the Fourth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Mornings and Evenings with Jesus
He performeth the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with him. - Job 23:14.
WE are here assured that our afflictions are not casual or accidental. Nothing in any of our trials occurs by chance. With us there may be contingencies, seeing we are not acquainted with the plan to be developed and executed in the arrangements of an all-wise Providence; but all events are “determined by him who sees the end from the beginning, and who is working all things after the counsel of his own will.” Nothing transpires without him. He strikes no random blows: his arrows never miss their object. He is performing the thing that is appointed for us; and the appointment is in all respects perfectly equitable.
The Lord has not only a right to ordain, but in doing so he cannot pervert justice. He is not only too wise to err, but too good to be unkind. He who is bringing to pass the appointments of his providence so loved us as not to spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all. And we are not only allowed but invited, yea, required, to cast all our cares on him, with the assurance that he careth for us. Let us take this principle with every allotment, with every circumstance of life, and say, “The cup which my Father giveth me, shall I not drink it?” It is “the Lord: let him do what seemeth him good.” “I will cry unto God most high, unto God who performeth all things for me.” It is also intimated that these afflictions are not peculiar. “Many such things are with him;” and when writing to the Thessalonians the apostle says, “The same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren which are in the world.”
Providence will not in any case deviate from the treatment of all the other branches of the household of faith; “for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” To which of the saints, in Scripture or history, can we turn in refutation of this decision:-“What son is he whom the Father chasteneth not?” But consider, these appointments of the rod are remedial, and not penal. They are corrections; and are inflicted, not by the sword of the Judge, but by the rod of a Father. Believers sometimes misapprehend them, and, fearful of their being messengers of justice, may say unto God, “Do not condemn me.” But the apprehension is groundless; we are “chastened of the Lord that we may not be condemned with the world.” And, besides, the apostle has declared that it is “through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom.” “In the world ye shall have tribulation,” says the Saviour himself: “but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”
And with respect to the final results of these dispensations,-these “light afflictions which are but for a moment work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,”-while our heavenly Father is performing the thing that is appointed for us, we know that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
That thou mayest go in unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. - Deuteronomy 27:3.
THE history given in the Scriptures of the Jews is very interesting and profitable. It is worthy of our regard, for its veracity and antiquity, for the wonders it records, and for the instructions it supplies. As they were fair specimens of human nature, it teaches us much concerning ourselves, and it teaches us also how to regard God. The Jews, as a people, were typical of the Christian church. A type, as Dr. Doddridge says, is always inferior to the reality. Canaan was in many respects a type of heaven; and in the Scriptures we find the Jews were typical of Christians. Moses was a type of Messiah. He says himself, “A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up like unto me. Him shall ye hear.” Their condition in Egypt may serve to represent our natural state; their deliverance from it, our conversion; their passage through the wilderness, our residence in this world; Jordan, death; Canaan, heaven.
Regarding Canaan as an emblem of heaven, we may observe-First, That Canaan was given to the Jews entirely irrespective of all worthiness and works in them. How often does Moses labour to convince them of this. God had not chosen them for their righteousness sake, for they were a stiff-necked people. And the Apostle does not labour the less to convince us that “we are saved by grace through faith, and not of ourselves; it is the gift of God;” and that “the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Secondly, Canaan was given by promise and covenant. So is heaven. “In hope of eternal life,” says the Apostle, “which God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began.” To whom, then, could he have addressed the promise? Not to us, but to our covenant head and representative. The covenant which secured to the Jews the land of Canaan was made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; in them the children of Israel were blessed, and for their sakes they received all these things. But the better covenant, of which all the Spiritual Israel shall glory, was made with a far greater character than Abraham, who was given, as Isaiah says, for “a covenant to the people;” and in him we are blessed, and for his sake we receive all these things.
Third, Canaan was given for the settlement and rest of the Jews after their bondage in Egypt, and their travels and toils, and privations and hardships in the wilderness; and like it “there remaineth a rest for the people of God.” “They rest from their labours.”
Fourthly, Canaan was remarkable for its fertility. It is seldom ever mentioned in the Scriptures without the addition of “flowing with milk and honey.” Moses describes it as “a good land; a land of brooks of water; of fountains and depths, that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig-trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil, olives and honey; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness: thou shalt not lack anything in it.” Let us look through this literal description to the Spiritual glory discerned, and let us remember the language of the Apostle with regard to the patriarchs: “They confessed that they were pilgrims and strangers on the earth. Now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly. Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them a city.” After all, what were the clusters of grapes and pomegranates to the whole vintage of Canaan? and what was Canaan to heaven and what are all the present indulgences which are here vouchsafed to Christians, compared with what is reserved for them? “It doth not yet appear what we shall be.”
It is a good report we have heard, but the half has not been told us; for “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things that God hath prepared for them that love him.”
“If such the sweetness of the streams,
What must the fountain be,
Where saints and angels draw the bliss
Immediately from thee.”
