Daily Devotionals

Mornings and Evenings with Jesus

Devotional: January 26th

And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him. - John 11:15.

GOD can accomplish the purposes of his love, by ways peculiar to himself. The friends of Lazarus would have said he ought to have been there. The Jews thought that he should have repaired to the scene of woe. The sisters fully expected this. They walked up and down the room, wringing their hands, and they said, “Where is he?” They looked out of the windows, and said, “Why is he so long in coming?” Calling the ploughman who was passing, they said, “John, go and look down the Galilean road, and see if Jesus is coming.”

When he came, they could hardly help reproving him: Martha said, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died;” and her sister Mary said the same. But Christ said, “I know what I have been doing; I am not acting in darkness; you will see it is better that your brother should rise from the dead, than that he should remain sick. Thus he says, “I will bring the blind by a way that they know not;” “Your ways are not my ways.” I am not to be judged of by a human standard. His absence from these individuals was to show that his ways were not only different, but superior to theirs. “As the heavens are high above the earth, so are his ways above our ways, and his thoughts above our thoughts.”

The case of Joseph seemed very hard, and, from the love the Lord bore to him, we might have supposed he would have been there, to have saved him from the pit. But I am glad for his sake-for his family’s sake-for his country’s sake-for the church’s sake-for our sake-that he was not there.

Here are three Hebrews cast into a fiery furnace. We might have supposed the Lord should have been there to have saved them; but he was not, and I am glad that he was not. The flames only burst their bonds; the tyrant on the throne was divinely impressed, and constrained to adore. Wherever they went, persons turned and said, “There goes one of the three young men who chose to go into the fiery furnace rather than sin against God.”

How stripped and peeled was Job! When we see him the object of scorn and pity, we are ready to suppose the Lord had been there; but when we think of the end we are glad that he was not, and James says, “Ye have heard of the patience of Job.” When, therefore, our views and his dealings do not seem to harmonize, let us remember that he acts sovereignly-not arbitrarily:-“but he gives no account of his matters.” His judgments are far above, “out of our sight.”

Let us suspend our opinions-never set his sun by our dial, but always our dial by his sun. We can see his heart, if we cannot see his hand. Do you ask where? Why, at Calvary. “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things?” And can we doubt of his wisdom or his love? We should learn to judge by his views and by his testimony, and not by Other things. We know not what is good for us; we may judge wrongly:-

“Blind unbelief is sure to err,

And scan his work in vain.”

“It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” If we look back we shall see how often we have desired what would have been our injury and ruin if we had obtained it! And how often have we sought to escape from what we now see to be our chief blessing! We have charged him almost with wickedness, where we have now reason to believe that his kindness was peculiarly at work for our happiness. And if we see it not now we shall see it hereafter. Is it for us to judge of the skill of the artist from the first rough sketch? Should we not wait till it has received his masterly touches? Should we judge of the building while all the materials are rudely scattered about, especially if we had never seen the plan?

No; we should wait till the topstone is laid thereon. “Judge nothing before the time;” God will give a good account of himself. The saints above shout, “He hath done all things well!” “Just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.”

How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways are past finding out. - Romans 11:33.

LET us not therefore be surprised if sometimes we should be required to exercise implicit confidence in such a Being, and be compelled to trust him even in the dark. Is it to be supposed, that everything which he is doing in the church and in the world, in families and with regard to individuals, should be level to our capacity? We are now “walking by faith, and not by sight;” and he is continually saying to us, “What I do ye know not now, but ye shall know hereafter.” A period is coming when we shall have the fullest and clearest perception of this truth, “when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe.”

They admire him now, but how much more will they admire him then. For though now, and in other cases, ignorance is the cause of wonder, yet here knowledge is the cause; and the more we know the more we shall admire, because he is not only perfect but infinite, and therefore we shall always be discovering more and more, and therefore honour and admire him more. Then he will “appear in his glory.” “We shall see him then as he is.” Then his work will be finished, then every mysterious dispensation will be unveiled to our view, then we shall see clearly how all that he did here harmonized with the truth of his word, how all conduced to the welfare of his people.

Now, often he seems to forget them, to neglect them, to be adverse to them. How unlikely the events which befell Joseph appeared to fulfil the assurance given unto him, yet, by and bye, the whole was explained, and he could say, “Ye meant it for evil, but the Lord meant it for good.” So shall it be with us; we shall not only see the wisdom and the rectitude and the goodness of his dispensations to our own satisfaction, but to his eternal praise. We shall say with Moses, “God is a rock, his work is perfect. His ways are judgment; a God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is he;” and, with the adoring throng, “Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty, just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.”