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\ / Charles Spurgeon's MORNING & EVENING
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Tuesday, January 8, 2008
MORNING:
"The iniquity of the holy things."
-- Exodus 28:38
What a veil is lifted up by these words, and what a disclosure is made!
It will be humbling and profitable for us to pause awhile and see this
sad sight. The iniquities of our public worship, its hypocrisy,
formality, lukewarmness, irreverence, wandering of heart and
forgetfulness of God, what a full measure have we there! Our work for
the Lord, its emulation, selfishness, carelessness, slackness,
unbelief, what a mass of defilement is there! Our private devotions,
their laxity, coldness, neglect, sleepiness, and vanity, what a
mountain of dead earth is there! If we looked more carefully we should
find this iniquity to be far greater than appears at first sight. Dr.
Payson, writing to his brother, says, "My parish, as well as my heart,
very much resembles the garden of the sluggard; and what is worse, I
find that very many of my desires for the melioration of both, proceed
either from pride or vanity or indolence. I look at the weeds which
overspread my garden, and breathe out an earnest wish that they were
eradicated. But why? What prompts the wish? It may be that I may walk
out and say to myself, 'In what fine order is my garden kept!' This is
pride. Or, it may be that my neighbours may look over the wall and say,
'How finely your garden flourishes!' This is vanity. Or I may wish for
the destruction of the weeds, because I am weary of pulling them up.
This is indolence." So that even our desires after holiness may be
polluted by ill motives. Under the greenest sods worms hide themselves;
we need not look long to discover them. How cheering is the thought,
that when the High Priest bore the iniquity of the holy things he wore
upon his brow the words, "HOLINESS TO THE LORD:" and even so while
Jesus bears our sin, he presents before his Father's face not our
unholiness, but his own holiness. O for grace to view our great High
Priest by the eye of faith!
EVENING:
"Thy love is better than wine."
-- Song of Solomon 1:2
Nothing gives the believer so much joy as fellowship with Christ. He
has enjoyment as others have in the common mercies of life, he can be
glad both in God's gifts and God's works; but in all these separately,
yea, and in all of them added together, he doth not find such
substantial delight as in the matchless person of his Lord Jesus. He
has wine which no vineyard on earth ever yielded; he has bread which
all the corn-fields of Egypt could never bring forth. Where can such
sweetness be found as we have tasted in communion with our Beloved? In
our esteem, the joys of earth are little better than husks for swine
compared with Jesus, the heavenly manna. We would rather have one
mouthful of Christ's love, and a sip of his fellowship, than a whole
world full of carnal delights. What is the chaff to the wheat? What is
the sparkling paste to the true diamond? What is a dream to the
glorious reality? What is time's mirth, in its best trim, compared to
our Lord Jesus in his most despised estate? If you know anything of the
inner life, you will confess that our highest, purest, and most
enduring joys must be the fruit of the tree of life which is in the
midst of the Paradise of God. No spring yields such sweet water as that
well of God which was digged with the soldier's spear. All earthly
bliss is of the earth earthy, but the comforts of Christ's presence are
like himself, heavenly. We can review our communion with Jesus, and
find no regrets of emptiness therein; there are no dregs in this wine,
no dead flies in this ointment. The joy of the Lord is solid and
enduring. Vanity hath not looked upon it, but discretion and prudence
testify that it abideth the test of years, and is in time and in
eternity worthy to be called "the only true delight." For nourishment,
consolation, exhilaration, and refreshment, no wine can rival the love
of Jesus. Let us drink to the full this evening.
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MORNING & EVENING from HEARTLIGHT /\/\
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Morning & Evening is the classic devotional by 19th-century writer
and preacher Charles Spurgeon. It's part of HEARTLIGHT Magazine,
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