M&E Thursday

 

Morning and Evening: Daily Readings
by C. H. Spurgeon
Thursday Morning, December 30

Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof.

Ecclesiastes 7:8

Look at David's Lord and Master; see his beginning. He was despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Would you see the end? He sits at his Father's right hand, expecting until his enemies be made his footstool. As he is, so are we also in this world. You must bear the cross, or you shall never wear the crown; you must wade through the mire, or you shall never walk the golden pavement. Cheer up, then, poor Christian. Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof. See that creeping worm, how contemptible its appearance! It is the beginning of a thing. Mark that insect with gorgeous wings, playing in the sunbeams, sipping at the flower bells, full of happiness and life; that is the end thereof. That caterpillar is yourself, until you are wrapped up in the chrysalis of death; but when Christ shall appear you shall be like him, for you shall see him as he is. Be content to be like him, a worm and no man, that like him you may be satisfied when you wake up in his likeness. That rough-looking diamond is put upon the wheel of the lapidary. He cuts it on all sides. It loses much--much that seemed costly to itself. The king is crowned; the diadem is put upon the monarch's head with trumpet's joyful sound. A glittering ray flashes from that coronet, and it beams from that very diamond which was just now so sorely vexed by the lapidary. You may venture to compare yourself to such a diamond, for you are one of God's people; and this is the time of the cutting process. Let faith and patience have their perfect work, for in the day when the crown shall be set upon the head of the King, Eternal, Immortal, Invisible, one ray of glory shall stream from you. They shall be mine, saith the Lord, in the day when I make up my jewels. Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof.

 

Evening, December 30

Knowest thou not that it will be bitterness in the latter end?

2 Samuel 2:26

If, O my reader! thou art merely a professor, and not a possessor of the faith that is in Christ Jesus, the following lines are a true ketch of thine end.

You are a respectable attendant at a place of worship; you go because others go, not because your heart is right with God. This is your beginning. I will suppose that for the next twenty or thirty years you will be spared to go on as you do now, professing religion by an outward attendance upon the means of grace, but having no heart in the matter. Tread softly, for I must show you the deathbed of such a one as yourself. Let us gaze upon him gently. A clammy sweat is on his brow, and he wakes up crying, O God, it is hard to die. Did you send for my minister? Yes, he is coming. The minister comes. Sir, I fear that I am dying! Have you any hope? I cannot say that I have. I fear to stand before my God; oh! pray for me. The prayer is offered for him with sincere earnestness, and the way of salvation is for the ten-thousandth time put before him, but before he has grasped the rope, I see him sink. I may put my finger upon those cold eyelids, for they will never see anything here again. But where is the man, and where are the man's true eyes? It is written, In hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment. Ah! why did he not lift up his eyes before? Because he was so accustomed to hear the gospel that his soul slept under it. Alas! if you should lift up your eyes there, how bitter will be your wailings. Let the Saviour's own words reveal the woe: Father Abraham, send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame. There is a frightful meaning in those words. May you never have to spell it out by the red light of Jehovah's wrath!
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MORNING THOUGHTS, or
DAILY WALKING WITH GOD

By Octavius Winslow, Leamington, Dec. 1856.
 

"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin." 1 John 1:7

NOT only is Jesus the actual, but He is also the relative life of the believer—the life of his pardon and acceptance. See it in reference to the blood of Immanuel. It is the blood of Him who was essential life. And, although springing from His pure humanity, essential life gave it all its virtue and its power. The resurrection of Jesus confirmed forever the infinite value and sovereign efficacy of His atoning blood. Oh what virtue has it now, flowing from the life of Jesus! It has removed transgression to the distance of infinity, and for ever from the Church. Washed whiter than snow, forgiven all iniquity, blotted out all sin, the believer stands before God a pardoned soul. And, oh! what life does he find in the constant application to his conscience of the atoning blood! One drop, what peace does it give! what confidence does it inspire! what vigor does it impart to faith, and power to prayer, and cheerfulness to obedience! Oh, it is living blood. He who spilt it lives to plead it, lives to apply it, lives to sustain its virtue, until there shall be no more sins to cancel, and no more sinners to save. "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin," and "speaks better things than the blood of Abel," because it possesses undying life. Behold then, beloved, how manifestly is Jesus the life of your pardon. Oh! as fresh, as efficacious, as precious is that blood at this moment as when it spring warm and gushing from the pierced side of the glorious Redeemer. It is life-giving and life-sustaining blood. Here we see the antitype of the "living bird dipped in the blood of the bird slain," and then suffered to go free, suspended mid-heaven upon the wing of unrestricted and joyous life. As the living bird bore upon its plumage the crimson symbol of atonement—death and life thus strangely blended—what was the glorious gospel truth it shadowed forth, but the close and indissoluble union of the pardoning blood with the resurrection life of our incarnate God? And, O believer, lose not sight of the deep significance of the "running water" over which the bird was slain. That flowing stream was the image of the perpetual life of the blood of Jesus. And it bids you, in language too expressive to misunderstand, and too persuasive to resist, to draw near and wash. Glorious truth that it teaches! Precious privilege that it enforces!—the repeated, the perpetual going to Immanuel's atoning, life-giving, life-sustaining blood, thus keeping the conscience clean and at peace with God.
 

 

 

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