Morning and Evening

Charles H. Spurgeon

April 8, 2010

Morning Reading

If they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the
dry?--Luke 23:31

Among other interpretations of this suggestive question, the following
is full of teaching: "If the innocent substitute for sinners, suffer
thus, what will be done when the sinner himself --the dry tree--shall
fall into the hands of an angry God?" When God saw Jesus in the
sinner's place, He did not spare Him; and when He finds the
unregenerate without Christ, He will not spare them. O sinner, Jesus
was led away by His enemies: so shall you be dragged away by fiends to
the place appointed for you. Jesus was deserted of God; and if He, who
was only imputedly a sinner, was deserted, how much more shall you be?
"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" what an awful shriek! But what shall be
your cry when you shall say, "O God! O God! why hast Thou forsaken me?"
and the answer shall come back, "Because ye have set at nought all My
counsel, and would none of My reproof: I also will laugh at your
calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh." If God spared not His own
Son, how much less will He spare you! What whips of burning wire will
be yours when conscience shall smite you with all its terrors. Ye
richest, ye merriest, ye most self-righteous sinners--who would stand
in your place when God shall say, "Awake, O sword, against the man that
rejected Me; smite him, and let him feel the smart for ever"? Jesus was
spit upon: sinner, what shame will be yours! We cannot sum up in one
word all the mass of sorrows which met upon the head of Jesus who died
for us, therefore it is impossible for us to tell you what streams,
what oceans of grief must roll over your spirit if you die as you now
are. You may die so, you may die now. By the agonies of Christ, by His
wounds and by His blood, do not bring upon yourselves the wrath to
come! Trust in the Son of God, and you shall never die.

Evening Reading

I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me.--Psalm 23:4

Behold, how independent of outward circumstances the Holy Ghost can
make the Christian! What a bright light may shine within us when it is
all dark without! How firm, how happy, how calm, how peaceful we may
be, when the world shakes to and fro, and the pillars of the earth are
removed! Even death itself, with all its terrible influences, has no
power to suspend the music of a Christian's heart, but rather makes
that music become more sweet, more clear, more heavenly, till the last
kind act which death can do is to let the earthly strain melt into the
heavenly chorus, the temporal joy into the eternal bliss! Let us have
confidence, then, in the blessed Spirit's power to comfort us. Dear
reader, are you looking forward to poverty? Fear not; the divine Spirit
can give you, in your want, a greater plenty than the rich have in
their abundance. You know not what joys may be stored up for you in the
cottage around which grace will plant the roses of content. Are you
conscious of a growing failure of your bodily powers? Do you expect to
suffer long nights of languishing and days of pain? O be not sad! That
bed may become a throne to you. You little know how every pang that
shoots through your body may be a refining fire to consume your
dross--a beam of glory to light up the secret parts of your soul. Are
the eyes growing dim? Jesus will be your light. Do the ears fail you?
Jesus' name will be your soul's best music, and His person your dear
delight. Socrates used to say, "Philosophers can be happy without
music;" and Christians can be happier than philosophers when all
outward causes of rejoicing are withdrawn. In Thee, my God, my heart
shall triumph, come what may of ills without! By thy power, O blessed
Spirit, my heart shall be exceeding glad, though all things should fail
me here below.