Spurgeon: April PM
* 04/08/PM
"I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me."
--Psalm 23:4
Behold, how independent of outward circumstances the Holy
Ghost can make the Christian! What a bright light may shine
within us when it is all dark without! How firm, how happy, how
calm, how peaceful we may be, when the world shakes to and fro,
and the pillars of the earth are removed! Even death itself,
with all its terrible influences, has no power to suspend the
music of a Christian's heart, but rather makes that music become
more sweet, more clear, more heavenly, till the last kind act
which death can do is to let the earthly strain melt into the
heavenly chorus, the temporal joy into the eternal bliss! Let us
have confidence, then, in the blessed Spirit's power to comfort
us. Dear reader, are you looking forward to poverty? Fear not;
the divine Spirit can give you, in your want, a greater plenty
than the rich have in their abundance. You know not what joys
may be stored up for you in the cottage around which grace will
plant the roses of content. Are you conscious of a growing
failure of your bodily powers? Do you expect to suffer long
nights of languishing and days of pain? O be not sad! That bed
may become a throne to you. You little know how every pang that
shoots through your body may be a refining fire to consume your
dross--a beam of glory to light up the secret parts of your
soul. Are the eyes growing dim? Jesus will be your light. Do the
ears fail you? Jesus' name will be your soul's best music, and
His person your dear delight. Socrates used to say,
"Philosophers can be happy without music;" and Christians can be
happier than philosophers when all outward causes of rejoicing
are withdrawn. In Thee, my God, my heart shall triumph, come
what may of ills without! By thy power, O blessed Spirit, my
heart shall be exceeding glad, though all things should fail me
here below.