Evening and Morning
By Charles
Haddon Spurgeon
April 15
Morning
"My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken
me?"—Psalm 22:1.
We here behold the Saviour in the depth of His sorrows. No other place so well
shows the griefs of Christ as Calvary, and no other
moment at Calvary is so full of agony as that in which His cry rends the
air—"My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" At this moment
physical weakness was united with acute mental torture from the shame and
ignominy through which He had to pass; and to make His grief culminate with
emphasis, He suffered spiritual agony surpassing all expression, resulting from
the departure of His Father's presence. This was the black midnight of His
horror; then it was that He descended the abyss of suffering. No man can enter
into the full meaning of these words. Some of us think at times that we
could cry, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" There are
seasons when the brightness of our Father's smile is eclipsed by clouds and
darkness; but let us remember that God never does really forsake us. It is only
a seeming forsaking with us, but in Christ's case it was a real forsaking. We
grieve at a little withdrawal of our Father's love; but the real turning away
of God's face from His Son, who shall calculate how deep the agony which it
caused Him?
In our case, our cry is
often dictated by unbelief: in His case, it was the utterance of a dreadful
fact, for God had really turned away from Him for a season. O thou poor,
distressed soul, who once lived in the sunshine of God's face, but art now in
darkness, remember that He has not really forsaken thee. God in the clouds is
as much our God as when He shines forth in all the lustre
of His grace; but since even the thought that He has forsaken us gives
us agony, what must the woe of the Saviour have been
when He exclaimed, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"
Evening
"Lift them up for ever."—Psalm 28:9.
GodŐs people need lifting
up. They
are very heavy by nature. They have no wings, or, if they have, they are like
the dove of old which lay among the pots; and they need divine grace to make
them mount on wings covered with silver, and with feathers of yellow gold. By
nature sparks fly upward, but the sinful souls of men fall downward. O Lord,
"lift them up for ever!" David himself said, "Unto Thee, O God,
do I lift up my soul," and he here feels the necessity that other men's
souls should be lifted up as well as his own. When you ask this blessing for
yourself, forget not to seek it for others also. There are three ways in which
God's people require to be lifted up. They require to be
elevated in character. Lift them up, O Lord; do not suffer Thy people to be
like the world's people! The world lieth in the
wicked one; lift them out of it! The world's people are looking after silver and
gold, seeking their own pleasures, and the gratification of their lusts; but,
Lord, lift Thy people up above all this; keep them from being "muck-rakers," as John Bunyan calls the man who was always
scraping after gold! Set thou their hearts upon their risen Lord and the
heavenly heritage! Moreover, believers need to be prospered in conflict.
In the battle, if they seem to fall, O Lord, be pleased to give them the
victory. If the foot of the foe be upon their necks
for a moment, help them to grasp the sword of the Spirit, and eventually to win
the battle. Lord, lift up Thy children's spirits in the day of conflict; let
them not sit in the dust, mourning for ever. Suffer
not the adversary to vex them sore, and make them fret; but if they have been,
like Hannah, persecuted, let them sing of the mercy of a delivering God.
We may also ask our Lord to
lift them up at the last! Lift them up by taking them home, lift their bodies
from the tomb, and raise their souls to Thine eternal
kingdom in glory.