Evening, August 18, edited from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

“And they gave him wine to drink mingled with myrrh: but he received it not.” — Matt. 27: 34,  Mark 15:23

A golden truth is contained in the fact that the Savior refused the doctored cup of wine put to his lips. On the heights of heaven the Son of God stood before time, and as he looked down upon our globe he measured the long descent to the utmost depths of human misery; he viewed the sum total of all the agonies which recompense for sin would require, and declined not a bit. He solemnly determined that to offer a sufficient atoning sacrifice he must go the whole way, from the highest to the lowest, from the throne of highest glory to the cross of deepest anguish. This drugged cup, with its tranquilizing influence, would have halted him just a little short of the utmost limit of misery; therefore, he refused it. He would not stop short of all he had undertaken to suffer for his people.

Ah, how many of us have longed for a relief to our grief which would have been detrimental to us! Reader, haven’t you prayed for a release from hard service or suffering, with a sullen and willful impatience? Perhaps Providence (the foreseeing protective care of God) has taken from you the desire of your eyes with a stroke. So, if you had been told, “If you so desire it, that loved one of yours shall live, but God will be dishonored,” could you have put away the temptation, and said, “Your will be done”? Oh, it is pleasing to be able to say, “My Lord, if for other reasons I don’t need to suffer, yet if I can honor you more by suffering, and if the loss of everything I treasure on earth will bring you glory, then so let it be. I refuse the comfort, if it gets in the way of your honor.” Oh, that we would walk more in the footsteps of our Lord, cheerfully enduring hardship for his sake, promptly and willingly putting away our concerns for ourselves and our comfort when it would interfere with our completion of the work which he has given us to do. Great grace is needed, but great grace is provided.