GOD’S WORD FOR  SEPTEMBER 27

We are using Charles Spurgeon book, “The Risen King.”  It’s a collection of well chosen excerpts from Spurgeon’s  “Easter” sermons in devotional form, put together by Jeff Medders.   Pastor Spurgeon lived from 1834 to 1892  in London, England, and had a unique gift of understanding and showing the depth of our faith.  Thus, his reverential title as the Prince of Preachers.   Even though we’re not in or near that season, every day is a good day to focus on Christ’s sacrifice and victory for us!

THE MIRACLE OF CONVERSION

Matthew 9:9

“As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” So he arose and followed Him.”

Matthew wrote this verse about himself. I picture him, with his pen in hand, writing all the rest of this Gospel, but I can imagine that when he came to this very personal passage, he laid the pen down a minute and wiped his eyes.  This verse reads to me so tenderly that I do not know how to communicate to you just how I feel about it.  I have tried to imagine myself as Matthew writing this story but I am sure that I would never have done it so beautifully as he has, for it is so full of everything that is touching, tender, true, and gracious.

Please notice – perhaps you did in yesterday’s reading and today’s – where Matthew has put this story.  It is placed immediately after the miracle of the man affected by paralysis.  It seems very beautiful on Matthew’s part to record his call just here.  

“There”, he said, “I will tell them one miracle about the Savior having made the  man with paralysis take up his bed and walk, and then I will tell them of another miracle – a greater miracle still:  how there was another man who was more than paralyzed – – chained to his gains – – yet who, nevertheless, at the command of Christ, quit that occupation and all his gains that he might follow his Divine Master.”

You too, dear friend, can trace a parallel between conversion and some miracle of the Master.   Was it, in your case, the casting out of demons?  Was it the opening of the eyes of the blind?  Was it the unstopping of deaf ears and the loosing of a silent tongue?  Was it the raising of the dead or, even more than that, was it the calling forth of death itself out of the grave, as when Jesus cried, “Lazarus, come out” in John 11:43, and Lazarus came forth? 

In any case, I invite you who know the Lord in the silence of your souls, to sit down and think not about Matthew but about yourselves and your conversion.

I shall think about a man called Spurgeon.  If the Lord has looked upon you in love, you can put your own name into the text, and say, “As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called James or John or Oliver and you sisters may put in your names, too:  Natalie and Ivy and so forth.  Just sit and think how Jesus said to each one of you, “Follow Me,” and how, in that happy moment, you did arise and follow Him!!

O dear reader, if you have been converted, it may be that something like this was true in your case!  At any rate, this is true – you were not the first to seek Christ, but Christ was the first to seek you.  You were a wandering sheep, and did not love the fold, but His sweet mercy went out after you. 

His grace made you thoughtful and led you to pray.  The Holy Spirit breathed in you your first breath of spiritual life, and so you came to Christ.  See, then the freeness of the grace of God, the sovereignty of His choice. 

Admire it in the man named Matthew.  Admire it still more in yourself, whatever your name may be.

*** ***

Psalm 66:16

Come and hear, all you who fear God, And I will declare what He has done for my soul.

Job 16:19

Surely even now my witness is in heaven, and my evidence is on high.

Matthew 24:14

And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.

John 14:6

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

John 10:27-28

 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.   I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.

John 10:29

My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand.

Psalm 8:4-6

What is man that You are mindful of him,

And the son of man that You visit him?

For You have made him a little lower than the angels,

And You have crowned him with glory and honor.

You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;

You have put all things under his feet,

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