October 12—Morning Devotion
“And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land.”—Micah 5:5
What man is this but the Glory-man, the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus? And what peace, when all enemies oppose the soul, but peace in the blood of his cross? Yes, my soul, Jesus is the wonderful man, who alone could make thy peace. “For as it was by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners; so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.” And none but one in our own nature could redeem that nature; for the right of redemption belonged only to him. Levit. xxv. 25. And none but one in our nature could atone, could bleed, could die, and rise again, that he might be the Judge, both of the dead and living. Oh precious Jesus, how suited wert thou by the union of thy two natures, as God and man, and God-man, both in one, to be our glorious Mediator, and to be the Lord our Righteousness! Yes, precious Lord, God hath said it, and my soul evermore rejoiceth in the blessed truth: this man, Christ Jesus, shall be my peace, my glory, my salvation, my refuge, when the Assyrian shall come into our land.
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
