Evening, December 25
Go To Morning Reading
“And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that
Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and
offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job
said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their
hearts. Thus did Job continually.”
Job 1:5
What the patriarch did early in the morning, after the family festivities,
it will be well for the believer to do for himself ere he rests tonight.
Amid the cheerfulness of household gatherings it is easy to slide
into sinful levities, and to forget our avowed character as Christians.
It ought not to be so, but so it is, that our days of feasting are
very seldom days of sanctified enjoyment, but too frequently degenerate
into unhallowed mirth. There is a way of joy as pure and sanctifying
as though one bathed in the rivers of Eden: holy gratitude should
be quite as purifying an element as grief. Alas! for our poor hearts,
that facts prove that the house of mourning is better than the house
of feasting. Come, believer, in what have you sinned today? Have you
been forgetful of your high calling? Have you been even as others
in idle words and loose speeches? Then confess the sin, and fly to
the sacrifice. The sacrifice sanctifies. The precious blood of the
Lamb slain removes the guilt, and purges away the defilement of our
sins of ignorance and carelessness. This is the best ending of a Christmas-day—to wash anew in the cleansing fountain. Believer, come to this sacrifice
continually; if it be so good tonight, it is good every night. To
live at the altar is the privilege of the royal priesthood; to them
sin, great as it is, is nevertheless no cause for despair, since they
draw near yet again to the sin-atoning victim, and their conscience
is purged from dead works.
Gladly I close this festive day,
Grasping the altar’s hallow'd horn;
My slips and faults are washed away,
The Lamb has all my trespass borne.