Spurgeon: October PM
* 10/19/PM
"God, my Maker, who giveth songs in the night."
--Job 35:10
Any man can sing in the day. When the cup is full, man draws
inspiration from it. When wealth rolls in abundance around him,
any man can praise the God who gives a plenteous harvest or
sends home a loaded argosy. It is easy enough for an Aeolian
harp to whisper music when the winds blow--the difficulty is for
music to swell forth when no wind is stirring. It is easy to
sing when we can read the notes by daylight; but he is skilful
who sings when there is not a ray of light to read by--who sings
from his heart. No man can make a song in the night of himself;
he may attempt it, but he will find that a song in the night
must be divinely inspired. Let all things go well, I can weave
songs, fashioning them wherever I go out of the flowers that
grow upon my path; but put me in a desert, where no green thing
grows, and wherewith shall I frame a hymn of praise to God? How
shall a mortal man make a crown for the Lord where no jewels
are? Let but this voice be clear, and this body full of health,
and I can sing God's praise: silence my tongue, lay me upon the
bed of languishing, and how shall I then chant God's high
praises, unless He Himself give me the song? No, it is not in
man's power to sing when all is adverse, unless an altar-coal
shall touch his lip. It was a divine song, which Habakkuk sang,
when in the night he said, "Although the fig-tree shall not
blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the
olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock
shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in
the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the
God of my salvation." Then, since our Maker gives songs in the
night , let us wait upon Him for the music. O Thou chief
musician, let us not remain songless because affliction is upon
us, but tune Thou our lips to the melody of thanksgiving.