I can (endure) all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. – Philippians 4:13

Watch and pray… – Mark 13:33

We are here, like soldiers on guard, waiting for the dawn. It is night, and the night is deepening; how shall we occupy ourselves until the day break, and the shadows flee away?

Soldiers of the cross, you must not wish to avoid these shadows; He who has called you to this service knew that it would be night time, and He called you to night duty; and being put upon the night watch, keep at your post. It is not for any of us to say, “We will desert because it is so dark.” Has not the thought sometimes crossed your mind, “I am not succeeding; I will run away”? Have you not often felt, like Jonah, that you would go to Tarshish that you might escape from delivering your Master’s message? Oh, do not so! The day will break, and the shadows flee away; and until then, watch through the night, and fear not the shadows. Play the man, remembering through what a sevenfold night your Master passed, when, in Gethsemane, He endured even to a bloody sweat for you. When, on the cross, even His mid-day was midnight, what must have been the darkness over His spirit? He bore it; then bear you it. Let no thought of fear pass over your mind; or, if it does, let not your heart be troubled, but rise above your fear until the day break, and the shadows flee away. Be of good courage, soldiers of Christ, and still wait on in patient endurance.

Let there be hopeful watching. Keep your eyes towards the East, and look for the first grey sign of the coming morning. “Watch!” Oh, how little is done of this kind of work! We scarcely watch as we ought against the devil; but how little do we watch for the coming of our Master! Look for every sign of His appearing, and be ever listening for the sound of His chariot wheels. Keep the candle burning in the window, to let Him see that you are awake; keep the door on the latch, that when He cometh you may quickly open unto Him. Hopefully watch until the day break, and the shadows flee away. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2477.cfm

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. – Psalm 30:5

Some of us are obliged to go sorrowing when we look upon the state of the church and the world. We are not accustomed to take gloomy views of things, but we cannot help grieving over what we see. More and more it forces itself upon us that the old-fashioned gospel is being either neglected or trampled in the dust. The old spirit, the old fire that once burned in the midst of the saints of God, is there still, but it burns very low at present. We want a revival of pure and undefiled religion in this our day. Will it come? Why should it not come? If we long for it, if we pray for it, if we believe for it, if we work for it, and prepare for it, it will certainly come. The day will break, and the shadows will flee away. The mockers think that they have buried our Lord Jesus Christ. So, perhaps, they have; but He will have a resurrection. The cry is, “Who will roll us away the stone?” The stone shall be rolled away, and He, even the Christ in whom our fathers trusted, the Christ of Luther and of Calvin, of Whitefield and of Wesley, that same Christ shall be among us yet in the fullness and the glory of His power by the working of the Holy Ghost upon the hearts of myriads of men. Let us never despair; but, on the contrary, let us brush the tears from our eyes, and begin to look for the light of the morning, for “the morning cometh,” and the day will break, and the shadows will flee away.

Let me encourage any friends who have been laboring for Christ in any district which has seemed strikingly barren, where the stones of the field have seemed to break the ploughshare. Still believe on, beloved; that soil which appears most unfruitful will perhaps repay us after a while with a hundred-fold harvest. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2477.cfm

Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all. – Psalm 34:19

Think of the child of God, who is full of doubt. He is afraid that, after all, his supposed conversion was not a true one, and that he has proved it to be false by his own misbehaviour. He is afraid, I scarcely know of what, for so many fears crowd in upon him. He is crying to God to remove his doubts, and to let him once again-

“Read his title clear
To mansions in the skies.”

