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\ / Charles Spurgeon's MORNING & EVENING
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Thursday, May 22, 2008
MORNING:
"He led them forth by the right way."
-- Psalms 107:7
Changeful experience often leads the anxious believer to enquire "Why
is it thus with me?" I looked for light, but lo, darkness came; for
peace, but behold trouble. I said in my heart, my mountain standeth
firm, I shall never be moved. Lord, thou dost hide thy face, and I am
troubled. It was but yesterday that I could read my title clear; to-day
my evidences are bedimmed, and my hopes are clouded. Yesterday I could
climb to Pisgah's top, and view the landscape o'er, and rejoice with
confidence in my future inheritance; to-day, my spirit has no hopes,
but many fears; no joys, but much distress. Is this part of God's plan
with me? Can this be the way in which God would bring me to heaven?
Yes, it is even so. The eclipse of your faith, the darkness of your
mind, the fainting of your hope, all these things are but parts of
God's method of making you ripe for the great inheritance upon which
you shall soon enter. These trials are for the testing and
strengthening of your faith-they are waves that wash you further upon
the rock-they are winds which waft your ship the more swiftly towards
the desired haven. According to David's words, so it might be said of
you, "so he bringeth them to their desired haven." By honour and
dishonour, by evil report and by good report, by plenty and by poverty,
by joy and by distress, by persecution and by peace, by all these
things is the life of your souls maintained, and by each of these are
you helped on your way. Oh, think not, believer, that your sorrows are
out of God's plan; they are necessary parts of it. "We must, through
much tribulation, enter the kingdom." Learn, then, even to "count it
all joy when ye fall into divers temptations."
"O let my trembling soul be still,
And wait thy wise, thy holy will!
I cannot, Lord, thy purpose see,
Yet all is well since ruled by thee."
EVENING:
"Behold, thou art fair, my Beloved."
-- Song of Solomon 1:16
From every point our Well-beloved is most fair. Our various experiences
are meant by our heavenly Father to furnish fresh standpoints from
which we may view the loveliness of Jesus; how amiable are our trials
when they carry us aloft where we may gain clearer views of Jesus than
ordinary life could afford us! We have seen him from the top of Amana,
from the top of Shenir and Hermon, and he has shone upon us as the sun
in his strength; but we have seen him also "from the lions' dens, from
the mountains of the leopards," and he has lost none of his loveliness.
From the languishing of a sick bed, from the borders of the grave, have
we turned our eyes to our soul's spouse, and he has never been
otherwise than "all fair." Many of his saints have looked upon him from
the gloom of dungeons, and from the red flames of the stake, yet have
they never uttered an ill word of him, but have died extolling his
surpassing charms. Oh, noble and pleasant employment to be for ever
gazing at our sweet Lord Jesus! Is it not unspeakably delightful to
view the Saviour in all his offices, and to perceive him matchless in
each?-to shift the kaleidoscope, as it were, and to find fresh
combinations of peerless graces? In the manger and in eternity, on the
cross and on his throne, in the garden and in his kingdom, among
thieves or in the midst of cherubim, he is everywhere "altogether
lovely." Examine carefully every little act of his life, and every
trait of his character, and he is as lovely in the minute as in the
majestic. Judge him as you will, you cannot censure; weigh him as you
please, and he will not be found wanting. Eternity shall not discover
the shadow of a spot in our Beloved, but rather, as ages revolve, his
hidden glories shall shine forth with yet more inconceivable splendour,
and his unutterable loveliness shall more and more ravish all celestial
minds.
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Morning & Evening is the classic devotional by 19th-century writer
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