Daily Devotionals
Charles Spurgeon's "Morning & Evening"
Devotional: October 15th

Morning

“Reproach hath broken my heart.”

Psalms 69:1-4 , Psalms 69:6-21

Let us read a selection of verses from the sixty-ninth Psalm, in which David was led to set forth the Redeemer’s sufferings before and upon the cross.

Psalms 69:1

Sorrows, deep, abounding, deadly, had penetrated his inner nature. Bodily anguish is not his first complaint; he begins not with the gall which embittered his lips, but with the mighty griefs which broke into his heart.

Psalms 69:2

His sufferings were unlike all others in degree, the waters were such as soaked into the soul; the mire was the mire of the abyss itself, and the floods were deep and overflowing.

Psalms 69:3

Long pleading, with awful fervour, had scorched his throat as with flames of fire:

Psalms 69:4

It may be truly said that he restores what he took not away; for he gives back to the injured honour of God a recompense, and to man his lost happiness, though the insult of the one and the fall of the other, were neither of them, in any sense, his doings.

Psalms 69:6

Our blessed Lord ever had a tender concern for his people, and would not have his own oppression of spirit become a source of discouragement to them.

Psalms 69:7

They first covered our Lord with a veil of opprobrious accusation, and then hurried him away to be crucified. They passed him through the trial of cruel mockings, besmeared his face with spittle, and covered it with bruises, so that Pilate’s “Ecce Homo” called the world’s attention to an unexampled spectacle of woe and shame. Ah, blessed Lord, it was our shame which thou wast made to bear! Nothing more deserves to be reproached and despised than sin, and lo, when thou wast made sin for us, thou wast called to endure abuse and scorn. Blessed be thy name, it is over now, but we owe thee more than heart can conceive for thine amazing stoop of love.

Psalms 69:8-12

What amazing sin that he whom seraphs worship with veiled faces, should be a scornful proverb among the most abandoned of men.

Psalms 69:20

our Lord died of a broken heart, and reproach had done the deed

the heaviness of our Lord in the garden is expressed by many and forcible words in the four gospels, and each term goes to show that the agony was beyond measure great

Psalms 69:21

A criminal’s draught was offered to our innocent Lord, a bitter portion to our dying Master. Sorry entertainment had earth for her King.

Behold the Man! by all condemn’d,

Assaulted by a host of foes;

His person and his claims contemn’d,

A man of sufferings and woes.

Behold the Man! he stands alone,

His foes are ready to devour;

Not one of all his friends will own

Their Master in this trying hour.

Behold the Man! though scorn’d below,

He bears the greatest name above;

The angels at his footstool bow,

And all his royal claims approve.

My heart dissolves to see thee bleed.

This heart so hard before;

I hear thee for the guilty plead,

And grief o’erflows the more.

‘Twas for the sinful thou didst die,

And I a sinner stand:

What love speaks from thy dying eye,

And from each piercèd hand!

I know this cleansing blood of thine

Was shed, dear Lord, for me,

For me, for all oh, grace divine!

Who look by faith on thee.

‘Tis finish’d! all the debt is paid;

Justice divine is satisfied;

The grand and full atonement made;

God for his people’s guilt hath died.

Saved from the legal curse I am,

My Saviour hangs on yonder tree:

See there the meek expiring Lamb!

‘Tis finish’d! He expired for me!

Accepted in the Well-Beloved,

And clothed in righteousness divine,

I see the bar to heaven removed,

For all thy merits, Lord, are mine.

Here lies of life th’ immortal Prince,

Under arrest for all our sins;

Prisoner of death, and silent here

He lies till the third morn appear.

My faith with joy and wonder sees,

Jesus, thy sacred obsequies;

A burial which has power to save

From death, a burial of the grave!

Oh, that I now my wish might have,

And sink into my Saviour’s grave;

Then with my Head triumphant rise,

And wear his glories in the skies.

‘Twas not the insulting voice of scorn

So deeply wrung his heart;

The piercing nail, the pointed thorn,

Caused not the saddest smart:

But every struggling sigh betray’d

A heavier grief within,

How on his burden’d soul was laid

The weight of human sin.

O thou who hast vouchsafed to bear

Our sins’ oppressive load,

Grant us thy righteousness to wear,

And lead us to our God.

The enormous load of human guilt

Was on my Saviour laid;

With woes as with a garment, he

For sinners was array’d.

And in the horrid pangs of death

He wept, he pray’d for me;

Loved and embraced my guilty soul

When nailèd to the tree.

Oh, love amazing! love beyond

The reach of human tongue;

Love which shall be the subject of

An everlasting song.

Evening

“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”

Psalms 22:1-3 , Psalms 22:11-24 , Psalms 22:27 , Psalms 22:28 , Psalms 22:30 , Psalms 22:31

The most wonderful description of our Lords sufferings on the cross itself is contained in the 22nd Psalm, from which we will now select portions for reading.

The Psalm opens with our Lord’s cry upon the cross, and it may be regarded throughout as his soliloquy while bleeding on the tree.

Psalms 22:1

He prayed until he almost lost the power of articulate utterance.

Psalms 22:3

Whatever the Father may do, the Mediator will not murmur; he holds fast his faith in the holiness of God.

Psalms 22:11

None either could or would help him, he trod the winepress alone; yet was it a sore trial to find that all his disciples had forsaken him, and lover and friend were put far from him.

Psalms 22:12

The mighty ones in the crowd are here marked by the tearful eye of their victim.

Psalms 22:13

Like hungry cannibals they opened their blasphemous mouths as if to swallow the man they abhorred.

Psalms 22:14

As if distended upon a rack. Is it not most probable that the fastening of the hands and feet, and the jar occasioned by fixing the cross in the earth, may have dislocated the bones of the Crucified One? If this is not intended, we must refer the expression to that extreme weakness which would occasion relaxation of the muscles, and a general sense of parting asunder throughout the whole system

Psalms 22:14

Dr. Gill wisely observes: “If the heart of Christ, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, melted at it, what heart can endure, or hands be strong, when God deals with men in his wrath?”

Psalms 22:16

Here he marks the more ignoble crowd, who, while less strong than their brutal leaders, were not less ferocious, for they were howling and barking like unclean and hungry dogs

Psalms 22:17-20

Meaning his soul, his life, which is most dear to every man. The original is “My only one,” and therefore is our soul dear, because it is our only soul. Would that all men made their souls their darlings, but many treat them as if they were not worth so much as the mire of the streets.

Psalms 22:22

The transition is very marked; darkness passed away from the Redeemers soul and light broke in. The ruling passion, strong in death, led him to joyous thoughts of his beloved people.

Psalms 22:23-28

Jesus rejoiced in the glorious reign of the Lord over all nations of men.

Psalms 22:31

Or “It is finished.” Salvation’s glorious work is done.