His eyes are looking toward the cross, and somehow, he has a hope, if not quite a persuasion, that he will find light in Christ, where so many others have found it. I would encourage that hope till it becomes a firm conviction and a full expectation. The day will break for you, dear mourner, the shadows will yet flee away…I know that God’s children are not long without tribulation. As long as the wheat is on the threshing-floor, it must expect to feel the flail. Perhaps you have had a bereavement, or you may have had losses in business, or crosses in your family, or you have been sorely afflicted in your own body, and now you are crying to God for deliverance out of your temporal trouble. That deliverance will surely come. “Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.” “I have been young,” said David, “and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken.” The Lord will yet light your candle, and surround your path with brightness. Only patiently hope and quietly wait, and you shall yet see the salvation of the Lord. “Many are the afflictions of the righteous.” Hark that; you know that part of the verse is true, and so is the rest of it: “but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.” Clutch at that, for it is equally true. “In the world ye shall have tribulation.” You know that is true. “Be of good cheer,” says Christ, “I have overcome the world.” Therefore, expect that you also will overcome it through your conquering Lord. Yes, in the darkest of all human sorrows, there is the glad prospect that the day will break, and the shadows will flee away…Though they walk in darkness, and see no light, yet, by-and-by, the day shall break for them also. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2477.cfm

Arise therefore, and be doing, and the LORD be with thee…Is not the LORD your God with you? – 1 Chronicles 22:16, 18

Let all true Christian people arise, and be doing, because the Lord is with them. Perhaps, I need not say much to my own people about that matter, for most of you are doing what you can for your Lord. There is a brother who is just going out to Australia; when he came to bid me farewell, he gave me a little sketch of his life during three-and-twenty years. It has been a time of incessant activity in the church; and he said to me, “Yes, sir, you drove me out to work for Christ, you would not let me be idle. You said, ‘The worst kind of lazy people are lazy Christians,’ and you also said, ‘To come here twice on a Sunday, and hear me preach, and to be doing nothing for the Master, is not at all the right thing.'” Then the good man added, “I do not often get to hear you now. I have been secretary of a Sunday-school for some time, and I often go out preaching, so I cannot come to the Tabernacle.” I do delight in so many of the members not coming to hear me because they are doing the Master’s work elsewhere! I know that in many churches the main thing is to sit down in a corner pew, and be fed. Well, of course, every creature needs to be fed, from the pig upwards; you must excuse my mentioning that unclean animal, for he is the creature whose principal business it is to food, and he is not a nice creature at all, and I do not at all admire Christian people whose one business is to feed and feed. Why, I have heard them even grumble at a sermon that was meant for the conversion of sinners, because they thought there was no food for them in it! They are great receptacles of food; but, dear Christian people, do not any of you live merely to feed, not even on heavenly food; but if God be with you, as you say He is, then get to His work…Oh, that we might all do what we can for Him who laid down His life for us, and who still continues to abide in us, to be our joy and our strength! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2471.cfm

Is not the LORD your God with you? and hath He not given you rest on every side? – 1 Chronicles 22:18

For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? – 1 Thessalonians 2:19

The Lord is not far from any one of us; a cry will fetch Him, He will hear even a groan, and He will quickly come to the rescue of those who call upon Him. Do but trust Him, do but take Him to be yours, and then He cannot leave you. “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.” There is such love in God’s heart towards the very feeblest of His people, that He cannot turn away from them. Mother, is it not so in your family, that the child who is most ill, most weak, most full of pain, is the one who is best remembered by you? While you have been sitting here, this evening, you have not thought of John and Thomas, who have grown up, and gone out into the world, and are strong and healthy, but you have thought of poor little Jane, whose spine is injured, or of the little boy who has to lie still so many hours a day, and who suffers so much. I am sure that, while I have been preaching, your thoughts have been trotting home to that dear child, and you have been thinking much of him. Well, remember that, “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him;” and remember also how the Lord takes the mother’s part as well as the father’s, and says, “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem.” These are cheering truths for those who do raise the question; I wish they could enable you to get rid of that question, and to know assuredly that the Lord is with you.

“Why droop our hearts, why flow our eyes,
While such a voice we hear?
Why rise our sorrows and our fears,
While such a Friend is near?”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2471.cfm