Daily Devotion - Apr 7 - ¥q¥?‾u‥C?eAF-×(?e) Morning by Morning

司布真每日靈修(日) Morning by Morning 四月七日 經文: 「你們將我的尊榮變為羞辱，要到幾時呢？」（詩篇四：2） 眼瞎心盲的以色列人，是怎樣對待他們長久企盼的彌賽亞救世主呢？ （一）羅馬長官，猶太祭司，以及以色列男女老少，存著湊熱鬧的心情沿途列隊，幸災樂禍地看著耶穌一步一血淚地背著十字架。耶穌來到世界，就是要敗壞人類的仇敵──那掌死權的撒旦，但祂所得到的酬報是什麼？是人們的嘲謔譏諷，是慘絕人寰的酷刑。 （二）祂所喝的是什麼呢？不是瓊漿玉液，乃是滿杯苦酒。最後祂在十架上說：「我渴了。」（約十九：28）羅馬士兵將調過膽汁的醋，用海綿沾溼，輕率地遞到祂唇邊，一點都沒有尊敬的意思，神子耶穌也拒絕了。 （三）祂身旁有士兵隨侍在側，但這些人將祂的外衣剝下，拈鬮看誰能得到祂的遺物。 （四）祂的寶座在那裡？就是那代表羞恥象徵的木頭十架，這就是世人對祂的感覺。 （五）祂行刑時背上的稱號是「猶太人的王」，但眼瞎心盲的以色列人，卻戲稱祂為「盜賊之王」，而把祂並列在兩個無惡不赦的強盜之間。人們無所不用其極的將祂的尊榮變為羞辱，這些看在天使及信徒聖者的眼裡，雖是心疼，但也滿懷感恩與安慰，因這一切為要應驗先知的預言。 Morning, April 7 Scripture: "O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame?"(Psalm 4:2) An instructive writer has made a mournful list of the honours which the blinded people of Israel awarded to their long expected King. 1. They gave him a procession of honour, in which Roman legionaries, Jewish priests, men and women, took a part, he himself bearing his cross. This is the triumph which the world awards to him who comes to overthrow man's direst foes. Derisive shouts are his only acclamations, and cruel taunts his only paeans of praise. 2. They presented him with the wine of honour. Instead of a golden cup of generous wine they offered him the criminal's stupefying death-draught, which he refused because he would preserve an uninjured taste wherewith to taste of death; and afterwards when he cried, "I thirst," they gave him vinegar mixed with gall, thrust to his mouth upon a sponge. Oh! wretched, detestable inhospitality to the King's Son. 3. He was provided with a guard of honour, who showed their esteem of him by gambling over his garments, which they had seized as their booty. Such was the body-guard of the adored of heaven; a quaternion of brutal gamblers. 4. A throne of honour was found for him upon the bloody tree; no easier place of rest would rebel men yield to their liege Lord. The cross was, in fact, the full expression of the world's feeling towards him; "There," they seemed to say, "thou Son of God, this is the manner in which God himself should be treated, could we reach him." 5. The title of honour was nominally "King of the Jews," but that the blinded nation distinctly repudiated, and really called him "King of thieves," by preferring Barabbas, and by placing Jesus in the place of highest shame between two thieves. His glory was thus in all things turned into shame by the sons of men, but it shall yet gladden the eyes of saints and angels, world without end. www.glorypress.com