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December 2009

Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Hebrews 2:9-18

“Send a million Bibles over here. If you don’t you are going to have to send a million men to fight.”
   --Matthew C. Perry, when he opened up Japan to the West (also attributed to General Douglas MacArthur)

Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Hebrews 3:1-6

“It shall greatly help thee to understand Scripture if thou mark not only what is spoken or written, but of whom and to whom, with what words, at what time, where, and to what intent, under what circumstances, considering what goeth before and what followeth.”
   --John Wycliffe’s Golden Rule of Interpretation

Thursday, December 3,2009
Hebrews 3:6-10

Consider Him (Hebrews 12:3)
When the storm is raging high,
When the tempest rends the sky,
When my eyes with tears are dim,
Then, my soul, consider HIM.
When my plans are in the dust,
When my dearest hopes are crushed,
When is passed each foolish whim,
Then, my soul, consider HIM.
When with dearest friends I part,
When deep sorrow fills my heart,
When pain racks each weary limb,
Then, my soul, consider HIM.
When I track my weary way,
When fresh trials come each day,
When my faith and hope are dim,
Then, my soul, consider HIM.
Clouds or sunshine, dark or bright,
Evening shades or morning light,
When my cup flows o’er the brim,
Then, my soul, consider HIM.
   --Anonymous

Monday, December 7, 2009
Hebrews 3:15-4:8

“I want to so trust Christ that when I came into His presence, He’d say to me, ‘On what basis have you come for salvation?’ I would say, ‘I trusted You as my Savior.’ And He would say, ‘Well, that’s very fine of you to do that, but don’t you have something else to offer?’ And I’d say, ‘No. I didn’t trust any of those things.’ ‘Well,’ He would say, ‘You did do this and you did the other thing. You are president of a seminary—don’t you want to mention that?’ And I’d say, ‘No. I didn’t trust in that.’ Then He’d say, ‘I cannot accept you then.’ And I want to so trust Christ that I would turn and walk away and say, ‘I only trusted You for my salvation.’”
   --Attributed to Dr. Lewis Perry Chafer

Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Hebrews 4:9-13

“Now, we’ve come to an epistle that many of you have already discovered is one of the most spiritual epistles that are in the entire Word of God. There are many people that feel that the epistle to the Ephesians is the Mount Whitney of the mountain range of the books of the Bible. That’s probably true, but as far as being spiritual, there is none that compares to the epistle to the Hebrews. There’s a reason for that. You see, it’s written to the Hebrews. Who were they? They were a people who had had the law for about 1500 years, and if there ever were a people that were prepared to take a step forward with God, these people were. That doesn’t mean all of them were. It’s always been a remnant and this epistle is directed to that remnant who had turned to Christ. We need to keep that in mind. And I say that because today, I want to introduce a word that I have not used in our Bible teaching so far, that is, in this 5-year program. It’s a Bible word, by the way. It’s the word ‘dispensation.’ Now, it’s necessary to understand what the dispensations are in the Word of God or you become hopelessly confused. I thank God for the Sunday school teacher who put into my hands a Scofield Reference Bible. It opened up the Word of God for the first time to a poor theological student. Now the Word ‘dispensation,’ (and I’m going to be a little technical today, but I want to introduce you to the word and then we’re going to talk about it as we go along from time to time), theologically, the word means the distribution of good and evil by God to man. Now that’s a definition that’s in Webster’s Dictionary. And, further, the definition is amplified, and we’re told it’s a system of principles, promises, and rules ordained and administered, as ‘the Christian dispensation’ that we’re in today. And it means a specific arrangement or a provision; it means to dispense or to distribute, it means an economy, a political economy. We have one in this country, and communism has a political economy, and the backbone of the political economy is atheism, that’s what communism teaches. That’s basic to everything. There’s some in this country, some in high places that are trying to change our government today. We are a nation under God. George Washington said that you could not rule this nation without the Bible. That may be the real problem in Washington today. That’s the problem with Democrats and Republicans, that’s the problem with the entire crowd. And may I say to you, these in high places are attempting to make America an atheistic nation, but this action was built actually on the Word of God. Those who came here at first, they came here to find a place that they might worship God. ‘What sought they thus, afar, bright jewels of the mind, the spoils of war? They sought a faith’s pure shrine.’ That’s the reason that they came to this country.”
   --Dr. J. Vernon McGee, Dispensations, Part 1

Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Hebrews 4:14-16

“I introduced you to a word last time and attempted to define it. It is the word, ‘dispensation.’ It’s a word that’s hated in some quarters by the church. I graduated from a seminary, my denominational seminary, where the Scofield Bible was forbidden and it was ridiculed. May I say to you that the word ‘dispensation’ is a very important word, and therefore it is a word that we need to know about because it actually, in one sense, is a key to the entire Word of God. I’d like today to let us see how the Bible uses the word ‘dispensation.’ Now, you find in Hebrews, the first chapter, it says: ‘God who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds.’ And that word ‘worlds’ might give you the wrong impression if you think that the writer there was referring to the planets. The word that he uses is the word ‘aion,’ and it’s a word that means ‘ages.’ You put one age down and another age down and another age down, and it is a period of time in which God actually deals with the human race in a certain way and then He changes that and deals with it in a little different way. And I’m sure that you recognize that Adam in the Garden of Eden was in a little different arrangement than he was when he got outside of the Garden of Eden. God changed things, you see. Now that word is used not only here in Hebrews, but you’ll find it used back in Matthew, and Matthew’s a Gospel where you need to be very careful in the way words are used. And here we’re told in the 13th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, verse 38, ‘the field is the world.’ What does he mean? Well, he uses the word ‘cosmos.’ I think that he means this universe we live in today, this little planet we call earth, covered with humanity. I think that the field is the world, the whole world of humanity. That’s a tremendous statement, by the way. The Lord Jesus used it, He says, ‘the good seed are the children of the kingdom, but the tares are the children of the wicked one. The enemy that sowed them is the Devil. The harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels. ‘As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be at the end of this world. Well, are we talking now about the cosmos, the word He used up at the top when He said 'the field is the world?' No, this is the word ‘aion.’ Age, He’s talking now about age—a period of time on this earth. Therefore, at the end of the ages, and I think He’s speaking here about eternity and that’s not an age, because it has no beginning and no end. Now, we can see that it means a period of time, but if you hold it to just that, I think you’re going to miss one of the finest understandings of the word as it’s used in Scripture. It actually means, really, a stewardship. That’s a good word for it, and it’s used in Ephesians the 3rd chapter. Will you listen to the first two verses, ‘For this cause, I Paul, the prisoner of the Lord Jesus for you Gentiles, if ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you how that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery as I wrote before in few words.’ Now that is the assignment that was given to the apostle Paul. He was to present a system, a provision God had made—a specific arrangement, and the word here is ou-ku-ma-nay, and it means, just simply that. And he amplifies this when you get down to verse 8 in this third chapter of Ephesians, and if you’ll listen to it, he says here, ’Unto me who am less than the least of all saints is this grace given, who am less than the least of all saints is this grace given, that I should preach among the gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.’ What is his dispensation? The dispensation of grace in which we live today, and he’s doing something that no Jew had ever done in the Old Testament—preach grace to the nations! And several of them had preached judgment to the nations, but none had ever preached the grace of God to the nations. And he says, ‘Therefore, there was given to me this dispensation to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, that is, of the church, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, Who created all things by Jesus Christ, to the intent, that now, unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.’ God’s revealing His love to us in giving His Son to die and saving men by grace, but by that He is revealing His wisdom to His other created intelligences. And so, the epistle to the Hebrews was written to people who had been brought through a great transition. In the book of Acts you have all that given. Peter, on the day of Pentecost, preaches a sermon and it’s to Israel. And the first church there was one hundred percent Israel, but God made it clear to Simon Peter that he was going to save some other folk besides just that crowd. And He sent him over to Cornelius, a Roman, a Gentile, that Simon Peter had been taught to hate. He was a ‘gentile dog’ to begin with, and he was also a Roman soldier that had his heel on Israel, and that made him doubly hated. And when Simon Peter went over to preach, he said to them, 'To Him gave all the prophets witness, that through His name, that is the Lord Jesus, through His name, whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sin.’ Now that is something brand new. Israel had never had that before. They brought a sacrifice. That sacrifice looked to Christ, but now, you receive remission of sins, not by bringing a sacrifice to the temple, but through the Lord Jesus Christ. Friends, that was brand new back in those days and this is a great transition and the Book of Hebrews will lift us higher, I think, than any other book if we will just let it. And that’s the reason I’m talking about dispensations here at the beginning.”
   --Dr. J. Vernon McGee, Dispensations, Part 2

Thursday, December 10, 2009
Hebrews 5:1-7

“We’ve made it very clear that a dispensation is not only a period of time but it also has to do with the method of God’s dealing with mankind. And it’s very easy to see that in the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve were under a dispensation, they were created innocent—they didn’t know good from evil, and therefore, they were given a test and that was relative to eating the fruit of a certain tree. And as we’ve said before, it wasn’t the apple on the tree but the pair on the ground that was the problem. The fruit was good (and it was not an apple tree either, by the way). And obviously when they were put out of the Garden of Eden, that was no longer a test. And you find a man following his conscience now and doing that which comes naturally, as the song has it. The worldly song has it—doing that which comes naturally. And when man does that, why he produces a world of violence, lawlessness, and a world that we’re living in right now that has tried to get rid of God’s law. And therefore, conscience was not a safe leader. It led to the flood. And then, man was put under a human government at the time of the flood. He said, ‘Whosoever sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.’ In other words, when a man kills another man, men should then make that man pay the penalty. That, by the way, is basic to all governments, and the reason that our legal system is in such a hopeless mess today. It’s because of the fact that one basic principle is not put down and held to. God’s tried that, and of course that did not lead to a perfect race by any means. And man revealed that he was incapable of ruling himself. And then, God took aside a man by the name of Abraham and made a promise to him and man held on to that promise. In fact until the law was given. And when they became a nation, the seed of Abraham became a nation, then God gave the law at Mount Sinai, and man then was under law until the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world. And as John wrote, that the law was given by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. And therefore, we were then introduced into the age we are in now—the dispensation of grace. God is saving men by that means. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t grace under law, and it doesn’t mean that there’s law under grace, as we’ll see. And then, after this age, there is the kingdom age. Now you and I are living at a strategic time in the history of the world, and we need to see exactly where we are, by the way. Back of us is the law. That ended at the cross of Christ. From that day down to the present we are under grace. After this age ends then the kingdom will be established here upon this earth. And those are the 3 dispensations that concern this earth. Now, the reason I make the book of Genesis one of the key books of the Bible is because you can’t understand the first four dispensations unless you understand the book of Genesis. And then I say Matthew is another key book of the Bible, and I think maybe the main key book of the Bible, and the reason for that is that you have before you the 3 dispensations laid before you there, and especially the one that is to come. One is past, one is present and one is to come, and I, therefore, put a lot of emphasis on the Gospel of Matthew. And the reason today I think there’s so much misinterpretation, hopeless confusion, is because of a misunderstanding of the Gospel of Matthew. Now, again let me say that John the Baptist said the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, that’s John 1:17. Now the writer of the Hebrews directs his message to those who had been under the law. Now we want to talk about that next time in a little bit more detail and fashion.”
   --Dr. J. Vernon McGee, Dispensations, Part 3

