Evening, December 20, edited from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

“Call the laborers and pay them their wages.” — Matthew 20:8

God is a good paymaster; he pays his servants while at work as well as when they have finished it; and one of his payments is this: an easy conscience. If you have spoken faithfully of Jesus to one person, when you go to bed at night you feel happy in thinking, “I have this day discharged my conscience of that man’s blood.” There is a great comfort in doing something for Jesus. Oh, what  happiness to place jewels in his crown, and show  him the fruit of the travail of his soul! There is also very great reward in watching the first buddings of conviction in a soul! To say of that girl in the class, “She has a tender heart, I do hope that the Lord is working within.” To go home and pray over that boy, who said something in the afternoon which made you think he must know more of divine truth than you had thought! Oh, the joy of hope! But as for the joy of success, it is unspeakable! This joy, overwhelming as it is, is a unsatisfying thing–you yearn for more of it. To be a soul-winner is the happiest thing in the world. With every soul you bring to Christ, you get a new heaven upon earth. But who can conceive the happiness which awaits us above! Oh, how delightful is that sentence, “Enter into the joy of your Lord!” Do you know what the joy of Christ is over a saved sinner? This is the very joy which we are to possess in heaven. Yes, when he mounts the throne, you shall mount with him. When the heavens ring with “Well done, well done,” you shall share in the reward; you have labored with him, you have suffered with him, you shall now reign with him; you have sown with him, you shall reap with him; your face was covered with sweat like his, and your soul was grieved for the sins of men as his soul was, but now your face shall be bright with heaven’s splendor as is his visage, and now shall your soul be filled with heavenly joys even as his soul is.