Evening and Morning
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
July 7
Morning
"The upright love Thee"—Song of Solomon 1:4.
Believers love Jesus with a
deeper affection then they dare to give to any other being. They would sooner
lose father and mother then part with Christ. They hold all earthly comforts
with a loose hand, but they carry Him fast locked in their bosoms. They voluntarily
deny themselves for His sake, but they are not to be driven to deny Him.
It is scant love which the fire of persecution can dry
up; the true believer's love is a deeper stream than this. Men have laboured to divide the faithful from their Master, but
their attempts have been fruitless in every age. Neither crowns of honour, now frowns of anger, have untied this more than
Gordian knot. This is no every-day attachment which
the world's power may at length dissolve. Neither man nor devil
have found a key which opens this lock. Never has the craft of Satan
been more at fault than when he has exercised it in seeking to rend in sunder
this union of two divinely welded hearts. It is written, and nothing can blot
out the sentence, "The upright love Thee." The intensity of
the love of the upright, however, is not so much to be judged by what it
appears as by what the upright long for. It is our daily lament that we cannot
love enough. Would that our hearts were capable of holding more, and reaching
further. Like Samuel Rutherford, we sigh and cry, "Oh, for as much love as
would go round about the earth, and over heaven—yea, the heaven of
heavens, and ten thousand worlds—that I might let all out upon fair,
fair, only fair Christ." Alas! our longest reach
is but a span of love, and our affection is but as a drop of a bucket compared
with His deserts. Measure our love by our intentions, and it is high indeed;
'tis thus, we trust, our Lord doth judge of it. Oh, that we could give all the
love in all hearts in one great mass, a gathering together of all loves to Him
who is altogether lovely!
Evening
"Satan
hindered us."—1 Thessalonians 2:18.
Since the first hour in
which goodness came into conflict with evil, it has never ceased to be true in
spiritual experience, that Satan hinders us. From all points of the compass,
all along the line of battle, in the vanguard and in the rear, at the dawn of
day and in the midnight hour, Satan hinders us. If we toil in the field, he
seeks to break the ploughshare; if we build the wall, he labours
to cast down the stones; if we would serve God in suffering or in
conflict—everywhere Satan hinders us. He hinders us when we are first
coming to Jesus Christ. Fierce conflicts we had with Satan when we first looked
to the cross and lived. Now that we are saved, he endeavours
to hinder the completeness of our personal character. You may be congratulating
yourself, "I have hitherto walked consistently; no man can challenge my
integrity." Beware of boasting, for your virtue will yet be tried; Satan
will direct his engines against that very virtue for which you are the most
famous. If you have been hitherto a firm believer, your faith will ere long be
attacked; if you have been meek as Moses, expect to be tempted to speak
unadvisedly with your lips. The birds will peck at your ripest fruit, and the
wild boar will dash his tusks at your choicest vines. Satan is sure to hinder
us when we are earnest in prayer. He checks our importunity, and weakens our
faith in order that, if possible, we may miss the blessing. Nor is Satan less
vigilant in obstructing Christian effort. There was never a revival of religion
without a revival of his opposition. As soon as Ezra and Nehemiah begin to labour, Sanballat and Tobiah are stirred up to hinder them. What then? We are not
alarmed because Satan hindereth us, for it is a proof
that we are on the Lord's side, and are doing the Lord's work, and in His
strength we shall win the victory, and triumph over our adversary.