http://opc.org/devotional.html A Daily Devotional from OPC.org en-us Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:01:01 EST Copyright 2007-2009 Orthodox Presbyterian Church Orthodox Presbyterian Church http://opc.org/devotional.html?devotion_id=1819 Bible Reading: 1 Chronicles 29:17: ¹⁷I know also, my God, that thou triest the heart, and hast pleasure in uprightness. As for me, in the uprightness of mine heart I have willingly offered all these things: and now have I seen with joy thy people, which are present here, to offer willingly unto thee.

Devotional:

Disturbances in the hidden walk with God can have more than one cause. The most mysterious to your devout feeling is when God's Face withdraws itself, in order by the deprivation to make you thirst more truly after Him. The most common is, when earthly interests so occupy and exercise you, that your soul, as it were, is ensnared by them. And the one that most offends your soul is, when a newly committed sin came in the way, which not only broke the fellowship with God, but also remained a hindrance to your return into the nearness of the Holy One. Only of a committed sin is mention made here, of a word, a deed, which you felt, when you faced it, would be a sin to you, and which yet you failed to evade. A sinful inclination, a sinful mood, especially a sinful desire, can also very seriously affect your fellowship with God, but thereby the working is of another sort. For on this side of the grave this sinful intermingling will ever continue with you, and this by itself, provided you do not cherish it, does not prevent your hidden walk with Him. Your hidden walk with God is always in Christ, and this itself is the avowal that you do not come to Him as a saint, but as one who is in himself a sinner. But with a sin that you have consciously committed it is altogether different. Then there was compliance, yielding, the doing of it; and then at once the light of God's benign Countenance is dimmed; then it becomes dark to you from His side, and there rather comes up in you an inclination to flee from Him than to be near unto Him. We perceive this turn in the disposition of our soul at once clearly and most painfully when it was a sin that suddenly laid hold on us; a sin which, once committed, overwhelmed us, and for which we would sacrifice anything if we could immediately remove the stain of it from our soul. When, to say it plainly, it was a grievous sin. For in nothing is our degraded moral viewpoint so pitifully evident as in the fact that we have scarcely any knowledge of our minor daily sins. Neglected duties; unloveliness; assertions of egotism, of pride, of vanity; tiny untruths, trifling dishonesties, and more. This is still something altogether different from what David calls the "secret sins." These are faults that leave a stain upon our garment, but yet too trifling for our lustful eye to discover it to us. This refers to sins of which we have no knowledge yet, and the sinfulness of which will only be realized with a more advanced development of the life of the soul. But of our sins which we call "not so very bad" we have this knowledge. Only, we became accustomed to them. They trouble us no more. Our soul no more reacts against them. And also of this sort of sins it is certainly true that they hinder your hidden walk with your God, but do not prevent it. They do not break off what existed, but they make your hidden walk with God very defective, so that it remains a fellowship from a distance, which keeps you from the deeper enjoyment of this communion. Interruptions in this fellowship with God through your sin only occur when ordinarily you live near to God, know Him in all your ways, and have been initiated into the secret of salvation, and all unforeseen you commit a sin that overwhelms and lays hold on you, and brings it to pass that a dark cloud draws over your sky, and you are thrown back upon yourself, and you feel that you have lost your part in the satisfying walk with God. Of such an interruption David speaks in the thirty-second Psalm, and he confesses that this cessation continued because he kept silence. "When I kept silence thy hand was heavy upon me day and night." But finally he breaks that silence. "I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord." This he does, and now at once the disturbance is removed. Now he seeks and finds his God again, and now he jubilantly sings: "For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found. Thou compassest me with joyful songs of deliverance." Yea, now he meets God again, and this God does not repel him, nor put him back, but he hears it sweetly whispered in his soul: "I will instruct thee, I will guide thee with mine eye." And in truth there lies in this Davidic experience of soul the only correct diagnosis, and the only effective medicine. When we are so weak, nay so wicked, as willingly and knowingly to commit a sin, the first impression it makes upon us is, that we want to hide ourselves