Evening, July 2
Charles Spurgeon · Morning and Evening: Daily Readings
Psalms 28:1
"Unto thee will I cry, O Lord my rock; be not silent to me: lest, if
thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit."
Psalm 28:1
A cry is the natural expression of sorrow, and a suitable utterance
when all other modes of appeal fail us; but the cry must be alone
directed to the Lord, for to cry to man is to waste our entreaties upon
the air. When we consider the readiness of the Lord to hear, and his
ability to aid, we shall see good reason for directing all our appeals
at once to the God of our salvation. It will be in vain to call to the
rocks in the day of judgment, but our Rock attends to our cries.
"Be not silent to me." Mere formalists may be content without answers
to their prayers, but genuine suppliants cannot; they are not satisfied
with the results of prayer itself in calming the mind and subduing the
will--they must go further, and obtain actual replies from heaven, or
they cannot rest; and those replies they long to receive at once, they
dread even a little of God's silence. God's voice is often so terrible
that it shakes the wilderness; but his silence is equally full of awe
to an eager suppliant. When God seems to close his ear, we must not
therefore close our mouths, but rather cry with more earnestness; for
when our note grows shrill with eagerness and grief, he will not long
deny us a hearing. What a dreadful case should we be in if the Lord
should become forever silent to our prayers? "Lest, if thou be silent
to me, I become like them that go down into the pit." Deprived of the
God who answers prayer, we should be in a more pitiable plight than the
dead in the grave, and should soon sink to the same level as the lost
in hell. We must have answers to prayer: ours is an urgent case of dire
necessity; surely the Lord will speak peace to our agitated minds, for
he never can find it in his heart to permit his own elect to perish.