十月六日 [mp3_embed playlst=”/downloading/audio/evening/10/1006.mp3″]
经文: 摩西取了古实女子为妻。(民数记十二:1)
摩西在选择妻子时作了一个特别的决定。但是那位比摩西更伟大的主所选择的更是不寻常。我们的主,美如谷中的百合花,却取了一位自认为黑“因为日头把我晒黑了”(歌一:6)的女子。每个信徒被耶稣的爱充满时定会惊讶不已:何以如此的大爱竟会丰富地临到一个完全不配的人身上!我们虽在暗中犯罪而且对主不忠,却可得到白白的恩典,因此,我们要向恩典之主俯首敬拜。耶稣必然是在自己的心中找到爱我们的理由,绝对不会是在我们身上,因为祂在我们身上绝对找不到。即使我们已经认罪悔改,但由于老我的本性,以致我们仍然是黑的,然而恩典却使我们变为美丽。拉塞福形容他自己说:“祂与我的关系好像我是一个病人,而祂是那位我所需要的医生。唉,多少时候我捉弄了基督!祂缚紧、我解开;祂建造、我推倒;我与基督争论,而祂却能在一天之内二十次与我和好!”我们灵魂既温柔又忠实的良人啊!愿祢恩典的工作继续改变我们,教我们拥有祢的形像。我们知道,有一天祢要将我们毫无玷污、毫无缺点地献给祢自己。摩西的婚姻遭受反对,他和他的配偶成为毁谤的对象。当罪人悔改,蒙耶稣接纳成为祂的配偶时,必遭虚妄的世界讥讽,这点我们还会觉得意外吗?这也是法利赛人反对耶稣的理由:“这个人接待罪人。”(路十五:2)
Evening, October 6
Scripture: “He had married an Ethiopian woman.”(Numbers 12:1)
Strange choice of Moses, but how much more strange the choice of him who is a prophet like unto Moses, and greater than he! Our Lord, who is fair as the lily, has entered into marriage union with one who confesses herself to be black, because the sun has looked upon her. It is the wonder of angels that the love of Jesus should be set upon poor, lost, guilty men. Each believer must, when filled with a sense of Jesus’ love, be also overwhelmed with astonishment that such love should be lavished on an object so utterly unworthy of it. Knowing as we do our secret guiltiness, unfaithfulness, and black-heartedness, we are dissolved in grateful admiration of the matchless freeness and sovereignty of grace. Jesus must have found the cause of his love in his own heart, he could not have found it in us, for it is not there. Even since our conversion we have been black, though grace has made us comely. Holy Rutherford said of himself what we must each subscribe to-“His relation to me is, that I am sick, and he is the Physician of whom I stand in need. Alas! how often I play fast and loose with Christ! He bindeth, I loose; he buildeth, I cast down; I quarrel with Christ, and he agreeth with me twenty times a day!” Most tender and faithful Husband of our souls, pursue thy gracious work of conforming us to thine image, till thou shalt present even us poor Ethiopians unto thyself, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. Moses met with opposition because of his marriage, and both himself and his spouse were the subjects of an evil eye. Can we wonder if this vain world opposes Jesus and his spouse, and especially when great sinners are converted? for this is ever the Pharisee’s ground of objection, “This man receiveth sinners.” Still is the old cause of quarrel revived, “Because he had married an Ethiopian woman.”