Bible Heaven/Bible Heaven.iso/online/topics27/t28750

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28751
 June 16                                                  Evening

 \\"The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the\\
 \\Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"\\
                                                     --Psalm 27:1

    "\\The Lord is my light and my salvation\\." Here is personal
 interest, "\\my light\\," "\\my salvation\\;" the soul is
 assured of it, and therefore declares it boldly. Into the soul
 at the new birth divine light is poured as the precursor of
 salvation; where there is not enough light to reveal our own
 darkness and to make us long for the Lord Jesus, there is no
 evidence of salvation. After conversion our God is our joy,
 comfort, guide, teacher, and in every sense our light: he is
 light within, light around, light reflected from us, and light
 to be revealed to us. Note, it is not said merely that the Lord
 gives light, but that he is light; nor that he gives salvation,
 but that he is salvation; he, then, who by faith has laid hold
 upon God, has all covenant blessings in his possession. This
 being made sure as a fact, the argument drawn from it is put in
 the form of a question, "\\Whom shall I fear\\?" A question
 which is its own answer. The powers of darkness are not to be
 feared, for the Lord, our light, destroys them; and the
 damnation of hell is not to be dreaded by us, for the Lord is
 our salvation. This is a very different challenge from that of
 boastful Goliath, for it rests, not upon the conceited vigour of
 an arm of flesh, but upon the real power of the omnipotent I AM.
 "\\The Lord is the strength of my life\\." Here is a third
 glowing epithet, to show that the writer's hope was fastened
 with a threefold cord which could not be broken. We may well
 accumulate terms of praise where the Lord lavishes deeds of
 grace. Our life derives all its strength from God; and if he
 deigns to make us strong, we cannot be weakened by all the
 machinations of the adversary. "\\Of whom shall I be afraid\\?"
 The bold question looks into the future as well as the present.
 "If God be for us," who can be against us, either now or in time
 to come?
28752
 June 17                                                  Evening

 \\"Then Israel sang this song, Spring up, O well; sing ye unto\\
 \\it."\\
                                                  --Numbers 21:17

    Famous was the well of Beer in the wilderness, because it was
 \\the subject of a promise\\: "That is the well whereof the Lord
 spake unto Moses, Gather the people together, and I will give
 them water." The people needed water, and it was promised by
 their gracious God. We need fresh supplies of heavenly grace,
 and in the covenant the Lord has pledged himself to give all we
 require. The well next became \\the cause of a song\\. Before
 the water gushed forth, cheerful faith prompted the people to
 sing; and as they saw the crystal fount bubbling up, the music
 grew yet more joyous. In like manner, we who believe the promise
 of God should rejoice in the prospect of divine revivals in our
 souls, and as we experience them our holy joy should overflow.
 Are we thirsting? Let us not murmur, but sing. Spiritual thirst
 is bitter to bear, but we need not bear it--the promise
 indicates a well; let us be of good heart, and look for it.
 Moreover, the well was \\the centre of prayer\\. "Spring up, O
 well." What God has engaged to give, we must enquire after, or
 we manifest that we have neither desire nor faith. This evening
 let us ask that the Scripture we have read, and our devotional
 exercises, may not be an empty formality, but a channel of grace
 to our souls. O that God the Holy Spirit would work in us with
 all his mighty power, filling us with all the fulness of God.
 Lastly, the well was \\the object of effort\\. "The nobles of
 the people digged it with their staves." The Lord would have us
 active in obtaining grace. Our staves are ill adapted for
 digging in the sand, but we must use them to the utmost of our
 ability. Prayer must not be neglected; the assembling of
 ourselves together must not be forsaken; ordinances must not be
 slighted. The Lord will give us his peace most plenteously, but
 not in a way of idleness. Let us, then, bestir ourselves to seek
 him in whom are all our fresh springs.

