Weekday Devotions August 22nd

Faith’s Check Book

By Charles H. Spurgeon

 

WRATH TO GOD'S GLORY

 

"Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain" Psalms 76:10

 

Wicked men will be wrathful. Their anger we must endure as the badge of our calling, the token of our separation from them: if we were of the world, the world would love its own. Our comfort is that the wrath of man shall be made to redound to the glory of God. When in their wrath the wicked crucified the Son of God they were unwittingly fulfilling the divine purpose, and in a thousand cases the willfulness of the ungodly is doing the same. They think themselves free, but like convicts in chains they are unconsciously working out the decrees of the Almighty.

 

The devices of the wicked are overruled for their defeat. They act in a suicidal way, and baffle their own plottings. Nothing will come of their wrath which can do us real harm. When they burned the martyrs, the smoke which blew from the stake sickened men of Popery more than anything else.

 

Meanwhile, the Lord has a muzzle and a chain for bears. He restrains the more furious wrath of the enemy. He is like a miller who holds back the mass of the water in the stream, and what he does allow to flow he uses for the turning of his wheel. Let us not sigh, but sing. All is well, however hard the wind blows.

Thought’s for the Quiet Hour

He … began to wash the disciples’ feet

John 13:5

We forget that Jesus Christ is the same today, when He is sitting on the throne, as He was yesterday, when He trod the pathway of our world. And in this forgetfulness how much we miss! What He was, that He is. What He said, that He says. The Gospels are simply specimens of the life that He is ever living; they are leaves torn out of the diary of His unchangeable Being. Today He is engaged in washing the feet of His disciples, soiled with their wilderness journeyings. Yes, that charming incident is having its fulfillment in thee, my friend, if only thou dost not refuse the lowly loving offices of Him whom we call Master and Lord, but who still girds Himself and comes forth to serve. And we must have this incessant cleansing if we would keep right. It is not enough to look back to a certain hour when we first knelt at the feet of the Son of God for pardon; and heard Him say, “Thy sins, which are many, are all forgiven.” We need daily, hourly cleansing—from daily, hourly sin.

F. B. Meyer