Morning    “Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope.”  Psalm 119:49

Whatever your especial need may be, you may readily find some promise in the

Bible suited to it. Are you faint and feeble because your way is rough and you

are weary? Here is the promise–“He giveth power to the faint.” When you read

such a promise, take it back to the great Promiser, and ask him to fulfil his

own word. Are you seeking after Christ, and thirsting for closer communion with

him? This promise shines like a star upon you–“Blessed are they that hunger and

thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” Take that promise to the

throne continually; do not plead anything else, but go to God over and over

again with this–“Lord, thou hast said it, do as thou hast said.” Are

you distressed because of sin, and burdened with the heavy load of your

iniquities? Listen to these words–“I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy

transgressions, and will no more remember thy sins.” You have no merit of your

own to plead why he should pardon you, but plead his written engagements and he

will perform them. Are you afraid lest you should not be able to hold on to the

end, lest, after having thought yourself a child of God, you should prove a

castaway? If that is your state, take this word of grace to the throne and plead

it: “The mountains may depart, and the hills may be removed, but the covenant of

my love shall not depart from thee.” If you have lost the sweet sense of

the Saviour’s presence, and are seeking him with a sorrowful heart, remember

the promises: “Return unto me, and I will return unto you;” “For a small moment

have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee.” Banquet your

faith upon God’s own word, and whatever your fears or wants, repair to the Bank

of Faith with your Father’s note of hand, saying, “Remember the word unto thy

servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope.”

 

Evening  “All the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted.”   Ezekiel 3:7

Are there no exceptions? No, not one. Even the favoured race are thus described.

Are the best so bad?–then what must the worst be? Come, my heart, consider how

far thou hast a share in this universal accusation, and while considering, be

ready to take shame unto thyself wherein thou mayst have been guilty. The first

charge is impudence, or hardness of forehead, a want of holy shame, an

unhallowed boldness in evil. Before my conversion, I could sin and feel no

compunction, hear of my guilt and yet remain unhumbled, and even confess my

iniquity and manifest no inward humiliation on account of it. For a sinner to go

to God’s house and pretend to pray to him and praise him argues a

brazen-facedness of the worst kind! Alas! since the day of my new birth I have

doubted my Lord to his face, murmured unblushingly in his presence, worshipped

before him in a slovenly manner, and sinned without bewailing myself concerning

it. If my forehead were not as an adamant, harder than flint, I should have far

more holy fear, and a far deeper contrition of spirit. Woe is me, I am one of

the impudent house of Israel. The second charge is hardheartedness, and I must

not venture to plead innocent here. Once I had nothing but a heart of stone, and

although through grace I now have a new and fleshy heart, much of my former

obduracy remains. I am not affected by the death of Jesus as I

ought to be; neither am I moved by the ruin of my fellow men, the wickedness of

the times, the chastisement of my heavenly Father, and my own failures, as I

should be. O that my heart would melt at the recital of my Saviour’s sufferings

and death. Would to God I were rid of this nether millstone within me, this

hateful body of death. Blessed be the name of the Lord, the disease is not

incurable, the Saviour’s precious blood is the universal solvent, and me, even

me, it will effectually soften, till my heart melts as wax before the fire.