Evening and Morning
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
August 5
Morning
"We know
that all things work together for good to them that love God."—Romans 8:28.
Upon some
points a believer is absolutely sure. He knows, for instance, that God sits in
the stern-sheets of the vessel when it rocks most. He
believes that an invisible hand is always on the world's tiller, and that
wherever providence may drift, Jehovah steers it. That re-assuring knowledge
prepares him for everything. He looks over the raging waters and sees the
spirit of Jesus treading the billows, and he hears a voice saying, "It is
I, be not afraid." He knows too that God is always wise, and, knowing
this, he is confident that there can be no accidents, no mistakes; that nothing can occur which ought not to arise. He can
say, "If I should lose all I have, it is better that I should lose than
have, if God so wills: the worst calamity is the wisest and the kindest thing
that could befall to me if God ordains it." "We know that all things
work together for good to them that love God." The Christian does not merely
hold this as a theory, but he knows it as a matter of fact. Everything has
worked for good as yet; the poisonous drugs mixed in fit proportions have
worked the cure; the sharp cuts of the lancet have cleansed out the proud flesh
and facilitated the healing. Every event as yet has worked out the most
divinely blessed results; and so, believing that God rules all, that He governs
wisely, that He brings good out of evil, the believer's heart is assured, and
he is enabled calmly to meet each trial as it comes. The believer can in the
spirit of true resignation pray, "Send me what thou wilt, my God, so long
as it comes from Thee; never came there an ill portion from Thy table to any of
Thy children."
"Say not my soul, 'From
whence can God relieve my care?
Remember that Omnipotence has servants everywhere.
His method is sublime, His heart profoundly kind,
God never is before His
time, and never is behind.'"
Evening
"Shall
your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit here?"—Numbers 32:6.
Kindred
has its
obligations. The Reubenites and Gadites
would have been unbrotherly if they had claimed the land which had been conquered, and had left the rest of the
people to fight for their portions alone. We have received much by means of the
efforts and sufferings of the saints in years gone by, and if we do not make
some return to the church of Christ by giving her our best energies, we are
unworthy to be enrolled in her ranks. Others are combating the errors of the
age manfully, or excavating perishing ones from amid the ruins of the fall, and
if we fold our hands in idleness we had need be warned, lest the curse of Meroz fall upon us. The Master of the vineyard saith, "Why stand ye here all the day idle?" What
is the idler's excuse? Personal service of Jesus becomes all the more the duty
of all because it is cheerfully and abundantly rendered by
some. The toils of devoted missionaries and fervent ministers shame us
if we sit still in indolence. Shrinking from trial is the temptation of those
who are at ease in Zion: they would fain escape the cross and yet wear the
crown; to them the question for this evening's meditation is very applicable.
If the most precious are tried in the fire, are we to escape the crucible? If
the diamond must be vexed upon the wheel, are we to be made perfect without
suffering? Who hath commanded the wind to cease from blowing because our bark
is on the deep? Why and wherefore should we be treated better than our Lord?
The firstborn felt the rod, and why not the younger brethren? It is a cowardly pride which would choose a downy pillow and a silken couch
for a soldier of the cross. Wiser far is he who, being first resigned to the
divine will, groweth by the energy of grace to be
pleased with it, and so learns to gather lilies at the cross foot, and, like
Samson, to find honey in the lion.