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\ / Charles Spurgeon's MORNING & EVENING
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Thursday, June 5, 2008
MORNING:
"The Lord shut him in."
-- Genesis 7:16
Noah was shut in away from all the world by the hand of divine love.
The door of electing purpose interposes between us and the world which
lieth in the wicked one. We are not of the world even as our Lord Jesus
was not of the world. Into the sin, the gaiety, the pursuits of the
multitude we cannot enter; we cannot play in the streets of Vanity Fair
with the children of darkness, for our heavenly Father has shut us in.
Noah was shut in with his God. "Come thou into the ark," was the Lord's
invitation, by which he clearly showed that he himself intended to
dwell in the ark with his servant and his family. Thus all the chosen
dwell in God and God in them. Happy people to be enclosed in the same
circle which contains God in the Trinity of his persons, Father, Son,
and Spirit. Let us never be inattentive to that gracious call, "Come,
my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee,
and hide thyself as it were for a little moment until the indignation
be overpast." Noah was so shut in that no evil could reach him. Floods
did but lift him heavenward, and winds did but waft him on his way.
Outside of the ark all was ruin, but inside all was rest and peace.
Without Christ we perish, but in Christ Jesus there is perfect safety.
Noah was so shut in that he could not even desire to come out, and
those who are in Christ Jesus are in him for ever. They shall go no
more out for ever, for eternal faithfulness has shut them in, and
infernal malice cannot drag them out. The Prince of the house of David
shutteth and no man openeth; and when once in the last days as Master
of the house he shall rise up and shut the door, it will be in vain for
mere professors to knock, and cry Lord, Lord open unto us, for that
same door which shuts in the wise virgins will shut out the foolish for
ever. Lord, shut me in by thy grace.
EVENING:
"He that loveth not knoweth not God."
-- 1 John 4:8
The distinguishing mark of a Christian is his confidence in the love of
Christ, and the yielding of his affections to Christ in return. First,
faith sets her seal upon the man by enabling the soul to say with the
apostle, "Christ loved me and gave himself for me." Then love gives the
countersign, and stamps upon the heart gratitude and love to Jesus in
return. "We love him because he first loved us." In those grand old
ages, which are the heroic period of the Christian religion, this
double mark was clearly to be seen in all believers in Jesus; they were
men who knew the love of Christ, and rested upon it as a man leaneth
upon a staff whose trustiness he has tried. The love which they felt
towards the Lord was not a quiet emotion which they hid within
themselves in the secret chamber of their souls, and which they only
spake of in their private assemblies when they met on the first day of
the week, and sang hymns in honour of Christ Jesus the crucified, but
it was a passion with them of such a vehement and all-consuming energy,
that it was visible in all their actions, spoke in their common talk,
and looked out of their eyes even in their commonest glances. Love to
Jesus was a flame which fed upon the core and heart of their being;
and, therefore, from its own force burned its way into the outer man,
and shone there. Zeal for the glory of King Jesus was the seal and mark
of all genuine Christians. Because of their dependence upon Christ's
love they dared much, and because of their love to Christ they did
much, and it is the same now. The children of God are ruled in their
inmost powers by love-the love of Christ constraineth them; they
rejoice that divine love is set upon them, they feel it shed abroad in
their hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto them, and then by
force of gratitude they love the Saviour with a pure heart, fervently.
My reader, do you love him? Ere you sleep give an honest answer to a
weighty question!
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MORNING & EVENING from HEARTLIGHT /\/\
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Morning & Evening is the classic devotional by 19th-century writer
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