May 15

“The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ” (Galatians 3:24)

Doctrines are to the soul what the streets which lead to the house of a friend who has invited me to dinner are to the body. They will lead me there if I take the right one; but if I remain in the streets my hunger will never be satisfied. Feeding on doctrines is like trying to live on dry husks and lean indeed must the soul remain which will not partake of the Bread sent down from heaven.

May 14

“What is that in thine hand?” (Exodus 4:2)

Here was Moses a weak solitary man going down to Egypt, to meet a monarch who had the power of life and death. And all he had with which to deliver the people from bondage was this rod!

Yet see how famous that rod became. God’s servant had but to stretch it out, and the water of the country was turned into blood. He had only to lift up the rod and the waters of the Red Sea separated, so that the people could pass through dry-shod.

He lifted this rod and struck the flinty rock, when the water burst forth, and they drank and were refreshed. That contemptible rod became mighty indeed. But it was not the rod; it was the God of Moses, who condescended to use it.

May 13

“God is love.” (1 John 4:8)

If I could only make men understand the real meaning of the words of the Apostle John—“God is love”— I would take that single text, and would go up and down the world proclaiming this glorious truth. If you can convince a man that you love him you have won his heart.

If we could really make people believe that God loves them, how we should find them crowding into the kingdom of heaven! The trouble is that men think God hates them; and so they are continually turning their backs on Him.

May 12

“I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me.” (Acts 27:25)

Faith is a belief in testimony. It is not a leap in the dark. God does not ask any man to believe without giving him something to believe. You might as well ask a man to see without eyes, as to bid him believe without giving him something to believe.

May 11

“Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6)

A man at sea was once very seasick. If there is a time when a man feels that he cannot do any work it is then. But he heard that a man had fallen overboard. He couldn’t do much, but he laid hold of a light and held it up to the porthole.

The light fell on the drowning man’s hand, and a man caught him, and pulled him into the lifeboat. It seemed a small thing to do to hold up the light; yet it saved the man’s life. We can do as much as that. If we cannot do some great thing we can hold the light for some poor, perishing soul, who is out in the dark waters of sin.

May 10

“Your joy no man taketh from you.” (John 16:22)

In the second century, they brought a martyr before a king, and the king wanted him to recant and give up Christ, but the man spurned the thought.

The king said: “If you don’t do it, I will banish you.”

The man smiled and answered: “You can't banish me from Christ. He says He will never leave me nor forsake me.”

The king got angry, and said: “Well, I will confiscate your property and take it all from you.”

And the man replied: “My treasures are laid up on high; you cannot get them.”

The king became still more angry, and said: “I will kill you.”

“Why,” the man answered, “I have been dead forty years; I have been dead with Christ; dead to the world. My life is hid with Christ in God, and you cannot touch it.”

And so we can rejoice, because we are on resurrection ground, having risen with Christ. Let persecution and opposition come. “Your joy no man taketh from you.”

May 9

“He being dead yet speaketh.” (Hebrews 11:4)

But there is one thing you cannot bury with a good man; his influence still lives. They have not buried Daniel yet; his influence is as great to-day as ever it was.

Do you tell me that Joseph is dead? His influence still lives and will continue to live on and on. You may bury the frail tenement of clay that a good man lives in, but you cannot get rid of his influence and example. Paul was never more powerful than he is today.

May 8

“Have not I sent thee?” (Judges 6:14)

God knows and you know what He has sent you to do. God sent Moses to Egypt to bring three millions of bondmen up out of the house of bondage into the promised land. Did he fail? It looked, at first, as if he were going to.

But did he? God sent Elijah to stand before Ahab, and it was a bold thing for him to say there should be neither dew nor rain: but did He not lock up the heavens for three years and six months?

But did he fail? And you cannot find any place in Scripture where a man was ever sent by God to do a work in which he failed.

May 7

“Will ye also go away? . . . Lord, to whom shall we go?” (John 6:67-68)

The sun is thousands of years old, but gas is new. Shall we then use gas in place of the sun! Block up all the windows of your houses, and have nothing to do with the sun! You might as well do that as give up the Bible.

Outgrown it! Why, there is no book to be compared with it. No other book will lift up the world. If you could go into a town where men were trying to live without that good book, you would flee from it as they who left Sodom and Gomorrah. Have infidels ever produced a Knox, a Bunyan, or a Milton?

May 6

"And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost." (Acts 2:4)

In Exodus we read that when Moses had finished the Tabernacle in the desert, the Shekinah came and filled it with the presence of God—that was the Holy Spirit. The moment the tabernacle was ready it was filled. And when the Temple was built, and the priests and the Levites were there singing with one accord, the cloud came and filled the Temple; the moment the Temple was ready it was filled.

These were two of His dwelling places; but where does He dwell now? Ye are the temples for the Holy Spirit to dwell in, and the moment the heart is ready, the Spirit of God will fill it.

May 5

“All . . . all . . . all” (Matthew 28:18-20)

“ALL power is given unto Me . . . go teach all nations.” Teach them what? To observe all things. There are a great many people now that are willing to observe what they like about Christ, but the things that they don’t like they turn away from. But His commission to His disciples was, “Go . . . teach all nations . . . to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” And what right has a messenger who has been sent of God to change the message?

May 4

"There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." (Luke 15:10)

“JOY in the presence of the angels”? Perhaps the friends who have left the shores of time may be looking down upon us; and when they see one they prayed for while on earth turning to God, it sends a thrill of joy to their very hearts.

Even now, some mother who has gone up yonder may be looking down upon a son or daughter, and if that child should say: “I will meet that mother of mine; I will decide for God,” the news, with the speed of a sunbeam, reaches heaven, and that mother may then rejoice, as we read, “In the presence of the angels.”

May 3

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” (John 5:24)

I would a thousand times rather stand on that verse than all the frames and feelings I ever had. I took my stand there twenty years ago. Since then the dark waves of hell have come dashing up against me; the waves of persecution have broken all around me; doubts, fears, and unbelief in turn have assailed me; but I have been able to stand firm on this short word of God. It is a sure footing for eternity.

May 2

“It is high time to awake out of sleep.” (Romans 13:11)

As I have said, there are a great many in the church who make one profession, and that is about all you hear of them; and when they come to die you have to go and hunt up some musty old church records to know whether they were Christians or not. God won’t do that.

What we want is men with a little courage to stand up for Christ. When Christianity wakes up, and every child that belongs to the Lord is willing to speak for Him, is willing to work for Him, and, if need be, willing to die for Him, then Christianity will advance, and we shall see the work of the Lord prosper.

May 1

“Our conversation is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20)

Someone asked a Scotchman if he was on the way to heaven, and he said: “Why man, I live there; I am not on the way.” That is just it. We want to live in heaven; while we are walking in this world it is our privilege to have our hearts and affections there.