Prayer
Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me; for I am desolate and afflicted. The troubles of my heart are enlarged: O bring thou me out of my distresses. Look upon mine affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins (Psalm 25:16-18).
Prayer
Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the LORD shall have them in derision (Psalm 2:1-4) Amen.
Today’s Hymn
Words: Words: Joseph H. Gilmore, 1862; Music: William Bradbury, 1864.
As a young man who recently had been graduated from Brown University and Newton Theological Institution, I was supplying for a couple of Sundays the pulpit of the First Baptist Church in Philadelphia [Pennsylvania]. At the mid-week service, on the 26th of March, 1862, I set out to give the people an exposition of the Twenty-third Psalm, which I had given before on three or four occasions, but this time I did not get further than the words “He Leadeth Me.†Those words took hold of me as they had never done before, and I saw them in a significance and wondrous beauty of which I had never dreamed.
It was the darkest hour of the Civil War. I did not refer to that fact—that is, I don’t think I did—but it may subconsciously have led me to realize that God’s leadership is the one significant fact in human experience, that it makes no difference how we are led, or whither we are led, so long as we are sure God is leading us.
At the close of the meeting a few of us in the parlor of my host, good Deacon Wattson, kept on talking about the thought which I had emphasized; and then and there, on a blank page of the brief from which I had intended to speak, I penciled the hymn, talking and writing at the same time, then handed it to my wife and thought no more about it. She sent it to The Watchman and Reflector, a paper published in Boston, where it was first printed. I did not know until 1865 that my hymn had been set to music by William B. Bradbury. I went to Rochester [New York] to preach as a candidate before the Second Baptist Church. Going into their chapel on arrival in the city, I picked up a hymnal to see what they were singing, and opened it at my own hymn, “He Leadeth Me.â€
HE LEADETH ME
Click here for tune.
He leadeth me, O bless’d thought!
O words with heav’nly comfort fraught!
Whate’er I do, where’er I be
Still ‘tis God’s hand that leadeth me.
Refrain
He leadeth me, He leadeth me,
By His own hand He leadeth me;
His faithful follower I would be,
For by His hand He leadeth me.
Sometimes mid scenes of deepest gloom,
Sometimes where Eden’s bowers bloom,
By waters still, over troubled sea,
Still ‘tis His hand that leadeth me.
Refrain
Lord, I would place my hand in Thine,
Nor ever murmur nor repine;
Content, whatever lot I see,
Since ‘tis my God that leadeth me.
Refrain
And when my task on earth is done,
When by Thy grace the vict’ry’s won,
E’en death’s cold wave I will not flee,
Since God through Jordan leadeth me.
Refrain
Dad’s Study
Read together 1 Peter 4:12-19 and see if your family can identify five blessings that come from suffering.
1. It brings testing (v. 12). Peter says that suffering tries you. Don’t think it something strange. When God brings persecution and suffering to His church, He is testing it with a purifying fire. It proves and strengthens real faith and consumes and burns false faith.
2. It is evidence of your salvation (v. 13a). Suffering is evidence that you are partakers of Christ’s sufferings. In fact, they are not your sufferings; they are Christ’s sufferings. Whenever you are persecuted, it is Christ they persecute. Therefore, if they persecute you it is evidence that you are joined with Christ!
3. The Spirit of glory and God rest upon you (v. 14a). You might think right now that you would not be able to bear the suffering that some of the great saints of old endured. However, God will give you His grace in the midst of the greatest trials. God will come to you at your time of need and rest upon you and manifest enough of His glory to see you through the trial. It was while Stephen was being plummeted with stones that he looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing on the right hand of the Father (Acts 7:55).
4. It glorifies God (v. 16). During times of suffering and persecution you can show to others around you how valuable and precious God is! A man in our church recently lost his job of eighteen years because of his conviction about not working on the Lord’s Day. He joyfully applied for a job as a sales clerk paying a little more than minimum wage. He shared with me today that he was able to glorify God as he completed his application. Next to the reason for leaving his previous job he wrote, to have the Lord’s Day free to worship my God. He was also asked the amount of his prior salary. His prayer was that the manager would be left to ponder what a great God he must worship to give up a huge salary and eighteen years of seniority to work there for a little more than minimum wage!
5. God is faithful to care for you (v. 19). You can trust God to do what’s right even if it includes affliction. There is no better place for your eternal destiny to be than in the hands of the faithful loving Creator and God!
Click here for Matthew Henry’s Commentary.
Truth in Practice
Live your life without compromise! Proclaim His Gospel even if you are standing alone. Live a life of bright holiness in the midst of a church that is stained by sin! This is the kind of life that provokes persecution and suffering. This is the life that brings blessing and joy!
Catechism
Question 51
Q. How is the Sabbath to be sanctified?
A. The Sabbath is to be sanctified by a holy resting all that day, even from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful on other days (Leviticus 23:3), and spending the whole time in the public and private exercises of God’s worship (Psalm 92:1, 2; Isaiah 58:13, 14), except so much as is taken up in the works of necessity and mercy (Matthew 12:11, 12).
