Evening and Morning
By Charles Haddon
Spurgeon
July 27
Morning
"Exceeding
great and precious promises."—2 Peter 1:4.
If you would know
experimentally the preciousness of the promises, and enjoy them in your own
heart, meditate much upon them. There are promises
which are like grapes in the wine-press; if you will tread them the
juice will flow. Thinking over the hallowed words will often be the prelude to
their fulfillment. While you are musing upon them, the boon
which you are seeking will insensibly come to you. Many a Christian who
has thirsted for the promise has found the favour
which it ensured gently distilling into his soul even while he has been
considering the divine record; and he has rejoiced that ever he was led to lay
the promise near his heart.
But besides meditating
upon the promises, seek in thy soul to receive them as being the very words
of God. Speak to thy soul thus, "If I were dealing with a man's
promise, I should carefully consider the ability and the character of the man
who had covenanted with me. So with the promise of God; my eye must not be so
much fixed upon the greatness of the mercy—that may stagger me; as upon
the greatness of the promiser—that will cheer
me. My soul, it is God, even thy God, God that cannot lie, who speaks to thee.
This word of His which thou art now considering is as
true as His own existence. He is a God unchangeable. He has not altered the thing which has gone out of His mouth, nor called back one
single consolatory sentence. Nor doth He lack any power; it is the God that
made the heavens and the earth who has spoken thus. Nor can He fail in wisdom
as to the time when He will bestow the favours, for
He knoweth when it is best to give and when better to
withhold. Therefore, seeing that it is the word of a God so true, so immutable,
so powerful, so wise, I will and must believe the promise." If we thus
meditate upon the promises, and consider the Promiser,
we shall experience their sweetness, and obtain their fulfillment.
Evening
"Who
shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?"—Romans 8:33.
Most blessed
challenge! How unanswerable it is! Every sin of the elect was laid upon the
great Champion of our salvation, and by the atonement carried away. There is no
sin in God's book against His people: He seeth no sin
in Jacob, neither iniquity in Israel; they are justified in Christ for ever. When the guilt of sin was taken away, the
punishment of sin was removed. For the Christian there is no stroke from God's
angry hand—nay, not so much as a single frown of punitive justice. The
believer may be chastised by his Father, but God the Judge has nothing to say
to the Christian, except "I have absolved thee: thou art acquitted."
For the Christian there is no penal death in this world, much less any second
death. He is completely freed from all the punishment as well as the guilt of
sin, and the power of sin is removed too. It may stand in our way, and agitate
us with perpetual warfare; but sin is a conquered foe to every soul in union
with Jesus. There is no sin which a Christian cannot
overcome if he will only rely upon his God to do it. They who wear the white
robe in heaven overcame through the blood of the Lamb, and we may do the same.
No lust is too mighty, no besetting sin too strongly entrenched; we can
overcome through the power of Christ. Do believe it, Christian, that thy sin is
a condemned thing. It may kick and struggle, but it is doomed to die. God has
written condemnation across its brow. Christ has crucified it, "nailing it
to His cross." Go now and mortify it, and the Lord help you to live to His
praise, for sin with all its guilt, shame, and fear, is gone.
"Here's
pardon for transgressions past,
It matters
not how black their cast;
And, O my
soul, with wonder view,
For sins to
come here's pardon too."