Evening and Morning
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
November 22
Morning
"Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept
sheep."—Hosea 12:12.
Jacob, while expostulating with Laban, thus describes his own toil,
"This twenty years have I been with thee. That which was torn of beasts I
brought not unto thee: I bare the loss of it; of my hand didst thou require it,
whether stolen by day, or stolen by night. Thus I was; in the day the drought
consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep departed from mine
eyes." Even more toilsome than this was the life of our Saviour here below. He watched over all His sheep till He
gave in as His last account, "Of all those whom Thou hast given me I have
lost none." His hair was wet with dew, and His locks with the drops of the
night. Sleep departed from His eyes, for all night He was in prayer wrestling
for His people. One night Peter must be pleaded for; anon, another claims His
tearful intercession. No shepherd sitting beneath the cold skies, looking up to
the stars, could ever utter such complaints because of the hardness of his toil
as Jesus Christ might have brought, if He had chosen to do so, because of the
sternness of His service in order to procure His spouse—
"Cold mountains and the
midnight air,
Witnessed the fervour
of His prayer;
The desert His temptations knew,
His conflict and His victory
too."
It is
sweet to dwell upon the spiritual parallel of Laban having required all the
sheep at Jacob's hand. If they were torn of beasts, Jacob must make it good; if
any of them died, he must stand as surety for the whole. Was not the toil of Jesus
for His Church the toil of one who was under suretiship
obligations to bring every believing one safe to the hand of Him who had
committed them to His charge? Look upon toiling Jacob, and you see a
representation of Him of whom we read, "He shall feed His flock like a
shepherd."
Evening
"The power of His resurrection."—Philippians
3:10.
The
doctrine of a risen Saviour is exceedingly precious.
The resurrection is the corner-stone of the entire building of Christianity. It
is the key-stone of the arch of our salvation. It
would take a volume to set forth all the streams of living water which flow
from this one sacred source, the resurrection of our dear Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; but to know that He has risen,
and to have fellowship with Him as such—communing with the risen Saviour by possessing a risen life—seeing Him leave
the tomb by leaving the tomb of worldliness ourselves, this is even still more
precious. The doctrine is the basis of the experience, but as the flower is more lovely than the root, so is the experience of
fellowship with the risen Saviour more lovely than
the doctrine itself. I would have you believe that Christ rose from the
dead so as to sing of it, and derive all the consolation
which it is possible for you to extract from this well-ascertained and
well-witnessed fact; but I beseech you, rest not contented even there. Though
you cannot, like the disciples, see Him visibly, yet I bid you aspire to see
Christ Jesus by the eye of faith; and though, like Mary Magdalene, you may not
"touch" Him, yet may you be privileged to converse with Him, and to
know that He is risen, you yourselves being risen in Him to newness of life. To
know a crucified Saviour as having crucified all my
sins, is a high degree of knowledge; but to know a risen Saviour
as having justified me, and to realize that He has bestowed upon me new life,
having given me to be a new creature through His own newness of life, this is a
noble style of experience: short of it, none ought to rest satisfied. May you
both "know Him, and the power of His resurrection." Why should souls
who are quickened with Jesus, wear the grave-clothes of worldliness and
unbelief? Rise, for the Lord is risen.