28753
 June 18                                                  Evening

 \\"I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse."\\
                                            --Song of Solomon 5:1

    The heart of the believer is Christ's garden. He bought it
 with his precious blood, and he enters it and claims it as his
 own. A garden \\implies separation\\. It is not the open common;
 it is not a wilderness; it is walled around, or hedged in. Would
 that we could see the wall of separation between the church and
 the world made broader and stronger. It makes one sad to hear
 Christians saying, "Well, there is no harm in this; there is no
 harm in that," thus getting as near to the world as possible.
 Grace is at a low ebb in that soul which can even raise the
 question of how far it may go in worldly conformity. A garden is
 \\a place of beauty\\, it far surpasses the wild uncultivated
 lands. The genuine Christian must seek to be more excellent in
 his life than the best moralist, because Christ's garden ought
 to produce the best flowers in all the world. Even the best is
 poor compared with Christ's deservings; let us not put him off
 with withering and dwarf plants. The rarest, richest, choicest
 lilies and roses ought to bloom in the place which Jesus calls
 his own. The garden is \\a place of growth\\. The saints are not
 to remain undeveloped, always mere buds and blossoms. We should
 grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour
 Jesus Christ. Growth should be rapid where Jesus is the
 Husbandman, and the Holy Spirit the dew from above. A garden is
 \\a place of retirement\\. So the Lord Jesus Christ would have
 us reserve our souls as a place in which he can manifest
 himself, as he doth not unto the world. O that Christians were
 more retired, that they kept their hearts more closely shut up
 for Christ! We often worry and trouble ourselves, like Martha,
 with much serving, so that we have not the room for Christ that
 Mary had, and do not sit at his feet as we should. The Lord
 grant the sweet showers of his grace to water his garden this
 day.

28754
 June 19                                                  Evening

 \\"My Beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the\\
 \\lilies. Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn,\\
 \\my Beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the\\
 \\mountains of Bether."\\
                                       --Song of Solomon 2:16,17

    Surely if there be a happy verse in the Bible it is this--"My
 Beloved is mine, and I am his." So peaceful, so full of
 assurance, so overrunning with happiness and contentment is it,
 that it might well have been written by the same hand which
 penned the twenty-third Psalm. Yet though the prospect is
 exceeding fair and lovely--earth cannot show its superior--it is
 not entirely a sunlit landscape. There is a cloud in the sky
 which casts a shadow over the scene. Listen, "Until the day
 break, and the shadows flee away."

    There is a word, too, about the "mountains of Bether," or,
 "the mountains of division," and to our love, anything like
 division is bitterness. Beloved, this may be your present state
 of mind; you do not doubt your salvation; you know that Christ
 is yours, but you are not feasting with him. You understand
 your vital interest in him, so that you have no shadow of a
 doubt of your being his, and of his being yours, but still his
 left hand is not under your head, nor doth his right hand
 embrace you. A shade of sadness is cast over your heart, perhaps
 by affliction, certainly by the temporary absence of your Lord,
 so even while exclaiming, "I am his," you are forced to take to
 your knees, and to pray, "Until the day break, and the shadows
 flee away, turn, my Beloved."

    "Where is he?" asks the soul. And the answer comes, "He
 feedeth among the lilies." If we would find Christ, we must get
 into communion with his people, we must come to the ordinances
 with his saints. Oh, for an evening glimpse of him! Oh, to sup
 with him to-night!
28755
 June 20                                                  Evening

 \\"Straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him."\\
                                                      --Mark 1:18

    When they heard the call of Jesus, Simon and Andrew obeyed at
 once without demur. If we would always, punctually and with
 resolute zeal, put in practice what we hear upon the spot, or at
 the first fit occasion, our attendance at the means of grace,
 and our reading of good books, could not fail to enrich us
 spiritually. He will not lose his loaf who has taken care at
 once to eat it, neither can he be deprived of the benefit of the
 doctrine who has already acted upon it. Most readers and hearers
 become moved so far as to purpose to amend; but, alas! the
 proposal is a blossom which has not been knit, and therefore no
 fruit comes of it; they wait, they waver, and then they forget,
 till, like the ponds in nights of frost, when the sun shines by
 day, they are only thawed in time to be frozen again. That fatal
 \\to-morrow\\ is blood-red with the murder of fair resolutions;
 it is the slaughter-house of the innocents. We are very
 concerned that our little book of "Evening Readings" should not
 be fruitless, and therefore we pray that readers may not be
 readers only, but doers, of the word. \\The practice of truth is\\
 \\the most profitable reading of it\\. Should the reader be
 impressed with any duty while perusing these pages, let him
 hasten to fulfil it before the holy glow has departed from his
 soul, and let him leave his nets, and all that he has, sooner
 than be found rebellious to the Master's call. Do not give place
 to the devil by delay! Haste while opportunity and quickening
 are in happy conjunction. Do not be caught in your own nets, but
 break the meshes of worldliness, and away where glory calls you.
 Happy is the writer who shall meet with readers resolved to
 carry out his teachings: his harvest shall be a hundredfold, and
 his Master shall have great honour. Would to God that such might
 be our reward upon these brief meditations and hurried hints.
 Grant it, O Lord, unto thy servant!

