Evening and Morning
By Charles
Haddon Spurgeon
June 20
Morning
"For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the
house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall
not the least grain fall upon the earth."—Amos 9:9.
Every sifting comes by divine
command and permission. Satan must ask leave before he can lay a finger
upon Job. Nay, more, in some sense our siftings are directly the work of
heaven, for the text says, "I will sift the house of Israel."
Satan, like a drudge, may hold the sieve, hoping to destroy the corn; but the
overruling hand of the Master is accomplishing the purity of the grain by the
very process which the enemy intended to be
destructive. Precious, but much sifted corn of the Lord's floor, be comforted
by the blessed fact that the Lord directeth both
flail and sieve to His own glory, and to thine
eternal profit.
The Lord Jesus will surely
use the fan which is in His hand, and will divide
the precious from the vile. All are not Israel that are
of Israel; the heap on the barn floor is not clean provender, and hence the
winnowing process must be performed. In the sieve true weight alone has power.
Husks and chaff being devoid of substance must fly before the wind, and only
solid corn will remain.
Observe the complete
safety of the Lord's wheat; even the least grain has a promise of
preservation. God Himself sifts, and therefore it is stern and terrible work;
He sifts them in all places, "among all nations"; He sifts them in
the most effectual manner, "like as corn is sifted in a sieve"; and
yet for all this, not the smallest, lightest, or most shrivelled
grain, is permitted to fall to the ground. Every individual believer is
precious in the sight of the Lord, a shepherd would not lose one sheep, nor a jeweller one diamond, nor a mother
one child, nor a man one limb of his body, nor will the Lord lose one of
His redeemed people. However little we may be, if we are the Lord's, we may
rejoice that we are preserved in Christ Jesus.
Evening
"Straightway they forsook their nets, and
followed Him."—Mark 1:18.
When they heard the call of
Jesus, Simon and Andrew obeyed at once without demur. If we would always,
punctually and with resolute zeal, put in practice what we hear upon the spot,
or at the first fit occasion, our attendance at the means of grace, and our
reading of good books, could not fail to enrich us spiritually. He will not
lose his loaf who has taken care at once to eat it,
neither can he be deprived of the benefit of the doctrine who has already acted
upon it. Most readers and hearers become moved so far as to purpose to amend; but, alas! the proposal is a
blossom which has not been knit, and therefore no fruit comes of it; they wait,
they waver, and then they forget, till, like the ponds in nights of frost, when
the sun shines by day, they are only thawed in time to be frozen again. That
fatal to-morrow is blood-red with the murder of
fair resolutions; it is the slaughter-house of the innocents. We are very
concerned that our little book of "Evening Readings" should not be
fruitless, and therefore we pray that readers may not be readers only, but
doers, of the word. The practice of truth is the most profitable reading of
it. Should the reader be impressed with any duty while perusing these
pages, let him hasten to fulfil it before the holy
glow has departed from his soul, and let him leave his nets, and all that he
has, sooner than be found rebellious to the Master's call. Do not give place to
the devil by delay! Haste while opportunity and quickening are in happy
conjunction. Do not be caught in your own nets, but break the meshes of
worldliness, and away where glory calls you. Happy is the writer who shall meet
with readers resolved to carry out his teachings: his harvest shall be a
hundredfold, and his Master shall have great honour.
Would to God that such might be our reward upon these brief meditations and
hurried hints. Grant it, O Lord, unto thy servant!