Daily Devotionals

Mornings and Evenings with Jesus

Devotional: December 21st

If ye will inquire, inquire ye. - Isaiah 21:12.

“WISDOM,” says Solomon, “is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom, and, with all thy getting, get understanding.” One mode of obtaining this is by inquiry; for all knowledge is originally external, and we fetch it in by application and labour. “Through desire, a man, having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom.” A very superior man once said, “Much of the little knowledge I possess has been obtained by my never being above asking questions of others,” adding that there is hardly any one but knows something which we do not, or know not so well. If it be inquired, Of whom are we to ask? we say, first and supremely of God himself. And how encouraging is the assurance,-“If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.”

Next, we consult his inspired servants, the prophets and the apostles. Then we ask good men, who in his light see light, and are led by his Spirit into all truth. And surely the old should not be overlooked. “With the aged is wisdom, and in length of days is understanding.” “The old, indeed,” says Elihu, “are not always wise, neither do the aged understand judgment;” yet “I said, Days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom.” And we should naturally conclude that the young would pay some deference to those who have gone before them, and occasionally, at least, ask their advice; and they would, if young men were not “wise in their own conceit.” Yea, we are sent for information even to the brute creation:-“Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee, and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee.” Therefore says Solomon, “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise; which, having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.” And says the Saviour, “Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” Yea, we are sent even to the material creation:-“Go speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee.” “Behold the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these;” “Behold the fig-tree, and all the trees; when they shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.”

Yea, time is to be one of our preceptors, and time, though senseless in itself, is full of lessons of importance. While we should readily give the future to providence, and the present to duty,-so that “whatsoever our hands find to do, we may do it with our might,”-yet we should never forget that “God also requires that which is past,” and he requires us to remember it. “Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God hath led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what is in thine heart, whether thou wouldst keep his commandments or no.” But how is this to be done without consulting former times and seasons?

The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple. - Malachi 3:1.

MANY had come before him, many illustrious characters, many prophets, priests, and kings, but they had all come in subordination to him, and in reference and subserviency to him. He had entered our world himself often before this, and especially in anticipation of his incarnation. But now he was to come incarnate, clothed in a body like our own.

Now the word was to be made flesh, and to dwell among us, that we might behold his glory, and though there were no earthly grandeur which attached to his coming into our world, and though he was born in a stable and died upon a cross, yet his advent here was unspeakably the most important transaction ever recorded in the annals of history: and the angels, who are proverbial for their knowledge, testified of it, for they exclaimed in the song, “Glory to God in the highest; on earth peace, goodwill towards men.”

Two things are here mentioned with regard to his advent. The fact regards the manner in which he was to come. He shall suddenly come. Does this mean speedily? In Haggai we read, “Yet once it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land, and the Desire of all nations shall come.” But how could it be said that it was “yet a little while only,” when four hundred years were to elapse before he appeared?

The purpose and the execution, the promise and the fulfillment, are the same with God. And so also they are in a sense with faith. Faith knows no distance; relying on the truth and faithfulness of God, it can view future things as present and as past. Why, though four hundred years were to intervene, was soon compared with the long waiting of those who lived in patriarchal and antediluvian ages. He was to come soon, but this is said in special reference to the ministration of his forerunner, John, who should prepare the way before him, and then he was immediately to follow. But it means that he would come unawares.

Though he was foretold, and a general expectation was excited, yet many did not look for him, and as to many others, when he appeared he was unknown. They never dreamed of his appearing under such a character, and when John addressed them he said, “There is one standing here whom ye know not.” “And his kingdom came not,” as we are told, “by observation.” And we are still warned of the approach of his coming. “Be ye also ready,” says the Saviour, “for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.”

But, secondly, We are reminded of the place to which he was to come. “He shall suddenly come to his temple.” Accordingly we find him there when he was eight days old, presented by Mary and Joseph; at twelve years of age he was in the temple disputing among the doctors. There he wrought miracles, and there he taught the people. There are two remarks to be derived from these important statements; the first may be addressed with reference to the Jews. He must have come, according to this, while the second temple was standing, for as he was to come to it, he could not come to it when it was demolished, and when it was no more; and therefore the time of his advent, according to their own Scriptures, and their explanation of it, must long ago have gone by.

The other regards the enemies of his Deity, those who love to consult to cast him down from his dignity. “He shall suddenly come to his temple.” Why is it called HIS? Because it was dedicated to his service and to his glory. As a palace always reminds us of a king, so a temple always reminds us of a God. A temple always belongs to a God, and therefore when the prophet here announces that he should “suddenly come to his temple,” it was as to say that he was the owner of it, and that he was to be adored there.