Evening, March 30
Charles Spurgeon · Morning and Evening: Daily Readings
Lamentations 3:40
"Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord."
Lamentations 3:40
The spouse who fondly loves her absent husband longs for his return; a
long protracted separation from her lord is a semi-death to her spirit:
and so with souls who love the Saviour much, they must see his face,
they cannot bear that he should be away upon the mountains of Bether,
and no more hold communion with them. A reproaching glance, an uplifted
finger will be grievous to loving children, who fear to offend their
tender father, and are only happy in his smile. Beloved, it was so once
with you. A text of Scripture, a threatening, a touch of the rod of
affliction, and you went to your Father's feet, crying, "Show me
wherefore thou contendest with me?" Is it so now? Are you content to
follow Jesus afar off? Can you contemplate suspended communion with
Christ without alarm? Can you bear to have your Beloved walking
contrary to you, because you walk contrary to him? Have your sins
separated between you and your God, and is your heart at rest? O let me
affectionately warn you, for it is a grievous thing when we can live
contentedly without the present enjoyment of the Saviour's face. Let us
labour to feel what an evil thing this is--little love to our own dying
Saviour, little joy in our precious Jesus, little fellowship with the
Beloved! Hold a true Lent in your souls, while you sorrow over your
hardness of heart. Do not stop at sorrow! Remember where you first
received salvation. Go at once to the cross. There, and there only, can
you get your spirit quickened. No matter how hard, how insensible, how
dead we may have become, let us go again in all the rags and poverty,
and defilement of our natural condition. Let us clasp that cross, let
us look into those languid eyes, let us bathe in that fountain filled
with blood--this will bring back to us our first love; this will
restore the simplicity of our faith, and the tenderness of our heart.