from God, that we are afraid to appear before His presence, and that with the bitter remembrance of our sin we draw back within ourselves. Not from enmity, but from fear. Not from lack of will, but from shame. We then know well that we must get back to God, but we postpone it. We would like to pray, but we rather allow some time to intervene. We keep silence. And it is in this heavy, this soul-distressing silence that we get ever farther away from God. This is the diagnosis, the correct explanation of the wound from which at such a moment our soul bleeds. And the only proper medicine is that you immediately break your silence, that you allow no time to be lost, that without delay you seek solitude, and in this retirement you fall upon your knees, and, without sparing yourself, candidly and openly confess before God the sin that you committed, and call upon Him for forgiveness, yea, implore Him not to take away his Holy Spirit from you. Truly, this costs pain, for which at such a time you must do violence to yourself; you then feel the sting of God's anger, and across this anger you must reach out after the mercy. But the effect of this is always surprising. It is just as David said. It breaks at once the ban which your sin put upon your heart. Something melts within your soul, and in this melting comes the liberation, comes the redemption, comes the reconciliation, and God approaches you in His faithfulness, even as Jesus pictured it to us as the shepherd with the lost sheep. Yea, it seems as though God in such a moment comes nearer to you than ever, in order to cause you to believe in His infinite compassion. Satan whispered in your heart: "Stay away from God." But your Father in heaven called out to you: "No, come to Me, my child." And in this mutual approach of your guilt-confessing heart to your God and of your God to your soul, the interruption that intervened comes to naught. And then it is good for you, so unspeakably good, again to be near unto your God. And what now is the secret of this work of healing the soul? Is it not in what Jeremiah exclaimed: "Lord, thou knowest me, Thou seest me, Thou triest my heart that it is with Thee" (12:3). What with Psalmist and Prophet makes the outpouring of soul so touching is that their whole life and their whole existence is interpreted within the scope of a conflict for or against God. A conflict between God and Satan, a conflict between God and the unholy powers of the world, a conflict with God in every sin. With them is never heard the weak, cowardly language of a self-developing and degenerating moral life. No, everything is put into immediate, vital relationship with God, as the center of all things. A conflict between all sin and unrighteousness and God, and a conflict on the part of God with all sin and all unrighteousness. A conflict of the ages, from paradise on, and continuing until the end of time when God in Christ over the last enemy shall triumph. And in this conflict every one of us is involved and concerned. If we sin we battle on the side of Satan against God. When we live by faith, we battle on the side of God, against Satan. Such is the interpretation of life on the part of Prophets and Apostles, and such, also, must be ours, even the profound and striking interpretation of life on the part of every child of God. And what now is a sin that we commit? What other can it be, than that in an evil moment we lend our support to the power of evil against God, and with Satan militate against Him ? And if this is so, what is to make confession of your sin other than that, realizing this, you immediately desert again the ranks of Satan, in order to return to the ranks of God, beseeching Him that you may be counted worthy to fight in His ranks, and to be found again on His side. And now comes the appeal of your heart to the omniscient knowledge of the God of all compassions. Did you mean to run away from the ranks of God to join the ranks of Satan? No, thrice no. You did not intend to do it; the thought of such an evil did not rise up within you. You allowed yourself to be taken unawares. You slipped without realizing the dreadful wickedness of your deed. And now that you realize that this is what you did, you make your appeal to God Himself. In the deepest depth of your heart you did not will to desert God; and the sorrow of your soul, your remorse, your self-reproach is that in the face of it you have nevertheless incurred the guilt of an act of enmity against Him. And therefore you now plead with Him, the Knower of your heart, and ask, whether: as He tries your heart He does not see, that, notwithstanding all, in its deepest depth it is still with Him and not with Satan. ]]> Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST http://opc.org/devotional.html?devotion_id=1819 http://opc.org/devotional.html?devotion_id=1818 Bible Reading: Psalm 8:1, 9: ¹O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. ⁹O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!

