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Charles Spurgeon Morning and Evening
December 22: Morning"I will strengthen thee." - Isaiah 41:10
God has a strong reserve with which to discharge this engagement; for he is able to do all things. Believer, till thou canst drain dry the ocean of omnipotence, till thou canst break into pieces the towering mountains of almighty strength, thou never needest to fear. Think not that the strength of man shall ever be able to overcome the power of God. Whilst the earth's huge pillars stand, thou hast enough reason to abide firm in thy faith. The same God who directs the earth in its orbit, who feeds the burning furnace of the sun, and trims the lamps of heaven, has promised to supply thee with daily strength. While he is able to uphold the universe, dream not that he will prove unable to fulfil his own promises. Remember what he did in the days of old, in the former generations. Remember how he spake and it was done; how he commanded, and it stood fast. Shall he that created the world grow weary? He hangeth the world upon nothing; shall he who doth this be unable to support his children? Shall he be unfaithful to his word for want of power? Who is it that restrains the tempest? Doth not he ride upon the wings of the wind, and make the clouds his chariots, and hold the ocean in the hollow of his hand? How can he fail thee? When he has put such a faithful promise as this on record, wilt thou for a moment indulge the thought that he has outpromised himself, and gone beyond his power to fulfil? Ah, no! Thou canst doubt no longer.
O thou who art my God and my strength, I can believe that this promise shall be fulfilled, for the boundless reservoir of thy grace can never be exhausted, and the overflowing storehouse of thy strength can never be emptied by thy friends or rifled by thine enemies.
"Now let the feeble all be strong,Evening
And make Jehovah's arm their song."
"The spot of his children." - Deuteronomy 32:5
What is the secret spot which infallibly betokens the child of God? It were vain presumption to decide this upon our own judgment; but God's word reveals it to us, and we may tread surely where we have revelation to be our guide. Now, we are told concerning our Lord, "to as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to as many as believed on his name." Then, if I have received Christ Jesus into my heart, I am a child of God. That reception is described in the same verse as believing on the name of Jesus Christ. If, then, I believe on Jesus Christ's name--that is, simply from my heart trust myself with the crucified, but now exalted, Redeemer, I am a member of the family of the Most High. Whatever else I may not have, if I have this, I have the privilege to become a child of God. Our Lord Jesus puts it in another shape. "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me." Here is the matter in a nutshell. Christ appears as a shepherd to his own sheep, not to others. As soon as he appears, his own sheep perceive him--they trust him, they are prepared to follow him; he knows them, and they know him--there is a mutual knowledge--there is a constant connection between them. Thus the one mark, the sure mark, the infallible mark of regeneration and adoption is a hearty faith in the appointed Redeemer. Reader, are you in doubt, are you uncertain whether you bear the secret mark of God's children? Then let not an hour pass over your head till you have said, "Search me, O God, and know my heart." Trifle not here, I adjure you! If you must trifle anywhere, let it be about some secondary matter: your health, if you will, or the title deeds of your estate; but about your soul, your never-dying soul and its eternal destinies, I beseech you to be in earnest. Make sure work for eternity.
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Bible Readings
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The tenth son of David, and second by Bath-sheba, and the third king of Israel who reigned for forty years (2 Sam. 5:14, 12:24). Solomon was also known as Jedidiah meaning, "beloved of the Lord."
The Man Who Was Full Yet Failed
We know little of the early life of Solomon. The name given him by Nathan, but not repeated because of its sacredness, implies David's restoration to divine favor (2 Sam. 12:25). Loved of the Lord suggests the bestowal of unusual gifts (2 Sam. 12:24, 25). It is also evident that young Solomon was greatly influenced both by his mother and Nathan (1 Kings 1:11, 12).
