Evening, October 6

Charles Spurgeon · Morning and Evening: Daily Readings

"He had married an Ethiopian woman."

  Numbers 12:1

   Strange choice of Moses, but how much more strange the choice of him
   who is a prophet like unto Moses, and greater than he! Our Lord, who is
   fair as the lily, has entered into marriage union with one who
   confesses herself to be black, because the sun has looked upon her. It
   is the wonder of angels that the love of Jesus should be set upon poor,
   lost, guilty men. Each believer must, when filled with a sense of
   Jesus' love, be also overwhelmed with astonishment that such love
   should be lavished on an object so utterly unworthy of it. Knowing as
   we do our secret guiltiness, unfaithfulness, and black-heartedness, we
   are dissolved in grateful admiration of the matchless freeness and
   sovereignty of grace. Jesus must have found the cause of his love in
   his own heart, he could not have found it in us, for it is not there.
   Even since our conversion we have been black, though grace has made us
   comely. Holy Rutherford said of himself what we must each subscribe
   to--"His relation to me is, that I am sick, and he is the Physician of
   whom I stand in need. Alas! how often I play fast and loose with
   Christ! He bindeth, I loose; he buildeth, I cast down; I quarrel with
   Christ, and he agreeth with me twenty times a day!" Most tender and
   faithful Husband of our souls, pursue thy gracious work of conforming
   us to thine image, till thou shalt present even us poor Ethiopians unto
   thyself, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. Moses met with
   opposition because of his marriage, and both himself and his spouse
   were the subjects of an evil eye. Can we wonder if this vain world
   opposes Jesus and his spouse, and especially when great sinners are
   converted? for this is ever the Pharisee's ground of objection, "This
   man receiveth sinners." Still is the old cause of quarrel revived,
   "Because he had married an Ethiopian woman."