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\ / Charles Spurgeon's MORNING & EVENING
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Monday, October 1, 2007
MORNING:
"Pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee,
O my beloved."
-- Song of Solomon 7:13
The spouse desires to give to Jesus all that she produces. Our heart
has "all manner of pleasant fruits," both "old and new," and they are
laid up for our Beloved. At this rich autumnal season of fruit, let us
survey our stores. We have new fruits. We desire to feel new life, new
joy, new gratitude; we wish to make new resolves and carry them out by
new labours; our heart blossoms with new prayers, and our soul is
pledging herself to new efforts. But we have some old fruits too. There
is our first love: a choice fruit that! and Jesus delights in it. There
is our first faith: that simple faith by which, having nothing, we
became possessors of all things. There is our joy when first we knew
the Lord: let us revive it. We have our old remembrances of the
promises. How faithful has God been! In sickness, how softly did he
make our bed! In deep waters, how placidly did he buoy us up! In the
flaming furnace, how graciously did he deliver us. Old fruits, indeed!
We have many of them, for his mercies have been more than the hairs of
our head. Old sins we must regret, but then we have had repentances
which he has given us, by which we have wept our way to the cross, and
learned the merit of his blood. We have fruits, this morning, both new
and old; but here is the point-they are all laid up for Jesus. Truly,
those are the best and most acceptable services in which Jesus is the
solitary aim of the soul, and his glory, without any admixture
whatever, the end of all our efforts. Let our many fruits be laid up
only for our Beloved; let us display them when he is with us, and not
hold them up before the gaze of men. Jesus, we will turn the key in our
garden door, and none shall enter to rob thee of one good fruit from
the soil which thou hast watered with thy bloody sweat. Our all shall
be thine, thine only, O Jesus, our Beloved!
EVENING:
"He will give grace and glory."
-- Psalms 84:11
Bounteous is Jehovah in his nature; to give is his delight. His gifts
are beyond measure precious, and are as freely given as the light of
the sun. He gives grace to his elect because he wills it, to his
redeemed because of his covenant, to the called because of his promise,
to believers because they seek it, to sinners because they need it. He
gives grace abundantly, seasonably, constantly, readily, sovereignly;
doubly enhancing the value of the boon by the manner of its bestowal.
Grace in all its forms he freely renders to his people: comforting,
preserving, sanctifying, directing, instructing, assisting grace, he
generously pours into their souls without ceasing, and he always will
do so, whatever may occur. Sickness may befall, but the Lord will give
grace; poverty may happen to us, but grace will surely be afforded;
death must come but grace will light a candle at the darkest hour.
Reader, how blessed it is as years roll round, and the leaves begin
again to fall, to enjoy such an unfading promise as this, "The Lord
will give grace."
The little conjunction "and" in this verse is a diamond rivet binding
the present with the future: grace and glory always go together. God
has married them, and none can divorce them. The Lord will never deny a
soul glory to whom he has freely given to live upon his grace; indeed,
glory is nothing more than grace in its Sabbath dress, grace in full
bloom, grace like autumn fruit, mellow and perfected. How soon we may
have glory none can tell! It may be before this month of October has
run out we shall see the Holy City; but be the interval longer or
shorter, we shall be glorified ere long. Glory, the glory of heaven,
the glory of eternity, the glory of Jesus, the glory of the Father, the
Lord will surely give to his chosen. Oh, rare promise of a faithful
God!
Two golden links of one celestial chain:
Who owneth grace shall surely glory gain.
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Morning & Evening is the classic devotional by 19th-century writer
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