Evening and Morning
By Charles
Haddon Spurgeon
April 8
Morning
"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
"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.