Devotional:

In one of the last Hallelujah-psalms the closing verse sings of the children of Israel as of a people that is near unto God. It says in full: "He hath exalted the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints; even of the children of Israel, a people near unto him" (Psalm 148:14). Thus, the distinction here is, that not only may the individual soul find itself in closer fellowship, in more intimate communion, in more constant walk with God, but that, in a much vaguer sense, of course, this may also be true, under given circumstances, of a vast multitude of persons and even of a whole people. This to a certain extent can be applied to the population of country districts, especially in contrast with the population of great cities. The fairy-tale of the "Temple of uncarved wood" remains herewith under the sentence of its own unreality. In its hypocrisy this legend was never anything else than the poetic, pious talk of those who on Sunday would rather take a walk than go to Church. No, what here is meant is the fact observed in almost every country, that the rural population taken as a whole has remained devoted to their religion, while, on the other hand, the great mass of city people, at least among what are called Protestants, have died to all home religion and public worship. It can even be said that this grave phenomenon increases in the measure in which the population of a city enlarges itself. This does not mean that in these great cities there is no remnant of devout people. Sometimes, even, these people are very influential, their godliness in many ways is of a higher type than the rural godliness, especially in strength of purpose and buoyancy. This comes from the greater friction and fiercer conflict of city-life. He who in such cities remained faithful to the sacred traditions of the fathers, did this under protest, had to suffer for it, had to fight for it; but he who in this conflict held his ground, came out of it better disciplined, fortified, strengthened, and felt himself better equipped against unbelief and indifferentism. But apart from these relatively small exceptions it cannot be denied that in rural districts reverence for religion is more firmly rooted, and that in city life this reverence wanes; especially where there are great industries, much commerce, and much speculation at the Exchange. Indeed among factory owners and factory hands, among merchants and office clerks, among the members of the Exchange and capitalists there are also truly consecrated children of God, but they are white ravens among the black flock. Sundry causes have brought this about. In the country, with weather and wind, with harvests and failures of crops, with cattle and land plagues, one is far more dependent upon the direct doings of God. In the industrial world it is more the human factor, the machine-invention that exercises dominion. Also in the country temptation is less brutally on exhibition. There evenings are shorter and people rise earlier. People know one another personally, and hence the discipline of public opinion is more effective. A church has fewer members, so that supervision is more general. A number of causes here co-operate, the greatest among which will ever be: life in the country itself, and the consequent influence of nature, of the visible creation of God that surrounds country-people. From which it is to be inferred that he who seeks the nearness of God loses considerable power when he does not open eye and ear to the impression of God's nearness which the visible creation can give us. How necessary this opening of eye and ear is, you readily see in the large numbers of city folk who in summer go to the country, but who, when there, look for nothing but fresh air and recreation, and return as estranged from God as they came. But it remains a fact that the city man misses nature. Parks and boulevards compensate something, but the great masses, especially of working people, only come home when it gets dark. Yet truly even above our cities the glory of the stars glistens in the firmament, but who among the many that walk the busy streets by night lifts up his eyes on high to see who has created all these things, bringeth out their hosts by number and calleth them by name? In our villages one has nature all about him, whether he wills or not. It forces itself upon the inhabitants. In our cities, on the other hand, one is shut off from nature, and he alone finds it who seeks it above or outside of the town. In the country, God's voice comes to us from within and from without; in our cities it comes to us alone from within, while in all manner of ways the voice of man loudly resounds to deafen the voice of the Lord, even in His starry heaven and in His thunder. They who are advanced in years and whose life's work is done, seek the country to make good their loss; but by that time, in most cases, they have lost their susceptibility to nature and remain isolated from their surroundings. Now in the face of this take the Scriptures. Man comes up in a glorious paradise where all nature brings him a pure address from his God. And even after the Fall there remains so much glory in broken nature that the invisible things of God are understood from created things, both His eternal power and Godhead (Romans 1:20). "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handiwork. Day unto day abundantly uttereth speech and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no people or land where this voice of God is not heard" (Psalm 19). "Glorious is his name in all the earth. The voice of the Lord is upon the waters. The God of glory thundereth. