Evening, December 20
Charles Spurgeon · Morning and Evening: Daily Readings
Matthew 20:8
"Call the labourers, and give them their hire."
Matthew 20:8
God is a good paymaster; he pays his servants while at work as well as
when they have done it; and one of his payments is this: an easy
conscience. If you have spoken faithfully of Jesus to one person, when
you go to bed at night you feel happy in thinking, "I have this day
discharged my conscience of that man's blood." There is a great comfort
in doing something for Jesus. Oh, what a happiness to place jewels in
his crown, and give him to see of the travail of his soul! There is
also very great reward in watching the first buddings of conviction in
a soul! To say of that girl in the class, "She is tender of heart, I do
hope that there is the Lord's work within." To go home and pray over
that boy, who said something in the afternoon which made you think he
must know more of divine truth than you had feared! Oh, the joy of
hope! But as for the joy of success! it is unspeakable. This joy,
overwhelming as it is, is a hungry thing--you pine for more of it. To
be a soul-winner is the happiest thing in the world. With every soul
you bring to Christ, you get a new heaven upon earth. But who can
conceive the bliss which awaits us above! Oh, how sweet is that
sentence, "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!" Do you know what the
joy of Christ is over a saved sinner? This is the very joy which we are
to possess in heaven. Yes, when he mounts the throne, you shall mount
with him. When the heavens ring with "Well done, well done," you shall
partake in the reward; you have toiled with him, you have suffered with
him, you shall now reign with him; you have sown with him, you shall
reap with him; your face was covered with sweat like his, and your soul
was grieved for the sins of men as his soul was, now shall your face be
bright with heaven's splendour as is his countenance, and now shall
your soul be filled with beatific joys even as his soul is.