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\ / Charles Spurgeon's MORNING & EVENING
http://www.heartlight.org/
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Thursday, November 22, 2007
MORNING:
"Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep."
-- Hosea 12:12
Jacob, while expostulating with Laban, thus describes his own toil,
"This twenty years have I been with thee. That which was torn of beasts
I brought not unto thee: I bare the loss of it; of my hand didst thou
require it, whether stolen by day, or stolen by night. Thus I was; in
the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep
departed from mine eyes." Even more toilsome than this was the life of
our Saviour here below. He watched over all his sheep till he gave in
as his last account, "Of all those whom thou hast given me I have lost
none." His hair was wet with dew, and his locks with the drops of the
night. Sleep departed from his eyes, for all night he was in prayer
wrestling for his people. One night Peter must be pleaded for; anon,
another claims his tearful intercession. No shepherd sitting beneath
the cold skies, looking up to the stars, could ever utter such
complaints because of the hardness of his toil as Jesus Christ might
have brought, if he had chosen to do so, because of the sternness of
his service in order to procure his spouse-
"Cold mountains and the midnight air,
Witnessed the fervour of his prayer;
The desert his temptations knew,
His conflict and his victory too."
It is sweet to dwell upon the spiritual parallel of Laban having
required all the sheep at Jacob's hand. If they were torn of beasts,
Jacob must make it good; if any of them died, he must stand as surety
for the whole. Was not the toil of Jesus for his Church the toil of one
who was under suretiship obligations to bring every believing one safe
to the hand of him who had committed them to his charge? Look upon
toiling Jacob, and you see a representation of him of whom we read, "He
shall feed his flock like a shepherd."
EVENING:
"The power of his resurrection."
-- Philippians 3:10
The doctrine of a risen Saviour is exceedingly precious. The
resurrection is the corner-stone of the entire building of
Christianity. It is the key-stone of the arch of our salvation. It
would take a volume to set forth all the streams of living water which
flow from this one sacred source, the resurrection of our dear Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ; but to know that he has risen, and to have
fellowship with him as such-communing with the risen Saviour by
possessing a risen life-seeing him leave the tomb by leaving the tomb
of worldliness ourselves, this is even still more precious. The
doctrine is the basis of the experience, but as the flower is more
lovely than the root, so is the experience of fellowship with the risen
Saviour more lovely than the doctrine itself. I would have you believe
that Christ rose from the dead so as to sing of it, and derive all the
consolation which it is possible for you to extract from this
well-ascertained and well-witnessed fact; but I beseech you, rest not
contented even there. Though you cannot, like the disciples, see him
visibly, yet I bid you aspire to see Christ Jesus by the eye of faith;
and though, like Mary Magdalene, you may not "touch" him, yet may you
be privileged to converse with him, and to know that he is risen, you
yourselves being risen in him to newness of life. To know a crucified
Saviour as having crucified all my sins, is a high degree of knowledge;
but to know a risen Saviour as having justified me, and to realize that
he has bestowed upon me new life, having given me to be a new creature
through his own newness of life, this is a noble style of experience:
short of it, none ought to rest satisfied. May you both "know him, and
the power of his resurrection." Why should souls who are quickened with
Jesus, wear the grave-clothes of worldliness and unbelief? Rise, for
the Lord is risen.
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Morning & Evening is the classic devotional by 19th-century writer
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