Morning, August 27, edited from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

“How long will they not believe in Me?” — Numbers 14:11

Strive with all diligence to keep out that monster, unbelief. It so dishonors Christ, that he will withdraw his visible presence if we insult him by indulging it. It is indeed truly a weed, the seeds of which we can never entirely extract from the soil, but we must aim at its root with intensity and perseverance. Among things we may hate it is the most to be despised. Its harmful nature is so venomous that both he that practices it and he upon whom it is practiced are both hurt by it. In your case, oh believer, it is extremely wicked, for the mercies of your Lord in the past increase your guilt by doubting him now. When you distrust the Lord Jesus, he may well cry out, “Behold I am burdened down under you, as a cart is weighed down that is full of sheaves.” This is crowning his head with thorns of the sharpest kind. It is very cruel for a well-beloved wife to mistrust a kind and faithful husband. The sin is needless, foolish, and unwarranted. Jesus has never given the slightest ground for suspicion, and it is painful to be doubted by those to whom our conduct is uniformly affectionate and true. Jesus is the Son of the Highest, and has unbounded wealth; it is appalling to doubt Omnipotence and distrust all-sufficiency. The cattle on a thousand hills will suffice for us at our hungriest, and the storehouses of heaven are not likely to be emptied by our eating. If Christ were only a cistern, we might soon exhaust his abundance, but who can drain a fountain? Multitudes of spirits have drawn their supplies from him, and not one of them has murmured at the meagerness of his resources. Away, then, with this lying traitor unbelief, for his only errand is to cut the bonds of communion and make us mourn an absent Savior. Bunyan tells us that unbelief has “as many lives as a cat.” If so, let us kill one life now, and continue the work till the whole nine are gone. Down with you, you traitor, my heart detests you.