With reference to the character and reign of Solomon, we cannot but agree with Alexander Whyte that, "The shipwreck of Solomon is surely the most terrible tragedy in all the world. For if ever there was a shining type of Christ in the Old Testament church, it was Solomon ... but everyday sensuality made him in the end a castaway." Taking him all in all, Solomon stands out as a disappointing figure of Hebrew history. Think of the advantages he began with! There were the almost undisputed possession of David's throne, immense stores of wealth laid up by his father, exceptional divinely imparted mental abilities, the love and high hopes of the people. Solomon's start like the cloudless dawn of a summer's morning, might have been beautiful all his life through, but it ended in gloom because he wandered into God-forbidden paths. Thus a life beginning magnificently ended miserably. The man who penned and preached a thousand wise things failed to practice the wisdom he taught.
The work of Solomon was the development of his father's ideas of a consolidated kingdom, and what marvelous success crowned his efforts. Exercising the power of an oriental despot, he gave Israel a glory, prestige and splendor unsurpassed in the world's history. On the whole, however, Solomon seemed to rule for his own aggrandizement and not for the welfare of the people. Doubtless Solomon's artistic and literary gifts provided the masses with beneficial instruction, but the glory of Solomon brought the common people tears and groans. The great wealth provided by David for the building of a Temple speedily disappeared under Solomon's lavish spending, and the people had to pay heavily by taxation and poverty for his magnificent whims. Yet Jesus said that the lilies of the field had greater glory than all the gaudy pomp and pride of Solomon.
Solomon's ambition in the morning of his life was most commendable. His dream was a natural expression of this ambition, and his God-imparted wisdom an evidence of it (1 Kings 3). Then his sacrifice at Gibeon indicates that Solomon desired religion to be associated with all external magnificence. Solomon's remarkable prayer also breathes the atmosphere of true piety and of his delight in the full recognition of God. Alas, however, Solomon came to the end of his days minus popularity and piety!
This first great naturalist the world ever saw, who wrote one thousand and five songs, three thousand proverbs and who had sagacity beyond compare, took his first step downward when he went to Egypt for his queen. A daughter of Pharaoh, sitting on the throne of David, must have shocked and saddened the godly elect of Israel. With this strange wife came her strange gods.
Then came the harem of outlandish women who caused Solomon to sin (Neh. 13:26). His wives - seven hundred of them and three hundred concubines - whom Solomon clave unto in love, turned him into an idolater (1 Kings 11:1-8). Polygamy on such a vast scale and concession for his wives to worship their own heathen gods was bad enough, but to share in such sacrilegious worship in sight of the Temple Solomon himself had built, was nauseating to God.
Thus sensuality and pride of wealth brought about Solomon's deterioration. In the Book of Ecclesiastes which the king wrote, he surely depicted his own dissatisfaction with even life itself. All rivers ran into Solomon's sea: wisdom and knowledge, wine and women, wealth and fame, music and songs; he tried them all, but all was vanity and vexation of spirit simply because God had been left out.
Of Solomon's actual end little is known. He is described as an "old man" at sixty years of age. Whether Solomon repented and returned to God was a question warmly debated by the Early Fathers. There is no record of his repentance. He never wrote a penitential psalm like his father before him (Ps. 51 ). We have his remorse, discontent, disgust, self-contempt, "bitterer to drink than blood," but no sobs for his sin, no plea for pardon. Thus, with such a tragic failure before us, let us take to heart the fact that Solomon's wisdom did not teach him self-control, and that the only legacy of his violated home life was a son "ample in foolishness and lacking in understanding," as C. W. Emmet expresses it.
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Reading 10: Joseph Has a Dream
Mary was promised to be married to Joseph. In those days betrothal, or engagement, was a very important legal agreement. But when Mary told Joseph she was pregnant, Joseph no longer wanted to marry her. Then he had a dream that convinced him that everything that had happened was from the Holy Spirit of God.
Matthew 1:18-25
The Birth of Jesus Christ
18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."
22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"--which means, "God with us."
24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
Further Study
JUST THE FACTS
God wanted Jesus, his own Son, to have both a father and a mother to care for him and bring him up according to the Law of Moses and the law of the land. God worked everything out to fulfill every detail prophesied by the
prophets.
POINTS OF INTEREST
1:19 In Bible times, being betrothed meant the couple was legally promised to each other, but the bride didn't live with the bridegroom. After the wedding ceremony, the bride's family would have a big feast that lasted for six or seven days. Then the bride would go to live in her husband's house.