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars, even the cedars of Lebanon" (Psalm 29). And so it goes on through all the Psalms. Read and reread the one hundred and fourth Psalm. And then at the end of the Psalter we have a striking description of nature in the hundred and forty-seventh and hundred and forty-eighth Psalms. And even before the Psalter, is Job with his magnificent descriptions of the Behemoth, the horse and the pleiades. It is all one mighty call in the greatness and beauty of nature to behold the glory of God. And when in Scripture you have come to the appearance of the Son of Man, by His sayings: "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow!"—"Behold the fowls of the air!"—light is thrown upon the mysteries of the kingdom from what is seen in the sower and the shepherds, and in the end there is the touching comparison of Jerusalem with the hen that gathers her chickens under her wings. The whole of Revelation, the whole of Scripture is aglow with the glory of nature. God's ancient people was a rural people, and the holy land which God had given to them was then, though no longer now, a fertile region of unequaled beauty. The new earth under the new heaven shall be a return of paradise. The wilderness shall blossom as the rose. And when our times know the honors lavishly conferred upon the landscape painter—because of the enchanting scenes which, with depth of glowing color and life, as by magic he works before our eyes—then what dullness of the spiritual eye it is that these same times have no eye, no perception for the thousandfold higher beauty in the handiwork of God, the greatest Artist? For this very reason, therefore, it affects one strangely, when among Christian people he often finds so little, if any, appreciation of the glory in nature. Undoubtedly the voice of the Herald of Peace rises far above the many voices of nature. "In his temple," says the Psalmist, after he has described God's mightiness in nature, "in his temple doth everyone speak of his glory" (Psalm 29:9). And in the Hallelujah-song of Psalm 147 it is said that Israel is highly exalted above the primitive peoples, because the Lord hath made known His words unto Jacob. And then it says: "He hath not dealt so with any nation, neither have the heathen knowledge of his laws." In the congregation of believers, when the Word is rightly proclaimed, there is spiritually a far higher beauty, than the beauty of nature can ever provide. But shall we, therefore, be one-sided, and allow one half to be lost? "From two sources," says one of our creedal Confessions, "have we knowledge of our God. From His Word very surely, but also from the creatures, who are as letters in the book of creation to make us understand God's Mightiness and Majesty." Godly conversations, Christian gatherings, edifying books, are all excellent, but may you therefore leave the great book of creation to remain closed to your soul's eye? It is all for the sake of impressions on the collodian-plate of our heart, for the sake of impressions which go out far above those of our daily life, and above the impressions which we receive from man. We will not, we may not, live under the impression that the Divine could ever shrink to the measure of the human. We will not degrade and minimize God to our dimensions, but rather lift ourselves up to the measure of His Majesty. Not a God after our image, but ourselves created after the Image of God. And this your books will not give you, your mutual conversations will not provide. All this remains within the pale and within the measure of our small proportions. So altogether different from a rising and a setting of God's sun. So altogether different from the light of a lightning flash or from the thunder that reverberates in the clouds. So altogether different from the starry glory that arches itself above you, and from the mighty forest, or from the lion that roars for prey. What we have here is the sublime, and therein is the Divine outpouring of the super-beautiful and the glorious. The sublime! A majesty that is elevated far above the small dimensions of our economy and of our making. By which you know and understand that you are not in touch with the bungling works of man, but with the glorious high art of the Creator of heaven and earth. Of course this glistening, glittering nature can not disclose to you the way of salvation, the spiritual mysteries. For this, God in His compassion has given you His Gospel. But what the outshining of God's Almightiness and Divinity in nature does, is, that it broadens, expands and uplifts all your ideas to a higher sphere than your own seeing can give you. This, that it lifts you up from the insignificant-human to the Divinely-great. To the sublime! And so brings the High and Lofty One nearer unto you. ]]> Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST http://opc.org/devotional.html?devotion_id=1818 http://opc.org/devotional.html?devotion_id=1817 Bible Reading: Colossians 3:23: ²³And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men....

