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\ / Charles Spurgeon's MORNING & EVENING
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Monday, October 15, 2007
MORNING:
"But who may abide the day of his coming?"
-- Malachi 3:2
His first coming was without external pomp or show of power, and yet in
truth there were few who could abide its testing might. Herod and all
Jerusalem with him were stirred at the news of the wondrous birth.
Those who supposed themselves to be waiting for him, showed the fallacy
of their professions by rejecting him when he came. His life on earth
was a winnowing fan, which tried the great heap of religious
profession, and few enough could abide the process. But what will his
second advent be? What sinner can endure to think of it? "He shall
smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his
lips shall he slay the wicked." When in his humiliation he did but say
to the soldiers, "I am he," they fell backward; what will be the terror
of his enemies when he shall more fully reveal himself as the "I am?"
His death shook earth and darkened heaven, what shall be the dreadful
splendour of that day in which as the living Saviour, he shall summon
the quick and dead before him? O that the terrors of the Lord would
persuade men to forsake their sins and kiss the Son lest he be angry!
Though a lamb, he is yet the lion of the tribe of Judah, rending the
prey in pieces; and though he breaks not the bruised reed, yet will he
break his enemies with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a
potter's vessel. None of his foes shall bear up before the tempest of
his wrath, or hide themselves from the sweeping hail of his
indignation; but his beloved blood washed people look for his appearing
with joy, and hope to abide it without fear: to them he sits as a
refiner even now, and when he has tried them they shall come forth as
gold. Let us search ourselves this morning and make our calling and
election sure, so that the coming of the Lord may cause no dark
forebodings in our mind. O for grace to cast away all hypocrisy, and to
be found of him sincere and without rebuke in the day of his appearing.
EVENING:
"But the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb:
and if thou redeem him not, then shalt thou break his neck."
-- Exodus 34:20
Every firstborn creature must be the Lord's, but since the ass was
unclean, it could not be presented in sacrifice. What then? Should it
be allowed to go free from the universal law? By no means. God admits
of no exceptions. The ass is his due, but he will not accept it; he
will not abate the claim, but yet he cannot be pleased with the victim.
No way of escape remained but redemption-the creature must be saved by
the substitution of a lamb in its place; or if not redeemed, it must
die. My soul, here is a lesson for thee. That unclean animal is
thyself; thou art justly the property of the Lord who made thee and
preserves thee, but thou art so sinful that God will not, cannot,
accept thee; and it has come to this, the Lamb of God must stand in thy
stead, or thou must die eternally. Let all the world know of thy
gratitude to that spotless Lamb who has already bled for thee, and so
redeemed thee from the fatal curse of the law. Must it not sometimes
have been a question with the Israelite which should die, the ass or
the lamb? Would not the good man pause to estimate and compare?
Assuredly there was no comparison between the value of the soul of man
and the life of the Lord Jesus, and yet the Lamb dies, and man the ass
is spared. My soul, admire the boundless love of God to thee and others
of the human race. Worms are bought with the blood of the Son of the
Highest! Dust and ashes redeemed with a price far above silver and
gold! What a doom had been mine had not plenteous redemption been
found! The breaking of the neck of the ass was but a momentary penalty,
but who shall measure the wrath to come to which no limit can be
imagined? Inestimably dear is the glorious Lamb who has redeemed us
from such a doom.
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MORNING & EVENING from HEARTLIGHT /\/\
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Morning & Evening is the classic devotional by 19th-century writer
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