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Each Wednesday in Advent, we read a passage from the Bible and consider what early church writers had to say about it.
Opening prayer
Open our hearts, O Lord, and enlighten us by the grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may seek what is well-pleasing to your will; and so order our doings after your commandments that we may be found meet to enter your unending joys; through Jesus Christ our Lord. --Bede
Scripture reading: Matthew 1:18-25
(read on Bible Gateway)
The Simple Mystery of the Conception (Chrysostom): Do not speculate beyond the text. Do not require of it something more than what it simply says. Do not ask, "But precisely how was it that the Spirit accomplished this in a virgin?" For even when nature is at work, it is impossible fully to explain the manner of the formation of the person. How then when the spirit is accomplishing miracles, shall we be able to express their precise causes? The Gospel of Matthew, Homily 4.3
The Mystery of His Divinity (Anonymous): But in explaining that his birth happened in a way quite beyond human nature, he reveals the mystery of his divinity. It was not fitting that the only Son of God should be born in the human way. For he was born not for himself but for humanity. He was indeed born into flesh that would undergo corruption. But Christ was born in order to heal corruption itself.... Note that Mary was betrothed to a carpenter. Christ, betrothed to the church, was about to fashion for humanity salvation in its entirety and his entire work from the wood of the cross. Incomplete Work on Matthew, Homily 1
His Corporeal Birth and His Humanity (Chromatius of Aquileia): John, however, addresses the issue of Jesus' divine birth in the preface to his Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. This was with God in the beginning. All things were made through him and without him nothing was made." The Evangelists help us to recognize both the divine and corporeal birth of the Lord, which they describe as a twofold mystery and a kind of double path. Indeed, both the divine and the bodily birth of the Lord are indescribable, but that from the Father vastly exceeds every means of description and wonder. The bodily birth of Christ was in time; his divine birth was before time. The one in this age, the other before the ages. The one from a virgin mother, the other from God the Father. Angels and men stood as witnesses at the corporeal birth of the Lord, yet at his divine birth there was not witness except the Father and the Son, because nothing existed before the Father and the Son. But because the Word could not be seen as God in the glory of his own divinity, he assumed flesh to demonstrate his invisible divinity. He took from us what is ours in order to give generously what is his. Tractate on Matthew 2.1
Not by Chance (Anonymous): "Now all this came to pass." What is meant by "all"? That the virgin would marry her kinsman, that she would be preserved chaste, that the angel would speak to Joseph in a dream that he would be instructed to accept her as his wife, that the boy would be called Jesus and that the Virgin would bring forth the Savior of the world. "All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, saying, 'Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son.' Grace is witnessed through the prophets so that the Old and New Testaments may harmonize, grace may compensate for the weakness of the learned and what was predicted long ago might not seem to happen solely by chance. Incomplete Work on Matthew, Homily 1
Closing prayer
Let us then rejoice in this grace, so that our glorying may bear witness to our good conscience by which we glory, not in ourselves but in the Lord. That is why Scripture says, "He is my glory, the one who lifts up my head." For what greater grace could God have made to dawn on us than to make his only Son become the Son of man, so that human beings might in their turn become children and heirs of God? Ask if this were merited; ask for its reason, for its justification, and whether you will find any other answer but sheer grace. --Augustine
Today's Advent reading is from Ancient Christian Devotional, edited by Oden and Crosby.
Solomon
[Sŏl'omon] - peace or peaceable.The tenth son of David, and second by Bath-sheba, and the third king of Israel who reigned for forty years (2 Sam. 5:14, 12:24). Solomon was also known as Jedidiah meaning, "beloved of the Lord."
The Man Who Was Full Yet Failed
We know little of the early life of Solomon. The name given him by Nathan, but not repeated because of its sacredness, implies David's restoration to divine favor (2 Sam. 12:25). Loved of the Lord suggests the bestowal of unusual gifts (2 Sam. 12:24, 25). It is also evident that young Solomon was greatly influenced both by his mother and Nathan (1 Kings 1:11, 12).
