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\ / Charles Spurgeon's MORNING & EVENING http://www.heartlight.org/
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Sunday, February 1, 2009
MORNING:
"They shall sing in the ways of the Lord."
-- Psalms 138:5
The time when Christians begin to sing in the ways of the Lord is when
they first lose their burden at the foot of the Cross. Not even the
songs of the angels seem so sweet as the first song of rapture which
gushes from the inmost soul of the forgiven child of God. You know how
John Bunyan describes it. He says when poor Pilgrim lost his burden at
the Cross, he gave three great leaps, and went on his way singing-
"Blest Cross! blest Sepulchre! blest rather be
The Man that there was put to shame for me!"
Believer, do you recollect the day when your fetters fell off? Do you
remember the place when Jesus met you, and said, "I have loved thee
with an everlasting love; I have blotted out as a cloud thy
transgressions, and as a thick cloud thy sins; they shall not be
mentioned against thee any more for ever." Oh! what a sweet season is
that when Jesus takes away the pain of sin. When the Lord first
pardoned my sin, I was so joyous that I could scarce refrain from
dancing. I thought on my road home from the house where I had been set
at liberty, that I must tell the stones in the street the story of my
deliverance. So full was my soul of joy, that I wanted to tell every
snow-flake that was falling from heaven of the wondrous love of Jesus,
who had blotted out the sins of one of the chief of rebels. But it is
not only at the commencement of the Christian life that believers have
reason for song; as long as they live they discover cause to sing in
the ways of the Lord, and their experience of his constant
lovingkindness leads them to say, "I will bless the Lord at all times:
his praise shall continually be in my mouth." See to it, brother, that
thou magnifiest the Lord this day.
"Long as we tread this desert land,
New mercies shall new songs demand."
EVENING:
"Thy love to me was wonderful."
-- 2 Samuel 1:26
Come, dear readers, let each one of us speak for himself of the
wonderful love, not of Jonathan, but of Jesus. We will not relate what
we have been told, but the things which we have tasted and handled-of
the love of Christ. Thy love to me, O Jesus, was wonderful when I was a
stranger wandering far from thee, fulfilling the desires of the flesh
and of the mind. Thy love restrained me from committing the sin which
is unto death, and withheld me from self-destruction. Thy love held
back the axe when Justice said, "Cut it down! why cumbereth it the
ground?" Thy love drew me into the wilderness, stripped me there, and
made me feel the guilt of my sin, and the burden of mine iniquity. Thy
love spake thus comfortably to me when, I was sore dismayed-"Come unto
me, and I will give thee rest." Oh, how matchless thy love when, in a
moment, thou didst wash my sins away, and make my polluted soul, which
was crimson with the blood of my nativity, and black with the grime of
my transgressions, to be white as the driven snow, and pure as the
finest wool. How thou didst commend thy love when thou didst whisper in
my ears, "I am thine and thou art mine." Kind were those accents when
thou saidst, "The Father himself loveth you." And sweet the moments,
passing sweet, when thou declaredst to me "the love of the Spirit."
Never shall my soul forget those chambers of fellowship where thou has
unveiled thyself to me. Had Moses his cleft in the rock, where he saw
the train, the back parts of his God? We, too, have had our clefts in
the rock, where we have seen the full splendours of the Godhead in the
person of Christ. Did David remember the tracks of the wild goat, the
land of Jordan and the Hermonites? We, too, can remember spots to
memory dear, equal to these in blessedness. Precious Lord Jesus, give
us a fresh draught of thy wondrous love to begin the month with. Amen.
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Morning & Evening is the classic devotional by 19th-century writer
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