Evening and Morning
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
December 1
Morning
"Thou hast made summer and winter."—Psalm
74:17.
My soul begin this wintry month with thy God. The cold snows
and the piercing winds all remind thee that He keeps His covenant with day and
night, and tend to assure thee that He will also keep that glorious covenant
which He has made with thee in the person of Christ Jesus. He who is true to
His Word in the revolutions of the seasons of this poor sin-polluted world,
will not prove unfaithful in His dealings with His own well-beloved Son.
Winter in
the soul is by no means a comfortable season, and if it be upon thee just now
it will be very painful to thee: but there is this comfort, namely, that the
Lord makes it. He sends the sharp blasts of adversity to nip the buds of
expectation: He scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes
over the once verdant meadows of our joy: He casteth
forth His ice like morsels freezing the streams of our delight. He does it all,
He is the great Winter King, and rules in the realms of frost, and therefore
thou canst not murmur. Losses, crosses, heaviness, sickness, poverty, and a
thousand other ills, are of the Lord's sending, and come to us with wise
design. Frosts kill noxious insects, and put a bound to raging diseases; they
break up the clods, and sweeten the soul. O that such good results would always
follow our winters of affliction!
How we
prize the fire just now! how pleasant is its cheerful
glow! Let us in the same manner prize our Lord, who is the constant source of
warmth and comfort in every time of trouble. Let us draw nigh to Him, and in
Him find joy and peace in believing. Let us wrap ourselves in the warm garments
of His promises, and go forth to labours which befit
the season, for it were ill to be as the sluggard who will not plough by reason
of the cold; for he shall beg in summer and have nothing.
Evening
"O that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His
wonderful works to the children of men."—Psalm
107:8.
If we
complained less, and praised more, we should be happier, and God would be more
glorified. Let us daily praise God for common mercies—common as we
frequently call them, and yet so priceless, that when deprived of them we are
ready to perish. Let us bless God for the eyes with which we behold the sun,
for the health and strength to walk abroad, for the bread we eat, for the
raiment we wear. Let us praise Him that we are not cast out among the hopeless,
or confined amongst the guilty; let us thank Him for liberty, for friends, for
family associations and comforts; let us praise Him, in fact, for everything
which we receive from His bounteous hand, for we deserve little, and yet are
most plenteously endowed. But, beloved, the sweetest and the loudest note in our
songs of praise should be of redeeming love. God's redeeming acts
towards His chosen are for ever the favourite themes of their praise. If we know what
redemption means, let us not withhold our sonnets of thanksgiving. We have been
redeemed from the power of our corruptions, uplifted from the depth of sin in
which we were naturally plunged. We have been led to the cross of
Christ—our shackles of guilt have been broken off; we are no longer
slaves, but children of the living God, and can antedate the period when we
shall be presented before the throne without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
Even now by faith we wave the palm-branch and wrap ourselves about with the
fair linen which is to be our everlasting array, and
shall we not unceasingly give thanks to the Lord our Redeemer? Child of God,
canst thou be silent? Awake, awake, ye heritors of glory, and lead your
captivity captive, as ye cry with David, "Bless the Lord, O my soul: and
all that is within me, bless His holy name." Let the new month begin with
new songs.