Friday, December 11, 2009
Hebrews 5:7—6:1

“I am in a quandary because I’ve come to a section that is especially precious indeed to a child of God, and I feel totally inadequate to deal with it and that’s the reason I’ve been talking to you in the preliminary part of our study about the dispensations of Scripture. And I want to continue that today. It’ll be, I’m sure, some preparation for the understanding of this great epistle. We said that in the New Testament and in the gospel of Matthew we are brought face to face with 3 dispensations—the dispensation of law, and the dispensation of grace and the dispensation of the kingdom. They are all mentioned in the gospel of Matthew. You see, the Lord Jesus in the gospel of Matthew was born a king. Matthew emphasizes that. Wise men came from the east, not seeking a Savior, but one that was to be a king. And He was introduced by John the Baptist, not as a Savior, but as a king, because he began by saying, ‘Repent, the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.’ And you can’t have a kingdom without a king. And the fact was—the great fact of that day was—the King was present. And they rejected the King, by the way, and the kingdom was, we have heard people say, postponed. It wasn’t anything postponed, my friend. It all happened in the perfect will of almighty God. And so the kingdom was postponed in the sense that it is delayed, and it was still in the future when you come to the end of Matthew. Now there was the dispensation of law that these people were under at that particular time. They were going out of that dispensation of law into the dispensation of grace. And then beyond that would be the dispensation of the kingdom. You see you have that which is past, that which is present and that which is future. Now in the gospel of Matthew the emphasis is on the kingdom—‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ That is the ultimate goal of the Gospel of Matthew. Now you have 3 major discourses in Matthew. You have what is known as the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, 6 and 7. And that’s the law of the kingdom. Unfortunately, the liberal always brought the Sermon on the Mount up to the present and said that we were living under the kingdom and the law of the kingdom and that was Christian living. I say to you that kingdom living and Christian living are altogether two different things. And the Sermon on the Mount causes hopeless confusion when you try to put the church under it, and the reason is that the church is called to a higher plane than you find here on the Sermon on the Mount. There is nothing in the Sermon on the Mount about repentance, about faith in Christ, about the work of the Holy Spirit, and apart from that there’s no such thing as Christian living, you know. Christian living is by the work of the Holy Spirit—by walking in the Spirit, by being filled with the Spirit. Now the second major discourse is the mystery parable discourse in Matthew 13, and the key to that, I’ve always felt, is that woman who made bread and slipped a little leaven into it. Leaven sure helps the taste, and believe me, the Word of God that’s being given out has a lot of leaven in it. It’s sweetened to satisfy the natural man. A lot of carnal Christians like to get the bread if it’s got leaven in it, and leaven is evil—always has been evil. Speaks of that which is wrong. The Lord Jesus said to beware of the ‘leaven of the Pharisees’ and that was their doctrine. It was wrong, it was evil, and you can’t make leaven to be good on any condition whatsoever. But we’re living in a day when evil is good, good is evil. Isaiah said we were going to have days like that, and they’re around us right now, even in the church. Now we come now to the third discourse which is the Olivet discourse in Matthew 24 and 25, and that speaks of the second coming of Christ to the earth to establish His kingdom. That’s a question He’s answering there, and there’s nothing in the Olivet discourse about the rapture and nothing in there that’s about the church, and we’ll see that a little more clearly as we, later on, are going to come back and talk some more about these dispensations. We need to understand them and especially if we are going to understand the epistle written to the Hebrews.”
   --Dr. J. Vernon McGee, Dispensations, Part 4

Monday, December 14, 2009
Hebrews 6:1-9

“I know how this passage has made the heart of many a good man tremble. It rises up in the New Testament with a gloomy grandeur, stern, portentous, awful, sublime as Mount Sinai when the Lord descended upon it in fire, and threatening storm clouds were around Him, and thunderings and lightnings and unearthly voices told that He was there.”
   --Dr. R.W. Dale

Dr. McGee credits Dr. J. B. Rowell for his interpretation of Hebrews 6:4-9

Thursday, December 17, 2009
Hebrews 7:2-19

“I want to continue that which I began some time ago about the dispensations. That it is necessary to understand the dispensations of Scripture, and especially when we come to an epistle like we’re studying now—the epistle to the Hebrews. This is an epistle that was directed to a nation that had been under law, and it was answering questions to them. It was saying all the way through that Israel, with all the ritual that God had given them, and He’d given them a great deal, all of that is being fulfilled in Christ now. In other words, Christ is the end of the law in the sense that He is the one that the law is really pointing to. You see, God gave to Israel what we call the Mosaic system, and that Mosaic system was just for a period of time—we’ll see that in a moment. It wasn’t a permanent arrangement at all and it was in three parts. Actually there were the commandments—they governed Israel’s moral life. And then there were the judgments which governed Israel’s civic life. Then there were the ordinances which governed Israel’s religious life. And that is the way God has dealt with man. God is a holy God. He demands certain things of His creatures, and He has demanded certain things of man and He’s put him under these different economies, these different administrations, and they actually are in contrast. Law and grace are definitely in contrast. And we see that this nation that had been under that are now told that Christ is the fulfillment of everything that had gone before, and that now God was saving man by what Christ had done for them. And it was difficult, may I say, for them to get that. Then after the age of grace there was to be the age of the kingdom—the dispensation of the kingdom, and that kingdom is coming upon this earth. And we saw that there are those today that run ahead, but not seeing the great movement in the Gospel of Matthew, they run ahead and try to put the church under the kingdom and we’re not there yet, so that’s in the future. Now, there’s another group of folk, they attempt to keep us back under the law. They say there was no change of dispensation, the law is still for today, and they, of course, like to say, ‘Well, can you break the Ten Commandments?’ And the very interesting thing is, if you’re a child of God, you can’t break the Ten Commandments because God hasn’t gotten rid of the Ten Commandments, by any means, but that’s not the method of salvation for today, you can be sure of that. And so, we have these different systems that have been given to mankind and we are under this dispensation of grace today. Somebody says, ‘Well if we are under grace we can break the Ten Commandments.’ Well the very interesting thing is, that every one of the Ten Commandments, with the exception of the Sabbath day, is mentioned in the epistles as applying to us, too, you see. God says, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before Me’—first commandment. And we are told by Paul, ‘We preach unto you that you should turn from these vanities, that is, idols, unto the living God.’ And, ‘Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,’ and John in his first epistle, 1 John 5:21 says, ‘Little children, keep yourselves from idols.’ And ‘Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,’ and James wrote and said, ‘Above all things, my brethren, swear not neither by heaven, neither by earth, neither by any other oath.’ And then the Sabbath day, well that’s just never been given to Christians at all. And then, ‘Honor thy father and they mother,’ we are told in Ephesians 6:1 ‘Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right.’ And ‘Thou shalt not kill’—1 John 3:15, ‘Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.’ “Thou shalt not commit adultery,’ and Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, ‘Neither fornicators, nor adulterers, not idolaters shall inherit the kingdom of God.’ ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ and then Paul says in Ephesians 4:23, ‘Steal no more.’ ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness,’ Paul says in Colossians 3:9, ‘Lie not.’ And ‘Thou shalt not covet,’ and in Ephesians 5:3 we read, ‘Covetousness—let it not be once named among you.’ So friends, the Ten Commandments are there, with the exception of the Sabbath day—and may I say, someone is going to raise the question about the Sabbath day. Aren’t we to keep the Christian Sabbath Sunday? No. The Christian is not given a Christian Sabbath at all. We are told very definitely in Colossians, ‘Let no man judge you in respect to these ordinances, and ceremonies and days and months and that sort of thing.’ Paul says, ‘One may observes one day and another day,’ and we today are pleased to observe the first day of the week because that’s the day the Lord Jesus came back again from the dead. And every day ought to be a resurrection day for the Christian, and celebrate it in that way. We are now in this marvelous age, wonderful age of grace, and I just can’t emphasize that enough. You see, the church didn’t come into existence until the Day of Pentecost. In fact, there could never have been a church before Pentecost at all, and we today have one group of people who put us back in the Old Testament dispensation, and others that are hyper-dispensational, they want to divide up this dispensation in several different groupings. And may I say to you, if we’d just follow the Scripture, we won’t fall into either trap. There could not have been a church until Pentecost because of the fact that there couldn’t have been one until Christ died. That our relation to that event is the basis of our salvation, and there could be no church until Christ rose from the dead to provide resurrection life for us. And we are told there could be no church till He ascended up on high to become head of the church, the new creation. And there could be no church on earth until the Holy Spirit came in a ministry to call out the church, which He did on the Day of Pentecost. So there could have been no church. The law actually was temporary. We are told in Galatians 3:19, ‘Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgression till the seed should come until the promise was made, to whom the promise was made.’ May I say to you, it was temporary you see, and it was done away with in Christ when He came to this earth and went to the cross, and died on the cross, and therefore we belong to a new creation. A new creation needs a new day of commemoration. May I say to you, the Sabbath day represents the old creation—it was given under the law, it was a special arrangement of God with the nation of Israel. So that we today are in a unique dispensation, and if I get time while we’re still in this epistle, I want to talk to you about how marvelous this dispensation is, and that is exactly what Paul is saying in the fourth of Hebrews where it actually is the only reference in the epistle to the Sabbath day, and as we saw at that time, what he’s talking about is ‘rest.’ And under the law, a man, as I see it, could never have been at rest. He never could have felt that everything’s worked out; he continually must go and make these sacrifices. Today, we are to enter into a rest, and that’s the rest of redemption that Christ has provided for us. If we have time later I want to come back to that, but today we’ll have to come to our study now and I want you to have this background because it’s so important to the understanding of these people who came out of the law into grace. It was a difficult change for them and an altogether different way and that’s what he’s trying to tell them in this marvelous Hebrew epistle.”
   --Dr. J. Vernon McGee, Dispensations, Part 5

Friday, December 18, 2009
Hebrews 7:20—8:2

“I’ve been taking time out in Hebrews to talk to you about dispensations, and a word that I have used very little in our study, but it’s an important word, it’s a Bible word. And today I want to state the thing that we’ve said before, that there are three dispensations that are brought before us in the New Testament, and a failure to make a proper distinction and division leads to a hopeless and confused interpretation of Scripture. God, you see, is the One who runs the ‘dispensary,’ and a ‘dispensary’ is where dispensations are dispensed with. And He’s given certain systems, certain administrations, certain economies to man down here upon this earth. Now these three that we’ve been concerned with, the first one was the dispensation of law. It began with Moses and it ended with the Lord Jesus. ‘The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.’ That’s the way John puts it in his Gospel, and that is so clear, it seems to me, that even any seminary professor ought to be able to get that. And we, today, find in many churches the so-called Lord’s prayer used. There’s no sin in using it, but I feel like it’s sort of a useless procedure. It’s just a ritual to go through. The Lord gave it to His disciples to teach them to pray, and in it it says, ‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ Now obviously the kingdom has not arrived yet if we are to pray this prayer, because we are to pray for it to come. And I find today that the liberal, the amillenialist, and the paranoid premillenialist are the ones who think we ought to pray this prayer today. I believe that the Lord’s brought us up to a little higher ground than that prayer, by the way. Now we have seen that there are these three dispensations, or three distributions, or three economies, or three administrations—any way that you want to term it. One is law, and that is past. One is grace, and that is for the present. You and I live in the dispensation of the grace of God and as far as I am concerned it’s the most wonderful dispensation to live in of all of them. Then there is the future—the kingdom, and that is not yet come. Now these three different administrations have rules and regulations that are different. They have three standards of conduct, and we’ve heard so much today about love, why not look at these three dispensations and how love is used. Now under the Mosaic law, Moses said, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself.’ That was the law. And by the way, he said to hate your enemies. And we go to the kingdom, and you’ll find that in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:43 He said, ‘Ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy, but I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you that you may be children of your father which is in heaven.’ Well may I say to you, that’s a higher standard than the Mosaic Law. But under grace it’s even higher than that. The Lord Jesus said, ’A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.’ And He made that very clear. If you go over to 1 John you’ll find there He had a great deal to say about this and He put it in no mistakable terms. You can’t miss it at all and having discussed a great deal about love there, we find in 1 John 3:16, and I’d like to turn and just read that. ‘Hereby perceive we the love of God because He laid down His life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.’ My friend, that’s a much higher standard than you have under the mosaic system or even for the kingdom. The standard is, on the basis the way Christ loved us, so much that He gave Himself for us. And that is the standard of love today. Now how are you and I going to come up to that standard? I know there are a great many folks saying right now, ‘I can’t come up to that.’ And I’ll let you in on something, I can’t either, I can’t come up to that high standard. Now under grace what provision has God made for us? Well you stay with us and I’m going to come back to this again, maybe time after next, I’m not sure, but I want to lead you through this very wonderful, wonderful age in which we are living.”
   --Dr. J Vernon McGee, Dispensations, Part 6

Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Hebrews 8:6-13

“We have another word today friends, on the subject of 'dispensations.' Maybe some of you are getting tired of hearing about it, but I trust not, because it's so important, but it's very much like the young man who was proposing to his girlfriend and he concluded his speech by saying, 'I do not have a Cadillac convertible like Harry, and I do not have a yacht like Harry, but I love you.' She said, 'I love you too, but tell me more about Harry." So we're going to tell you more today about dispensations. There are three dispensations that concern us in the New Testament, and there's apt to be confusion. The dispensation of law, which ended with the coming of the Lord Jesus and His death upon the cross and the Day of Pentecost. Then we have the dispensation of grace, and that dispensation of grace is where we are today, but ahead of us is the dispensation of the kingdom, when God's kingdom will be establish here upon the earth. And there are certain standards and certain rules and regulations that concern all of these. Now the wonderful dispensation of grace that we are in, and I want to talk first about this standard that God has given to those of us who are saved by the grace of God. The standard here is above all human ability. For instance, let me give you just some verses that reveal that standard under grace. We are told in 2 Corinthians 10:5, 'Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exults itself against the knowledge of God, and bringeth into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.' Have you reached that high level of living today? Well that's what set before believers and in 1 Peter 2:9 we are told that, 'Ye should show forth the praises [that is the characteristics] of Him that called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.' Honestly friend, if you're a Christian you represent Jesus Christ down here. You're His signboard. You're His salesman. You're His bag of samples that He has. And that's a high standard, wouldn't you think? And then we read again in Scripture in Ephesians 5:20, 'Giving thanks always for all things unto God.' My, that's a high plane to come to. Again in Ephesians 4:1, 'That ye walk worthy of the high calling wherewith ye are called.' And then we are told in 1 John 1:7, 'Walk in the light.' Ephesians 5:2, 'Walk in love.' And then we are told to ‘Walk in the Spirit,' in Galatians 5:16. And then we are told, 'Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.' And then we are told to 'Quench not the Spirit.' And then we are told 'to be filled with the Spirit.' So actually we are called to a much higher plane than we were under law--that Israel was, under law. Or that they'll be even under the kingdom. You and I have been called to a very high plane indeed. And the question arises, 'How are you and I going to attain unto this?' Because I don't know about you, I can't do it with human ability. I tried it and fell on my face, but God has provided the method and the means to attain that high standard. Over in Galatians in the fifth chapter, verse 22, he says, 'But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control, against such there is no law.' Wouldn't you love to have all these fruits in your life? And they are attainable we are told. How? Well if you'll just keep reading in that epistle. 'And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh.' When did we do that? Well when Christ died. You and I can't crucify ourselves. 'With the affections and lust, if we live in the Spirit let us also walk in the Spirit.' Now there it means, walking in the Spirit means to learn to walk in the Spirit, and I think that is something that is so neglected today by Christians. It's probably the most neglected truth that there is. God has asked you and me to walk by the Spirit, not in our own strength. I can't represent Christ in my own strength. It's only by walking in the power of the Holy Spirit. And how does that come about? The word 'walk' here means 'learn to walk.' And how do you learn to walk? Have you ever seen a little fellow that's just learning to walk? I had the privilege of watching my two grandsons learn to walk, and I'm telling you, one of them fell on his nose, I know, a hundred times, but he learned to walk and today I can't catch him. May I say, that's the way that you learn to walk, by the Spirit of God. Each day is to say, 'Lord, I want to walk today by the power of the Holy Spirit.' That means there's to be no unconfessed sin in your life. That means today that you're willing to do God's will, and if you're willing to do that and step out and say, 'Now Lord, help me to take the next step.' And the Spirit of God will be there to help you in that. This is the grace method--God provides His own. 'What the law could not do, in that it was weak.' Weak how? Was the law weak? It certainly was not weak. It was weak in the flesh. You and I are the weak ones. We couldn't attain to it, not even to the law standard, and certainly we cannot attain to the grace standard, but by the power of the Holy Spirit we can, and should do that. Now, grace saves us and teaches us how to live and I haven't mentioned the fact, grace you know, not only teaches us, but it saves us. That's what Paul told a young preacher. When he wrote to Titus he said in the second chapter, verse 11, 'For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.' I like to change that to 'the grace of God that bringeth salvation to all men hath appeared.' Salvation is for all men. That's the reason I don't buy this new doctrine of election that's going around where you don't have to give out the Word of God. I say to you, we are called to give it out there for everybody because it's for everybody. And he says, 'Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldliness we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world.' It not only saves us but it teaches us, as we see, to walk by the Spirit. Now when God saves us you come to Him. He does not require any character, or any conduct. In fact, He doesn't accept that ‘because He says your righteousness is filthy rags, and there is none righteous, no not one, and there is none that meets His standard. And so God provides it all. When you come, I know today that the average unsaved man, I remember playing golf with a man, and a man was invited to church by one of my officers that was playing with me, and he said, 'Oh no, I don't want that preacher telling me what to do!' And I told him, I said, 'I haven't anything to tell you what to do.' He was amazed. I said, 'You know, God's not asking you to do anything.' He said, 'You don't mean it!' I said, 'I do mean it. God's not asking you to do a thing. God's done it all for you, brother, and He'll save you by grace.’ You can come to Him, and the hymn says, 'Just as I am without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me. Oh Lamb of God I come.' And you come on that kind of basis and God saves you that way. And when you trust Him He'll save you by His wonderful grace.”
   --Dr. J. Vernon McGee, Dispensations, Part 7

Thursday, December 24, 2009
Hebrews 9:2-24

Outline by Dr. Warren W. Wiersbe concerning the sanctuary here on earth:
1) It was on earth.
2) It was but a shadow of things to come.
3) It was inaccessible to the people.
4) It was temporary.
5) It was ineffective to change the hearts of the people.

Friday, December 25, 2009
Hebrews 9:6-27

I do not work my soul to save,
That work my Lord has done.
But I would work like any slave
For love of God's dear Son.
   --Fenelon (This poem was written inside Dr. McGee's Bible)

Monday, December 28, 2009
Hebrews 9:25—10:19

There is a green hill, far away,
Without a city wall.
Where the dear Lord was crucified,
Who died to save us all.
There was no other good enough,
To pay the price of sin.
He only could unlock the gate
Of heaven to let us in.
   --Cecil F. Alexander

“Gentlemen, unafraid.” 
   --Rudyard Kipling, describing a certain group of men

Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Hebrews 10:9-36

So near, so very near to God.
We cannot nearer be.
For in the person of His Son,
We are as near as He.
So dear, so very dear to God.
We cannot dearer be.
For in the person of His Son,
We are as dear as He.
   --Catesby Paget

Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Hebrews 10:26-39

“If God is for us, who can be against us?”
   --Motto of the French Huguenots

December 31, 2009
Hebrews 11:1-3

“It is not thy hold on Christ that saves thee; it is Christ. It is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee; it is Christ. It is not even thy faith in Christ that saves thee, though that be the instrument. It is Christ’s blood and merit.”
   --Charles Haddon Spurgeon

“Faith enables the believing soul to treat the future as present and the invisible as seen.”
   --Dr. J. Oswald Sanders

“Title deed.”
   --Dr. A.T. Robertson’s translation of the word, substance

November 2009

Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Daniel 7:7-13

“The empire of the Romans filled the world, and when the empire fell into the hands of a single person, the world became a safe and dreary prison for his enemies. To resist was fatal and it was impossible to fly.”
   --Edward Gibbon

“Two millennia ago, Rome gave the world the ecumenical unity which the League of Nations and the United Nations have sought to give it in our time. The modern attempts are not original at all (as many of our contemporaries suppose), but are revivals of the ancient Roman ideal, which never since the time of Augustus Caesar has been wholly lost.”
   --Dr. Robert D. Culver

“Rome was like Humpty-Dumpty. Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall. And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty-Dumpty together again. Interesting, isn’t it, that they are looking for a man to put it together again?”
   --Dr. J. Vernon McGee

Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Daniel 7:13-23

“One of the paradoxes of this age is that it is the age of pacifism, but not the age of peace.”
--G. K. Chesterton

“The Antichrist will come disguised as the great humanitarian. He will talk peace, prosperity, and plenty, not as a means to lead us to God but as ends in themselves. He will explain guilt away psychologically and make men shrink in shame if their fellow men say they are not broadminded and liberal. He will spread the lie that men will never be better until they make society better.”
   --Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

Thursday, November 5, 2009
Daniel 7:24-28

“The empire of the Romans filled the world, and when the empire fell into the hands of a single person, the world became a safe and dreary prison for his enemies. To resist was fatal and it was impossible to fly.”
   --Edward Gibbon

“The most striking point in the eschatology of the ante-Nicene age is the prominent chiliasm, or millenarianism, that is the belief of a visible reign of Christ in glory on earth with the risen saints for a thousand years, before the general resurrection and judgment. It was indeed not the doctrine of the church embodied in any creed or form of devotion, but a widely current opinion of distinguished teachers.”
   --Philip Schaff

Monday, November 9, 2009
Daniel 8:13-27

“I can take up a telescope and look at the nearest star, but I can put down the telescope, get down on my knees, and penetrate the outer heavens to the very throne of God.”
   --Attributed to Sir Isaac Newton

“The greatest chapter in the book and one of the greatest chapters of the entire Bible.”
   --Dr. Philip Newell, evaluation of Daniel, chapter 9

Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Daniel 9:1-19

“The greatest chapter in the book and one of the greatest chapters of the entire Bible.”
   --Dr. Philip Newell, evaluation of Daniel, chapter 9

Friday, November 13, 2009
Daniel 10:10-21

I thank thee Father, for giving me another day to live upon this beautiful earth that was created by Thee and the opportunity to live this day as a Christian with a clean mind and a clean heart. I pray, Father, that my thoughts and my actions this day will be some improvement over those of the past and will continue to improve in the future so as to be more pleasing and acceptable to Thee. But when I fail, Father, as we humans do so frequently, I pray that Thou will correct me and, if necessary, chasten me as a father would his own son, as I hopefully pray, Father, that I’ll be considered by Thee in Thy sight as one of Thine on this earth. And I pray, Father, that I’ll be able to do something to reflect glory upon Thee.
   --Prayer of a lawyer healed of cancer

Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Daniel 11:37-45

“We know from pagan mythology that both Cybele and Diana are variously represented as crowned with multi-tiered crowns, plainly setting forth the idea of fortification with turrets, battlements, and so forth.”
   --Dr. Philip Newell

Thursday, November 19, 2009
Daniel 12

“Another expression, ‘at the time of the end’ (11:40), seems to indicate eschatological times. I do not feel that this evidence, taken by itself, can be pressed too far, for obviously the end of whatever series of events is in the mind of the author is designated by the expression, ‘time of the end.’ This is not necessarily a series reaching on to the consummation of the ages. However, it is quite clear from 10:14, which fixes the scope of the prophecy to include ‘the latter days,’ that the ‘time of the end’ in this prophecy is with reference to the period consummated by the establishment of the Messianic Kingdom.”
   --Dr. Robert Culver

Friday, November 20, 2009
Hebrews Introduction

“The letter to the Hebrews has an especial value today because there is abroad a very widespread conception of Christ which is lower than that of the New Testament. To illustrate what I mean by this, a recent writer has said: ‘One of the best things we can say about human nature is this, that whenever a situation occurs which can only be solved by an individual “laying down his life for his friends,” some heroic person is certain to come forth, sooner or later, and offer himself as the victim—a Curtius to leap into the gulf, a Socrates to drink the hemlock, a Christ to get himself crucified on Calvary.’ I am not proposing to discuss that at any length, but at once say that to place Christ in that connection is to me little short of blasphemy. We may properly speak of ‘a Curtius,’ ‘a Socrates,’ but when we speak of ‘a Christ,’ our reference to Him is not only out of harmony with the New Testament presentation, but implicitly a contradiction of what it declares concerning the uniqueness of His Person.”
   --G. Campbell Morgan, God’s Last Word to Man

