Spurgeon: December AM
* 12/01/AM
"Thou hast made summer and winter."
--Psalm 74:17
My soul begin this wintry month with thy God. The cold snows
and the piercing winds all remind thee that He keeps His
covenant with day and night, and tend to assure thee that He
will also keep that glorious covenant which He has made with
thee in the person of Christ Jesus. He who is true to His Word
in the revolutions of the seasons of this poor sin-polluted
world, will not prove unfaithful in His dealings with His own
well-beloved Son.
Winter in the soul is by no means a comfortable season, and
if it be upon thee just now it will be very painful to thee: but
there is this comfort, namely, that the Lord makes it. He
sends the sharp blasts of adversity to nip the buds of
expectation: He scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes over the
once verdant meadows of our joy: He casteth forth His ice like
morsels freezing the streams of our delight. He does it all, He
is the great Winter King, and rules in the realms of frost, and
therefore thou canst not murmur. Losses, crosses, heaviness,
sickness, poverty, and a thousand other ills, are of the Lord's
sending, and come to us with wise design. Frosts kill noxious
insects, and put a bound to raging diseases; they break up the
clods, and sweeten the soul. O that such good results would
always follow our winters of affliction!
How we prize the fire just now! how pleasant is its cheerful
glow! Let us in the same manner prize our Lord, who is the
constant source of warmth and comfort in every time of trouble.
Let us draw nigh to Him, and in Him find joy and peace in
believing. Let us wrap ourselves in the warm garments of His
promises, and go forth to labours which befit the season, for it
were ill to be as the sluggard who will not plough by reason of
the cold; for he shall beg in summer and have nothing.