Evening and Morning
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
February 26
Morning
"Salvation
is of the Lord."—Jonah 2:9.
Salvation is the work of
God. It is He alone who quickens the soul "dead in trespasses and
sins," and it is He also who maintains the soul in its spiritual life. He
is both "Alpha and Omega." "Salvation is of the Lord." If I
am prayerful, God makes me prayerful; if I have graces, they are God's gifts to
me; if I hold on in a consistent life, it is because He upholds me with His
hand. I do nothing whatever towards my own preservation, except what God
Himself first does in me. Whatever I have, all my goodness is of the Lord
alone. Wherein I sin, that is my own; but wherein I act rightly, that is of
God, wholly and completely. If I have repulsed a spiritual enemy, the Lord's
strength nerved my arm. Do I live before men a consecrated life? It is not I,
but Christ who liveth in me. Am I sanctified? I did
not cleanse myself: God's Holy Spirit sanctifies me. Am I weaned from the
world? I am weaned by God's chastisements sanctified to my good. Do I
grow in knowledge? The great Instructor teaches me. All my jewels were
fashioned by heavenly art. I find in God all that I want; but I find in myself
nothing but sin and misery. "He only is my rock and my salvation." Do
I feed on the Word? That Word would be no food for me unless the Lord made it
food for my soul, and helped me to feed upon it. Do I live on the manna which comes down from heaven? What is that manna but
Jesus Christ himself incarnate, whose body and whose
blood I eat and drink? Am I continually receiving fresh increase of strength?
Where do I gather my might? My help cometh from heaven's hills: without Jesus I
can do nothing. As a branch cannot bring forth fruit except it abide in the
vine, no more can I, except I abide in Him. What Jonah learned in the great
deep, let me learn this morning in my closet: "Salvation is of the
Lord."
Evening
"Behold,
if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean that
hath the plague."—Leviticus 13:13.
Strange enough this
regulation appears, yet there was wisdom in it, for the throwing out of the
disease proved that the constitution was sound. This evening it may be well for
us to see the typical teaching of so singular a rule. We, too, are lepers, and
may read the law of the leper as applicable to ourselves. When a man sees
himself to be altogether lost and ruined, covered all over with the defilement
of sin, and in no part free from pollution; when he disclaims all righteousness
of his own, and pleads guilty before the Lord, then he is clean through the
blood of Jesus, and the grace of God. Hidden, unfelt, unconfessed
iniquity is the true leprosy; but when sin is seen and felt, it has received
its deathblow, and the Lord looks with eyes of mercy upon the soul afflicted
with it. Nothing is more deadly than self-righteousness, or more hopeful than
contrition. We must confess that we are "nothing else but sin," for
no confession short of this will be the whole truth; and if the Holy Spirit be
at work with us, convincing us of sin, there will be no difficulty about making
such an acknowledgment—it will spring spontaneously from our lips. What
comfort does the text afford to truly awakened sinners: the very circumstance which so grievously discouraged them is here
turned into a sign and symptom of a hopeful state! Stripping comes before
clothing; digging out the foundation is the first thing in building—and a
thorough sense of sin is one of the earliest works of grace in the heart. O
thou poor leprous sinner, utterly destitute of a sound spot, take heart from
the text, and come as thou art to Jesus—
"For let our debts be
what they may, however great or small, As soon as we have nought
to pay, our Lord forgives us all. 'Tis perfect
poverty alone that sets the soul at large: While we can call one mite our own,
we have no full discharge."