Evening, December 23
Go To Morning Reading
“The night also is thine.”
Psalm 74:16
Yes, Lord, thou dost not abdicate thy throne when the sun goeth down,
nor dost thou leave the world all through these long wintry nights
to be the prey of evil; thine eyes watch us as the stars, and thine
arms surround us as the zodiac belts the sky. The dews of kindly sleep
and all the influences of the moon are in thy hand, and the alarms
and solemnities of night are equally with thee. This is very sweet
to me when watching through the midnight hours, or tossing to and
fro in anguish. There are precious fruits put forth by the moon as
well as by the sun: may my Lord make me to be a favoured partaker
in them.
The night of affliction is as much under the arrangement and control
of the Lord of Love as the bright summer days when all is bliss. Jesus
is in the tempest. His love wraps the night about itself as a mantle,
but to the eye of faith the sable robe is scarce a disguise. From
the first watch of the night even unto the break of day the eternal
Watcher observes his saints, and overrules the shades and dews of
midnight for his people’s highest good. We believe in no rival deities of good and evil contending
for the mastery, but we hear the voice of Jehovah saying, “I create light and I create darkness; I, the Lord, do all these things.”
Gloomy seasons of religious indifference and social sin are not exempted
from the divine purpose. When the altars of truth are defiled, and
the ways of God forsaken, the Lord’s servants weep with bitter sorrow, but they may not despair, for
the darkest eras are governed by the Lord, and shall come to their
end at his bidding. What may seem defeat to us may be victory to him.
“Though enwrapt in gloomy night,
We perceive no ray of light;
Since the Lord himself is here,
’Tis not meet that we should fear.”