Morning & Evening Devotional Reading–

December 18– Evening

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

“Be diligent to know the state of your flocks and attend well to your herds.”

—Proverbs 27:23

Every wise businessman will periodically evaluate his business. He will analyze his accounts, examine what he has on hand, and ascertain decisively whether his business is growing or declining. Every man who is wise in the kingdom of heaven will cry out, “Search me, O God, and examine me.” He will frequently set apart special seasons for self-examination to discover whether things are right between God and his soul. The God whom we worship is a great heart-searcher; he has long been known as “the Lord which searches the heart and tries the children of men.”

Let me stir you up in his name to make a careful examination of the state of your heart before God so that you will not fall short of the promised rest. That which every wise man does, that which God himself does with us all, I exhort you to do with yourself this evening. Let the oldest saint look well to the fundamentals of his devotion, for grey heads may cover dark hearts. If you are young and claim to know Jesus, don’t despise this word of warning, for the greenness of youth may be joined to the rottenness of hypocrisy. Every now and then a great cedar falls in our midst. The enemy continues to sow tares among the wheat.

It is not my aim to introduce doubts and fears into your mind; no, I truly hope that the rough wind of self-examination may help to drive doubts away! It is not genuine security, but fleshly security, that needs to be killed; not true confidence, but fleshly confidence, we wish to overthrow; not peace, but false peace, we want to destroy.

By the precious blood of Christ, which was not shed to make you a hypocrite, but that sincere souls might show forth his praise, I beg you: search and look so that it will never be said of you, “You have been weighed in the balances and have been found lacking.” [M&E]