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\ / Charles Spurgeon's MORNING & EVENING
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Wednesday, April 23, 2008
MORNING:
"Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through
him that loved us."
-- Romans 8:37
We go to Christ for forgiveness, and then too often look to the law for
power to fight our sins. Paul thus rebukes us, "O foolish Galatians,
who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth? This only
would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law,
or by the hearing of faith? are ye so foolish? having begun in the
Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" Take your sins to
Christ's cross, for the old man can only be crucified there: we are
crucified with him. The only weapon to fight sin with is the spear
which pierced the side of Jesus. To give an illustration-you want to
overcome an angry temper, how do you go to work? It is very possible
you have never tried the right way of going to Jesus with it. How did I
get salvation? I came to Jesus just as I was, and I trusted him to save
me. I must kill my angry temper in the same way? It is the only way in
which I can ever kill it. I must go to the cross with it, and say to
Jesus, "Lord, I trust thee to deliver me from it." This is the only way
to give it a death-blow. Are you covetous? Do you feel the world
entangle you? You may struggle against this evil so long as you please,
but if it be your besetting sin, you will never be delivered from it in
any way but by the blood of Jesus. Take it to Christ. Tell him, "Lord,
I have trusted thee, and thy name is Jesus, for thou dost save thy
people from their sins; Lord, this is one of my sins; save me from it!"
Ordinances are nothing without Christ as a means of mortification. Your
prayers, and your repentances, and your tears-the whole of them put
together-are worth nothing apart from him. "None but Jesus can do
helpless sinners good;" or helpless saints either. You must be
conquerors through him who hath loved you, if conquerors at all. Our
laurels must grow among his olives in Gethsemane.
EVENING:
"Lo, in the midst of the throne ... stood a Lamb as it had
been slain."
-- Revelation 5:6
Why should our exalted Lord appear in his wounds in glory? The wounds
of Jesus are his glories, his jewels, his sacred ornaments. To the eye
of the believer, Jesus is passing fair because he is "white and ruddy;"
white with innocence, and ruddy with his own blood. We see him as the
lily of matchless purity, and as the rose crimsoned with his own gore.
Christ is lovely upon Olivet and Tabor, and by the sea, but oh! there
never was such a matchless Christ as he that did hang upon the cross.
There we beheld all his beauties in perfection, all his attributes
developed, all his love drawn out, all his character expressed.
Beloved, the wounds of Jesus are far more fair in our eyes than all the
splendour and pomp of kings. The thorny crown is more than an imperial
diadem. It is true that he bears not now the sceptre of reed, but there
was a glory in it that never flashed from sceptre of gold. Jesus wears
the appearance of a slain Lamb as his court dress in which he wooed our
souls, and redeemed them by his complete atonement. Nor are these only
the ornaments of Christ: they are the trophies of his love and of his
victory. He has divided the spoil with the strong. He has redeemed for
himself a great multitude whom no man can number, and these scars are
the memorials of the fight. Ah! if Christ thus loves to retain the
thought of his sufferings for his people, how precious should his
wounds be to us!
"Behold how every wound of his
A precious balm distils,
Which heals the scars that sin had made,
And cures all mortal ills.
"Those wounds are mouths that preach his grace;
The ensigns of his love;
The seals of our expected bliss
In paradise above."
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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,
the leading Christian living e-zine on the Web. Visit HEARTLIGHT
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