28756
 June 21                                                  Evening

 \\"The foundation of God standeth sure."\\
                                                 --2 Timothy 2:19

    The foundation upon which our faith rests is this, that "God
 was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing
 their trespasses unto them." The great fact on which genuine
 faith relies is, that "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among
 us," and that "Christ also hath suffered for sin, the just for
 the unjust, that he might bring us to God"; "Who himself bare
 our sins in his own body on the tree"; "For the chastisement of
 our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed." In
 one word, the great pillar of the Christian's hope is
 \\substitution\\. The vicarious sacrifice of Christ for the
 guilty, Christ being made sin for us that we might be made the
 righteousness of God in him, Christ offering up a true and
 proper expiatory and substitutionary sacrifice in the room,
 place, and stead of as many as the Father gave him, who are
 known to God by name, and are recognized in their own hearts by
 their trusting in Jesus--this is the cardinal fact of the
 gospel. If this foundation were removed, what could we do? But
 it standeth firm as the throne of God. We know it; we rest on
 it; we rejoice in it; and our delight is to hold it, to meditate
 upon it, and to proclaim it, while we desire to be actuated and
 moved by gratitude for it in every part of our life and
 conversation. In these days a direct attack is made upon the
 doctrine of the atonement. Men cannot bear substitution. They
 gnash their teeth at the thought of the Lamb of God bearing the
 sin of man. But we, who know by experience the preciousness of
 this truth, will proclaim it in defiance of them confidently and
 unceasingly. We will neither dilute it nor change it, nor
 fritter it away in any shape or fashion. It shall still be
 Christ, a \\positive substitute\\, bearing human guilt and
 suffering in the stead of men. We cannot, dare not, give it up,
 for it is our life, and despite every controversy we feel that
 \\"Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure."\\

28757
 June 22                                                  Evening

 \\"That those things which cannot be shaken may remain."\\
                                                  --Hebrews 12:27

    We have many things in our possession at the present moment
 which can be shaken, and it ill becomes a Christian man to set
 much store by them, for there is nothing stable beneath these
 rolling skies; change is written upon all things. Yet, we have
 certain "things which \\cannot\\ be shaken," and I invite you
 this evening to think of them, that if the things which can be
 shaken should all be taken away, you may derive real comfort
 from the things that cannot be shaken, which will remain.
 Whatever your losses have been, or may be, you enjoy present
 salvation. You are standing at the foot of his cross, trusting
 alone in the merit of Jesus' precious blood, and no rise or fall
 of the markets can interfere with your salvation in him; no
 breaking of banks, no failures and bankruptcies can touch that.
 Then you are \\a child of God\\ this evening. God is your
 Father. No change of circumstances can ever rob you of that.
 Although by losses brought to poverty, and stripped bare, you
 can say, "He is my Father still. In my Father's house are many
 mansions; therefore will I not be troubled." You have another
 permanent blessing, namely, \\the love of Jesus Christ\\. He who
 is God and Man loves you with all the strength of his
 affectionate nature--nothing can affect that. The fig tree may
 not blossom, and the flocks may cease from the field, it matters
 not to the man who can sing, "My Beloved is mine, and I am his."
 Our best portion and richest heritage we cannot lose. Whatever
 troubles come, let us play the man; let us show that we are not
 such little children as to be cast down by what may happen in
 this poor fleeting state of time. Our country is Immanuel's
 land, our hope is above the sky, and therefore, calm as the
 summer's ocean; we will see the wreck of everything earthborn,
 and yet rejoice in the God of our salvation.

28758
 June 23                                                  Evening

 \\"Waiting for the adoption."\\
                                                    --Romans 8:23

