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T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
January, 1933
thus overwhelmed? Well, at such a time, what are we to do? What the psalmist did: we should pray . . . All sin must be judged, and often the agents are the great est sinners. This was Habakkuk’s problem. It will be well for us to attend to our end of the matter, and to leave the other end to God. Think o f the people who have been “brought very low.” Think o f Job, and David, and Jeremiah, and of yourself. .But there is a God on high for people who are low, and He will keep us from sin and from sinking. It is when we are very low that we should look very high. JANUARY 24 “Arise, O God, judge the earth: for thou shalt inherit all nations” (Psa. 82:8). Do you find the fact that God is the uni versal Judge a disturbing or a restful thought? The explanation either way is to be found within you. Let us rejoice that Righteousness is on the throne o f the world’s government. The hands of God hold even scales. JANUARY 25 “For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand” (Psa. 84:10). The psalmist is satisfied. One day with God is better than a thousand with any one else. He would rather lie on the thresh old of the temple than be on the throne in any worldly tent. Is God our light and protection? Have we chosen Him as the Chief Good? If so, He will not withhold from us any good. When Thomas Halyburton was dying,: he caused them to read the 84th Psalm, and to sing the latter part of it: “Lord God of hosts, my prayer hear; O Jacob’s God, give ear. See God our shield, look on His face O f thine anointed dear.” He joined in singing, and, after prayer, he said, “ I have always had a mistimed voice, a bad ear, but, which is worst of all, a mistuned heart. But shortly, when I join the temple service above, there shall not be, world without end, one string of the affections out of tune.” JANUARY 26 “ Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?" (Psa. 85:6). James Gilmour of Mongolia wrote in T890 to an old college friend: “You say you want reviving—go direct to Jesus and ask it straight out, and you’ll get it straight away. This revived state is not a thing you need to work yourself up into, or need others to help you to rise into, or need to come to England to have operated upon you—Jesus can effect it anywhere, and does effect it everywhere whenever a man or woman, or men and women, ask it. Ask and ye shall receive.” JANUARY 27 “ Teach me thy way, O Lord; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name” (Psa. 86:11). Is your life unified? Are your conscience and will and intellect and emotion and rea son all in sweet harmony, or are they in pathetic and tragic conflict with one an- Hail to the Lord’s Anointed; Great David’s greater Son ! Hail, in the time appointed, His reign on earth begun! He comes to break oppression, To set the captive free, - ' To take away transgression And rule in equity. ¿ $ | S j. M o n t g o m e r y .
CDaily CDevoiionalc^^eadings A M E S S A G E F O R E V E R Y DAY OF T H E M O N T H
[The prose selections o f undesignated authorship are, like those o f last month, from the pen o f Dr. W. Graham Scroggie, and are taken in most cases from his val uable study hour series on Psalms, pub lished. by Harper Bros., at $1.25 per vol ume .— E dito r .] JANUARY 16 “It is good fo r me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord God" (Psa. 73:28). Tell your certainties to others, but keep your doubts to yourself. I f you freely air your doubts, almost certainly you will in jure some innocent trusting soul. Don’t do it. “Fermentation should be done in the dark.” There are some problems which in tellect cannot solve, but which communion with God will resolve, at least sufficiently for peaceful acquiescence. . . Verses 19 and 20 (Psa. 73) are terrific. God seemed to! have been asleep, and so the wicked thought; but He awaked and aroused Him self, and their solid-seeming fabric crash ed into ruins; they passed as empty phan tasms of the night. This leads the psalm ist to see and own that his doubts had their source, not on some defect in God’s providence, but in his own ignorance and hasty irritation. It is always so. JANUARY 17 “A s every man received the gift, even so minister the same one to another as good stewards o f the manifold grace of God” (1 Pet. 4:10). What person has any occasion to be proud? Some people are proud of their good looks. Well, they did not give them selves those good looks. While they have them, they may be a snare, and too soon they will lose them. There are singers in Christian choirs who are proud o f their voices. Well, they did not build or buy them, but they were given o f God to be consecrated to His service. What have they got to be proud o f? W e have nothing worth having that we have not recieved. We are not proprietors o f anything we have, but stewards; and we shall be held accountable to Almighty God. JANUARY 18 “ Therefore doth my Father love me, be cause I lay down my life” (John 10:17). We take every precaution against death, but He set His face as a flint to go to Jeru salem. He need not have died thus but He chose to. And the teaching, popular in some quarters today, that Christ had no idea of the cross, and that when He was brought to it, He died o f a broken heart, is an unadulterated denial of the facts and of the gospel. Death did not end Christ’s work, but was an incident in His life, and was_ His work. By “the finished work of Christ” we are to understand the fulfill ment of that purpose for which He came into the world. JANUARY 19 “ When l shall find the set time, 1 will judge uprightly" (Psa. 75:2, R .V .). When God’s time comes, He acts, and never is He before it, or behind it. He has His own clock, and His own chronology. Sometimes His delay seems hard on right
eousness, and favorable to wickedness, but in truth it never is. Then, when the time comes, He judges uprightly. Wickedness never goes unpunished, and righteousness is never unrewarded . . . God can afford to wait, but His delays should not lead saints to despond or sinners to presume, for when the hour comes, judgment will fa lK Na tions today are challenging God as Assyria did of old, but such a challenge can have only one issue for all such. JANUARY 20 “ To save all the meek o f the earth” (Psa. 76:9). The wicked are to be pitied rather than feared, for the Lord makes their wrath to minister to their final discomfiture. Israel shall worship, the nations shall bring gifts, and wicked potentates shall be cut down as' ripe grapes. This psalm was born of circumstances which belong to the distant historic past, but it has values which are independent of them, and which belong to people in every circumstance and age. We all are beset by foes, within and without, the devil, the world, the flesh, and for victory over these we are completely dependent upon God as ever Israel was in its greatest dangers. He is never on the side of the mighty, but He will “save all the meek of the earth.” JANUARY 21 “I call to remembrance my song in the night” (Psa. 77:6). The whole psalm must be a great com fort to troubled souls, who may find re assurance by looking behind and before, to history and to heaven. It depicts the struggle o f a soul as cen tered in a single night of anguish. As he lay awake, despair and hope battled within him for the mastery, and before day dawns, a great light has flooded his soul. He had recalled Israel’s captivity in Egypt, but also their deliverance, and he sees a way out from present captivity by that same God who emancipated His people long before. Let us too see the future in the past, and feed on the old store as do bees in the winter. He may rest in God who cannot rest upon his bed. JANUARY 22 “ They sinned still and believed not his wondrous works” (Psa. 78:32). How incorrigible is sin ; and how cer tain is-punishment ! If you want to perish, go on sinning. Verses 34 to 37 (Psa. 78) tell us that when the people suffered they sought the Lord, but it was for themselves that they were sorry, and not for their sins ; their repentance was shallow ; they were wrong at the root. Our hearts deter mine our attitude to God, and not our lips. The religion of many people is from the teeth out. JANUARY 23 “ O remember not against us former in iquities: let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us: fo r we are brought very low" (Psa. 79:8). All that was dearest to these Israelites was taken from them; desolation and ruin were on every hand. Have you ever felt
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