Evening and Morning
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
August 20
Morning
"The
sweet psalmist of Israel."—2 Samuel 23:1.
Among all the saints whose
lives are recorded in Holy Writ, David possesses an experience of the most
striking, varied, and instructive character. In his history we meet with trials
and temptations not to be discovered, as a whole, in other saints of ancient
times, and hence he is all the more suggestive a type of our Lord. David knew
the trials of all ranks and conditions of men. Kings have their troubles, and
David wore a crown: the peasant has his cares, and David handled a shepherd's
crook: the wanderer has many hardships, and David abode in the caves of Engedi: the captain has his difficulties, and David found
the sons of Zeruiah too hard for him. The psalmist
was also tried in his friends, his counsellor Ahithophel forsook him, "He that eateth
bread with me, hath lifted up his heel against me." His worst foes were
they of his own household: his children were his greatest affliction. The
temptations of poverty and wealth, of honour and
reproach, of health and weakness, all tried their power upon him. He had
temptations from without to disturb his peace, and from within to mar his joy.
David no sooner escaped from one trial than he fell into another; no sooner
emerged from one season of despondency and alarm, than he was again brought
into the lowest depths, and all God's waves and billows rolled over him. It is
probably from this cause that David's psalms are so universally the delight of
experienced Christians. Whatever our frame of mind, whether ecstasy or
depression, David has exactly described our emotions. He was an able master of
the human heart, because he had been tutored in the best of all
schools—the school of heart-felt, personal experience. As we are
instructed in the same school, as we grow matured in grace and in years, we
increasingly appreciate David's psalms, and find them to be "green
pastures." My soul, let David's experience cheer
and counsel thee this day.
Evening
"And
they fortified Jerusalem unto the broad wall."—Nehemiah 3:8.
Cities well fortified have
broad walls, and so had Jerusalem in her glory. The New Jerusalem must, in like
manner, be surrounded and preserved by a broad wall of nonconformity to the
world, and separation from its customs and spirit. The tendency of these days break down the holy barrier, and make
the distinction between the church and the world merely nominal. Professors are
no longer strict and Puritanical, questionable literature is read on all hands,
frivolous pastimes are currently indulged, and a general laxity threatens to
deprive the Lord's peculiar people of those sacred singularities
which separate them from sinners. It will be an ill day for the church
and the world when the proposed amalgamation shall be complete, and the sons of
God and the daughters of men shall be as one: then shall another deluge of
wrath be ushered in. Beloved reader, be it your aim in heart, in word, in
dress, in action to maintain the broad wall, remembering that the friendship of
this world is enmity against God.
The broad wall afforded a
pleasant place of resort for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, from which
they could command prospects of the surrounding country. This reminds us of the
Lord's exceeding broad commandments, in which we walk at liberty in communion
with Jesus, overlooking the scenes of earth, and looking out towards the
glories of heaven. Separated from the world, and denying ourselves all
ungodliness and fleshly lusts, we are nevertheless not in prison, nor
restricted within narrow bounds; nay, we walk at liberty, because we keep His
precepts. Come, reader, this evening walk with God in His statutes. As friend
met friend upon the city wall, so meet thou thy God in the way of holy prayer
and meditation. The bulwarks of salvation thou hast a right to traverse, for
thou art a freeman of the royal burgh, a citizen of the metropolis of the
universe.