    Even in this world saints are God's children, but men cannot
 discover them to be so, except by certain moral characteristics.
 The adoption is not manifested, the children are not yet openly
 declared. Among the Romans a man might adopt a child, and keep
 it private for a long time: but there was a second adoption in
 public; when the child was brought before the constituted
 authorities its former garments were taken off, and the father
 who took it to be his child gave it raiment suitable to its new
 condition of life. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it
 doth not yet appear what we shall be." We are not yet arrayed in
 the apparel which befits the royal family of heaven; we are
 wearing in this flesh and blood just what we wore as the sons of
 Adam; but we know that "when \\he\\ shall appear" who is the
 "first-born among many brethren," we shall be like him, we shall
 see him as he is. Cannot you imagine that a child taken from the
 lowest ranks of society, and adopted by a Roman senator, would
 say to himself, "I long for the day when I shall be publicly
 adopted. Then I shall leave off these plebeian garments, and be
 robed as becomes my senatorial rank"? Happy in what he has
 received, for that very reason he groans to get the fulness of
 what is promised him. So it is with us today. We are waiting
 till we shall put on our proper garments, and shall be
 manifested as the children of God. We are young nobles, and have
 not yet worn our coronets. We are young brides, and the marriage
 day is not yet come, and by the love our Spouse bears us, we are
 led to long and sigh for the bridal morning. Our very happiness
 makes us groan after more; our joy, like a swollen spring, longs
 to well up like an Iceland geyser, leaping to the skies, and it
 heaves and groans within our spirit for want of space and room
 by which to manifest itself to men.

28759
 June 24                                                  Evening

 \\"Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said ... Be\\
 \\it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy\\
 \\gods."\\
                                                --Daniel 3:16, 18

    The narrative of the manly courage and marvellous deliverance
 of the three holy children, or rather champions, is well
 calculated to excite in the minds of believers firmness and
 steadfastness in upholding the truth in the teeth of tyranny and
 in the very jaws of death. Let young Christians especially
 learn from their example, both in matters of faith in religion,
 and matters of uprightness in business, never to sacrifice their
 consciences. Lose all rather than lose your integrity, and when
 all else is gone, still hold fast a clear conscience as the
 rarest jewel which can adorn the bosom of a mortal. Be not
 guided by the will-o'-the-wisp of policy, but by the pole-star
 of divine authority. Follow the right at all hazards. When you
 see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God
 the honour to trust him when it comes to matters of loss for the
 sake of principle. See whether he will be your debtor! See if he
 doth not even in this life prove his word that "Godliness, with
 contentment, is great gain," and that they who "seek first the
 kingdom of God and his righteousness, shall have all these
 things added unto them." Should it happen that, in the
 providence of God, you are a loser by conscience, you shall find
 that if the Lord pays you not back in the silver of earthly
 prosperity, he will discharge his promise in the gold of
 spiritual joy. Remember that a man's life consisteth not in the
 abundance of that which he possesseth. To wear a guileless
 spirit, to have a heart void of offence, to have the favour and
 smile of God, is greater riches than the mines of Ophir could
 yield, or the traffic of Tyre could win. "Better is a dinner of
 herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and inward contention
 therewith." An ounce of heart's-ease is worth a ton of gold.

28760
 June 25                                                  Evening

 \\"The dove found no rest for the sole of her foot."\\
                                                    --Genesis 8:9

    Reader, can you find rest apart from the ark, Christ Jesus?
 Then be assured that your religion is vain. Are you satisfied
 with anything short of a conscious knowledge of your union and
 interest in Christ? Then woe unto you. If you profess to be a
 Christian, yet find full satisfaction in worldly pleasures and
 pursuits, your profession is false. If your soul can stretch
 herself at rest, and find the bed long enough, and the coverlet
 broad enough to cover her in the chambers of sin, then you are a
 hypocrite, and far enough from any right thoughts of Christ or
 perception of his preciousness. But if, on the other hand, you
 feel that if you could indulge in sin without punishment, yet it
 would be a punishment of itself; and that if you could have the
 whole world, and abide in it for ever, it would be quite enough
 misery not to be parted from it; for your God--your God--is what
 your soul craves after; then be of good courage, thou art a
 child of God. With all thy sins and imperfections, take this to
 thy comfort: if thy soul has no rest in sin, thou are not as the
 sinner is! If thou art still crying after and craving after
 something better, Christ has not forgotten thee, for thou hast
 not quite forgotten him. The believer cannot do without his
 Lord; words are inadequate to express his thoughts of him. We
 cannot live on the sands of the wilderness, we want the manna
 which drops from on high; our skin bottles of creature
 confidence cannot yield us a drop of moisture, but we drink of
 the rock which follows us, and that rock is Christ. When you
 feed on him your soul can sing, "He hath satisfied my mouth with
 good things, so that my youth is renewed like the eagle's," but
 if you have him not, your bursting wine vat and well-filled barn
 can give you no sort of satisfaction: rather lament over them in
 the words of wisdom, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!"

