Evening, June 29, adapted from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

“But when envoys were sent by the rulers of Babylon to ask him about the miraculous sign that had occurred in the land, God left him to test him and to know everything that was in his heart.” — 2 Chronicles 32:31

Hezekiah was growing so full of his greatness, and priding himself so much upon the favor of God, that self-righteousness crept in, and as a result of his security in himself, the grace of God was for a time, in its proactive work, withdrawn. Here he was left himself to account with the Babylonians; for if the grace of God should leave the best Christian, there is enough of sin in his heart to make him the worst of violators. If left to yourselves, those of you afire for Christ would cool down like Laodicea into nauseous tepidness: you who are solid in the faith would be disfigured, white with the leprosy of false doctrine; you who now walk before the Lord in excellency and integrity would stumble back and forth, and stagger with a drunkenness of foul emotion. Like the moon, we borrow our light; bright as we are when grace shines on us, we are darkness itself when the Sun of Righteousness withdraws himself. Therefore, let us cry to God never to leave us. “Lord, don’t take your Holy Spirit from us! Don’t withdraw your indwelling grace! Haven’t you said, I the Lord will sustain it; I will water it every moment: and will not let any hurt it, I will sustain it night and day’? Lord, sustain us everywhere. Sustain us when in the valley, that we don’t complain against your humbling hand; sustain us when we’re on the mountain, that we don’t get excited and unsteady when being exalted; sustain us in our youth, when our passions are strong; sustain us in old age, when by becoming conceited in our wisdom, we may therefore prove greater fools than the young and frivolous; sustain us when we come to die, unless, at the very end, we should deny you! Sustain us as we live, sustain us when we die, sustain us through our labor, sustain us through suffering, sustain us as we fight and as we rest; sustain us everywhere, for everywhere we need you, Oh our God!”