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\ / Charles Spurgeon's MORNING & EVENING http://www.heartlight.org/
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Tuesday, December 23, 2008
MORNING:
"Friend, go up higher."
-- Luke 14:10
When first the life of grace begins in the soul, we do indeed draw near
to God, but it is with great fear and trembling. The soul conscious of
guilt, and humbled thereby, is overawed with the solemnity of its
position; it is cast to the earth by a sense of the grandeur of
Jehovah, in whose presence it stands. With unfeigned bashfulness it
takes the lowest room.
But, in after life, as the Christian grows in grace, although he will
never forget the solemnity of his position, and will never lose that
holy awe which must encompass a gracious man when he is in the presence
of the God who can create or can destroy; yet his fear has all its
terror taken out of it; it becomes a holy reverence, and no more an
overshadowing dread. He is called up higher, to greater access to God
in Christ Jesus. Then the man of God, walking amid the splendours of
Deity, and veiling his face like the glorious cherubim, with those twin
wings, the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ, will, reverent and
bowed in spirit, approach the throne; and seeing there a God of love,
of goodness, and of mercy, he will realize rather the covenant
character of God than his absolute Deity. He will see in God rather his
goodness than his greatness, and more of his love than of his majesty.
Then will the soul, bowing still as humbly as aforetime, enjoy a more
sacred liberty of intercession; for while prostrate before the glory of
the Infinite God, it will be sustained by the refreshing consciousness
of being in the presence of boundless mercy and infinite love, and by
the realization of acceptance "in the Beloved." Thus the believer is
bidden to come up higher, and is enabled to exercise the privilege of
rejoicing in God, and drawing near to him in holy confidence, saying,
"Abba, Father."
"So may we go from strength to strength,
And daily grow in grace,
Till in thine image raised at length,
We see thee face to face."
EVENING:
"The night also is thine."
-- Psalms 74:16
Yes, Lord, thou dost not abdicate thy throne when the sun goeth down,
nor dost thou leave the world all through these long wintry nights to
be the prey of evil; thine eyes watch us as the stars, and thine arms
surround us as the zodiac belts the sky. The dews of kindly sleep and
all the influences of the moon are in thy hand, and the alarms and
solemnities of night are equally with thee. This is very sweet to me
when watching through the midnight hours, or tossing to and fro in
anguish. There are precious fruits put forth by the moon as well as by
the sun: may my Lord make me to be a favoured partaker in them.
The night of affliction is as much under the arrangement and control of
the Lord of Love as the bright summer days when all is bliss. Jesus is
in the tempest. His love wraps the night about itself as a mantle, but
to the eye of faith the sable robe is scarce a disguise. From the first
watch of the night even unto the break of day the eternal Watcher
observes his saints, and overrules the shades and dews of midnight for
his people's highest good. We believe in no rival deities of good and
evil contending for the mastery, but we hear the voice of Jehovah
saying, "I create light and I create darkness; I, the Lord, do all
these things."
Gloomy seasons of religious indifference and social sin are not
exempted from the divine purpose. When the altars of truth are defiled,
and the ways of God forsaken, the Lord's servants weep with bitter
sorrow, but they may not despair, for the darkest eras are governed by
the Lord, and shall come to their end at his bidding. What may seem
defeat to us may be victory to him.
"Though enwrapt in gloomy night,
We perceive no ray of light;
Since the Lord himself is here,
'Tis not meet that we should fear."
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Morning & Evening is the classic devotional by 19th-century writer
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