“From Adam to Moses, through 2500 years, and from Moses to Malachi, through 1100 years, the prophets were speaking for God to man. But at the end of the 3600 years their revelation of God was only partial. Then after a silence of 400 years, when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, and in that Son the revelation of God is perfect.”
   --Dr. William Pettingill, Into the Holiest: Simple Studies in Hebrews

“The Epistle to the Hebrews, one of the most important books of the New Testament in that it contains some of the chief doctrines of the Christian faith, is, as well, a book of infinite logic and great beauty. To read it is to breathe the atmosphere of heaven itself. To study it is to partake of strong spiritual meat. To abide in its teachings is to be led from immaturity to maturity in the knowledge of Christian truth and of Christ Himself. It is to ‘go on to perfection.’ The theme of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the only book in the New Testament in which our Lord is presented on His high priestly office, is the supreme glory of Christ, the Son of God and Son of man.”
   --E. Schuler English, Studies in the Epistle to the Hebrews

“That the professing church on earth is ‘the true vine’—this is the daring and impious lies of the apostasy. That it is ‘the olive tree’ is a delusion shared by the mass of Christians in the churches of the Reformation. But the teaching of Scripture is explicit, that Christ Himself is the vine, and Israel the olive. For ‘God hath not cast away His people whom He foreknew.’”
   --Sir Robert Anderson, The Hebrews Epistle in the Light of the Types

Monday, November 23, 2009
Hebrews 1:1, 2

The Proper Way
"The proper way for a man to pray,”
Said Deacon Lemuel Keys,
“The only proper attitude
is down upon his knees.”
“No, I should say, the way to pray,”
Said Reverend Doctor Wise,
“Is standing straight with outstretched arms
And rapturous upturned eyes.”
“It seems to me his hands should be
Devoutly clasped in front,
With both thumbs pointing t’ward the ground,”
Said Reverend Doctor Blunt.
“Last year I fell in Hodgkin’s well
Head first,” said Cyrus Brown.
“With both my heels a’sticking up,
My head a’pointing down.
And I made a prayer right then and there,
Best prayer I ever said—
The prayerest prayer I ever prayed
Was standing on my head.”
   --Author unknown

Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Hebrews 1:2-3

“The knowledge of Christ Jesus that we need for conversion does not suffice for growth or progress, for sanctification, for maturity. Our one need is to know Jesus better.”
   --Andrew Murray

Monday, November 30, 2009
Hebrews 2:10-17

“When you don’t know what to do, don’t do it. When you run into a spiritual fogbank, don’t tear ahead. Slow down the machinery of your life. If necessary, anchor your bark or let it swing at its mooring. We are simply to trust God. While we trust, God can work. Worry prevents Him from doing anything for us. If our minds are distracted and our hearts are distressed, if the darkness that overshadows us strikes terror to us, if we run hither and yon in a vain effort to find some way of escape out of a dark place of trial where divine providence has put us, the Lord can do nothing for us. The peace of God must quiet our minds and rest our hearts. We must put our hand into the hand of God like a little child and let Him lead us into the bright sunshine of His love.”
   --Author unknown

They were looking for a king
To slay their foes and lift them high;
Thou cam’st, a little baby thing
That made a woman cry.
   --George McDonald

October 2009

Monday, October 5, 2009
Titus 1:8—2:1

“Faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is not alone.”
   --John Calvin

Friday, October 9, 2009
Daniel Intro—1:1

“The subject (prophecy) cannot be adequately discussed without taking a survey of all the prophetic teachings of Scripture both of the Old Testament and the New. This task cannot be satisfactorily accomplished by anyone who has not made a study of the prophecies a specialty. The author, knowing that he has not such qualifications for the work, purposes to confine himself in a great measure to an historical survey of the different schemes of interpreting the Scriptures prophetically.” 
   --Dr. Charles Hodge

“The rest which has been said is mostly mere insolent assumptions against Scripture, grounded on unbelief.”
   --Edward B. Pusey

“To reject Daniel is to reject the Christian religion.”
   --Sir Isaac Newton

Thursday, October 15, 2009
Daniel 2:24-39

“Here is all presented as set before the king according to his ability of apprehension—the external and visible things being shown as man might regard them.” 
   --Samuel P. Tregelles

Friday, October 16, 2009
Daniel 2:40-44

“The captains and the kings depart, still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, an humble and a contrite heart.”
   --Rudyard Kipling

Monday, October 19, 2009
Daniel 2:44—3:2

“This is a time of humanism, instability, war, and false prophets and false 'christs.' The rejection of God’s rule which started for man in the Garden of Eden seems to be reaching a frenzied pitch. Man is determined to prove that he can rule the world in an orderly, meaningful way without God. He asserts that the ultimate purpose of everything is the glory and exaltation of man. This man-centered mania not only makes him refuse to submit to the rule of God, but also renders him incapable of submitting, and that’s Romans 8:7. Because man rejects the rule of God, his pride drives him to do things opposite to what God has ordained. God ordained capital punishment for murderers, but man tries to abolish it. God regards human life as being valuable, because He created it in His image, but man destroys it by millions through abortion. God instituted marriage and ordained that it be permanent, but man divorces and suggests that marriage be abolished. God demands justice in society with the protection of the innocent and the punishment of the criminal. But man pampers the criminal at the expense of the innocent. God ordained the family as the nurturing place of future generations, but man proposes that government replace the family. God declares that the fear of the Lord is the starting point of wisdom, but man forbids any reference to God in the classroom. God instituted moral absolutes to govern man, but man says that utopia can come only through the rejection of these absolutes. God ordained distinctive appearances and roles for the sexes, but man tries to obliterate those distinctions. God instituted sex to be used within the bonds of male, female marriage, but man perverts sex through pornography, fornication, adultery and homosexuality. God made man to have true meaning and purpose of life only in Him, but man tries to find true meaning through drugs, alcohol, the occult, materialism, philosophy, astrology, cults, transcendental meditation, fame and power. Man has his false prophets and 'christs' to encourage him in his rebellious attempt at self rule. These deceivers tell man that he is good and perfectible by nature. They teach that through the process of evolution, man is moving toward divinity. Some so-called theologians declare that in order to have so-called utopia man must proclaim himself the great humanity divine. Others state that the true gospel is the good news that man is deified. Having willfully rejected the truth about God, man is worshipping and serving himself rather than his creator.”
   --Dr. Renald Showers, from The Most High God

Friday, October 23, 2009
Daniel 4:10-22

“Things are in the saddle, and they ride mankind.”
   --Ralph Waldo Emerson

Monday, October 26, 2009
Daniel 4:22-27

“Josephus attributes to the Babylonian historian, Berosus, a definite reference concerning a strange malady suffered by Nebuchadnezzar before his death.”
   --Albert Barnes

Thursday, October 29, 2009
Daniel 6:1-23

If someone should ever ask you
Why some Christians are so slow,
And like undernourished children,
They never seem to grow,
Chances are they're on a diet
And too weak to stand,
For the pulpit where they worship
Only serves the Pablum brand.
How can any newborn Christian
Ever grow to be a man
If he's always on the bottle
Or the baby Pablum can?
That's all right while we're playing
Patty-cake and peekaboo,
But to grow in grace and knowledge
We need Bible meat to chew.
Why not spread the gospel table
With some meat to help us grow
Strong to serve our God and Saviour
As we journey here below?
Let us have a full-course message
That will give us strength to stand
And to those who need milk feeding,
Give to them the Pablum can.
   --Walt Huntley

“The soul is on its knees many times, regardless of the position of the body.”
   --Victor Hugo

Friday, October 31, 3009
Daniel 7:1-4

“The four empires are clearly delineated; and the invincible armies of the Romans are described with as much clearness in the prophecies of Daniel, as in the histories of Justin and Diodorus.”
   --Edward Gibbon

September 2009

Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Ezekiel 3:20—5:17

“This is the age of pacifism, but it is not the age of peace.”
   --G.K. Chesterton

Thursday, September 3, 2009
Ezekiel 7:1—8:4

“This is the age of pacifism, but it is not the age of peace.”
   --G.K. Chesterton

Monday, September 7, 2009
Ezekiel 10, 11

My Friend
My friend, I stand in judgment now
And feel that you are to blame somehow.
On earth I walked with you by day
And never did you point the way.
You knew the Lord in truth and glory
But never did you tell the story.
My knowledge then was very dim,
You could have led me safe to Him.
Though we lived together here on earth,
You never told me of the second birth.
And now I stand this day condemned
Because you failed to mention Him.
You taught me many things, that’s true,
I called you friend and trusted you.
But I learned now that it’s too late,
And you could have kept me from this fate.
We walked by day and talked by night
And yet you showed me not the light.
You let me live and love and die,
You knew I'd never live on high.
Yes, I called you friend in life
And trusted you through joy and strife.
And yet on coming to this dreadful end,
I cannot now call you my friend. 
   --Author unknown

Friday, September 25, 2009
Ezekiel 38, 39

“The word Rosh should be Russia. This is the only reference to a modern nation in the entire Old Testament.”
   --Dean Stanley, History of the Eastern Church

“Rosh taken as a proper name in Ezekiel signifies the inhabitants of Scythia from whom the modern Russians drive their name.”
   --Attributed to Bishop Lowther

“A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”
   --Winston Churchill, describing Russsia

“The Great Upside-down Philosopher: Top is bottom, black is white, far is near, and day is night. Big is little, high is low, cold is hot, and yes is no.”
   --Title and caption of cartoon about Joseph Stalin, by Rube Goldberg

“We have deposed the czar of the earth, and we shall now dethrone the Lord of heaven.”
   --Joseph Stalin

“Russia will not move into western Europe, but will move into Asia and the Near East.”
   --Attributed to Lord Beverly; General Douglas MacArthur concurred with him in that viewpoint

Monday, September 28, 2009
Ezekiel 38, 39

“Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes, desolate and unlovely. It is a hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land. And why should it be otherwise? Can the curse of the Deity beautify a land? Palestine is no more of this work-day world. It is sacred to poetry and tradition. It is dreamland.”
   --Mark Twain

“There is a land without a people. There is a people without a land. Give the land without a people to the people without a land.”
   --Dr. Theodore Herzl

“The Jewish nation is a ghost nation. Only the God of Israel has kept the Jewish people alive.”
   --Dr. Chaim Weizmann

“Ezekiel 37 has been fulfilled, and the nation Israel is hearing the footsteps of the Messiah.”
   --David Ben-Gurion

Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Ezekiel 40—48

God’s Sermon (Mount St. Helens)
God Spoke to us on May 18.
Did you hear or see His hand?
His sermon was a warning
To the people of this land.
This was not a quirk of nature
or some scientific thing.
God’s sermon shook a mountain
And made the valleys ring.
God plainly says, “I’m still around,
In case your memory’s short.
Do I have to raise My voice louder
Than I today have spoken?”
Yes, God gave a mighty sermon
On the 18th day of May.
Did we have the sense to listen,
Or will He speak louder another day? 
   --A listener in Marysville, Washington

August 2009

Thursday, August 6, 2009
1 Timothy 2:5-15

Here lie the bones of Nancy Jones:
For her, life held no terrors.
She lived an old maid, she died an old maid:
No hits, no runs, no errors.
   --C.C. Mitchell

Monday, August 10, 2009
1 Timothy 3:8-16

“There are a great many people who think the faith is outmoded and needs to be changed. An editorial in one of our national magazines several years ago supported this idea by suggesting an updated list of the ‘seven deadly sins.’ Their new list included selfishness, intolerance, indifference, cruelty, violence and destructiveness. The list replaced lust, of course, with prudery.” 
   --Dr. J. Vernon McGee, Edited Messages on First Timothy

Wednesday, August 12, 2009
1 Timothy 4:6-16

Oh let me know the power of the resurrection.
Oh let me show Thy risen life in calm and clear reflection.
Oh let me give out of the gifts Thou freely gavest.
Oh let me live with life abundantly because Thou livest.
   --Frances Ridley Havergal

