My Hope In The Day Of Evil
- by Charles Spurgeon
"You are my hope in the day of evil." --Jeremiah 17:17
The path of the Christian is not always bright with sunshine; he has his seasons
of darkness and of storm. True, it is written in God's Word, "Her ways are ways
of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace;" and it is a great truth, that religion
is calculated to give a man happiness below as well as bliss above; but experience
tells us that if the course of the just be "As the shining light that shines more
and more unto the perfect day," yet sometimes that light is eclipsed.
At certain periods clouds cover the believer's sun, and he walks in darkness and
sees no light. There are many who have rejoiced in the presence of God for a season;
they have basked in the sunshine in the earlier stages of their Christian career;
they have walked along the "green pastures" by the side of the "still waters," but
suddenly they find the glorious sky is clouded; instead of the Land of Goshen they
have to tread the sandy desert; in the place of sweet waters, they find troubled
streams, bitter to their taste, and they say, "Surely, if I were a child of God,
this would not happen." Oh! don't say that, you who walk in darkness. The best of
God's saints must drink the wormwood; the dearest of His children must bear the
cross. No Christian has enjoyed perpetual prosperity; no believer can always keep
his harp from the willows.
Perhaps the Lord allotted you at first a smooth and unclouded path, because you
were weak and timid. He tempered the wind to the little lamb, but now that you are
stronger in the spiritual life, you must enter upon the riper and rougher experience
of God's full-grown children. We need winds and tempests to exercise our faith,
to tear off the rotten bough of self-dependence, and to root us more firmly in Christ.
The day of evil reveals to us the value of our glorious hope.