Evening and Morning
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
June 23
Morning
"Ephraim is a cake not turned."—Hosea 7:8.
A cake not turned is uncooked
on one side; and so Ephraim was, in many respects, untouched by divine
grace: though there was some partial obedience, there was very much rebellion
left. My soul, I charge thee, see whether this be thy case. Art thou thorough
in the things of God? Has grace gone through the very centre
of thy being so as to be felt in its divine operations in all thy powers, thy
actions, thy words, and thy thoughts? To be sanctified, spirit, soul, and body,
should be thine aim and prayer; and although
sanctification may not be perfect in thee anywhere in degree, yet it must be
universal in its action; there must not be the appearance of holiness in one
place and reigning sin in another, else thou, too, wilt be a cake not turned.
A cake not turned is soon
burnt on the side nearest the fire, and although no man can have too much
religion, there are some who seem burnt black with bigoted zeal for that part
of truth which they have received, or are charred to a cinder with a
vainglorious Pharisaic ostentation of those religious performances which suit
their humour. The assumed appearance of superior
sanctity frequently accompanies a total absence of all vital godliness. The
saint in public is a devil in private. He deals in flour by day and in soot by
night. The cake which is burned on one side, is dough on the other.
If it be
so with me, O Lord, turn me! Turn my unsanctified nature to the fire of Thy
love and let it feel the sacred glow, and let my burnt side cool a little while
I learn my own weakness and want of heat when I am removed from Thy heavenly
flame. Let me not be found a double-minded man, but one entirely under the
powerful influence of reigning grace; for well I know if I am left like a cake
unturned, and am not on both sides the subject of Thy grace, I must be consumed
for ever amid everlasting burnings.
Evening
"Waiting for the adoption."—Romans 8:23.
Even in this world saints
are God's children, but men cannot discover them to be so, except by certain
moral characteristics. The adoption is not manifested, the children are not yet
openly declared. Among the Romans a man might adopt a child, and keep it
private for a long time: but there was a second adoption in public; when the
child was brought before the constituted authorities its former garments were
taken off, and the father who took it to be his child gave it raiment suitable
to its new condition of life. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it
doth not yet appear what we shall be." We are not yet arrayed in the
apparel which befits the royal family of heaven; we are wearing in this flesh and
blood just what we wore as the sons of Adam; but we know that "when He
shall appear" who is the "first-born among many brethren," we
shall be like Him, we shall see Him as He is. Cannot you imagine that a child
taken from the lowest ranks of society, and adopted by a Roman senator, would
say to himself, "I long for the day when I shall
be publicly adopted. Then I shall leave off these plebeian garments, and be
robed as becomes my senatorial rank"? Happy in what he has received, for
that very reason he groans to get the fulness of what
is promised him. So it is with us today. We are waiting till we shall put on
our proper garments, and shall be manifested as the children of God. We are
young nobles, and have not yet worn our coronets. We are young brides, and the
marriage day is not yet come, and by the love our Spouse bears us, we are led
to long and sigh for the bridal morning. Our very happiness makes us groan
after more; our joy, like a swollen spring, longs to well up like an Iceland
geyser, leaping to the skies, and it heaves and groans within our spirit for
want of space and room by which to manifest itself to men.