Daily Devotionals

Mornings and Evenings with Jesus

Devotional: October 20th

And Jabez called on the God. of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep rue from evil. - 1 Chronicles 4:10.

FIRST, Observe the God to whom he prayed. He addressed himself to the one living and true God, and who is called “the God of Israel,” first, because he had appeared to Jacob and given him the name of Israel, saying, “As a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed;” secondly, because he had entered into covenant to be the God of the nation that should descend from his loins; and, thirdly, because he is now what he has always been,-a Being peculiarly concerned for the good of those who are “Israelites indeed, in whom there is no guile.” We address the same God as Jabez did. What a thought is this! He is no older now than then: -“He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Oh, what a pleasure is there in addressing the God of Israel as a known God, as a tried God, the God of our fathers, the God of our households, a faithful God who has always been “a very present help in time of trouble”!

Observe, Secondly, His prayer. Was this prayer at his setting out in life, or was it offered on any particular occasion? Or was it a prayer, the substance of which he had often made use of? However this may be, he was a man of prayer, and his prayer here recorded would never have been found in the hook of God, unless it had been offered “in spirit and in truth.” Let us notice the subject-matter of it; it is first expressed generally:-“Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed!”

By this we may understand God “blessing him with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.” There is a reality, an excellency, and a satisfaction in these; they pertain to the soul and to eternity; they can accompany us through the valley of the shadow of death, and stand by us when we appear before the judgment-seat of Christ. We must be concerned to add to the blessings of nature and providence the blessings of divine grace. As to temporal blessings, a man taught of God considers himself blessed indeed with regard to these, when God gives him a heart to enjoy them and to improve them, and when, along with them, comes the love of God.

Secondly, It is also particularly expressed. Persons differ in their conditions and circumstances, and therefore they pray every man accordingly. There is very little, as to our greater wants, but may be comprehended under three articles. Let us notice them both as to their temporal and spiritual bearing.

The first is, that “thou wouldest enlarge my coast.” If Jabez lived after the division of the Holy Land, and had to fight with and drive out the Canaanites, that he might more and more realize and possess the portion that was assigned him, the prayer is very striking, and can be easily explained. It will equally apply to the worldly state of the good man now. He will not indeed be avaricious, but he may pray that God would send him a competent support; that he may be able to “provide things honest,” not only in the sight of God, but also “in the sight of man;” that he maybe able to train up a growing family with credit, and that he may have wherewith to give to him that needeth; that he may “walk worthy of the vocation wherewith he is called with all meekness.” But where is the person who does not stand in need of spiritual enlargement? This “enlargement of coast” is the same which Paul enjoins on the Corinthians: “Be ye also enlarged,” says he; that is, obtain a more religious state,-more hope, more peace, more joy in believing.

The second article regards the divine assistance:- “And that thine hand might be with me.” This, as a prayer for success in all his enterprises, will apply still more to a Christian. How much has he to do in his spiritual vocation! To be active in serving his generation, and in private and public devotion to serve his God acceptably. But he feels his need every moment of the hand of God to be with him, “working in him to will and to do of his good pleasure.”

The third regards suffering:- “And that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me.” A suffering state is in itself a state of temptation, and a good man will pray, “Keep me from temptation, that it may not grieve me,” (the evil of suffering:) how much more may he pray with regard to the evil of sin, that it may not grieve him! Indeed, there is nothing that ever can or will grieve the child of God like this; and yet he well knows that he is liable to it, and altogether unable to keep himself; and therefore he prays, “Hold thou me up, and I shall he safe.”

This is the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. - Genesis 28:17.

THE house of God and the gate of heaven are most intimately related; and Jacob mentions them together, and in their proper order: “This is the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” The one precedes the other; the one affords us the earnest and foretaste of the other. Philip Henry was accustomed to say, at the close of his Sabbath-days’ exercises, “Well, if this be not heaven it is the way to it.” Not that the house of God and heaven are inseparably connected; far from it.

Alas! there are many who will find the word preached the savour of death unto death; and others the savour of life unto life. There are some who will find the Saviour displayed there as a destroyer, while others will find him their Redeemer; while some regard him as “a precious corner-stone,” some make him “a stone of stumbling, over which they fall and are broken,” and “are snared and taken.” To some, alas! the house of God will be found the gate of hell too. How many have passed through the sanctuary as through a gate into perdition!

Oh, the remembrance of the pulpit, the desk, and the figures of the ministers who have addressed them, and the tones of their voices, and the various sermons they preached, these will furnish the fuel to the fire that is unquenchable, and the food to the worm that dieth not. But to many others the house of God will be the gate of heaven. Those who call the “Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord,” will enjoy an eternal Sabbath; they who can now say, “I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place where thine honour dwelleth,” shall “serve him day and night in his temple” above, never more to go out. We should live in the expectation of this.

The Saviour is set forth as a ladder to teach us that when we have done with time we shall ascend to heaven. Some of the Lord’s people are near the top, and are about to set their feet on the last step; while others are grasping some of the lower rounds. Let us take a firm hold, and be persuaded that we shall receive eternal life as God’s free gift through Jesus Christ; that he who now is giving grace “will give glory, and no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.”

To all who are convinced of sin, and, renouncing self, who are rejoicing alone in Christ Jesus, and are giving themselves up to him at the foot of the cross, and are saying,

“No joy can be compared with this,

To love and serve the Lord,”

there is not a promise in the book of God which does not belong to them. Though for awhile they may be troubled through manifold temptations, he will soon take them out of the furnace, and place them beyond the possibility of further trial: “For when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.”