Morning & Evening Devotional Reading–

October 27– Evening

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

“We all have become unclean.”

—Isaiah 64:6

The believer is a new creature. He belongs to a holy generation and a peculiar people. The Spirit of God is in him, and in every way he is far removed from the natural man. But for all that the Christian has become, he remains a sinner. He is imperfect in his nature and will continue to be so until the end of his earthly life. The dirty fingers of sin leave smudges upon our best clothing. Sin mars the clay until the great Potter finishes his work. Selfishness defiles our tears; unbelief tampers with our faith. Even the best thing we ever do apart from the merit of Jesus only increases the number of our sins.

The angels of heaven participated in foolishness; how much more have we, even in our most angelic frames of mind. The song which seeks to emulate the song of angels contains human dissonance. The prayer which moves the arm of God is a bruised and battered prayer and only moves that arm because the sinless One, the great Mediator, has removed the sin from the prayer.

The most golden faith or the purest degree of sanctification to which a Christian ever attains on earth is still alloyed with sin and is only worthy of destruction if considered in itself. Every night we look in the mirror, we see a sinner who has need to confess, “We all are unclean.” “All our righteousness is as filthy rags.”

Oh, how precious the blood of Christ is to hearts like ours! How priceless a gift is his perfect righteousness! And how bright the hope of perfect holiness hereafter! Even now, though sin dwells in us, its power is broken. It does not rule over us. It is a broken-backed snake. We are in bitter conflict with it, but we are engaging a defeated enemy. And, in just a little while, we will enter victoriously into the city where nothing is defiled. [M&E]