Evening and Morning
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
October 24
Morning
"The
trees of the Lord are full of sap."—Psalm 104:16.
Without sap the tree cannot
flourish or even exist. Vitality is essential to a Christian. There must
be life—a vital principle infused into us by God the Holy Ghost,
or we cannot be trees of the Lord. The mere name of being a Christian is but a
dead thing, we must be filled with the spirit of divine life. This life is mysterious.
We do not understand the circulation of the sap, by what force it rises, and by
what power it descends again. So the life within us is a sacred mystery.
Regeneration is wrought by the Holy Ghost entering into man and becoming man's
life; and this divine life in a believer afterwards feeds upon the flesh and
blood of Christ and is thus sustained by divine food, but whence it cometh and
whither it goeth who shall explain to us? What a secret
thing the sap is! The roots go searching through the soil with their little spongioles, but we cannot see them suck out the various
gases, or transmute the mineral into the vegetable; this work is done down in
the dark. Our root is Christ Jesus, and our life is hid in Him; this is the
secret of the Lord. The radix of the Christian life is as secret as the life
itself. How permanently active is the sap in the cedar! In the Christian
the divine life is always full of energy—not always in fruit-bearing,
but in inward operations. The believer's graces, are not every one of
them in constant motion? but his life never ceases to
palpitate within. He is not always working for God, but his heart is always
living upon Him. As the sap manifests itself in producing the foliage and
fruit of the tree, so with a truly healthy Christian, his grace is
externally manifested in his walk and conversation. If you talk with him, he
cannot help speaking about Jesus. If you notice his actions you will see that
he has been with Jesus. He has so much sap within, that it must fill his
conduct and conversation with life.
Evening
"He
began to wash the disciples' feet."—John 13:5.
The Lord Jesus loves His
people so much, that every day He is still doing for them much that is
analogous to washing their soiled feet. Their poorest actions He accepts; their
deepest sorrow He feels; their slenderest wish He hears, and their every transgression
He forgives. He is still their servant as well as their Friend and Master. He
not only performs majestic deeds for them, as wearing the mitre
on His brow, and the precious jewels glittering on His breastplate, and
standing up to plead for them, but humbly, patiently, He yet goes about among
His people with the basin and the towel. He does this when He puts away from us day by day our constant infirmities and sins. Last night,
when you bowed the knee, you mournfully confessed that much of your conduct was
not worthy of your profession; and even tonight, you must mourn afresh that you
have fallen again into the selfsame folly and sin from which special grace
delivered you long ago; and yet Jesus will have great patience with you; He
will hear your confession of sin; He will say, "I will, be thou
clean"; He will again apply the blood of sprinkling, and speak peace to
your conscience, and remove every spot. It is a great act of eternal love when
Christ once for all absolves the sinner, and puts him into the family of God;
but what condescending patience there is when the Saviour
with much long-suffering bears the oft recurring follies of His wayward
disciple; day by day, and hour by hour, washing away the multiplied
transgressions of His erring but yet beloved child! To dry up a flood of
rebellion is something marvellous, but to endure the
constant dropping of repeated offences—to bear with a perpetual trying of
patience, this is divine indeed! While we find comfort and peace in our Lord's
daily cleansing, its legitimate influence upon us will be to increase our
watchfulness, and quicken our desire for holiness. Is it so?