Evening and Morning
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
January 23
Morning
"I have
exalted one chosen out of the people."—Psalm 89:19.
Why was Christ
chosen out of the people? Speak, my heart, for heart-thoughts are best. Was it
not that He might be able to be our brother, in the blest tie of kindred blood?
Oh, what relationship there is between Christ and the believer! The believer
can say, "I have a Brother in heaven; I may be poor, but I have a Brother
who is rich, and is a King, and will He suffer me to want while He is on His
throne? Oh, no! He loves me; He is my Brother." Believer, wear this
blessed thought, like a necklace of diamonds, around the neck of thy memory;
put it, as a golden ring, on the finger of recollection, and use it as the
King's own seal, stamping the petitions of thy faith with confidence of
success. He is a brother born for adversity, treat Him as such.
Christ
was also chosen out of the people that He might know our wants and sympathize
with us. "He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without
sin." In all our sorrows we have His sympathy. Temptation, pain,
disappointment, weakness, weariness, poverty—He
knows them all, for He has felt all. Remember this, Christian, and let it
comfort thee. However difficult and painful thy road, it is marked by the
footsteps of thy Saviour; and even when thou reachest the dark valley of the shadow of death, and the
deep waters of the swelling Jordan, thou wilt find His footprints there. In all
places whithersoever we go, He has been our forerunner; each burden we have to
carry, has once been laid on the shoulders of Immanuel.
"His way
was much rougher and darker than mine
Did Christ,
my Lord, suffer, and shall I repine?"
Take courage! Royal feet
have left a blood-red track upon the road, and consecrated the thorny path for ever.
Evening
"We will
remember Thy love more than wine."—Song of Solomon 1:4.
Jesus will not let His
people forget His love. If all the love they have enjoyed should be forgotten,
He will visit them with fresh love. "Do you
forget my cross?" says He, "I will cause you to remember it; for at My table I will manifest Myself anew to you. Do you forget
what I did for you in the council-chamber of eternity? I will remind you of it,
for you shall need a counsellor, and shall find Me ready at your call." Mothers do not let their
children forget them. If the boy has gone to Australia, and
does not write home, his mother writes—"Has John forgotten his
mother?" Then there comes back a sweet epistle, which proves that
the gentle reminder was not in vain. So is it with Jesus, He says to us,
"Remember Me," and our response is, "We will remember Thy
love." We will remember Thy love and its matchless history. It is
ancient as the glory which Thou hadst
with the Father before the world was. We remember, O Jesus, Thine
eternal love when Thou didst become our Surety, and espouse us as Thy
betrothed. We remember the love which suggested the sacrifice of Thyself, the
love which, until the fulness of time, mused over
that sacrifice, and long for the hour whereof in the volume of the book it was
written of Thee, "Lo, I come." We remember Thy love, O Jesus as it was manifest to us in Thy holy life, from the
manger of Bethlehem to the garden of Gethsemane. We track Thee from the cradle
to the grave—for every word and deed of Thine
was love—and we rejoice in Thy love, which death did not exhaust; Thy love which shone resplendent in Thy resurrection. We
remember that burning fire of love which will never let Thee hold Thy peace
until Thy chosen ones be all safely housed, until Zion be glorified, and
Jerusalem settled on her everlasting foundations of light and love in heaven.