Evening and Morning
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
July 9
Morning
"Forget not all His benefits."—Psalm 103:2.
It is a delightful and
profitable occupation to mark the hand of God in the lives of ancient saints,
and to observe His goodness in delivering them, His mercy in pardoning them,
and His faithfulness in keeping His covenant with them. But would it not be
even more interesting and profitable for us to remark the hand of God in our
own lives? Ought we not to look upon our own history as being at least as full
of God, as full of His goodness and of His truth, as much a proof of His
faithfulness and veracity, as the lives of any of the saints who have gone
before? We do our Lord an injustice when we suppose that He wrought all His
mighty acts, and showed Himself strong for those in the early time, but doth
not perform wonders or lay bare His arm for the saints who are now upon the
earth. Let us review our own lives. Surely in these we may discover some happy
incidents, refreshing to ourselves and glorifying to our God. Have you had no deliverances?
Have you passed through no rivers, supported by the divine presence? Have you
walked through no fires unharmed? Have you had no manifestations? Have
you had no choice favours? The God who
gave Solomon the desire of his heart, hath He never listened to you and
answered your requests? That God of lavish bounty of whom David sang, "Who
satisfieth thy mouth with good things," hath He
never satiated you with fatness? Have you never been made to lie down in
green pastures? Have you never been led by the still waters? Surely the
goodness of God has been the same to us as to the saints of old. Let us, then,
weave His mercies into a song. Let us take the pure gold of thankfulness, and
the jewels of praise and make them into another crown for the head of Jesus.
Let our souls give forth music as sweet and as exhilarating as came from
David's harp, while we praise the Lord whose mercy endureth
for ever.
"And God divided the light from the
darkness."—Genesis 1:4.
A believer has two
principles at work within him. In his natural estate he was subject to one
principle only, which was darkness; now light has entered, and the two
principles disagree. Mark the apostle Paul's words in the seventh chapter of
Romans: "I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present
with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see
another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me
into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members." How is this
state of things occasioned? "The Lord divided the light from the
darkness." Darkness, by itself, is quiet and undisturbed, but when the Lord
sends in light, there is a conflict, for the one is in opposition to the other:
a conflict which will never cease till the believer is altogether light in the
Lord. If there be a division within the individual Christian, there is
certain to be a division without. So soon as the Lord gives to any man
light, he proceeds to separate himself from the darkness around; he secedes
from a merely worldly religion of outward ceremonial, for nothing short of the
gospel of Christ will now satisfy him, and he withdraws himself from worldly
society and frivolous amusements, and seeks the company of the saints, for
"We know we have passed from death unto life, because we love the
brethren." The light gathers to itself, and the darkness to itself. What
God has divided, let us never try to unite, but as Christ went without the
camp, bearing His reproach, so let us come out from the ungodly, and be a
peculiar people. He was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate
from sinners; and, as He was, so we are to be nonconformists to the world,
dissenting from all sin, and distinguished from the rest of mankind by our
likeness to our Master.