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Morning and Evening

June 24, Morning

C. H. Spurgeon · Modern retelling

"A certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto Him, Blessed is the womb that bare Thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. But He said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it." — Luke 11:27, 28 · KJV

Some fondly imagine that it must have involved very special privileges to be the mother of our Lord, supposing that she had the benefit of looking into His very heart in a way we cannot hope to do. There may be an appearance of plausibility in the idea, but not much. We do not know that Mary knew more than others; what she did know she did well to store up in her heart, but she does not appear, from anything we read in the Gospels, to have been a better-instructed believer than any other of Christ's disciples. All that she knew, we too may discover. Do you wonder that we say so? Here is a text to prove it: "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him; and He will shew them His covenant." Remember the Master's words: "Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you." So blessedly does this divine Revealer of secrets tell us His heart that He keeps back nothing profitable to us; His own assurance is, "If it were not so, I would have told you." Does He not this very day manifest Himself to us as He does not to the world? It is even so; and therefore we will not ignorantly cry, "Blessed is the womb that bare Thee," but we will intelligently bless God that, having heard the Word and kept it, we have, first of all, as true a communion with the Savior as the Virgin had, and, in the second place, as true an acquaintance with the secrets of His heart as she can be supposed to have obtained. Happy soul, to be so privileged!