Spurgeon: April PM
* 04/26/PM
"Blessed is he that watcheth."
--Revelation 16:15
"We die daily," said the apostle. This was the life of the
early Christians; they went everywhere with their lives in their
hands. We are not in this day called to pass through the same
fearful persecutions: if we were, the Lord would give us grace
to bear the test; but the tests of Christian life, at the
present moment, though outwardly not so terrible, are yet more
likely to overcome us than even those of the fiery age. We have
to bear the sneer of the world--that is little; its
blandishments, its soft words, its oily speeches, its fawning,
its hypocrisy, are far worse. Our danger is lest we grow rich
and become proud, lest we give ourselves up to the fashions of
this present evil world, and lose our faith. Or if wealth be not
the trial, worldly care is quite as mischievous. If we cannot be
torn in pieces by the roaring lion, if we may be hugged to death
by the bear, the devil little cares which it is, so long as he
destroys our love to Christ, and our confidence in Him. I fear
me that the Christian church is far more likely to lose her
integrity in these soft and silken days than in those rougher
times. We must be awake now, for we traverse the enchanted
ground, and are most likely to fall asleep to our own undoing,
unless our faith in Jesus be a reality, and our love to Jesus a
vehement flame. Many in these days of easy profession are likely
to prove tares, and not wheat; hypocrites with fair masks on
their faces, but not the true-born children of the living God.
Christian, do not think that these are times in which you can
dispense with watchfulness or with holy ardour; you need these
things more than ever, and may God the eternal Spirit display
His omnipotence in you, that you may be able to say, in all
these softer things, as well as in the rougher, "We are more
than conquerors through Him that loved us."