Spurgeon: December PM
* 12/04/PM
"Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the
adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body."
--Romans 8:23
This groaning is universal among the saints: to a greater or
less extent we all feel it. It is not the groan of murmuring or
complaint: it is rather the note of desire than of distress.
Having received an earnest, we desire the whole of our portion;
we are sighing that our entire manhood, in its trinity of
spirit, soul, and body, may be set free from the last vestige of
the fall; we long to put off corruption, weakness, and
dishonour, and to wrap ourselves in incorruption, in
immortality, in glory, in the spiritual body which the Lord
Jesus will bestow upon His people. We long for the manifestation
of our adoption as the children of God. "We groan," but it is
" within ourselves ." It is not the hypocrite's groan, by which
he would make men believe that he is a saint because he is
wretched. Our sighs are sacred things, too hallowed for us to
tell abroad. We keep our longings to our Lord alone. Then the
apostle says we are " waiting ," by which we learn that we are
not to be petulant, like Jonah or Elijah, when they said, "Let
me die"; nor are we to whimper and sigh for the end of life
because we are tired of work, nor wish to escape from our
present sufferings till the will of the Lord is done. We are to
groan for glorification, but we are to wait patiently for it,
knowing that what the Lord appoints is best. Waiting implies
being ready. We are to stand at the door expecting the Beloved
to open it and take us away to Himself. This "groaning" is a
test. You may judge of a man by what he groans after. Some men
groan after wealth--they worship Mammon; some groan continually
under the troubles of life--they are merely impatient; but the
man who sighs after God, who is uneasy till he is made like
Christ, that is the blessed man. May God help us to groan for
the coming of the Lord, and the resurrection which He will bring
to us.