Tuesday May 14, 2024

Exodus 1:12
But the more they were oppressed, the more they
multiplied and the more they spread abroad.

Always take revenge on Satan if he defeats you, by trying to do ten times more good than you did before. It is in some such way that a dear brother now preaching the gospel, whom God has blessed with a very considerable measure of success, may trace the opening of his career to a circumstance that occurred to myself. Sitting in my pulpit one evening in a country village, where I had to preach, my text slipped from my memory, and with the text seemed to go all that I had thought to speak upon it. This was a rare thing to happen to me, but I sat utterly confounded. I could find nothing to say. With strong crying I lifted up my soul to God to pour out again within my soul the living water that it might gush forth from me for others; and I accompanied my prayer with a vow that if Satan’s enmity thus had brought me low, I would take so many fresh men whom I might meet with during the week and train them for the ministry, so that with their hands and tongues I would avenge myself on the Philistines. The brother I have alluded to came to me the next morning. I accepted him at once as one whom God had sent, and I helped him and others after him to prepare for the ministry and to go forth in the Saviour’s name to preach the gospel of the grace of God. Often when we fear we are defeated we ought to say, ‘I will do all the more. Instead of dropping from this work, now will I make a general levy and a sacred conscription upon all the powers of my soul, and I will gather up all the strength I ever had in reserve and make from this moment a tremendous lifelong effort to overcome the powers of darkness and win for Christ fresh trophies of victory.’

C. H. Spurgeon and Terence Peter Crosby, 365 Days with Spurgeon (Volume 1) (Day One Publications, 1998)
Scripture for opening text taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, ESV © 2016 by Crossway Bibles.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.