Morning & Evening Devotional Reading–

April 16– Evening

by C. H. Spurgeon, revised and edited by W. C. Neff

“[Moses’] hands were steady until the going down of the sun.” 

—Exodus 17:12

So mighty was the prayer of Moses that everyone in Israel depended upon it. The petitions of Moses unnerved the enemy more than the fighting of Joshua. Yet both were needed. So too in the soul’s conflict, force and fervor, decision and devotion, valor and vehemence, must join their forces, and all will be well.

You must wrestle with your sin, but the major part of the wrestling must be done alone in private with God. If you want to pray like Moses, hold up the emblems of the covenant before the Lord. The rod was the emblem of God’s working with Moses, the symbol of God’s government in Israel. Learn, O pleading saint, to hold up the promise and the oath of God before him. The Lord cannot deny his own declarations. Hold up the rod of promise and have what you will.

Moses grew weary, and then his friends assisted him. Whenever your prayer becomes weary, let faith support one hand, and let holy hope uplift the other. Prayer will then seat itself upon the bedrock of Israel, and the Lord Jesus Christ will cause us to persevere and prevail. Beware of faintness in devotion; if Moses felt it, who can escape? It is far easier to fight with sin in public than to pray against it in private. It is said that Joshua never grew weary in the fighting, but Moses did grow weary in the praying. The more spiritual an exercise, the more difficult it is for flesh and blood to maintain it.

Let us cry, then, for special strength, and may the Spirit of God, who helps our infirmities as he rendered help to Moses, enable us, like him, to continue with our hands steady “until the going down of the sun,” until the evening of life is over, until we come to the rising of a better sun in the land where prayer is swallowed up in praise. [M&E]