Friday, August 14, 2009
1 Timothy 5:19—6:21

“My father believed in the laying on of hands, and, believe me, he really laid them on.”
   --Attributed to Dr. A.W. Tozer

Sunday, August 16, 2009
“The Home: A Casualty of the Last Days”

A Growing-Up Son
It seems but such a little while
Since he was playing at my knee,
And when I spoke to him, my eyes
Would downward turn his face to see.
And now, in just a few short years,
(O God, how short the years can be!)
My eyes must upward turn, for then
He will be looking down on me.
Dear God, if in the years gone by
I have been in some measure fit
To merit childhood’s upturned gaze,
And only quail a little bit,
Please help me in the coming years
A nobler woman yet to be—
That when his eyes must downward turn,
His soul will still look up to me.
   --Dorothy Markham Brown

Tuesday, August 18, 2009
2 Timothy 1:6-18

“If you were not strangers here, the hounds of the world would not bark at you.”
   --Samuel Rutherford

Thursday, August 20, 2009
2 Timothy 2:11-26

“I never thought I’d be in this ministry. I never expected to be a missionary. I knew all along through school I was not called to a mission field. I heard a great missionary, a missionary doctor of the Sudan Interior Mission, tell a story that came from his field and every fellow in the seminary was weeping, including myself. The boys, one on the one side of me and the other on the other, both of them went to the mission field and they’ve done a great work. I never felt called to go to the mission field. The first time I made a trip to the mission field and saw what the missionary there was undergoing in his family and the tremendous sacrifice he was making, I said to a friend of mine who went along with me, ‘I know now why God didn't call me as a missionary. The reason is that I don't have the intestinal fortitude to make the sacrifice this man is doing here, burying himself in the jungle and giving out the Word of God to just a couple of hundred people.’ Believe me, I guess that God didn't intend for me to do it that way. And now, I found myself broadcasting in all these different languages. I'm not the one doing it. I just make the tapes and they translate them and we are rejoicing in what's happening today. I don't know how it happened other than I just know God did it and I'd like to invite you to come and go along with us and let's take the Word out today!"
   --Dr. J. Vernon McGee, Introduction to 2 Timothy 2:11-26

“Here is a quotation that reveals the ignorance of a man who failed to recognize that the Word of God is one great unity that needs to be rightly divided to be understood. I’m quoting from an article: ‘In short, one way to describe the Bible, written by many different hands over a period of three thousand years, and more, would be to say that it is a disorderly collection of sixty-odd books which are often tedious, barbaric, obscure, and teeming with inconsistencies. It is a swarming compost of a book, an Irish stew of poetry and propaganda, law and legalism, myth and murk, history and hysteria.’ That man really spoke a mouthful. His verbiage is quite verbose and reveals a woeful ignorance of the Bible. And he reveals the result of not rightly dividing the Word of God.”
   --Dr. J. Vernon McGee, Edited Messages on 2 Timothy

Friday, August 21, 2009
2 Timothy 3:1-12

“In this world it is becoming more and more unpopular to be a Christian. Soon it may become dangerous.”
   --Melvin Laird

Sunday, August 23, 2009
"God's Answer to Problems in Times Like These"

Not Man's Opinion, But God's Word
Not my opinions may I speak;
If so, my witness will be weak.
Not what in human books I find,
Or the conclusions of men's minds,
But what my God has deigned to give,
The teaching whereby we may live;
The Book of Heaven, the Sacred Page,
The Rock of Faith in every age!
That only must my message be
If I shall bless humanity.
I am not left to seek, forsooth,
In learning's page to find the Truth,
But here it is beneath my hand
The Word which shall forever stand.
Unalterable, enduring, sure
Flows the Divine Fount fresh and pure.
   --William Olney

Monday, August 24, 2009
2 Timothy 3:8-17

“I believe that today we're moving in a time when it costs something to be a Christian.”
   --Dr. J. Vernon McGee, Introduction to 2 Timothy 3:8-17

“In this world it is becoming more and more unpopular to be a Christian. Soon it may become dangerous.”
   --Melvin Laird

Tuesday, August 25, 2009
2 Timothy 3:16—4:8

“They shall invite teachers en masse. In periods of unsettled faith, skepticism, and mere curious speculation in matters of religion, teachers of all kinds swarm like the flies in Egypt. The demand creates the supply. The hearers invite and shape their own preachers. If the people desire a calf to worship, a ministerial calf-maker is readily found. Clement of Alexandria describes certain teachers as ‘scratching and tickling, in no human way, the ears of those who eagerly desire to be scratched….’ Seneca says: ‘Some come to hear, not to learn, just as we go to the theatre, for pleasure, to delight our ears with the speaking or the voice or the plays.’”
   --Dr. Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament

“They want religious entertainment from Christian performers who will tickle their ears. We have a love for novelty in the churches today; emotional movies, pageants, foot-tapping music, colored lights, etc. The man who simply opens the Bible is rejected, while a too shallow religious entertainer becomes a celebrity. And verse 4 indicates that itching ears soon will become deaf ears as people turn away from the truth and believe man-made fables.”
   --Dr. Warren Wiersbe

“Dr. McGee, you’re going to find out in your own ministry that there are a great many people more interested in Anti-Christ than they are in Christ.”
   --Dr. Arno C. Gaebelein

Wednesday, August 26, 2009
2 Timothy 4:6-22

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.
   --“Crossing the Bar” by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Thursday, August 27, 2009
Ezekiel Introduction—1:4

“If anyone asks whether the vision is lucid, I confess its obscurity, and that I can scarcely understand it.”
   --John Calvin

Friday, August 28, 2009
Ezekiel 1:4-28

“You want to be Christlike? Alright--take a look at Jesus. When we'd sing that song, 'Take time to be holy; speak oft with thy Lord' in chapel, Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer used to always stop us and say, 'Change that first line. Let us sing it, Take time to behold Him.’” You want to be holy? Behold Him, then. 'Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.' I need this. I hope you sense a need of seeing Jesus Christ on the pages of the Word of God so that you and I might grow like Him.”
   --Dr. J. Vernon McGee, Introduction to Ezekiel 1:4-28

“The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it was he saw in plain language.”
   --John Ruskin

Monday, August 31, 2009
Ezekiel 2:1—3:19

“Here in this second chapter, God says to Ezekiel: 'Now, I want you to bring a message to the house of Israel, and very candidly, they're not going to hear you, that is, they won't believe you, they won't accept it, but you're to do it.' And God says, 'That's alright, they don't believe Me either.' And I feel that we today are cast in very much that kind of a role in the day in which we live. It's a day when many are hearing the Word of God, and we rejoice in that. But many do not hear the Word of God, and what about that? Well, Paul says that we're a Savior of life unto those that are saved and a Savior of death unto those that are lost. In other words, there's going to be a whole lot of people that listen to this program that are going to do nothing about it and, actually, the gospel is going to condemn them, instead of saving them, because they'd never be able to go into the presence of God and say 'Look, I never heard it at all.' But, many are responding, and right now, we're in the thick of a theological debate or discussion, or controversy, or whatever you'd want to call it, in this country: What really happens when a person is born again? We've been talking about that so long. What are the steps, if there are steps in it? Is the first thing that takes place that you believe? And how can a lost man who has no capacity for God? They've all gone out of the way. Each one has turned to his own way. There's none that seeketh after God. That's the condition of any lost person. It was the condition of you, if today you're a Christian. You at one time had no desire for God. That certainly was my condition, a time when I had no desire for God. Well, what is the first step? Well, we're going to be saying a great deal about this later on, but right now let me say this, that I think that the first step is conviction and that conviction comes from hearing the Word of God, and that's the thing that's important.” 
   --Dr. J. Vernon McGee, Introduction to Ezekiel 2:1—3:19

July 2009

Thursday, July 2, 2009
Jeremiah 3:1-25

“…When a man makes a god according to the pattern of his own being, he makes a god like himself, an enlargement of his own imperfection. Moreover, the god which a man makes for himself will demand from him that which is according to his own nature. It is clearly evident in Mohammedanism. Great and wonderful and outstanding in his personality as Mohammed was, yet the blighting sensuality of the man curses the whole of Islam today. Men will be faithful to those gods who make no demands upon them which are out of harmony with the desires of their own hearts. When God calls men, it is the call of the God of holiness, the God of purity, the God of love; and He demands that they rise to His height. He cannot accommodate Himself to the depravity of their nature. He will not consent to the things of desire within them that are of impurity and evil. He calls men up, and even higher, until they reach the height of perfect conformity to His holiness. God’s call to humanity is always first pure, and then peaceable; first holy, and then happy; first righteous, and then rejoicing.”
   --Studies in the Prophecy of Jeremiah by Dr. G. Campbell Morgan

Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Jeremiah 9—11

“America is coasting downhill on a godly ancestry, and God have mercy on us when we reach the bottom of the hill.”
   --Dr. J. Gresham Machen

“We can go the way of Babylon because we’ve lost our moral purpose.”
   --Dr. Albert Hyma

Friday, July 10, 2009
Jeremiah 18, 19

“An irreverent equalizing of man with God.”
   --Dr. William Shedd, describing “questioning God”

Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Jeremiah 25:15—28:17

“It is said of Socrates made the statement that he was the wisest man in Athens. When asked on what grounds he made such a claim he replied that he was the wisest man because he realized that his wisdom was worthless!”
   --Dr. J. Vernon McGee, Edited Messages on Jeremiah

He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool. Shun him.
He who knows not and knows that he knows not is a child. Teach him
He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep. Wake him.
He who knows and knows that he knows is wise. Follow him.
   --Persian Proverb

Thursday, July 16, 2009
Jeremiah 29, 30

Princes and lords may flourish or may fade.
A breath can make them as a breath has made,
But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride,
When once destroyed can never be supplied.
A time there was ’ere England's griefs began
When every root of ground maintained its men;
For him, like labor, spread her wholesome store,
Just gave what life required but gave no more. 
   --Oliver Goldsmith

“A great statesman is a man who knows where God is going for the next fifty years.”
   --William Gladstone

Friday, July 17, 2009
Jeremiah 31, 32

How canst Thou think so well of us
Yet be the God Thou art,
Is darkness to my intellect
But sunshine to my heart.
Yet Thou dost think so well of us,
Because of what Thou art;
Thy love illumines out intellect,
Yet fills with fear our heart.
   --Frederick W. Faber

“The love of God toward us comes from love, and has no other cause above or beside itself, but is in God, and remains in God, so that Christ who is in God is its centre.”
   --J.A. Cramer

Monday, July 20, 2009
Jeremiah 33—36

“Maw, I found an old, dusty thing high upon the 
   shelf. Just look!”
“Why, that's a Bible, Tommy dear, be careful. 
   That’s God's Book.”
“God’s Book?” the young one said, “Then, Maw, 
   before we lose it
We’d better send it back to God, ’cause you know 
   we never use it.” 
   --Author unknown

Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Jeremiah 39:7—44:30

“Prisons are in the interest of the free. Hell is the safe-guard of heaven. A state that cannot punish crime is doomed and a God who tolerates evil is not good. Deny me my biblical revelation of the anger of God and I’m insecure in the universe. But reveal to me this throne established, occupied by One whose heart is full of tenderness; whose bowels yearn with love—then I am assured that He will not tolerate that which blights and blasts and damns, but will destroy it and all its instruments in the interest of that which is high and noble and pure.”
   --G. Campbell Morgan

Thursday, July 23, 2009
Jeremiah 45:1—49:6

“What we supremely need in the life of our nation today is the moral equivalent of war.”
   --William James

Robert William Dale, when asked the question, “Do you believe in peace at any price?” replied, “I certainly do. Sometimes at the price of war.”

