The Comfort of the Scriptures. A Devotional Meditation
by the Rev. David Freeman, Th.M.

[excerpted from Christianity Today, 3.10 (October 1933).]

OCTOBER, 1933
“Curse ye Meroz . . . because they came not to the help of the Lord against the mighty.” (Judges 5:23.)

The truly devotional life—the life that is hid with Christ in God—is the life that does not shirk at the call of duty.

The passive life is by no means the spiritual life. To live close to God is to witness for Him. Not to obey is to render the sacrifice, no matter how great, worthless.

To love God and to do His commandments go hand in hand. Let no one think that communion with God may be had apart from the willingness to serve the Lord in the heat of the day.

Because the people of Meroz came not to the help of the Lord in a time of conflict with the enemies of God they were under His curse.

Could people like that pray? Could they hold fellowship with a God of righteousness and truth? They did nothing while others carried the banner of the Lord into the enemy’s camp. What pretense if they claimed fellowship with the Lord! What mockery their exercises of religion! They came not to the help of the Lord and could they yet claim His blessing?

It is impossible to find favor in God’s sight if His cause is not our cause. To love Him is to be identified with all that concerns Him. We are not our own. We have been bought with a price. We have not a life of our own to live. God’s life must be ours. “Whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it,” said the Lord Jesus.

               Say not, “The days are evil. Who’s to blame?
               And fold the hands and acquiesce—oh, shame!
               Stand up, speak out, and bravely in God’s name.”

What is it that makes us stand idly by while others enter into the conflict of the Lord of Hosts? Have we forgotten the word of the Lord? To heed the word and wisdom of man is not to have fellowship with the Father.

Have we become indifferent to God’s cause? Only the losing of self in Him can bring us out of this state.

God can use the weakest vessel. Has He not “chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty”?

The valiant for truth live in the Spirit.

               “Go, labor on : spend, and be spent.
                       Thy joy to do the Father’s will;
               It is the way the Master went;                 
              Should not the servant tread it still?”