Seen with Him

Your weekly Dose of Spurgeon

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from the lifetime of works from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  The following excerpt is from "Seen with Christ in the garden," from The Teachings of Nature, page 248, Pilgrim Publications.

"The question is, 'Did not I see thee in the garden with Him?' We did not want to be observed: we were far from courting observation. There are some of the Lord's people who would like to go to heaven without being seen with the Lord Jesus in the streets by daylight." 

You see the world expects a good deal of us, and when the world does not get it, the question may be very properly put to us, “Did not I see thee in the garden with Him?” It is a salutary thing for a man to know that his inconsistency is observed. Then he begins to see himself as others see him. It is very painful, very disagreeable; but, at the same time, very likely to bless the man.

A man is apt to get a little angry about it; but it is a good thing for him to know how his conduct strikes other people.

I have read of an old lady who gazed into a looking-glass, and remarked that they did not make good mirrors nowadays, for those which she used to look into, fifty years ago, showed her quite different from what she now was. The looking-glasses were very inferior in these times.

When the world observes that your character is inconsistent, it may be that it is a truthful looking-glass, although it does not exhibit your beauties, but shows up your wrinkles and blotches.

Do not quarrel with the looking-glass, but quarrel with your own self. Depend upon it, you are disfigured with spots which you need to get rid of. When convicted by your conscience of an inconsistency, even though the conviction comes to you through an unkind, ungenerous remark of a wicked man, yet still take the lesson home, and go to God for grace and forgiveness, and begin again.

A very plain-spoken enemy may do us ten times more service than an indulgent friend. Such a question as this should effectually recall us to holiness — to deep repentance of the past, and to strong resolves for the future.