With reference to the character and reign of Solomon, we cannot but agree with Alexander Whyte that, "The shipwreck of Solomon is surely the most terrible tragedy in all the world. For if ever there was a shining type of Christ in the Old Testament church, it was Solomon ... but everyday sensuality made him in the end a castaway." Taking him all in all, Solomon stands out as a disappointing figure of Hebrew history. Think of the advantages he began with! There were the almost undisputed possession of David's throne, immense stores of wealth laid up by his father, exceptional divinely imparted mental abilities, the love and high hopes of the people. Solomon's start like the cloudless dawn of a summer's morning, might have been beautiful all his life through, but it ended in gloom because he wandered into God-forbidden paths. Thus a life beginning magnificently ended miserably. The man who penned and preached a thousand wise things failed to practice the wisdom he taught.
The work of Solomon was the development of his father's ideas of a consolidated kingdom, and what marvelous success crowned his efforts. Exercising the power of an oriental despot, he gave Israel a glory, prestige and splendor unsurpassed in the world's history. On the whole, however, Solomon seemed to rule for his own aggrandizement and not for the welfare of the people. Doubtless Solomon's artistic and literary gifts provided the masses with beneficial instruction, but the glory of Solomon brought the common people tears and groans. The great wealth provided by David for the building of a Temple speedily disappeared under Solomon's lavish spending, and the people had to pay heavily by taxation and poverty for his magnificent whims. Yet Jesus said that the lilies of the field had greater glory than all the gaudy pomp and pride of Solomon.
Solomon's ambition in the morning of his life was most commendable. His dream was a natural expression of this ambition, and his God-imparted wisdom an evidence of it (1 Kings 3). Then his sacrifice at Gibeon indicates that Solomon desired religion to be associated with all external magnificence. Solomon's remarkable prayer also breathes the atmosphere of true piety and of his delight in the full recognition of God. Alas, however, Solomon came to the end of his days minus popularity and piety!
This first great naturalist the world ever saw, who wrote one thousand and five songs, three thousand proverbs and who had sagacity beyond compare, took his first step downward when he went to Egypt for his queen. A daughter of Pharaoh, sitting on the throne of David, must have shocked and saddened the godly elect of Israel. With this strange wife came her strange gods.
Then came the harem of outlandish women who caused Solomon to sin (Neh. 13:26). His wives - seven hundred of them and three hundred concubines - whom Solomon clave unto in love, turned him into an idolater (1 Kings 11:1-8). Polygamy on such a vast scale and concession for his wives to worship their own heathen gods was bad enough, but to share in such sacrilegious worship in sight of the Temple Solomon himself had built, was nauseating to God.
Thus sensuality and pride of wealth brought about Solomon's deterioration. In the Book of Ecclesiastes which the king wrote, he surely depicted his own dissatisfaction with even life itself. All rivers ran into Solomon's sea: wisdom and knowledge, wine and women, wealth and fame, music and songs; he tried them all, but all was vanity and vexation of spirit simply because God had been left out.
Of Solomon's actual end little is known. He is described as an "old man" at sixty years of age. Whether Solomon repented and returned to God was a question warmly debated by the Early Fathers. There is no record of his repentance. He never wrote a penitential psalm like his father before him (Ps. 51 ). We have his remorse, discontent, disgust, self-contempt, "bitterer to drink than blood," but no sobs for his sin, no plea for pardon. Thus, with such a tragic failure before us, let us take to heart the fact that Solomon's wisdom did not teach him self-control, and that the only legacy of his violated home life was a son "ample in foolishness and lacking in understanding," as C. W. Emmet expresses it.
===
Reading 10: Joseph Has a Dream
Mary was promised to be married to Joseph. In those days betrothal, or engagement, was a very important legal agreement. But when Mary told Joseph she was pregnant, Joseph no longer wanted to marry her. Then he had a dream that convinced him that everything that had happened was from the Holy Spirit of God.
Matthew 1:18-25
The Birth of Jesus Christ
18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."
22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"--which means, "God with us."
24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
Further Study
JUST THE FACTS
- Who talked to Joseph in a dream? What did the messenger call Joseph? (v. 20)
- What did the messenger tell Joseph would happen? (v. 21)
- What was Joseph told to name the baby? Why? (v. 21)
- How do you think Joseph felt after his dream? Have you ever had a dream that made you feel better about a situation?
