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\ / Charles Spurgeon's MORNING & EVENING
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Monday, April 7, 2008
MORNING:
"O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame?"
-- Psalms 4:2
An instructive writer has made a mournful list of the honours which the
blinded people of Israel awarded to their long expected King.
1. They gave him a procession of honour, in which Roman legionaries,
Jewish priests, men and women, took a part, he himself bearing his
cross. This is the triumph which the world awards to him who comes to
overthrow man's direst foes. Derisive shouts are his only acclamations,
and cruel taunts his only paeans of praise.
2. They presented him with the wine of honour. Instead of a golden cup
of generous wine they offered him the criminal's stupefying
death-draught, which he refused because he would preserve an uninjured
taste wherewith to taste of death; and afterwards when he cried, "I
thirst," they gave him vinegar mixed with gall, thrust to his mouth
upon a sponge. Oh! wretched, detestable inhospitality to the King's
Son.
3. He was provided with a guard of honour, who showed their esteem of
him by gambling over his garments, which they had seized as their
booty. Such was the body-guard of the adored of heaven; a quaternion of
brutal gamblers.
4. A throne of honour was found for him upon the bloody tree; no easier
place of rest would rebel men yield to their liege Lord. The cross was,
in fact, the full expression of the world's feeling towards him;
"There," they seemed to say, "thou Son of God, this is the manner in
which God himself should be treated, could we reach him."
5. The title of honour was nominally "King of the Jews," but that the
blinded nation distinctly repudiated, and really called him "King of
thieves," by preferring Barabbas, and by placing Jesus in the place of
highest shame between two thieves. His glory was thus in all things
turned into shame by the sons of men, but it shall yet gladden the eyes
of saints and angels, world without end.
EVENING:
"Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my
salvation; and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy
righteousness."
-- Psalms 51:14
In this SOLEMN CONFESSION, it is pleasing to observe that David plainly
names his sin. He does not call it manslaughter, nor speak of it as an
imprudence by which an unfortunate accident occurred to a worthy man,
but he calls it by its true name, bloodguiltiness. He did not actually
kill the husband of Bathsheba; but still it was planned in David's
heart that Uriah should be slain, and he was before the Lord his
murderer. Learn in confession to be honest with God. Do not give fair
names to foul sins; call them what you will, they will smell no
sweeter. What God sees them to be, that do you labour to feel them to
be; and with all openness of heart acknowledge their real character.
Observe, that David was evidently oppressed with the heinousness of his
sin. It is easy to use words, but it is difficult to feel their
meaning. The fifty-first Psalm is the photograph of a contrite spirit.
Let us seek after the like brokenness of heart; for however excellent
our words may be, if our heart is not conscious of the
hell-deservingness of sin, we cannot expect to find forgiveness.
Our text has in it AN EARNEST PRAYER-it is addressed to the God of
salvation. It is his prerogative to forgive; it is his very name and
office to save those who seek his face. Better still, the text calls
him the God of my salvation. Yes, blessed be his name, while I am yet
going to him through Jesus' blood, I can rejoice in the God of my
salvation.
The psalmist ends with A COMMENDABLE VOW: if God will deliver him he
will sing-nay, more, he will "sing aloud." Who can sing in any other
style of such a mercy as this! But note the subject of the song-"THY
RIGHTEOUSNESS." We must sing of the finished work of a precious
Saviour; and he who knows most of forgiving love will sing the loudest.
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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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