“Finally we come to that which is the most hopeless thing” corruption of conscience. All its fine sensitiveness is gone. There is no high idealism in national outlook and national thought. Or to use the almost terrific word of the Bible, “the conscience is hardened,” so that there is no blanching with fear and no blushing with shame. There is cynicism instead of faith. Pessimism instead of hope. And utilitarianism instead of love.”
   --G. Campbell Morgan

Monday, July 27, 2009
Lamentations 1:1-12

“There is nothing like the Lamentations of Jeremiah in the whole world. There has been plenty of sorrow in every age, and in every land, but such another preacher and author, with such a heart for sorrow, has never again been born. Dante comes next to Jeremiah, and we know that Jeremiah was that exile’s favorite prophet.”
   --Dr. Alexander Whyte

Laugh, and world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone:
For this sad old earth must borrow its Mirth,
But it has trouble enough of its own.
   --Ella Wheeler Wilcox

A woman’s heart—tender and quick and warm;
But man’s in iron will and courage strong.
His harp was set to weird, pathetic song,
Yet when time called for deeds, no wrathful storm
From throne or altar could his soul disarm—
His disheartening battle fierce and long.
   --Mrs. Elizabeth Cook

“Prisons are in the interest of the free. Hell is the safe-guard of heaven. A state that cannot punish crime is doomed and a God who tolerates evil is not good. Deny me my biblical revelation of the anger of God and I’m insecure in the universe. But reveal to me this throne established, occupied by One whose heart is full of tenderness; whose bowels yearn with love—then I am assured that He will not tolerate that which blights and blasts and damns, but will destroy it and all its instruments in the interest of that which is high and noble and pure.”
   --G. Campbell Morgan

Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Lamentations 1:12—3:4

Laugh, and world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone:
For this sad old earth must borrow its Mirth,
But it has trouble enough of its own.
   --Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I am the man sore smitten with the wrath
Of Him who fashioned me; my heart is faint,
And crieth out, “Spare, spare, O God! Thy saint”;
But yet with darkness doth He hedge my path.
My eyes with streams of fiery tears run down
To see the daughter of my people slain,
And in Jerusalem the godless reign.
Trouble on trouble are upon me thrown.
Mine adversaries clap their sinful hands
The while they hiss and wag their heads and say,
“Where is the temple but of yesterday—
The noblest city of a hundred lands?”
We do confess our guilt; then, Lord, arise,
Avenge, avenge us of our enemies!
   --G. Smith

JEHOVAH-TSIDKENU*
I oft read with pleasure
to soothe or engage
Isaiah’s wild measure
or John’s simple page.
But e’en when they pictured
the blood-sprinkled tree,
Jehovah-Tsidkenu was nothing to me.
Like tears from the daughters
of Zion that roll
I wept when the waters
went over His soul.
Yet thought not that my sins
had nailed to the tree
Jehovah-Tsidkenu was nothing to me.
When free grace awoke me
by light from on high,
Then legal fears shook me
I trembled to die.
No refuge, no safety
in self could I see,
Jehovah-Tsidkenu my Saviour must be.
My terrors all vanished
before that sweet name.
My guilty fears banished,
with boldness I came
To drink at the fountain
life-giving and free,
Jehovah-Tsidkenu is all things to me. 
   --Robert Murry McCheyne
* “Jehovah-Tsidkenu”: “The Lord Our Righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:6; Lamentations 2-5)

Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Lamentations 3:4—5:22

“If religious books are not circulated among the masses and the people do not turn to God, I do not know what is to become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, error will be. If God and His Word are not received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendancy. If the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will. If the power of the gospel is not felt through the length and breadth in the land, anarchy, misrule, degradation, misery, corruption, and darkness will reign without mitigation or end.”
   --Daniel Webster

“America is coasting downhill on a godly ancestry, and God have mercy on us when we reach the bottom of the hill.”
   --Dr. J. Gresham Machen

“We can go the way of Babylon because we’ve lost our moral purpose.”
   --Dr. Albert Hyma

“The longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of the truth that God governs in the affairs of men.”
   --Benjamin Franklin

Friday, July 31, 2009
1 Timothy 1:1-2

“The salutation on 1 Timothy as a whole has no parallel in Paul.”
   --Dr. Marvin R. Vincent

June 2009

Monday, June 1, 2009
1 Thessalonians 1:2

Sickened with slaughter and weary of war,
Torn by bereavement and pain.
Daily our eyes are searching the skies
For signs of His coming again.
Longing we pray at dawning of day,
“Lord wilt Thou come before noon?”
Imploring Him yet, in the fading sunset,
“Oh, blessed Lord Jesus come soon.”
Precious the Word, the ear of faith heard,
“Lo, I come quickly my bride.
This longing of thine is not greater than Mine
To have thee at last by My side.”
      --Martha Snell Nicholson (written during World War II)

Tuesday, June 2. 2009
1 Thessalonians 1:2, 3

“I am weary in the work, but I am not weary of the work.”
     --Dwight L. Moody

“Everything that is done in the world is done by hope.”
     --Martin Luther

“It is hope which maintains most of mankind.”
     --Sophocles

“There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something better tomorrow.”
     --O.S. Marden

“Hope springs eternal in the human breast.”
     --Alexander Pope

“I steer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern.”
     --Thomas Jefferson

“Man is, properly speaking, based on hope, he has no other possession but hope; this world of his is emphatically the place of hope.”
     --Thomas Carlyle

“The time I live in is a time of turmoil. My hope is in God.”
     --Frederick the Great

Wednesday, June 3, 2009
1 Thessalonians 1:4-6

“For the past fifty years America has been under the control of men who do not know the origin and the beginning of our nation.”
     --Attributed to Dr. Albert Hyma

Monday, June 8, 2009
1 Thessalonians 2:7-13

“Some sermons don’t have enough gospel in them to make soup for a sick grasshopper.”
     --Attributed to “a great Methodist evangelist” in the South

Friday, June 12, 2009
1 Thessalonians 4:3-12

To dwell above
With the saints in love--
Oh, that will be glory!
But to stay below
With the saints I know--
That’s another story!
     --Author unknown

Monday, June 15, 2009
1 Thessalonians 4:13

“I’d like today to preface our study and give all our time to it, but we do need to understand what the Lord meant in John 14, when He says, ‘I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.’ Now a very fine young scholar, Dr. Renald Showers, has made a study of this and puts it on the background of a first century wedding. And we understand that, because all the gospel writers and all the New Testament writers went back to that statement of our Lord. They understood it, but apparently we have missed it. And in the first century when a young man had fallen in love with a girl, why he went over to the girl’s house. He left his father’s house and he bargained with the father of the girl. And then a purchase price was determined upon and when it was agreed upon, a marriage covenant was made. The bride was declared to be set aside and apart for the bridegroom. In other words, we would say, ‘engaged.' It was the espousal or betrothal ceremony that was performed at that time, not the marriage. Each one of them took a glass of wine and I should say, they both drank out of the same glass, and then the ceremony was performed. They made their pledge, and the betrothal benediction was pronounced. And then the young man returned to his father’s house to prepare a place for his bride in his father’s house. And the bride to be, she prepared herself to become a bride and to enter married life. Now this was the first stage and you can certainly recognize the parallel to Christ and the church. He left heaven’s glory, His Father’s house, and He came down to this earth to seek a bride. And He left the Father’s house to come to our house, this world. And He put it like that. He said, ‘I am come forth from the Father, and am come into the world, again, I leave the world and I go to the Father. He came down to this earth and He took upon Himself our humanity, and He paid a price for the church. He paid with His own blood and He said, ‘The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many.’ Now He went back to the Father’s house and in that first century marriage, the thing that took place was, the young man returned. It is said, he wouldn’t return for at least a year. No date was ever set and all the bride had to do was to wait in anticipation, expectation, and preparation. And one day, He’d come. It was generally at night. A group came with Him and He came with a shout! And that is what Paul is going to mean in this passage we’re looking at, at this time. He says, ‘The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout.’ It’s the bridegroom coming for the bride, you see. Therefore today you can set no date. We’ll see that there is no date set for the rapture at all. Because it parallels the first century wedding. So, one day He’s coming to get His church, to take the church up yonder to His Father’s house. And that’s this vast universe to a place that He’s prepared for His bride. What a glorious and what a marvelous picture we have here.”
     --Dr. J. Vernon McGee

Tuesday, June 16, 2009
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

“Last time we made it very clear that Paul, as well as the other New Testament writers, when he was speaking of the Rapture, put them always on the background of what the Lord Jesus said in John 14, when He was speaking about, actually, a first century wedding, when the bridegroom became engaged to the bride, he went away to prepare a place, and then he came to take the bride to be with him, back to the father’s house. And so the great anticipation of the church is the Rapture. It gives a hope today. It gives a hope that the most hopeless time of life, and that’s at the time of death. There’s nothing as tragic as the death of a lost person. I tell you, many times you hear the howling and the screaming and the carrying on--well, may I say to you, I don’t blame them. They’ve got no hope. But the child of God has a hope. The Lord Jesus is going to come one day and raise up that sleeping body of the believer.”
     --Dr. J. Vernon McGee

“I am told that when President Adams was an old man, a friend inquired about his health. He answered that he was fine, but the house he lived in was getting rickety and was not in good repair.”
     --Dr. J. Vernon McGee

Friday, June 26, 2009
2 Thessalonians 3:8-18

Of all the sad surprises
There's nothing to compare
With treading in the darkness
On a step that isn't there.
     --Author unknown

Monday, June 29, 2009
Jeremiah Intro—1:3

“It is difficult to conceive any situation more painful than to watch the lingering agony of an exhausted country, to tend it during the alternate fits of stupefaction and raving which precede its dissolution, and to see the symptoms of vitality disappear one by one, till nothing is left but coldness, darkness, and corruption.”
     --Zachary Macaulay

“It was Jeremiah’s lot to prophesy at a time when all things in Judah were rushing down to the final and mournful catastrophe; when political excitement was at its height; when the worst passions swayed the various parties, and the most fatal counsels prevailed. It was his to stand in the way over which his nation was rushing headlong to destruction; to make an heroic effort to arrest it, and to turn it back; and to fail, and be compelled to step to one side and see his own people, whom he loved with the tenderness of a woman, plunge over the precipice into the wide, weltering ruin.”
     --Dr. W. G. Moorehead, Studies in the Prophecy of Jeremiah

May 2009

Friday, May 1, 2009
Isaiah 36—37

“Divine history is never merely history, never simply a true account of past events.”
   --F.C. Jennings, Studies in Isaiah

Monday, May 4, 2009
Isaiah 38—39

“‘Behold, I will cause the shadow of the steps to return, which is gone down on the steps of Ahaz with the sun, backward ten steps. And the sun returned ten steps by the steps which it had gone down.’ We can now transport ourselves in spirit to Hezekiah’s palace, and into his chamber. There lies the king, still prone on his couch, but with his face no longer turned to the wall, but joy and hope brightening his eye as he looks out the window to the gardens, in the midst of which, and in full view, stands an obelisk, or column, with a series of steps leading up to it, and at least ten of these are lying in the column’s shadow; for the sun has gone so far down as to throw the shadow over that number of steps. But look again, the once darkened steps are now in clearest sunlight—‘tis the sign for which the king had asked.”
   --F.C. Jennings, Studies in Isaiah

Friday, May 14, 2009
Isaiah 53:1-6

“God created the universe without half trying.”
   --Attributed to Dr. T. DeWitt Talmadge

Monday, May 18, 2009
Isaiah 53:5—54:17

Beneath the cross of Jesus
I fain would take my stand—
The shadow of a might Rock
Within a weary land;
A rest upon the way,
From the burning of the noontide heat,
And the burden of the day.
Upon the cross of Jesus
Mine eye at times can see
The very dying form of One
Who suffered there for me:
And from my stricken heart with tears
Two wonders I confess—
The wonders of redeeming love
And my unworthiness.
   --Elizabeth C. Clephane, “Beneath the Cross of Jesus”

Tuesday, May 20, 2009
Isaiah 55

“Let us listen then, as if we had never heard the melody of this tender and gracious invitation before. Who are the guests here invited? All who thirst! All that is needed to be welcome then, is—not to need (for that is true of all)—but to want what is offered. Am I utterly dissatisfied with myself? I thirst! Am I dissatisfied with all the world can offer me, and of which I have tasted? I thirst! Is my spirit altogether dissatisfied with all the formalism of religion? Then do I thirst! Blessed thirst! It is the only prerequisite to enjoyment!”
   --F.C. Jennings, Studies in Isaiah

“Joy is the flag that is flown in the heart when the Master is in residence.”
   --Motto in a preacher’s study in Salem, Oregon

“I suppose I am the most miserable devil on earth.”
   --Jay Gould, dying American millionaire

“The worm, the canker, and the grief are mine alone.”
   --Lord Byron, “On My Thirty-sixth Year”

Friday, May 22, 2009
Isaiah 58:4—59:21

“It is not because God is great and I am small, it is not because He lives forever, and my life is but a hand-breadth, it is not because of the difference between His omniscience and my ignorance, His strength and my weakness, that I am parted from Him: ‘Your sins have separated between you and your God.’ And no man, build he Babels ever so high, can reach thither. There is one means by which the separation is at an end, and by which all objective hindrances to union, and all subjective hindrances, are alike swept away. Christ has come, and in Him the heavens have bended down to touch, and touching to bless this low earth, and man and God are at one once more”
   --Alexander MacLaren, The Books of Isaiah and Jeremiah

Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Isaiah 63

“Read your Bible; prevent truth decay!”
   --from a listener in Vista, California

Friday, May 29, 2009
Isaiah 65:3—66:24

Dr. George Gill, when asked, “Who ever heard of a lion eating straw? Anyone knows that a lion never eats straw!” replied, “Young man, if you can make a lion, then I will make him eat straw. The One who created the lion will equip him to eat straw when He wants him to do it.”

