Evening and Morning
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
October 15
Morning
"But who
may abide the day of his coming?"—Malachi 3:2.
His first coming was
without external pomp or show of power, and yet in truth there were few who
could abide its testing might. Herod and all Jerusalem with him were stirred at
the news of the wondrous birth. Those who supposed themselves to be waiting for
Him, showed the fallacy of their professions by rejecting Him when He came. His
life on earth was a winnowing fan, which tried the great heap of religious
profession, and few enough could abide the process. But what will His second
advent be? What sinner can endure to think of it? "He shall smite the
earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips shall He slay
the wicked." When in His humiliation He did but say to the soldiers,
"I am He," they fell backward; what will be the terror of His enemies
when He shall more fully reveal Himself as the "I am?" His
death shook earth and darkened heaven, what shall be the dreadful splendour of that day in which as the living Saviour, He shall summon the quick and dead before Him? O
that the terrors of the Lord would persuade men to forsake their sins and kiss
the Son lest He be angry! Though a lamb, He is yet the lion of the tribe of
Judah, rending the prey in pieces; and though He breaks not the bruised reed,
yet will He break His enemies with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like
a potter's vessel. None of His foes shall bear up before the tempest of His
wrath, or hide themselves from the sweeping hail of His indignation; but His
beloved bloodwashed people look for His appearing
with joy, and hope to abide it without fear: to them He sits as a refiner even
now, and when He has tried them they shall come forth as gold. Let us search ourselves this morning and make our calling and election
sure, so that the coming of the Lord may cause no dark forebodings in our mind.
O for grace to cast away all hypocrisy, and to be found of Him sincere and
without rebuke in the day of His appearing.
Evening
"But the
firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou redeem him not,
then shalt thou break his neck."—Exodus 34:20.
Every firstborn creature
must be the Lord's, but since the ass was unclean, it could not be presented in
sacrifice. What then? Should it be allowed to go free from the universal law? By no means. God admits of no exceptions. The ass is His
due, but He will not accept it; He will not abate the claim, but yet He cannot
be pleased with the victim. No way of escape remained but redemption—the
creature must be saved by the substitution of a lamb in its place; or if not
redeemed, it must die. My soul, here is a lesson for thee. That unclean animal
is thyself; thou art justly the property of the Lord who made thee and
preserves thee, but thou art so sinful that God will not, cannot, accept thee;
and it has come to this, the Lamb of God must stand in thy stead, or thou must
die eternally. Let all the world know of thy gratitude
to that spotless Lamb who has already bled for thee, and so redeemed thee from
the fatal curse of the law. Must it not sometimes have been a question with the
Israelite which should die, the ass or the lamb? Would
not the good man pause to estimate and compare? Assuredly there was no
comparison between the value of the soul of man and the life of the Lord Jesus,
and yet the Lamb dies, and man the ass is spared. My soul, admire the boundless
love of God to thee and others of the human race. Worms are bought with the
blood of the Son of the Highest! Dust and ashes redeemed with a price far above
silver and gold! What a doom had been mine had not plenteous redemption been
found! The breaking of the neck of the ass was but a momentary penalty, but who
shall measure the wrath to come to which no limit can be imagined? Inestimably
dear is the glorious Lamb who has redeemed us from such a doom.