Benefits, Divine – Charles Spurgeon

WHAT though the physician should exhaust the resources of medical science while he spares no pains in watching his patient? that patient may die. What though the advocate plead for his client with intense fervor, cogent reasoning, and a torrent of eloquence? that client may yet lose his cause. What though the general of an army command the troops ever so skillfully, and fight against the enemy ever so bravely? the battle may yet be lost. The heroic volunteer who essays to rescue a drowning man may fail in the endeavor, and lose his own life in the attempt. The valiant crew that man the life-boat may not succeed in bringing the shipwrecked to shore. The best aims may miscarry. Kindness, like ore of gold, in the breast of the creature may never be minted into the coin of benefit, or pass current for its real worth. Not all donations expended in charity are effectual to relieve distress. But the benefits of God are all fully beneficial. They answer the ends they are designed to serve. Forgetfulness on the part of God’s children is without excuse, for here we are, monuments of mercy, pillars of grace, living epistles; ay, the living, the living to praise you, O God, as I do this day; and thus indebted to the Lord for all his benefits, I feel that my thoughts and actions of adoring gratitude should break forth, restrained by no shore, but be continually overflowing every embankment that custom has thrown up, and send out in tears of love and sweat of labor, fertilizing streams on the right hand and on the left.