April 2009

Thursday, April 2, 2009
Isaiah 5:25—6:2

Our Prayerless Sin
We have not wept for thy grief,
Israel, scattered, driven,
Shut up to darkened unbelief
While we have heaven.
We have not prayed for thy peace,
Jerusalem forsaken;
Thy root’s increase, by God’s great grace,
We age-long have partaken.
How trod thy street our Saviour’s feet;
How fell His tears for thee;
How, loving Him, can we forget,
Nor long thy joys to see.
Zion, thy God remembers thee
Though we so hard have been;
Zion, thy God remembers thee,
With blood-bought right to cleanse,
May He remove our prayerless sin.
   --Author unknown

Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Isaiah 8

“I have learned that when you fear God, you have no man to fear.”
   --Oliver Cromwell

Friday, April 10, 2009
Isaiah 10

“One with God is a majority.”
   --Martin Luther

Thursday, April 23, 2009
Isaiah 24:16—26:18

“My misery, my misery.”
   --Dr. F. C. Jenkins’ translation of “My leanness, my leanness.”

Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Isaiah 29:5—31:9

“Carelessness in prayer dwarfs every other aspect of need in the Lord’s work. Our theology of prayer is flawless, but our practice is faulty. Our intentions are good, but prayer’s usually a last resort. We have committees, retreats, seminars, conferences, tapes and a flood of printed matter – but little prayer. Prayer meetings are the most poorly attended functions in our Bible-believing churches. Our fundamentalism has become sophisticated to the point where we give little more than lip service to the doctrine of prayer. Could it be that personal needs, financial limitations, ineffective ministry and unsolved personal problems are all related to our superficial approach to prayer?”
   --Great Commission Prayer League’s Global Circle magazine

Thursday, April 30, 2009
Isaiah 34—35

“Hasten, O Saviour, the time of Thy return. Delay not, lest the living give up their hope. Delay not, lest the earth shall grow like hell, and Thy church shall be crumbled to dust. O haste, that great resurrection day, when the graves that received by rottenness, and retain by dust, shall return Thee glorious stars and suns. Thy desolate Bride saith, Come. The whole creation saith, Come, even so come, Lord Jesus. The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain, waiting for the revealing of the sons of God.”
   --Richard Baxter

March 2009

Monday, March 2, 2009
Song of Solomon 2:12-15

O sing unto this glittering glorious king,
O praise his name let every living thing;
Let heart and voice, like belles of silver, ring
The comfort that this day did bring.
   --Kingwellmersh

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.
Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress,
Helpless, look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Saviour, or I die.
While I draw this fleeting breath,
When my eyelids close in death,
When I soar to worlds unknown,
See Thee on Thy judgment throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.
   --Augustus M. Toplady

Thursday, March 5, 2009
Song of Solomon 5:6-16

"All other greatness has been marred by littleness, all other wisdom has been flawed by folly, all other goodness has been tainted by imperfection; Jesus Christ remains the only Being of whom, without gross flattery, it could be asserted, He is altogether lovely. My theme, then, is: The Loveliness of Christ. First of all, as it seems to me, this loveliness of Christ consists in His perfect humanity. Am I understood? I do not now mean that He was a perfect human, but that He was perfectly human. In everything but our sins, and our evil natures, He is one with us. He grew in stature and in grace. He labored, and wept, and prayed, and loved. He was tempted in all points as we are—sin apart. With Thomas, we confess Him Lord and God; we adore and revere Him, but beloved, there is no other who establishes with us such intimacy, who comes so close to these human hearts of ours; no one in the universe of whom we are so little afraid. He enters as simply and naturally into our twentieth century lives as if He had been reared in the same street. He is not one of the ancients. How wholesomely and genuinely human He is! Martha scolds Him; John, who has seen Him raise the dead, still the tempest and talk with Moses and Elijah on the mount, does not hesitate to make a pillow of His breast at supper. Peter will not let Him wash his feet, but afterwards wants his head and hands included in the ablution. They ask Him foolish questions, and rebuke Him, and venerate and adore Him all in a breath; and He calls them by their first names, and tells them to fear not, and assures them of His love. And in all this He seems to me altogether lovely.”
   --From The Loveliness of Jesus by Dr. C.I. Scofield

Friday March 6, 2009
Song of Solomon 5:10—8:14

“The saintliness of Jesus is so warm and human that it attracts and inspires. We find in it nothing austere and inaccessible, like a statue in a niche. The beauty of Hid holiness reminds one rather of a rose, or a bank of violets. Jesus receives sinners and eats with them—all kinds of sinners. Nicodemus, the moral, religious sinner, and Mary of Magdala, ‘out of whom went seven devils’—the shocking kind of sinner. He comes into sinful lives as a bright, clear stream enters a stagnant pool The stream is not afraid if contamination but its sweet energy cleanses the pool. I remark again, and as connected with this that His sympathy is altogether lovely. He is always being ‘touched with compassion.’ The multitude without a shepherd, the sorrowing widow of Nain, the little dead child of the ruler, the demoniac of Gadara, the hungry five thousand—what ever suffers touches Jesus. His very wrath against the scribes and Pharisees is but the excess of His sympathy for those who suffer under their hard self-righteousness. Did you ever find Jesus looking for ‘deserving poor’? He ‘healed all their sick.’ And what grace in His sympathy! Why did He touch that poor leper? He could have healed him with a word as He did the nobleman’s son. Why, for years the wretch had been an outcast, cut off from kin, dehumanized. He lost the sense of being a man. It was defilement to approach him. Well, the touch of Jesus made him human again. A Christian woman, laboring among the moral lepers of London, found a poor street girl desperately ill in a bare, cold room. With her own hands she ministered to her, changinf her bed linen, procuring medicines, nourishing food, a fir, and making the poor place as bright and cherry as possible, and then she said, “May I pray with you?’ ‘No,’ said the girl, ‘you don’t care for me; you are doing this to get to heaven.’ Many days passed and the Christian woman unwearily kind, the sinful girl hard and bitter. At last the Christian said, ‘My dear, you are nearly well now, and I shall not come again, but as this is my last visit, I want you to let me kiss you,’ and the pure lips that had known only prayers and holy words me the lips defiled by oaths and unholy caresses—and then, my friends, the hard heart broke. Can you fancy Him calling a convention of the Pharisees to discuss methods of reaching the ‘masses’? That leads me to remark that His humility was altogether lovely, and He, the only one who ever had the choice of how and where He should be born, entered this life as one of the ‘masses.’ What meekness, what lowliness! ‘I am among you as one that serveth.’ He ‘began to wash the disciples’ feet.’ ‘When He was reviled He revileth not again.’ ‘As a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth.’ Can you think of Jesus posing and demanding His rights? But it is in His way with sinners that the supreme loveliness of Christ is most sweetly shown. How gentle He is, yet how faithful; how considerate, how respectful. Nicodemus, candid and sincere, but proud of his position as a master in Israel, and timid lest he should imperil it, ‘comes to Jesus by night.’ Before he departs, ‘the Master’ has learned his utter ignorance of the first step toward the kingdom, and goes away to think over the personal application of ‘they loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.’ But he has not hear one harsh word, one utterance that can wound his self-respect. When He speaks to that silent despairing woman, after her accusers have gone out, one by one, He uses for ‘woman’ the same word He used when addressing His mother from the cross. Follow Him to Jacob’s well at high noon and hear His conversation with the woman of Samaria. How patiently He unfolds the deepest truths, how gently, yet faithfully He presses the great ulcer of sin which is eating away her soul. But He could not be more respectful to Mary of Bethany. Even in the agonies of death He could hear the cry of despairing faith. When conquerors return from far wars in strange lands they bring their chiefest captive as a trophy. It was enough for Christ to take back to heaven the soul of a thief. Yea, He is altogether lovely. And now I have left myself no room to speak of His dignity, of His virile manliness, of His perfect courage. There is in Jesus a perfect equipoise of various perfections. All the elements of perfect character are in lovely balance. His gentleness is never weak. His courage is never brutal. My friends, you may study these things for yourself. Follow Him through all the scenes of outrage and insult on the night and morning of His arrest and trial. Behold Him before the high priest, before Pilate, before Herod. See Him brow-beaten, bullied, scourged, smitten upon the face, spit upon, mocked. How His inherent greatness comes out. Not once does He lose His self-poise, His high dignity. Let me ask some unsaved sinner her to follow Him still further. Go with the jeering crowd without the gates; see Him stretched upon the great rough cross and hear the dreadful sound of the sledge as the spikes are forced through His hands and feet. See, as the yelling mob falls back, the cross, bearing the gentlest, sweetest, bravest, loveliest man, upreared until it falls into the socket in the rock. ‘And sitting down, they watched Him there.’ You watch, too. Hear Him ask the Father to forgive His murderers, hear all the cries from the cross. Is He not altogether lovely? What does it all mean? 'He bore our sins in His own body on the tree.’ By Him all that believe are justified from all things.’ ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on Me hath everlasting life.’ I close with a word of personal testimony. This is my beloved, and this is my friend. Will you not accept Him as your Saviour, and beloved and friend?”
   --From The Loveliness of Jesus by Dr. C.I. Scofield

“She delights in her husband, in his person, his character, his affection. To her he is not only the chief and foremost of mankind, but in her eyes, he’s all in all. Her heart’s love belongs to him, and to him only. He is her little world—her paradise—her choice treasure. She’s glad to sink her individuality in his. She seeks no renown for herself. His honor is reflected upon her and she rejoices in it. She will defend his name with her dying breath. Safe enough is he where she can speak of him. His smiling gratitude is all the reward she seeks. Even in her dress she thinks of him, and considers nothing beautiful that is distasteful to him. He has many objects in life—some of which she does not quite understand, but she believes in them all, and anything she can do to promote them, she delights to perform. Such a wife, as a true spouse, realizes the model marriage relation, and sets forth what our oneness with the Lord ought to be.”
   --Charles Spurgeon

Monday, March 9, 2009
Colossians 1:1, 2 Introduction

“Thou, O Christ, art all I want; more than all in Thee I find.”
   --Charles Wesley

“Look on thine own nothingness; be humble, but look at Jesus, they great representative, and be glad. It will save thee many pangs if thou will learn to think of thyself as being in Him.”
   --Charles Spurgeon

Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Colossians 1:2-14

“We pray Thee, forgive us our sins and wash us in the blood of Jesus. Receive us into Thy kingdom. Give us of Thy Holy Spirit, and save us at last for Christ’s sake. Amen.”
   --Dr. H.A. Ironside

