Notes on the Book of Deuteronomy, Volume IMackintosh, Charles Henry
Religion
Notes on the Book of Deuteronomy, Volume I
Mackintosh, Charles Henry
Bible. Deuteronomy -- Commentaries
All these things afford melancholy proof of how little we live, move,
and have our being in the presence of God. If we could only bear in
mind that God hears us and sees us--hears our every word and sees our
every thought, our every way, how differently we should carry
ourselves! What holy watchfulness we should maintain over our
thoughts, our tempers, and our tongues! What purity of heart and mind!
What truth and uprightness in all our intercourse with our fellows!
What reality and simplicity in our deportment! What happy freedom from
all affectation, assumption, and pretension! What deliverance from
every form of self-occupation! O, to live ever in the deep sense of
the divine presence! to walk in the fear of the Lord all the day long!
And then to prove the "vast constraining influence" of His love! To be
led out in all the holy activities which that love would ever
suggest! To find our delight in doing good! To taste the spiritual
luxury of making hearts glad! To be continually meditating plans of
usefulness! To live close by the fountain of divine love, so that we
must be streams of refreshing in the midst of this thirsty scene--rays
of light amid the moral gloom around us! "The love of Christ," says
the blessed apostle, "constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if
one died for all, then were all dead; and that He died for all, that
they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto
Him which died for them, and rose again."
How morally lovely is all this! "Would that it were more fully
realized and faithfully exhibited amongst us! May the fear and love of
God be continually in our hearts, in all their blessed power and
formative influence, that thus our daily life may shine to His praise
and the real profit, comfort, and blessing of all who come in contact
with us, whether in private or in public. God, in His infinite mercy,
grant it, for Christ's sake!
The sixteenth verse of our chapter demands our special attention.--"Ye
shall not tempt the Lord your God, as ye tempted Him in Massah." These
words were quoted by our blessed Lord when tempted by Satan to cast
Himself from the pinnacle of the temple.--"Then the devil taketh Him
up into the holy city, and setteth Him on a pinnacle of the temple,
and saith unto Him, 'If Thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down; for
it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning Thee; and
in their hands they shall bear Thee up, lest at any time Thou dash Thy
foot against a stone.'"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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