Evening and Morning
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
December 23
Morning
"Friend,
go up higher."—Luke 14:10.
When first the
life of grace begins in the soul, we do indeed draw near to God, but it is with
great fear and trembling. The soul conscious of guilt, and humbled thereby, is
overawed with the solemnity of its position; it is cast to the earth by a sense
of the grandeur of Jehovah, in whose presence it stands. With unfeigned
bashfulness it takes the lowest room.
But, in after
life, as the Christian grows in grace, although he will never forget the
solemnity of his position, and will never lose that holy awe which must
encompass a gracious man when he is in the presence of the God who can create
or can destroy; yet his fear has all its terror taken out of it; it becomes a
holy reverence, and no more an overshadowing dread. He is called up higher, to
greater access to God in Christ Jesus. Then the man of God, walking amid the splendours of Deity, and veiling his face like the glorious
cherubim, with those twin wings, the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ,
will, reverent and bowed in spirit, approach the throne; and seeing there a God
of love, of goodness, and of mercy, he will realize rather the covenant
character of God than His absolute Deity. He will see in God rather His
goodness than His greatness, and more of His love than of His majesty. Then
will the soul, bowing still as humbly as aforetime, enjoy a more sacred liberty
of intercession; for while prostrate before the glory of the Infinite God, it
will be sustained by the refreshing consciousness of being in the presence of
boundless mercy and infinite love, and by the realization of acceptance
"in the Beloved." Thus the believer is bidden to come up higher, and
is enabled to exercise the privilege of rejoicing in God, and drawing near to
Him in holy confidence, saying, "Abba, Father."
"So may
we go from strength to strength,
And daily
grow in grace,
Till in Thine image raised at length,
We see Thee
face to face."
Evening
"The
night also is Thine."—Psalm 74:16.
Yes, Lord, Thou
dost not abdicate Thy throne when the sun goeth down,
nor dost Thou leave the world all through these long wintry nights to be the
prey of evil; Thine eyes watch us as the stars, and Thine arms surround us as the zodiac belts the sky. The
dews of kindly sleep and all the influences of the moon are in Thy hand, and
the alarms and solemnities of night are equally with Thee. This is very sweet
to me when watching through the midnight hours, or tossing to and fro in
anguish. There are precious fruits put forth by the moon as well as by the sun:
may my Lord make me to be a favoured partaker in them.
The night of
affliction is as much under the arrangement and control of the Lord of Love as
the bright summer days when all is bliss. Jesus is in the tempest. His love
wraps the night about itself as a mantle, but to the eye of faith the sable
robe is scarce a disguise. From the first watch of the night even unto the
break of day the eternal Watcher observes His saints, and overrules the shades
and dews of midnight for His people's highest good. We believe in no rival
deities of good and evil contending for the mastery, but we hear the voice of
Jehovah saying, "I create light and I create darkness; I, the Lord, do all
these things."
Gloomy seasons
of religious indifference and social sin are not exempted from the divine
purpose. When the altars of truth are defiled, and the ways of God forsaken,
the Lord's servants weep with bitter sorrow, but they may not despair, for the
darkest eras are governed by the Lord, and shall come to their end at His
bidding. What may seem defeat to us may be victory to Him.
"Though enwrapt in gloomy night,
We perceive
no ray of light;
Since the
Lord Himself is here,
'Tis not meet that we should
fear."