Morning, April 8

Charles Spurgeon · Morning and Evening: Daily Readings

"If they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the
   dry?"

  Luke 23:31

   Among other interpretations of this suggestive question, the following
   is full of teaching: "If the innocent substitute for sinners, suffer
   thus, what will be done when the sinner himself--the dry tree--shall
   fall into the hands of an angry God?" When God saw Jesus in the
   sinner's place, he did not spare him; and when he finds the
   unregenerate without Christ, he will not spare them. O sinner, Jesus
   was led away by his enemies: so shall you be dragged away by fiends to
   the place appointed for you. Jesus was deserted of God; and if he, who
   was only imputedly a sinner, was deserted, how much more shall you be?
   "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" what an awful shriek! But what shall be
   your cry when you shall say, "O God! O God! why hast thou forsaken me?"
   and the answer shall come back, "Because ye have set at nought all my
   counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your
   calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh." If God spared not his own
   Son, how much less will he spare you! What whips of burning wire will
   be yours when conscience shall smite you with all its terrors. Ye
   richest, ye merriest, ye most self-righteous sinners--who would stand
   in your place when God shall say, "Awake, O sword, against the man that
   rejected me; smite him, and let him feel the smart forever"? Jesus was
   spit upon: sinner, what shame will be yours! We cannot sum up in one
   word all the mass of sorrows which met upon the head of Jesus who died
   for us; therefore it is impossible for us to tell you what streams,
   what oceans of grief must roll over your spirit if you die as you now
   are. You may die so, you may die now. By the agonies of Christ, by his
   wounds and by his blood, do not bring upon yourselves the wrath to
   come! Trust in the Son of God, and you shall never die.