Evening, January 28
Charles Spurgeon · Morning and Evening: Daily Readings
Luke 2:20
"And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the
things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them."
Luke 2:20
What was the subject of their praise? They praised God for what they
had heard--for the good tidings of great joy that a Saviour was born
unto them. Let us copy them; let us also raise a song of thanksgiving
that we have heard of Jesus and his salvation. They also praised God
for what they had seen. There is the sweetest music--what we have
experienced, what we have felt within, what we have made our own--"the
things which we have made touching the King." It is not enough to hear
about Jesus: mere hearing may tune the harp, but the fingers of living
faith must create the music. If you have seen Jesus with the God-giving
sight of faith, suffer no cobwebs to linger among the harp strings, but
loud to the praise of sovereign grace, awake your psaltery and harp.
One point for which they praised God was the agreement between what
they had heard and what they had seen. Observe the last sentence--"As
it was told unto them." Have you not found the gospel to be in
yourselves just what the Bible said it would be? Jesus said he would
give you rest--have you not enjoyed the sweetest peace in him? He said
you should have joy, and comfort, and life through believing in
him--have you not received all these? Are not his ways ways of
pleasantness, and his paths paths of peace? Surely you can say with the
queen of Sheba, "The half has not been told me." I have found Christ
more sweet than his servants ever said he was. I looked upon his
likeness as they painted it, but it was a mere daub compared with
himself; for the King in his beauty outshines all imaginable
loveliness. Surely what we have "seen" keeps pace with, nay, far
exceeds, what we have "heard." Let us, then, glorify and praise God for
a Saviour so precious, and so satisfying.