Morning, February 1

Charles Spurgeon · Morning and Evening: Daily Readings

"They shall sing in the ways of the Lord."

  Psalm 138:5

   The time when Christians begin to sing in the ways of the Lord is when
   they first lose their burden at the foot of the Cross. Not even the
   songs of the angels seem so sweet as the first song of rapture which
   gushes from the inmost soul of the forgiven child of God. You know how
   John Bunyan describes it. He says when poor Pilgrim lost his burden at
   the Cross, he gave three great leaps, and went on his way singing--


   "Blest Cross! blest Sepulchre! blest rather be

   The Man that there was put to shame for me!"

   Believer, do you recollect the day when your fetters fell off? Do you
   remember the place when Jesus met you, and said, "I have loved thee
   with an everlasting love; I have blotted out as a cloud thy
   transgressions, and as a thick cloud thy sins; they shall not be
   mentioned against thee any more forever." Oh! what a sweet season is
   that when Jesus takes away the pain of sin. When the Lord first
   pardoned my sin, I was so joyous that I could scarce refrain from
   dancing. I thought on my road home from the house where I had been set
   at liberty, that I must tell the stones in the street the story of my
   deliverance. So full was my soul of joy, that I wanted to tell every
   snow-flake that was falling from heaven of the wondrous love of Jesus,
   who had blotted out the sins of one of the chief of rebels. But it is
   not only at the commencement of the Christian life that believers have
   reason for song; as long as they live they discover cause to sing in
   the ways of the Lord, and their experience of his constant
   lovingkindness leads them to say, "I will bless the Lord at all times:
   his praise shall continually be in my mouth." See to it, brother, that
   thou magnifiest the Lord this day.


   "Long as we tread this desert land,

   New mercies shall new songs demand."