Friday, March 13, 2009
Colossians 1:24-29

“When a child is born into this world, some woman must travail in pain; and the reason there are not more people being born again is because there are not enough believers who are willing to travail.”
   --Dr. George Gill

Thursday, March 26, 2009
Isaiah 1:4-18

“The United States of America in the past fifty years has been dominated to a large extent by persons who do not understand the spiritual heritage bequeathed by their own ancestors.”
   --Dr. Albert Hyma

“America is coasting downhill on a godly ancestry, and God pity America when we hit the bottom of the hill.”
   --Dr. J. Gresham Machen

“Sixty years ago I told God if He would let me alone, I would let Him alone, and He has kept His word!”
   --Aaron Burr

Philosophy says: Think your way out.
Indulgence says: Drink your way out.
Politics says: Spend your way out.
Science says: Invent your way out.
Industry says: Work your way out.
Communism says: Strike your way out.
Fascism says: Bluff your way out.
Militarism says: Fight your way out.
The Bible says: Pray your way out,
But Jesus Christ says: “I am the way (out)…”
   --Author unknown

Monday, March 30, 2009
Isaiah 3

“America is coasting downhill on a godly ancestry, and God pity America when we hit the bottom of the hill.”
   --Dr. J. Gresham Machen

February 2009

Monday, February 2, 2009
Ecclesiastes 1:1-5

The Weaver

My life is but a weaving
Between my Lord and me,
I cannot choose the colors
He worketh steadily.
Ofttimes He weaveth sorrow,
And I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper
And I, the underside.
Not till the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly
Shall God unroll the canvas
And explain the reason why.
The dark threads are as needful
In the Weaver's skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned.
   --Author Unknown

Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Ecclesiastes 1:5-14

“There is danger in pressing the words in the Bible into a positive announcement of scientific fact, so marvelous are some of these correspondencies. But it is certainly a curious fact that Solomon should use language entirely consistent with discoveries such as evaporation and storm currents (vv. 6, 7). Some have boldly said that Redfield’s theory of storms is here explicitly stated. Without taking such ground, we ask, who taught Solomon to use terms that readily accommodate facts that the movement of the winds which seem to be so lawless and uncertain, are ruled by laws as positive as those which rule the growth of the plant; and that by evaporation, the waters that fall on the earth are continually rising again, so that the sea never overflows? Ecclesiastes 12:6 is a poetic description of death. How the ‘silver cord’ describes the spinal marrow, the ‘golden bowl’ the basin which holds the brain, the ‘pitcher’ the lungs, and the ‘wheel’ the heart. Without claiming that Solomon was inspired to foretell the circulation of the blood, twenty-six centuries before Harvey announced it, is it not remarkable that the language he uses exactly suits the facts—a wheel pumping up through one pipe to discharge through another?”
   --Dr. Arthur T. Pierson

Thursday, February 12, 2009
Ecclesiastes 9:1-14

“Thou hast made us for Thyself, and the heart of man is restless until it finds its rest in Thee.”
   --Confessions of St. Augustine, Book 1, Section 1

Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Ecclesiastes 12

Thou knowest, Lord, I’m growing older.
My fire of youth begins to smolder;
I somehow tend to reminisce
And speak of good old days I miss.
I am more moody, bossy, and
Think folk should jump at my command.
Help me, Lord, to conceal my aches
And realize my own mistakes.
Keep me sweet, silent, sane, serene,
Instead of crusty, sour, and mean.
   --Author unknown

When as a child, I laughed and wept,
Time crept;
When as a youth, I dreamed and talked,
Time walked;
When I became a full-grown man,
Time ran;
When older still I daily grew,
Time flew;
Soon I shall find in traveling on,
Time gone.
   --Author unknown

Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Song of Solomon 1:7-13

My soul’s a shepherd too, a flock it feeds
Of thoughts and words and deeds;
The pasture is thy word, the streams thy grace,
Enriching all the place.
   --George Herbert

See how from far upon the Eastern road,
The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet;
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;
Have thou the honor first they Lord to greet.
   --John Milton

A bundle of mellifluous myrrhe,
Is my Beloved best
To me, which I will bind between
My breasts, while I do rest
In silent slumbers.
   --Troth-plight Spouse

As myrrh new bleeding from the tree,
Such is a dying Christ to me;
And while He makes my soul his guest,
My bosom, Lord, shall be thy rest.
   --Isaac Watts

Thursday, February 26, 2009
Song of Solomon 2:1-7

“Close by these lilies there grew several of the thorny shrubs of the desert; but above them rose the lily, spreading out its fresh green leaf as a contrast to the dingy verdure of these prickly shrubs—‘like the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.’”
   --Horatius Bonar

Friday, February 27, 2009
Song of Solomon 2:4-11

The love, the love that I bespeak,
Works wonders in the soul;
For when I’m whole it makes me sick,
When sick it makes me whole.
I’m overcome, I faint, I fail,
Till love shall love relieve;
More love divine the wound can heal,
Which love divine did give.
More of the joy that makes me faint,
Would give me present ease;
If more should kill me, I’m content
To die of that disease.
   --Ebenezer Erskine

When manifold obstructions met,
My willing Saviour made
A stepping-stone of every let,
That in his way was laid.
   --Ebenezer Erskine

The legal wintery state is gone,
The mists are fled, the spring comes on;
The sacred turtle dove we hear
Proclaim the new, the joyful year.
And when we hear Christ Jesus say,
Rise up my Love, and come away,
Our heats would fain outfly the wind,
And leave all earthly joys behind.
   --Isaac Watts

January 2009

Thursday, January 1, 2009
Proverbs 26:23—27:27

“A wife laughs at her husband’s jokes, not because they are clever, but because she is!”
   --Author unknown

“It’s impossible to govern the world without the Bible.”
   --George Washington

“It is common for a man to hate those whom they have injured.”
   --Tacitus

“Resolved, to study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly, and frequently as that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in, the knowledge of the same.”
   --Jonathan Edwards

Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Proverbs 30:20—31:31

“God took Eve from the side of Adam, not from his foot to be his menial or slave or servant, not from his head to be his mental superior, and did take him from that which is nearest his heart, that he might love her, and that which is under his arm, that he might protect her.”
   --Matthew Henry

“The greatest threat to America is not Communist aggression, nuclear warfare, nor oil embargo. The greatest threat is a public education system that has abandoned principles on which America was founded. If sex education can be objective and value-free, then it follows that sex experimentation will be a required lab course. Christian education assures that a child will learn to view from God’s perspective. The most the public school system can promise is that a graduate can read at the ninth grade level. The largest group of parents who send their children to a Christian school are public school educators!” 
   --Paul Harvey

Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Philippians Intro.

“Go west, young man, go west.”
   --Horace Greeley

Thursday, January 8, 2009
Philippians 1:2-6

From "Portrait of a Christian"

Not only in the words you say,
Not only in your deeds confessed.
But in the most unconscious way
Is Christ expressed.
Is it a beatific smile?
A holy light upon your brow?
Oh no, I felt His presence when
You laughed just now.
For me ‘twas not the truth you taught,
To you so clear, to me so dim.
But when you came to me,
You brought a sense of Him.
And from your eyes He beckons me,
From your lips His love is shed,
'Til I lose sight of you and see
The Christ instead.
   --Beatrice Clelland

Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Philippians 1:14-30

“When I go down to the grave I can say I’ve finished my day’s work, but I cannot say I finished my life. My life’s work will begin the next morning. The tomb is not a blind alley. It is a thoroughfare. It closes with the twilight to open with the dawn.”
   --Victor Hugo

Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Philippians 2:1-6

Thus speaketh Christ our Lord to us:
Ye call Me Master and obey Me not.
Ye call Me Light and see Me not.
Ye call Me Way and walk Me not.
Ye call Me Life and desire Me not.
Ye call Me Wise and follow Me not.
Ye call Me Fair and love Me not.
Ye call Me Rich and ask Me not.
Ye call Me Eternal and seek Me not.
Ye call Me Gracious and trust Me not.
Ye call Me Noble and serve Me not.
Ye call Me Mighty and honor me not.
Ye call Me Just and fear Me not.
If I condemn you, blame Me not.
   --Inscription in the cathedral in Lubeck

Friday, January 16, 2009
Phillipians 2:8-11

Consider Him
When the storm is raging high,
When the tempest rends the sky,
When my eyes with tears are dim,
Then, my soul, consider HIM.
When my plans are in the dust,
When my dearest hopes are crushed,
When is passed each foolish whim,
Then, my soul, consider HIM.
When with dearest friends I part,
When deep sorrow fills my heart,
When pain racks each weary limb,
Then, my soul, consider HIM.
When I track my weary way,
When fresh trials come each day,
When my faith and hope are dim,
Then, my soul, consider HIM.
Clouds or sunshine, dark or bright,
Evening shades or morning light,
When my cup flows o’er the brim,
Then, my soul, consider HIM.
   --Author unknown

Monday, January 19, 2009
Philippians 2:12-26

“Faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is not alone.”
   --John Calvin

Thursday, January 22, 2009
Philippians 3:7-14

“When I was converted, I lost my religion.”
   --Dr. W.I. Carroll

Friday, January 23, 2009
Philippians 3:15-20

“To be anxious for souls, and yet not impatient; to be patient, and yet not indifferent; to bear the infirmities of the weak without fostering them; to testify against sin and unfaithfulness and a low standard of spiritual life, and yet to keep the stream of love full and free and open. To have the mind of a faithful, loving shepherd, a hopeful physician, a tender nurse, a skillful teacher requires the continual renewal of the Lord’s grace.”
   --Missionary in Guatemala

I’ll stay where You put me, I will, dear Lord,
Though I wanted so badly to go.
I was eager to march with the rank and file,
Yes, I wanted to lead them, you know.
I planned to keep step to the music loud,
To cheer when the banner’s unfurled,
To stand in the midst of the fight, straight and proud,
But I’ll stay where you put me.
I’ll stay where you put me, I’ll work, dear Lord,
Though the field be narrow and small
And the ground be fallow and the stones are thick
And there seems to be no life at all.
The field is Thine own, only give me the seed.
I’ll sow it with never a fear.
I’ll till the dry soil while I wait for the rain
And rejoice when the green blades appear.
I’ll work where You put me.
I’ll stay where You put me, I will, dear Lord.
I’ll face the day’s burden and heat,
Always trusting Thee fully. When even has come,
I’ll lay heavy sheaves at Thy feet.
And then when my earth work is ended and done,
In bright eternity’s glow,
Life’s record all closed, I surely shall find
It was better to stay than to go.
I’ll stay where you put me.
   --Mrs. Charles Cowman

“For our city home is in heaven.”
   --Mrs. Montgomery

“Faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is not alone.”
   --John Calvin

Monday, January 26, 2009
Philippians 3:20—4:3

“All the way to heaven is heaven.” 
   --Dr. Herbert Bieber

Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Philippians 4:4-6

“Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one’s heart, its pleasures and its pains, to a dear friend. Tell Him your troubles, that He may comfort you; tell Him your joys, that He may sober them; tell Him your longings, that He may purify them; tell Him your dislikes, that He may help you to conquer them; talk to Him of your temptations, that He may shield you from them; show Him the wounds of your heart, that He may heal them; lay bare your indifference to good, your depraved tastes for evil, your instability. Tell Him how self-love makes you unjust to others, how vanity tempts you to be insincere, how pride disguises you to yourself as to others. If you thus pour out all your weaknesses, needs, troubles, there will be no lack of what to say. You will never exhaust the subject. It is continually being renewed. People who have no secrets from each other never want for subjects of conversation. They do not weigh their words, for there is nothing to be held back; neither do they seek for something to say. They talk out of the abundance of the heart, without consideration, just what they think. Blessed are they who attain to such familiar, unreserved intercourse with God.”
   --Fenelon

“I carry this in the back of my Bible, everywhere I go, and every now and then I get it out and read it. This was written by Fenelon, a great saint and mystic of the Middle Ages.”
   --Dr. McGee