Evening, April 8

Charles Spurgeon · Morning and Evening: Daily Readings

"I will fear no evil: for thou art with me."

  Psalm 23:4

   Behold, how independent of outward circumstances the Holy Ghost can
   make the Christian! What a bright light may shine within us when it is
   all dark without! How firm, how happy, how calm, how peaceful we may
   be, when the world shakes to and fro, and the pillars of the earth are
   removed! Even death itself, with all its terrible influences, has no
   power to suspend the music of a Christian's heart, but rather makes
   that music become more sweet, more clear, more heavenly, till the last
   kind act which death can do is to let the earthly strain melt into the
   heavenly chorus, the temporal joy into the eternal bliss! Let us have
   confidence, then, in the blessed Spirit's power to comfort us. Dear
   reader, are you looking forward to poverty? Fear not; the divine Spirit
   can give you, in your want, a greater plenty than the rich have in
   their abundance. You know not what joys may be stored up for you in the
   cottage around which grace will plant the roses of content. Are you
   conscious of a growing failure of your bodily powers? Do you expect to
   suffer long nights of languishing and days of pain? O be not sad! That
   bed may become a throne to you. You little know how every pang that
   shoots through your body may be a refining fire to consume your
   dross--a beam of glory to light up the secret parts of your soul. Are
   the eyes growing dim? Jesus will be your light. Do the ears fail you?
   Jesus' name will be your soul's best music, and his person your dear
   delight. Socrates used to say, "Philosophers can be happy without
   music;" and Christians can be happier than philosophers when all
   outward causes of rejoicing are withdrawn. In thee, my God, my heart
   shall triumph, come what may of ills without! By thy power, O blessed
   Spirit, my heart shall be exceeding glad, though all things should fail
   me here below.