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October 6 Daily Devotional

Morning and Evening

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

“In this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33).

Bible Reading

John 16:25–33

Devotional

Are you asking why this is, O believer?

Look upward to your heavenly Father; see how pure and holy he is. Do you know that you are one day to be like him? Will it be easy to conform you to his image? Will it not take much refining in the furnace of affliction to purify you? Will it be an easy thing to get rid of your corruptions, and to make you perfect even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect?

Next, Christian, turn your eye downward. Do you know what foes you have below your feet? You were once a servant of Satan, and no master will willingly lose his slaves. Do you think that Satan will leave you alone? No, he will always be at you, for he “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5:8). Expect trouble, therefore, Christian, when you look below you.

Then look around you. Where are you? You are behind enemy lines, a stranger and an alien. The world is not your friend. If it is, then you are not God’s friend, for “friendship with the world means enmity against God” (James 4:4). You can be sure that you will find enemies everywhere. Whenever you sleep, realize that you are resting on the battlefield. Wherever you walk, suspect an ambush behind every hedge. Just as mosquitoes are said to bite strangers more than natives, so also the trials of earth will be sharpest to you.

Last, look within yourself; look into your own heart and observe what is there. Sin and self are still within. Ah! even if you had no devil to tempt you, no enemies to fight you, and no world to ensnare you, you would still find inside yourself enough evil to be a sore trouble to you, for “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jer. 17:9).

Expect trouble then, but do not despair on account of it, for God is with you to help and to strengthen you. He says, “call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honour me” (Ps. 50:15).

[May 3, morning]

Extracted from C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening (public domain), language modernized by Larry E. Wilson.

 

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