Devotional:

In His Word God absolutely forbids every inclination and every attempt to break up your life into two parts, the one part for yourself and the other part for Him. There must be no cleavage, no division. Not six week days for you and Sunday for God. Not an unconsecrated life interspersed with consecrated moments. Not an unhallowed existence into which at intervals a holy thread is woven. Not a life outside of religion sprinkled in parts with godliness. No, on this point the claim of Scripture is as inclusive as possible; and, though it may sound strangely to our ears, the obligation is imposed upon you that you shall pray without ceasing, that in everything you shall give thanks, that you must always rejoice in your God, and so also that whatsoever ye do, you shall do it heartily as unto the Lord (Colossians 3:23). To the Thessalonians (I Thessalonians 5:16) Paul writes: "Pray without ceasing. Rejoice evermore. In everything give thanks." To the Philippians (4:4), "Rejoice in the Lord always." And to those at Colosse: "Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord." You are never given a respite. Never an agreement is made with you. Never with less than your whole life does God take pleasure. Where faith becomes the rule of your life, it wills its rule to be absolute. No excuses, no half measures will do. He who as child of God, as servant of Christ, as inspired by the Holy Ghost, lives his life in this world must in everything be led and carried by his faith. He who divides and makes distinctions, robs God of a part that belongs to Him alone. If you are to love your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your powers, every avenue of escape is closed against you, and the all-claiming and exigent character of the faith is founded in love itself. Every division works harm in your life and in your religion. He who divides and then undertakes too much in behalf of his religion, neglects his family or his calling. And he who divides, without being godly, gives the lion's share to the world, and skimps with a stingy heart what he professes to set apart for God in strength, time and money. He who would choose to be near unto God and go through life in close fellowship with Him is not permitted to practice this fellowship at one time and to neglect it at another. With him in everything he doeth God must be known, God must be the end and aim, God must be prayed unto, and God must be thanked. Not formally with closing of eyes and folding of hands and muttering of words, but in that innermost part of his heart and in that hidden recess of his self-consciousness in which are the issues of his life as well as of his prayer. This reacts against the idea that a clergyman can, and a merchant can not make this fellowship with God a constant reality in his life; that the man or woman who works zealously for missions, for philanthropy or evangelization, but not the father and the mother in the family are engaged in holy service in the eyes of their God. What a clergyman, or missionary, or nurse does, is then called consecrated labor, and what the gardener, or merchant or seamstress or servant performs is then said to lie within the pale of unconsecrated ground; and it is just this false representation of the matter that works so much harm to the godly life and to vital godliness. Of course there is no denying that he who directly ministers in the sanctuary is necessarily more busy with holy things, and herewith enjoys an uncommon privilege for which he shall give account before God. And equally little can it be denied that at the Exchange and in the shop and office, it takes far more effort and overcoming of self to always remain in everything near unto God. This takes the more effort, in connection with which God knows of what we are made, mindful that we are but dust. But weighing against this stands the fact that the ministry in the sanctuary brings with it, in no small measure, the danger of becoming too much accustomed to holy things and of handling the same more and more with unholy hands; and, by sinning in and against the sacred calling, faces so much heavier a judgment. Ever and anon, in the best church and in the most excellent mission, the evil times have come back when priests and priestesses in the sanctuary have profaned themselves, and that not from among them but from among the humble patrons and working people and shop-keepers and merchants, the action arose which restored holy things to honor. A godly pastor, a devout missionary, a consecrated nurse, and so, too, a truly godly warden, elder or deacon, represent a glorious power; but one makes a mistake when he thinks that of itself the office or the more sacred calling brings true godliness with it. Especially, young clergymen who have tender consciences are bound, again and again, to acknowledge to themselves that the godliness of many an ordinary member of their congregation puts their own religiousness to shame. Likewise it must be granted that in our extremely defective condition, a certain intentional, a certain special consecration of a part of our life, of our strength and of our money, to religious works and interests appears necessary. You cannot so serve your God all the days of your life, but the day of rest continues to retain its higher significance. You cannot so be near your God in everything you do, but the special seasons for direct prayer, for the worship in the Word, and for thanksgiving in spoken praises, remain for you a need of the heart. And you can