28761
 June 26                                                  Evening

 \\"Having escaped the corruption that is in the world through\\
 \\lust."\\
                                                    --2 Peter 1:4

    Vanish for ever all thought of indulging the flesh if you
 would live in the power of your risen Lord. It were ill that a
 man who is alive in Christ should dwell in the corruption of
 sin. "Why seek ye the living among the dead?" said the angel to
 Magdalene. Should the living dwell in the sepulchre? Should
 divine life be immured in the charnel-house of fleshly lust? How
 can we partake of the cup of the Lord and yet drink the cup of
 Belial? Surely, believer, from open lusts and sins you are
 delivered: have you also escaped from the more secret and
 delusive lime-twigs of the Satanic fowler? Have you come forth
 from the lust of pride? Have you escaped from slothfulness? Have
 you clean escaped from carnal security? Are you seeking day by
 day to live above worldliness, the pride of life, and the
 ensnaring vice of avarice? Remember, it is for this that you
 have been enriched with the treasures of God. If you be indeed
 the chosen of God, and beloved by him, do not suffer all the
 lavish treasure of grace to be wasted upon you. Follow after
 holiness; it is the Christian's crown and glory. An unholy
 church! it is useless to the world, and of no esteem among men.
 It is an abomination, hell's laughter, heaven's abhorrence. The
 worst evils which have ever come upon the world have been
 brought upon her by an unholy church. O Christian, the vows of
 God are upon you. You are God's priest: act as such. You are
 God's king: reign over your lusts. You are God's chosen: do not
 associate with Belial. Heaven is your portion: live like a
 heavenly spirit, so shall you prove that you have true faith in
 Jesus, for there cannot be faith in the heart unless there be
 holiness in the life.

               "Lord, I desire to live as one
               Who bears a blood-bought name,
               As one who fears but grieving thee,
               And knows no other shame."
28762
 June 27                                                  Evening

 \\"Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was\\
 \\called."\\
                                             --1 Corinthians 7:20

    Some persons have the foolish notion that the only way in
 which they can live for God is by becoming ministers,
 missionaries, or Bible women. Alas! how many would be shut out
 from any opportunity of magnifying the Most High if this were
 the case. Beloved, it is not office, it is earnestness; it is
 not position, it is grace which will enable us to glorify God.
 God is most surely glorified in that cobbler's stall, where the
 godly worker, as he plies the awl, sings of the Saviour's love,
 aye, glorified far more than in many a prebendal stall where
 official religiousness performs its scanty duties. The name of
 Jesus is glorified by the poor unlearned carter as he drives his
 horse, and blesses his God, or speaks to his fellow labourer by
 the roadside, as much as by the popular divine who, throughout
 the country, like Boanerges, is thundering out the gospel. God
 is glorified by our serving him in our proper vocations. Take
 care, dear reader, that you do not forsake the path of duty by
 leaving your occupation, and take care you do not dishonour your
 profession while in it. Think little of yourselves, but do not
 think too little of your callings. Every lawful trade may be
 sanctified by the gospel to noblest ends. Turn to the Bible, and
 you will find the most menial forms of labour connected either
 with most daring deeds of faith, or with persons whose lives
 have been illustrious for holiness. Therefore be not
 discontented with your calling. Whatever God has made your
 position, or your work, abide in that, unless you are quite sure
 that he calls you to something else. Let your first care be to
 glorify God to the utmost of your power where you are. Fill your
 present sphere to his praise, and if he needs you in another he
 will show it you. This evening lay aside vexatious ambition, and
 embrace peaceful content.

28763
 June 28                                                  Evening

 \\"But Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods."\\
                                                    --Exodus 7:12

