Spurgeon: October PM
* 10/16/PM
"With Thee is the fountain of life."
--Psalm 36:9
There are times in our spiritual experience when human
counsel or sympathy, or religious ordinances, fail to comfort or
help us. Why does our gracious God permit this? Perhaps it is
because we have been living too much without Him, and He
therefore takes away everything upon which we have been in the
habit of depending, that He may drive us to Himself. It is a
blessed thing to live at the fountain head. While our skin-
bottles are full, we are content, like Hagar and Ishmael, to go
into the wilderness; but when those are dry, nothing will serve
us but "Thou God seest me." We are like the prodigal, we love
the swine-troughs and forget our Father's house. Remember, we
can make swine-troughs and husks even out of the forms of
religion; they are blessed things, but we may put them in God's
place, and then they are of no value. Anything becomes an idol
when it keeps us away from God: even the brazen serpent is to be
despised as "Nehushtan," if we worship it instead of God. The
prodigal was never safer than when he was driven to his father's
bosom, because he could find sustenance nowhere else. Our Lord
favours us with a famine in the land that it may make us seek
after Himself the more. The best position for a Christian is
living wholly and directly on God's grace--still abiding where
he stood at first--"Having nothing, and yet possessing all
things." Let us never for a moment think that our standing is in
our sanctification, our mortification, our graces, or our
feelings, but know that because Christ offered a full atonement,
therefore we are saved; for we are complete in Him. Having
nothing of our own to trust to, but resting upon the merits of
Jesus--His passion and holy life furnish us with the only sure
ground of confidence. Beloved, when we are brought to a
thirsting condition, we are sure to turn to the fountain of life
with eagerness.