THE FAITHFUL PROMISER

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from Promise Treasury by John MacDuff (31-day Devotional)

"He has given us His very great and precious promises!" 2 Pet 1:4

"He Who has promised is faithful."  Heb 10:23

It has often been felt a delightful exercise by the child of God, to take, night by night, an individual promise and plead it at the mercy-seat.  Often are our prayers pointless, from not following, in this respect, the example of the sweet Psalmist of Israel, who delighted to direct his finger to some particular "word" of the Faithful Promiser, saying "Remember Your promise unto Your servant, upon which you have caused me to HOPE."  Psalm 119:49

The following are a few gleanings -- a few crumbs from the Master's Table, which may serve to help the thoughts in the hour of closet meditation, or the season of sorrow.


Day 1:  Pardoning Grace

"Come now, let us reason together," says the Lord.  "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool."  Isaiah 1:18

Your God summons you to His audience chamber!  Infinite purity seeks to reason with immense vileness!  Deity stoops to speak to dust!  Do not dread the meeting.  It is the most gracious -- as well as most wondrous of all conferences.  Jehovah Himself breaks the silence!  He utters the best tidings a lost person or a lost world can hear, "God is in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing unto men their trespasses." What!  Scarlet sins, and crimson sins! and these all to be forgiven and forgotten!  The just God justifying the unjust -- the mightiest of all beings, the kindest of all!

Oh, what is there in you to merit such love as this!  You might have known your God only as the "consuming fire,"  ...   This conference bids you to dispel all your fears!  It tells you that it is no longer a 'fearful thing', but a blessed thing to fall into His hands. 

Lord! I come!  Your pardoning grace is freely offered.  May it be mine, even now, to listen to the gladdening words, "Son, Daughter! be of good cheer! Your sins, which are many --are all forgiven!"

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Day 2:  Needful Grace

"As your days -- so shall your strength be."  Deut. 33:25

God does not give grace -- until the hour of trial comes.  But when it does come -- the amount of grace, and the nature of the special grace required, is granted.  Do not dwell with painful apprehension on the future.  Do not anticipate coming sorrows; perplexing yourself with the grace needed for future emergencies; tomorrow will bring its promised grace - along with tomorrow's trials.

God, wishing to keep His people humble, and dependent on Himself, does not give a stock of grace; He metes it out for every day's exigencies, that they may be constantly traveling between their own emptiness -- and CHRIST'S FULLNESS; their own weakness -- and CHRIST'S STRENGTH.  But when the exigency comes, you may safely trust an Almighty arm to bear you through!

Is there now some "thorn in the flesh" sent to lacerate you?  You may have been entreating the Lord for its removal.  Your prayer has, doubtless, been heard and answered; but not in the way, perhaps, either expected or desired by you.  The "thorn" may still be left to goad, the trial may still be left to buffet; but "more grace" has been given to endure them.  Oh! how often have His people thus been led to glory in their infirmities, and triumph in their afflictions -- seeing that the power of Christ rests abundantly upon them!  The strength which the hour of trial brings -- often makes the Christian wonder to himself!

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Day 3:  All-Sufficient Grace

"God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that you, always having all sufficiency in all things - may abound to every good work." 2 Cor 9:8

All-sufficiency in all things!  Believer! Surely you are "thoroughly equipped for every good work!"  Grace is no scanty thing, doled out in pittance.  It is a glorious treasury, which the key of prayer can always unlock -- but can never empty.  It is a fountain - full, flowing, ever flowing, over flowing!

Mark these three ALL's in this precious promise.  It is a three-fold link in a golden chain, let down from the throne of grace by the God of all grace.  "All grace!"  "all-sufficiency!" in "all things!" and these to abound.  Oh! precious thought!  My need cannot impoverish that inexhaustible treasury of grace!  Myriads are hourly hanging on it, drawing from it -- and yet there is no diminution.  Out of that fullness we, too, may ALL receive, "grace upon grace!"

Do you not love to dwell on that all-abounding grace?  Your own insufficiency in everything, met with a divine "all-sufficiency in all things!"  Grace in all circumstances and situations, in all changes, in all the varied phases of the Christian's being.  Grace in sunshine -- and in storm;  in health -- and in sickness;  in life -- and in death!  Grace for the old believer -- and the young believer.  Grace for the tried believer, and the weak believer, and the tempted believer.  Grace for duty -- and grace in duty; grace to carry the joyous cup with a steady hand -- and grace to drink the bitter cup with an unmurmuring spirit; grace to have prosperity sanctified -- and grace to say through tears, "May Your will be done!"

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Day 4:  Comforting Grace

"I will not leave you comfortless:  I will come to you."  John 14:18

Blessed Jesus!  How Your presence sanctifies trial; takes loneliness from the chamber of sickness; and the sting from the chamber of death!  Bright and Morning Star!  Precious at all times, You are never so precious as in "the dark and cloudy day!"  The bitterness of sorrow is well worth enduring -- to have Your promised consolations.

How well qualified, Man of Sorrows, are You to be my Comforter!  How well fitted to dry my tears -- You Who shed so many Yourself!    What are my tears -- my sorrows -- my crosses -- my losses, compared with Yours, Who shed first Your tears, and then Your blood for me! ...

How sweet those comforts which You have promised to the comfortless, when I think of them as flowing from an Almighty Fellow Sufferer  "A Brother born for adversity" -- the "Friend that sticks closer than any brother!" -- one Who can say, with all the refined sympathies, "I know your sorrows!"

Calm your griefs!  There is not a sorrow you can experience but Jesus, in His treasury of grace -- has an exact corresponding solace: "In the multitude of the sorrows I have in my heart -- Your comforts delight my soul."  Ps 94:19

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Day 5: Reviving Grace

"But those who wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles!  They shall run -- and not be weary; and they shall walk -- and not faint."  Isaiah 40:31

"Will You not revive us, O Lord?"  Are you conscious of your declining state?  Is your walk less with God, your affections less spiritual?  Have you less conscious nearness to the mercy-seat, diminished communion with your Savior?  Is prayer less a privilege than it has been?  Are the promptings of spiritual life more languid, and fitful, and spasmodic?  Is the bread of life less relished?  Are the seen, and the temporal, and the tangible, displacing unseen and eternal realities?  Are you sinking down into this state of drowsy self-contentment, this conformity of your life with the world.  CALL upon your God! "Will You not revive us, O Lord?"

"... He remembers mercy."  "They shall revive as the corn."  "The mouth of the Lord has spoken it." How and where is reviving grace to be found?  He gives you, in this PRECIOUS PROMISE, the key.  It is on your bended knees -- "Wait on the Lord; be of good cheer, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord!"