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\ / Charles Spurgeon's MORNING & EVENING
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Tuesday, February 26, 2008
MORNING:
"Salvation is of the Lord."
-- Jonah 2:9
Salvation is the work of God. It is he alone who quickens the soul
"dead in trespasses and sins," and it is he also who maintains the soul
in its spiritual life. He is both "Alpha and Omega." "Salvation is of
the Lord." If I am prayerful, God makes me prayerful; if I have graces,
they are God's gifts to me; if I hold on in a consistent life, it is
because he upholds me with his hand. I do nothing whatever towards my
own preservation, except what God himself first does in me. Whatever I
have, all my goodness is of the Lord alone. Wherein I sin, that is my
own; but wherein I act rightly, that is of God, wholly and completely.
If I have repulsed a spiritual enemy, the Lord's strength nerved my
arm. Do I live before men a consecrated life? It is not I, but Christ
who liveth in me. Am I sanctified? I did not cleanse myself: God's Holy
Spirit sanctifies me. Am I weaned from the world? I am weaned by God's
chastisements sanctified to my good. Do I grow in knowledge? The great
Instructor teaches me. All my jewels were fashioned by heavenly art. I
find in God all that I want; but I find in myself nothing but sin and
misery. "He only is my rock and my salvation." Do I feed on the Word?
That Word would be no food for me unless the Lord made it food for my
soul, and helped me to feed upon it. Do I live on the manna which comes
down from heaven? What is that manna but Jesus Christ himself
incarnate, whose body and whose blood I eat and drink? Am I continually
receiving fresh increase of strength? Where do I gather my might? My
help cometh from heaven's hills: without Jesus I can do nothing. As a
branch cannot bring forth fruit except it abide in the vine, no more
can I, except I abide in him. What Jonah learned in the great deep, let
me learn this morning in my closet: "Salvation is of the Lord."
EVENING:
"Behold, if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall
pronounce him clean that hath the plague."
-- Leviticus 13:13
Strange enough this regulation appears, yet there was wisdom in it, for
the throwing out of the disease proved that the constitution was sound.
This evening it may be well for us to see the typical teaching of so
singular a rule. We, too, are lepers, and may read the law of the leper
as applicable to ourselves. When a man sees himself to be altogether
lost and ruined, covered all over with the defilement of sin, and in no
part free from pollution; when he disclaims all righteousness of his
own, and pleads guilty before the Lord, then he is clean through the
blood of Jesus, and the grace of God. Hidden, unfelt, unconfessed
iniquity is the true leprosy; but when sin is seen and felt, it has
received its deathblow, and the Lord looks with eyes of mercy upon the
soul afflicted with it. Nothing is more deadly than self-righteousness,
or more hopeful than contrition. We must confess that we are "nothing
else but sin," for no confession short of this will be the whole truth;
and if the Holy Spirit be at work with us, convincing us of sin, there
will be no difficulty about making such an acknowledgment -it will
spring spontaneously from our lips. What comfort does the text afford
to truly awakened sinners: the very circumstance which so grievously
discouraged them is here turned into a sign and symptom of a hopeful
state! Stripping comes before clothing; digging out the foundation is
the first thing in building-and a thorough sense of sin is one of the
earliest works of grace in the heart. O thou poor leprous sinner,
utterly destitute of a sound spot, take heart from the text, and come
as thou art to Jesus-
"For let our debts be what they may, however great or small,
As soon as we have nought to pay, our Lord forgives us all.
'Tis perfect poverty alone that sets the soul at large:
While we can call one mite our own, we have no full discharge."
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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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