Evening and Morning
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
December 13
Morning
"Salt
without prescribing how much."—Ezra 7:22.
Salt was used in every
offering made by fire unto the Lord, and from its preserving and purifying
properties it was the grateful emblem of divine grace in the soul. It is worthy
of our attentive regard that, when Artaxerxes gave
salt to Ezra the priest, he set no limit to the quantity, and we may be quite
certain that when the King of kings distributes grace among His royal
priesthood, the supply is not cut short by Him. Often are we straitened
in ourselves, but never in the Lord. He who chooses to
gather much manna will find that he may have as much as he desires. There is no
such famine in Jerusalem that the citizens should eat their bread by weight and
drink their water by measure. Some things in the economy of grace are measured;
for instance our vinegar and gall are given us with such exactness that we
never have a single drop too much, but of the salt of grace no stint is made,
"Ask what thou wilt and it shall be given unto thee." Parents need to
lock up the fruit cupboard, and the sweet jars, but there is no need to keep
the salt-box under lock and key, for few children will
eat too greedily from that. A man may have too much money, or too much honour, but he cannot have too much grace. When Jeshurun waxed fat in the flesh, he kicked against God, but
there is no fear of a man's becoming too full of grace: a plethora of
grace is impossible. More wealth brings more care, but more grace brings more
joy. Increased wisdom is increased sorrow, but abundance of the Spirit is fulness of joy. Believer, go to the
throne for a large supply of heavenly salt. It will season thine afflictions, which are unsavoury
without salt; it will preserve thy heart which corrupts if salt be absent, and
it will kill thy sins even as salt kills reptiles. Thou needest
much; seek much, and have much.
"I will
make thy windows of agates."—Isaiah 54:12.
The church is
most instructively symbolized by a building erected by heavenly power, and
designed by divine skill. Such a spiritual house must not be dark, for the
Israelites had light in their dwellings; there must therefore be windows to let
the light in and to allow the inhabitants to gaze abroad. These windows are precious
as agates: the ways in which the church beholds her Lord and heaven, and
spiritual truth in general, are to be had in the
highest esteem. Agates are not the most transparent of gems, they are
but semi-pellucid at the best:
"Our knowledge of that life is small,
Our eye of faith is dim."
Faith is one of these precious
agate windows, but alas! it is often so misty and
beclouded, that we see but darkly, and mistake much that we do see. Yet if we
cannot gaze through windows of diamonds and know even as we are known, it is a
glorious thing to behold the altogether lovely One, even though the glass be hazy as the agate. Experience is another of these
dim but precious windows, yielding to us a subdued religious light, in which we
see the sufferings of the Man of Sorrows, through our own afflictions. Our weak
eyes could not endure windows of transparent glass to let in the Master's
glory, but when they are dimmed with weeping, the beams of the Sun of
Righteousness are tempered, and shine through the windows of agate with a soft
radiance inexpressibly soothing to tempted souls. Sanctification, as it
conforms us to our Lord, is another agate window. Only as we become heavenly
can we comprehend heavenly things. The pure in heart see a pure God. Those who
are like Jesus see Him as He is. Because we are so little like Him, the window
is but agate; because we are somewhat like Him, it is agate. We thank God for
what we have, and long for more. When shall we see God and Jesus, and heaven
and truth, face to face?