benefits
“Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” (Psalm 103:2)

 

The benefits of the Lord are, indeed, great and marvelous, and it would be an act of ingratitude not to remember and appreciate them. Note the following partial list in this psalm:

1. Forgiveness. “Who forgiveth all thine iniquities” (v. 3). God forgives all! He “cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).
2. Healing. “Who healeth all thy diseases” (v. 3). The greatest and ultimate disease is that of aging and death, but one day “there shall be no more death” (Revelation 21:4).
3. Redemption. “Who redeemeth thy life from destruction” (v. 4; see also 1 Peter 1:18-19).
4. Glorification. “Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies” (v. 4).
5. Provision. “Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things” (v. 5; see also James 1:17).
6. Strength. “Thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s” (v. 5).
7. Protection. “The LORD executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed” (v. 6).

The greatest benefit of all, of course, is the gift of salvation, by the mercy of God. Note the testimonies of God’s mercy: “Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies” (v. 4). “The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy” (v. 8). “For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him” (v. 11). “But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him” (v. 17).

 

Infinite as the universe, enduring as eternity—these are the dimensions of God’s mercy! “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us” (v. 12). No wonder this great psalm both begins and ends with the inspiring exhortation: “Bless the LORD, O my soul!” HMM

 

Bible Authority
“Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.” (Proverbs 30:5-6)

 

The Bible is unique among all books. Not only is it different in its form, structure, and history, but it takes the position of supernatural superiority to all other communication. It insists on total accuracy for its content and absolute obedience to its commands. No other book is so demanding. The whole of the Bible abounds with the teaching that it has “given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3).

 

It is the word of God the Father. Jesus made it clear: “I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak” (John 12:49).

 

It was confirmed by the Holy Spirit. “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:21).

 

It is the source of faith and salvation. “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Peter 1:23).

 

It is not to be changed. “Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you” (Deuteronomy 4:2).

 

It is the instrument by which “a young man [can] cleanse his way . . . by taking heed thereto according to thy word” (Psalm 119:9). It is to be reverenced and obeyed, “for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name” (Psalm 138:2). “Yea, let God be true, but every man a liar” (Romans 3:4). HMM III

 

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

 

 

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

 

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 ram’s 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

 

 

Christ the Son of God
“And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.” (Romans 1:4)

 

The opening verses of Paul’s epistle to the Romans stressed that the gospel of Christ was actually the fulfillment of that “which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures” (v. 2). This promise was centered in God’s eternal Son who had promised to redeem the world from sin and death.

 

To do this, He must become a man, “made of the seed of David according to the flesh” (v. 3), yet He also must be sinless in both nature and practice before He could become God’s perfect sacrifice for sin. He must be perfect man—man as God intended man to be. He must be a “second Adam,” created without sin, yet He must not fail as did the first Adam, being “in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

 

He must, therefore, be miraculously conceived. “A body hast thou prepared me” (Hebrews 10:5)—a perfect body unblemished either by inherited mutations or by a sin nature inherited from His parents. Then, for nine months, His body would grow, finally to be born of the virgin and to live a life “holy, harmless, undefiled” until that perfect, sinless man could be made “one sacrifice for sins for ever” (Hebrews 7:26; 10:12).

 

But how would the world ever know that all of this was really true? How could lost sinners be assured that their Creator had now become their Redeemer?

 

By His resurrection from the dead—that’s how! He has been “declared to be the Son of God with power . . . by the resurrection from the dead” (today’s text). Jesus Christ is “that man whom he hath ordained”; and of this we can be sure, because “he hath raised him from the dead” (Acts 17:31). HMM

 

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 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

 

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 for evermore. 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

 

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).

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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