    This incident is an instructive emblem of the sure victory of
 the divine handiwork over all opposition. Whenever a divine
 principle is cast into the heart, though the devil may fashion a
 counterfeit, and produce swarms of opponents, as sure as ever
 God is in the work, it will swallow up all its foes. If God's
 grace takes possession of a man, the world's magicians may throw
 down all their rods; and every rod may be as cunning and
 poisonous as a serpent, but Aaron's rod will swallow up their
 rods. The sweet attractions of the cross will woo and win the
 man's heart, and he who lived only for this deceitful earth will
 now have an eye for the upper spheres, and a wing to mount into
 celestial heights. When grace has won the day the worldling
 seeks the world to come. The same fact is to be observed in the
 life of the believer. What multitudes of foes has our faith had
 to meet! Our old sins--the devil threw them down before us, and
 they turned to serpents. What hosts of them! Ah, but the cross
 of Jesus destroys them all. Faith in Christ makes short work of
 all our sins. Then the devil has launched forth another host of
 serpents in the form of worldly trials, temptations, unbelief;
 but faith in Jesus is more than a match for them, and overcomes
 them all. The same absorbing principle shines in the faithful
 service of God! With an enthusiastic love for Jesus difficulties
 are surmounted, sacrifices become pleasures, sufferings are
 honours. But if religion is thus a consuming passion in the
 heart, then it follows that there are many persons who profess
 religion but have it not; for what they have will not bear this
 test. Examine yourself, my reader, on this point. Aaron's rod
 \\proved\\ its heaven-given power. Is your religion doing so? If
 Christ be anything he must be everything. O rest not till love
 and faith in Jesus be the master passions of your soul!

28764
 June 29                                                  Evening

 \\"Howbeit, in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of\\
 \\Babylon, who sent unto him to enquire of the wonder that was\\
 \\done in the land, God left him, to try him, that he might know\\
 \\all that was in his heart."\\
                                             --2 Chronicles 32:31

    Hezekiah was growing so inwardly great, and priding himself
 so much upon the favour of God, that self-righteousness crept
 in, and through his carnal security, the grace of God was for a
 time, in its more active operations, withdrawn. Here is quite
 enough to account with the Babylonians; for if the grace of God
 should leave the best Christian, there is enough of sin in his
 heart to make him the worst of transgressors. If left to
 yourselves, you who are warmest for Christ would cool down like
 Laodicea into sickening lukewarmness: you who are sound in the
 faith would be white with the leprosy of false doctrine; you who
 now walk before the Lord in excellency and integrity would reel
 to and fro, and stagger with a drunkenness of evil passion. Like
 the moon, we borrow our light; bright as we are when grace
 shines on us, we are darkness itself when the Sun of
 Righteousness withdraws himself. \\Therefore let us cry to God\\
 \\never to leave us\\. "Lord, take not thy Holy Spirit from us!
 Withdraw not from us thine indwelling grace! Hast thou not said,
 'I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any
 hurt it, I will keep it night and day'? Lord, keep us
 everywhere. Keep us when in the valley, that we murmur not
 against thy humbling hand; keep us when on the mountain, that we
 wax not giddy through being lifted up; keep us in youth, when
 our passions are strong; keep us in old age, when becoming
 conceited of our wisdom, we may therefore prove greater fools
 than the young and giddy; keep us when we come to die, lest, at
 the very last, we should deny thee! Keep us living, keep us
 dying, keep us labouring, keep us suffering, keep us fighting,
 keep us resting, keep us everywhere, for everywhere we need
 thee, O our God!"

28765
 June 30                                                  Evening

 \\"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

    At the very time when the Chaldeans surrounded Jerusalem, and
 when the sword, famine and pestilence had desolated the land,
 Jeremiah was commanded by God to purchase a field, and have the
 deed of transfer legally sealed and witnessed. This was a
 strange purchase for a rational man to make. Prudence could not
 justify it, for it was buying with scarcely a probability that
 the person purchasing could ever enjoy the possession. But it
 was enough for Jeremiah that his God had bidden him, for well he
 knew that God will be justified of all his children. He reasoned
 thus: "Ah, Lord God! thou canst make this plot of ground of use
 to me; thou canst rid this land of these oppressors; thou canst
 make me yet sit under my vine and my fig-tree in the heritage
 which I have bought; for thou didst make the heavens and the
 earth, and there is nothing too hard for thee." This gave a
 majesty to the early saints, that they dared to do at God's
 command things which carnal reason would condemn. Whether it be
 a Noah who is to build a ship on dry land, an Abraham who is to
 offer up his only son, or a Moses who is to despise the
 treasures of Egypt, or a Joshua who is to besiege Jericho seven
 days, using no weapons but the blasts of rams' horns, they all
 act upon God's command, contrary to the dictates of carnal
 reason; and the Lord gives them a rich reward as the result of
 their obedient faith. Would to God we had in the religion of
 these modern times a more potent infusion of this heroic faith
 in God. If we would venture more upon the naked promise of God,
 we should enter a world of wonders to which as yet we are
 strangers. Let Jeremiah's place of confidence be ours--nothing
 is too hard for the God that created the heavens and the earth.

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