Book: Evening By Evening. Author: Charles Spurgeon
Info: Copyright 2000: Nashville: Thomas Nelson Inc.
Where acquired: Amazon purchase.
Rating (on a scale of 1-4 stars): ✮✭✭ 1/2
What it's about: This is the companion devotional to Spurgeon's Morning by Morning. The author gives reflective commentary on Scripture passages.
Favorite Quotes:
"A sense of Christ's amazing love to us has a greater tendency to humble us than even a consciousness of our own guilt." - p. 143.
"A deep sense of gratitude will nourish Christian zeal. Looking a the hole of the pit whence we were digged, we find abundant reason why we should spend and be spent for God. " - p. 147
"My looking to Jesus brings me joy and peace, but it is God's looking to Jesus which secures my salvation and that of all His elect, since it is impossible for our God to look at Christ, our bleeding Surety, and then to be angry with us for sins already punished in Him." - p. 208
"'Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.' Redemption is a solid basis for confidence. David had not known Calvary as we have done, but temporal redemption cheered him; and shall not eternal redemption yet more sweetly console us? Past deliverances are strong pleas for present assistance. What the Lord has done he will do again, for he changes not. He is faithful to his promises, and gracious to his saints; he will not turn away from his people." - p. 220.
"Why then do we calculate our forces, and consult with flesh and blood to our grievous wounding? Jehovah has power enough without borrowing from our puny arm." p. 261
"Purify flesh and blood by any educational process you may select, elevate mental faculties to the highest degree of intellectual power, yet none of these can reveal Christ." p. 283
"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." p. 332
What I Liked:
- Spurgeon doesn't assume that all who will read the book are already Christians. Several passages are evangelistic in nature.
- The author speaks from a place of intimacy with the Almighty, so his take is not mere theory, but experience. This makes his insights more genuine.
- I enjoyed the author's flowing, poetic style of writing.
- There are quoted passages with no reference cited, so we have no way to know where the quote came from. There are also names and reference abbreviations that are not explained.
- The fancy font used to quote the Bible passages was very hard to decipher.
- This volume wasn't quite as intriguing as the companion volume. There was a touch of unwarented negativity in some passages. Some days, I felt like I was reading Oswald Chambers instead of Spurgeon. Fortunately, those were few enough that I wasn't turned away from finishing the devotional.
Though this devotional wasn't quite as good as Morning by Morning, it will still remain a part of my personal library to be read again sometime in the future. I'm also looking forward to reading other writings by this author.
No comments:
Post a Comment