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\ / Charles Spurgeon's MORNING & EVENING http://www.heartlight.org/
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Tuesday, March 31, 2009
MORNING:
"With his stripes we are healed."
-- Isaiah 53:5
Pilate delivered our Lord to the lictors to be scourged. The Roman
scourge was a most dreadful instrument of torture. It was made of the
sinews of oxen, and sharp bones were inter-twisted every here and there
among the sinews; so that every time the lash came down these pieces of
bone inflicted fearful laceration, and tore off the flesh from the
bone. The Saviour was, no doubt, bound to the column, and thus beaten.
He had been beaten before; but this of the Roman lictors was probably
the most severe of his flagellations. My soul, stand here and weep over
his poor stricken body.
Believer in Jesus, can you gaze upon him without tears, as he stands
before you the mirror of agonizing love? He is at once fair as the lily
for innocence, and red as the rose with the crimson of his own blood.
As we feel the sure and blessed healing which his stripes have wrought
in us, does not our heart melt at once with love and grief? If ever we
have loved our Lord Jesus, surely we must feel that affection glowing
now within our bosoms.
"See how the patient Jesus stands,
Insulted in his lowest case!
Sinners have bound the Almighty's hands,
And spit in their Creator's face.
With thorns his temples gor'd and gash'd
Send streams of blood from every part;
His back's with knotted scourges lash'd.
But sharper scourges tear his heart."
We would fain go to our chambers and weep; but since our business calls
us away, we will first pray our Beloved to print the image of his
bleeding self upon the tablets of our hearts all the day, and at
nightfall we will return to commune with him, and sorrow that our sin
should have cost him so dear.
EVENING:
"And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it
for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until
water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither
the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of
the field by night."
-- 2 Samuel 21:10
If the love of a woman to her slain sons could make her prolong her
mournful vigil for so long a period, shall we weary of considering the
sufferings of our blessed Lord? She drove away the birds of prey, and
shall not we chase from our meditations those worldly and sinful
thoughts which defile both our minds and the sacred themes upon which
we are occupied? Away, ye birds of evil wing! Leave ye the sacrifice
alone! She bore the heats of summer, the night dews and the rains,
unsheltered and alone. Sleep was chased from her weeping eyes: her
heart was too full for slumber. Behold how she loved her children!
Shall Rizpah thus endure, and shall we start at the first little
inconvenience or trial? Are we such cowards that we cannot bear to
suffer with our Lord? She chased away even the wild beasts, with
courage unusual in her sex, and will not we be ready to encounter every
foe for Jesus' sake? These her children were slain by other hands than
hers, and yet she wept and watched: what ought we to do who have by our
sins crucified our Lord? Our obligations are boundless, our love should
be fervent and our repentance thorough. To watch with Jesus should be
our business, to protect his honour our occupation, to abide by his
cross our solace. Those ghastly corpses might well have affrighted
Rizpah, especially by night, but in our Lord, at whose cross-foot we
are sitting, there is nothing revolting, but everything attractive.
Never was living beauty so enchanting as a dying Saviour. Jesus, we
will watch with thee yet awhile, and do thou graciously unveil thyself
to us; then shall we not sit beneath sackcloth, but in a royal
pavilion.
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