Evening and Morning
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
August 28
Morning
"Oil for
the light."—Exodus 25:6.
My soul, how much thou needest this, for thy lamp will not long continue to burn
without it. Thy snuff will smoke and become an offence if light be gone, and
gone it will be if oil be absent. Thou hast no oil well springing up in thy
human nature, and therefore thou must go to them that sell and buy for thyself,
or like the foolish virgins, thou wilt have to cry, "My lamp is gone
out." Even the consecrated lamps could not give light without oil; though
they shone in the tabernacle they needed to be fed, though no rough winds blew
upon them they required to be trimmed, and thy need is equally as great. Under
the most happy circumstances thou canst not give light for another hour unless
fresh oil of grace be given thee.
It was not every oil that
might be used in the Lord's service; neither the petroleum which exudes so
plentifully from the earth, nor the produce of fishes, nor that extracted from
nuts would be accepted; one oil only was selected, and that the best olive oil.
Pretended grace from natural goodness, fancied grace from priestly hands, or
imaginary grace from outward ceremonies will never serve the true saint of God;
he knows that the Lord would not be pleased with rivers of such oil. He goes to
the olive-press of Gethsemane, and draws his supplies from Him who was crushed
therein. The oil of gospel grace is pure and free from lees and dregs, and
hence the light which is fed thereon is clear and
bright. Our churches are the Saviour's golden
candelabra, and if they are to be lights in this dark world, they must have
much holy oil. Let us pray for ourselves, our ministers, and
our churches, that they may never lack oil for the light. Truth,
holiness, joy, knowledge, love, these are all beams of the sacred light, but we
cannot give them forth unless in private we receive oil from God the Holy
Ghost.
Evening
"Sing, O
barren."—Isaiah 54:1.
Though we have brought
forth some fruit unto Christ, and have a joyful hope that we are "plants
of His own right hand planting," yet there are times when we feel very
barren. Prayer is lifeless, love is cold, faith is weak, each
grace in the garden of our heart languishes and droops. We are like flowers in
the hot sun, requiring the refreshing shower. In such a condition what are we
to do? The text is addressed to us in just such a state. "Sing, O
barren, break forth and cry aloud." But what can I sing about? I
cannot talk about the present, and even the past looks full of barrenness. Ah!
I can sing of Jesus Christ. I can talk of visits which the Redeemer has aforetimes paid to me; or if not of these, I can magnify
the great love wherewith He loved His people when He came from the heights of
heaven for their redemption. I will go to the cross again. Come, my soul, heavy laden thou wast once, and
thou didst lose thy burden there. Go to Calvary again. Perhaps that very cross
which gave thee life may give thee fruitfulness. What is my barrenness? It is
the platform for His fruit-creating power. What is my desolation? It is the
black setting for the sapphire of His everlasting love. I will go in poverty, I
will go in helplessness, I will go in all my shame and backsliding, I will tell
Him that I am still His child, and in confidence in His faithful heart, even I,
the barren one, will sing and cry aloud.
Sing, believer, for it will
cheer thine own heart, and the hearts of other
desolate ones. Sing on, for now that thou art really ashamed of being barren,
thou wilt be fruitful soon; now that God makes thee loath to be without
fruit He will soon cover thee with clusters. The experience of our barrenness
is painful, but the Lord's visitations are delightful. A sense of our own
poverty drives us to Christ, and that is where we need to be, for in Him is our
fruit found.