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\ / Charles Spurgeon's MORNING & EVENING
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Saturday, April 26, 2008
MORNING:
"This do in remembrance of me."
-- 1 Corinthians 11:24
It seems then, that Christians may forget Christ! There could be no
need for this loving exhortation, if there were not a fearful
supposition that our memories might prove treacherous. Nor is this a
bare supposition: it is, alas! too well confirmed in our experience,
not as a possibility, but as a lamentable fact. It appears almost
impossible that those who have been redeemed by the blood of the dying
Lamb, and loved with an everlasting love by the eternal Son of God,
should forget that gracious Saviour; but, if startling to the ear, it
is, alas! too apparent to the eye to allow us to deny the crime. Forget
him who never forgot us! Forget him who poured his blood forth for our
sins! Forget him who loved us even to the death! Can it be possible?
Yes, it is not only possible, but conscience confesses that it is too
sadly a fault with all of us, that we suffer him to be as a wayfaring
man tarrying but for a night. He whom we should make the abiding tenant
of our memories is but a visitor therein. The cross where one would
think that memory would linger, and unmindfulness would be an unknown
intruder, is desecrated by the feet of forgetfulness. Does not your
conscience say that this is true? Do you not find yourselves forgetful
of Jesus? Some creature steals away your heart, and you are unmindful
of him upon whom your affection ought to be set. Some earthly business
engrosses your attention when you should fix your eye steadily upon the
cross. It is the incessant turmoil of the world, the constant
attraction of earthly things which takes away the soul from Christ.
While memory too well preserves a poisonous weed, it suffereth the rose
of Sharon to wither. Let us charge ourselves to bind a heavenly
forget-me-not about our hearts for Jesus our Beloved, and, whatever
else we let slip, let us hold fast to him.
EVENING:
"Blessed is he that watcheth."
-- Revelation 16:15
"We die daily," said the apostle. This was the life of the early
Christians; they went everywhere with their lives in their hands. We
are not in this day called to pass through the same fearful
persecutions: if we were, the Lord would give us grace to bear the
test; but the tests of Christian life, at the present moment, though
outwardly not so terrible, are yet more likely to overcome us than even
those of the fiery age. We have to bear the sneer of the world-that is
little; its blandishments, its soft words, its oily speeches, its
fawning, its hypocrisy, are far worse. Our danger is lest we grow rich
and become proud, lest we give ourselves up to the fashions of this
present evil world, and lose our faith. Or if wealth be not the trial,
worldly care is quite as mischievous. If we cannot be torn in pieces by
the roaring lion, if we may be hugged to death by the bear, the devil
little cares which it is, so long as he destroys our love to Christ,
and our confidence in him. I fear me that the Christian church is far
more likely to lose her integrity in these soft and silken days than in
those rougher times. We must be awake now, for we traverse the
enchanted ground, and are most likely to fall asleep to our own
undoing, unless our faith in Jesus be a reality, and our love to Jesus
a vehement flame. Many in these days of easy profession are likely to
prove tares, and not wheat; hypocrites with fair masks on their faces,
but not the true-born children of the living God. Christian, do not
think that these are times in which you can dispense with watchfulness
or with holy ardour; you need these things more than ever, and may God
the eternal Spirit display his omnipotence in you, that you may be able
to say, in all these softer things, as well as in the rougher, "We are
more than conquerors through him that loved us."
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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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