- Why is it important that these events took place according to the prophecy in verse 23?
God wanted Jesus, his own Son, to have both a father and a mother to care for him and bring him up according to the Law of Moses and the law of the land. God worked everything out to fulfill every detail prophesied by the
prophets.
POINTS OF INTEREST
1:19 In Bible times, being betrothed meant the couple was legally promised to each other, but the bride didn't live with the bridegroom. After the wedding ceremony, the bride's family would have a big feast that lasted for six or seven days. Then the bride would go to live in her husband's house.
===
Each Wednesday in Advent, we read a passage from the Bible and consider what early church writers had to say about it.
Opening prayer
Open our hearts, O Lord, and enlighten us by the grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may seek what is well-pleasing to your will; and so order our doings after your commandments that we may be found meet to enter your unending joys; through Jesus Christ our Lord. --Bede
Scripture reading: Matthew 1:18-25
(read on Bible Gateway)
18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.Reflections from the church fathers
20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."
22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 "The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" (which means "God with us").
24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
The Simple Mystery of the Conception (Chrysostom): Do not speculate beyond the text. Do not require of it something more than what it simply says. Do not ask, "But precisely how was it that the Spirit accomplished this in a virgin?" For even when nature is at work, it is impossible fully to explain the manner of the formation of the person. How then when the spirit is accomplishing miracles, shall we be able to express their precise causes? The Gospel of Matthew, Homily 4.3
The Mystery of His Divinity (Anonymous): But in explaining that his birth happened in a way quite beyond human nature, he reveals the mystery of his divinity. It was not fitting that the only Son of God should be born in the human way. For he was born not for himself but for humanity. He was indeed born into flesh that would undergo corruption. But Christ was born in order to heal corruption itself.... Note that Mary was betrothed to a carpenter. Christ, betrothed to the church, was about to fashion for humanity salvation in its entirety and his entire work from the wood of the cross. Incomplete Work on Matthew, Homily 1
His Corporeal Birth and His Humanity (Chromatius of Aquileia): John, however, addresses the issue of Jesus' divine birth in the preface to his Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. This was with God in the beginning. All things were made through him and without him nothing was made." The Evangelists help us to recognize both the divine and corporeal birth of the Lord, which they describe as a twofold mystery and a kind of double path. Indeed, both the divine and the bodily birth of the Lord are indescribable, but that from the Father vastly exceeds every means of description and wonder. The bodily birth of Christ was in time; his divine birth was before time. The one in this age, the other before the ages. The one from a virgin mother, the other from God the Father. Angels and men stood as witnesses at the corporeal birth of the Lord, yet at his divine birth there was not witness except the Father and the Son, because nothing existed before the Father and the Son. But because the Word could not be seen as God in the glory of his own divinity, he assumed flesh to demonstrate his invisible divinity. He took from us what is ours in order to give generously what is his. Tractate on Matthew 2.1
Not by Chance (Anonymous): "Now all this came to pass." What is meant by "all"? That the virgin would marry her kinsman, that she would be preserved chaste, that the angel would speak to Joseph in a dream that he would be instructed to accept her as his wife, that the boy would be called Jesus and that the Virgin would bring forth the Savior of the world. "All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, saying, 'Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son.' Grace is witnessed through the prophets so that the Old and New Testaments may harmonize, grace may compensate for the weakness of the learned and what was predicted long ago might not seem to happen solely by chance. Incomplete Work on Matthew, Homily 1
Closing prayer
Let us then rejoice in this grace, so that our glorying may bear witness to our good conscience by which we glory, not in ourselves but in the Lord. That is why Scripture says, "He is my glory, the one who lifts up my head." For what greater grace could God have made to dawn on us than to make his only Son become the Son of man, so that human beings might in their turn become children and heirs of God? Ask if this were merited; ask for its reason, for its justification, and whether you will find any other answer but sheer grace. --Augustine
Today's Advent reading is from Ancient Christian Devotional, edited by Oden and Crosby.
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