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February 26

Morning

Salvation is of the Lord. — Jonah 2:9

Salvation is the work of God. It is He alone who quickens the soul which is “dead in trespasses and sins,” and it is He also who maintains the soul in its spiritual life. He is both “Alpha and Omega.” “Salvation is of the Lord.” If I am prayerful, God makes me prayerful; if I have graces, they are God’s gifts to me; if I hold on in a consistent life, it is because He upholds me with His hand. I do nothing whatever towards my own preservation, except what God Himself first does in me. Whatever I have, all my goodness is of the Lord alone. Wherein I sin—that is my own; but wherein I act rightly—that is of God, wholly and completely. If I have repulsed a spiritual enemy, the Lord’s strength nerved my arm. Do I live before men a consecrated life? It is not I but Christ who lives in me. Am I holy? I did not cleanse myself—God’s Holy Spirit sanctifies me. Am I weaned from the world? I am weaned by God’s chastisements sanctified to my good. Do I grow in knowledge? The great Instructor teaches me. All my jewels were fashioned by heavenly art. I find in God all that I need but I find in myself nothing but sin and misery.

“He alone is my rock and my salvation.” Do I feed on the Word? That Word would be no food for me, unless the Lord made it food for my soul, and helped me to feed upon it. Do I live on the manna which comes down from heaven? What is that manna but Jesus Christ himself incarnate, whose body and whose blood I eat and drink? Am I continually receiving fresh increase of strength? Where do I gather my might? My help comes from heaven’s hills—without Jesus I can do nothing! As a branch cannot bring forth fruit, except it abides in the vine, no more can I, except I abide in Him. What Jonah learned in the great deep—let me learn this morning in my closet: “Salvation is of the Lord.”


Evening

Behold, if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague. — Lev 13:13

This regulation appears somewhat strange—yet there was wisdom in it, for the growing out of the disease, proved that the constitution was sound. This evening it may be well for us to see the typical teaching of so remarkable a rule.

We, too, are lepers, and may read the law of the leper as applicable to ourselves. When a man sees himself to be altogether lost and ruined, covered all over with the defilement of sin, and in no part free from pollution; when he disclaims all righteousness of his own, and pleads guilty before the Lord—then he is clean through the blood of Jesus, and the grace of God. Hidden, unfelt, unconfessed iniquity—is the true leprosy; but when sin is seen and felt—it has received its deathblow, and the Lord looks with eyes of mercy upon the soul afflicted with it.

Nothing is more deadly than self-righteousness, or more hopeful than sincere contrition. We must confess that we are “nothing else but sin,” for no confession short of this will be the whole truth; and if the Holy Spirit is at work with us, convincing us of sin, there will be no difficulty about making such an acknowledgment; it will spring spontaneously from our lips.

What comfort does the text afford to truly awakened sinners! The very circumstance which so grievously discouraged them—is here turned into a sign and symptom of a hopeful state! Stripping comes before clothing; digging out the foundation is the first thing in building and a thorough sense of sin is one of the earliest works of grace in the heart.

O you poor leprous sinner, utterly destitute of a sound spot—take heart from the text, and come as you are to Jesus!

“For let our debts be what they may, however great or small, As soon as we have nothing to pay, our Lord forgives us all. It is perfect poverty alone that sets the soul at large; While we can call one mite our own, we have no full discharge.”


Morning and Evening - February 26

Public domain content taken from Morning and Evening by Charles H. Spurgeon.


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