November 30

“Your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.” (John 16:22)

I am so thankful that I have a joy that the world cannot rob me of; I have a treasure that the world cannot take from me; I have something that it is not in the power of man or devil to deprive me of, the joy of the Lord. “No man taketh it from you.”

November 29

“There was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest.” (Luke 22:24)

To me, one of the saddest things in all the life of Jesus Christ was the fact that just before His crucifixion, His disciples should have been striving to see who should be the greatest. It was His last night on earth, and they never saw Him so sorrowful before. He knew Judas was going to sell Him for thirty pieces of silver. He knew that Peter would deny Him. And yet, in addition to this, when going into the very shadow of the cross, there arose this strife as to who should be the greatest.

He took a towel and girded Himself like a slave, and He took a basin of water and stooped and washed their feet. That was another object lesson of humility. He said, “Ye call Me Master and Lord, and ye say well.” If you want to be great in My Kingdom, be servant of all. If you serve, you shall be great.

November 28

"They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.” (1Timothy 6:9)

The Bible speaks of the deceitfulness of two things—“the deceitfulness of sin” and “the deceitfulness of riches.” Riches are like a mirage in the desert, which has all the appearance of satisfying, and lures on the traveler with the promise of water and shade; but he only wastes his strength in the effort to reach it. So riches never satisfy: the pursuit of them always turns out a snare.

November 27

“And I said unto the king, If it please the king, and if thy servant have found favour in thy sight, that thou wouldest send me unto Judah, unto the city of my fathers' sepulchres, that I may build it.” (Nehemiah 2:5)

It meant a good deal for Nehemiah to give up the palace of Shushan and his high office, and identify himself with the despised and captive Jews. He was among the highest in the whole realm. Not only that, but he was a man of wealth, lived in ease and luxury, and had great influence at court. For him to go to Jerusalem and lose caste was like Moses turning his back on the palace of Pharaoh and identifying himself with the Hebrew slaves. Yet we might never have heard of either of them if they had not done this.

They stooped to conquer; and when you get ready to stoop God will bless you. Plato, Socrates, and other Greek philosophers lived in the same century as Nehemiah. How few have heard of them and read their words compared with the hundreds of thousands who have heard and read of Nehemiah during the last two thousand years!

November 26

“If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; If they have kept My saying, they will keep yours also.” (John 15:19, 20)

Now mark you, no man can be true for God, and live for Him, without at some time or other being unpopular in this world. Those men who are trying to live for both worlds make a wreck of it; for at some time or other the collision is sure to come.

November 25

“And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see.” (John 1:46)

So we say to you, “Come and see!” I thought, when I was converted, that my friends had been very unfaithful to me, because they had not told me about Christ. I thought I would have all my friends converted inside of twenty-four hours, and I was quite disappointed when they did not at once see Christ to be the Lily of the Valley, and the Rose of Sharon, and the Bright and Morning Star. I wondered why it was. But we need to learn that God alone can do that.

November 24

“Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth.” (Psalm 78:1)

Man lost spiritual life and communion with his Maker by listening to the voice of the tempter, instead of the voice of God. We get life again by listening to the voice of God. The Word of God gives life. “The words that I speak unto you,” says Christ, “they are spirit, and they are life.” So, what people need is—to incline their ear, and HEAR.

It is a great thing when the preacher gets the ear of a congregation—I mean the inner ear, for a man has not only two ears in his head; he has what we may call the outer ear and the inner ear—the ear of the soul. You may speak to the outward ear, and not reach the ear of the soul at all. Many in these days are like the “foolish people” to whom the prophet Jeremiah spoke: “Which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not.” “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”

November 23

“Be sure your sin will find you out.” (Numbers 32:3)

Do you want to know the reason why, every now and then, the church is scandalized by the exposure of some leading church member or Sabbath-school super-intendent? It is not his Christianity, but his lack of it. Some secret sin has been eating at the heart of the tree, and in a critical moment it is blown down and its rottenness revealed.

November 22

“And when they came to Jesus, they besought Him instantly, saying, That he was worthy for whom He should do this: For he loveth our nation, and he hath built us a synagogue.” (Luke 7:4-5)

The Jews could not understand grace, so they thought Christ would grant the request of this man, because he was worthy. “Why,” they said, “he hath built us a synagogue!” It is the same old story that we hear today. Let a man give a few thousand dollars to build a church and he must have the best pew;  “he is worthy.” Perhaps he made his money by selling or making strong drink; but he has put the church under an obligation by this gift of money, and he is considered “worthy.” This same spirit was at work in the days of Christ.

November 21

“But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” (Romans 8:11)

I had rather be in the heart of the eighth of Romans than Adam in the heart of Paradise. Adam might have stayed in Paradise ten thousand years, and the devil could have come in then and snatched his life away from him, but I challenge the devil himself to get my life away from me, because it is hid with Christ in God, and Christ conquered Satan. “The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me.” Christ conquered him, and oh, how safe the believer is!

When the sinner is hid in Christ, hid in God, how is Satan going to get at him? He must go by the Almighty and by Christ before he can get at that sinner. It is a great thing to be an heir of glory. It is a great thing to have your life guarded by the Son of God, and to have the angels of God encamping round about you.

November 20

Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.—Romans 8:33

That word “justifieth” seems too good to be true. No wonder that Martin Luther shook all Germany when that truth dawned upon him, “the just shall live by faith.” Do you know what “justified means? I will tell you. It is to stand before God without spot or wrinkle, without I sin. It is to be put back beyond Eden. God looks over His ledger, and says:

“Moody, I have no account against you. Your debt has all been wiped out by another.”

November 19

“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”  (Exodus 20:16)

You don't like to have anyone bear false witness against you, or help to ruin your character or reputation; then why should you do it to others? How public men are slandered in this country! None escape, whether good or bad. Judgment is passed upon them, their family, their character, by the press and by individuals who know little or nothing about them.

If one-tenth that in said and written about our public men was true, half of them should be hung. Slander has been called “tongue murder.” Slanderers are compared to flies that always settle on sores, but do not touch a man’s healthy parts.

If the archangel Gabriel should come down to earth and mix in human affairs, I believe his character would be assailed inside of forty-eight hours. Slander called Christ a gluttonous man and a winebibber. He claimed to be the Truth, but instead of worshipping Him, men took Him and crucified Him.

November 18

“I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.” (1 Corinthians 3:2)

You know it is always regarded a great event in the family. When a child can feed itself. It is propped up at table, and at first perhaps it uses the spoon upside down, but by and by it all right, and mother, or perhaps sister, claps her hands and says:

“Just see, baby’s feeding himself”

What we need as Christians is to be able to feed ourselves. How many there are who sit helpless and listless, with open mouths, hungry for spiritual things, and the minister has to try to feed them, while the Bible is a feast prepared, into which they never venture!