October 29—Morning Devotion
“He sent his word and healed them.”—Psalm 117:20
Of all the subjects to comfort our minds in the recollection of the mercies in Jesus, the authority and name of Jehovah in the appointment comes home with the greatest comfort to the heart. This is faith’s warrant—this is faith’s confidence. Who sent Jesus; who sent his word; who is it that gives validity and efficacy to salvation? Jehovah. “Beware of him,” saith the Lord, “my name is in him.” And how then can my soul fail, or any promise in Christ pass unfulfilled, when Jehovah sends and Christ completes the work the Father gave him to do? Blessed Jesus! may I always look to thee under this precious character; and may I hear thee speaking under that solemn, but blessed title, “I am the Lord that healeth thee”
Robert Hawker (1753-1827) was an Anglican (High-Calvinist) preacher who served as Vicar of Charles Church, Plymouth. John Hazelton wrote of him:
“The prominent features…in Robert Hawker's testimony…was the Person of Christ….Dr. Hawker delighted to speak of his Lord as "My most glorious Christ.” What anxious heart but finds at times in the perusal of the doctor's writings a measure of relief, a softening, and a mellowing? an almost imperceptible yet secret and constraining power in leading out of self and off from the misery and bondage of the flesh into a contemplation of the Person and preciousness of Christ as "the chiefest among ten thousand and the altogether lovely." Christ and Him crucified was emphatically the burden of his song and the keynote of his ministry. He preached his last sermon in Charles Church on March 18th, 1827, and on April 6th he died, after being six years curate and forty-three years vicar of the parish. On the last day of his life he repeated a part of Ephesians 1, from the 6th to the 12th verses, and as he proceeded he enlarged on the verses, but dwelt more fully on these words: "To the praise of His glory Who first trusted in Christ." He paused and asked, "Who first trusted in Christ?" And then made this answer: "It was God the Father Who first trusted in Christ."
Robert Hawker on the Biblical Covenants (Complete)
Robert Hawker's Poor Man's Morning Portions