not so practice justice and mercy in everything, but the setting apart of intentional gifts for the service of the Lord, is felt by you to be a blessed duty. In the Jerusalem above this duality also shall fall away. The Church Triumphant above shall not stand in nor alongside of the life of glory, but shall be that life itself. Father-house and triumphant Church before God's Throne are one. But it is not so here. Here it can not be otherwise than that the duality maintains itself. Your Church is something else than your family or your workshop. The mighty contrast between the things of this world and the things of the kingdom demands this. But this should never bring it about that your religion, your godliness, should so concentrate itself within this sacred domain that it should give rise to a churchly life with godliness, alongside of a life without godliness. Godliness may find a more exalted expression within the sacred domain and may strengthen you for daily life, but if your godliness shall be of the true and genuine type it must be a golden thread that maintains its glistening brightness throughout your whole life. All this depends on whether you truly believe that your God is the Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth. Thus also whether you believe and consider that every material which you elaborate is His creature; that every article of food and drink on your table is His creature and His gift; that your body and all your senses are His embroidery, and that He maintains the workings of them; that every power of nature wherewith you have to do is His omnipresent working; that every circumstance you encounter has been assigned to you by Him; that every relation in which you are placed by blood, by marriage, by appointment or from choice has come to you under and by His providential plan; that every exigency and difficulty in which you find yourself has been put by Him in your way; that every task or duty to which you are called comes to you for His sake and has a definite significance in His government; that you can not think of anything so high or so low on earth but it all forms a link, great or small, in the chain of His disposal; that no joy is tasted and no suffering endured but He measures it out to you; or, briefly, that nothing is conceivable in heaven or earth, and nothing can exist, but that God Who created heaven and earth maintains and governs it, has His holy purpose in it all, is in everything the Lord Who disposes and ordains it, and Who in all things uses His people— which includes you—to carry out His counsel to completion. To except from this anything whatsoever, is unbelief. When therefore the Apostle says: "Whatsoever ye do" in words or works, "do it all heartily as to the Lord," he says nothing but what directly flows from your profession, that you believe in God the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth. Then there is neither in your personal life, nor in your family life, neither in your study and labor, nor in anything that you do, anything that you can think of that should separate you from God, and that should not rather, provided it is rightly interpreted, lead you to Him. Sin, yes, that you cannot do as to the Lord. That separates, that breaks up the fellowship and throws you back upon yourself. But for the rest, whether you stand behind the counter or work at your trade; whether you sit in your office; whether you lose yourself in study or devote yourself to art; whether you are at home with your family or other company—it can and must be all one working, one activity, with strength imparted to you of God, in things created by God, for a purpose that God has ordained with respect to it. It is thus but the question whether your faith—not now in the mysteries of salvation, no—but your faith first of all in God as the Creator of heaven and earth floats upon your soul as a drop of oil upon the waters, or whether it enters into the whole of your life and is applied by you to everything. If it is the latter, then there is no division anywhere. Then the man who plows and sows, the carpenter at the bench or the stone-mason, the mother who cares for her children and her home, in brief, no man or woman in whatever position in life is ever to do a work without God, but always as in His service. Then to be near unto God, then the fellowship with the Eternal, the hidden walk with Him Who knoweth the heart is no sweet-smelling savor alongside of life, but the breath of life itself that breathes forth from your entire life its grateful savor into your nostrils. In everything then you rejoice, because from everything and in everything the Majesty and the grace of God breathe forth upon you. In everything then you pray, not with the lips but with the heart, because in whatever you do you feel your deep dependence upon His Almighty power. In everything then you give thanks, because every success is the fruit of His grace, and every adversity is intended to stimulate you, with the assistance of ever more grace, to greater exertion of strength. Yea, then you do everything heartily, not mechanically, not slavishly, not from necessity, but willingly and gladly, because you are permitted to do it thus in His service. And so you come to a level of existence where godliness and fulfillment of duty are one, because in quiet and restful nearness to God whatever you do, you are permitted to do as to the Lord. ]]> Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST http://opc.org/devotional.html?devotion_id=1817