十二月十八日
你们要撕裂心肠，不撕裂衣服。（珥2：13）
撕裂衣服和外面的宗教情绪的表现，是很容易表现出来的，而且也常是虚僞的；但真正的悔改却是很困难，而且也是很鲜见的。人们常愿作一些最繁多而琐屑的宗教仪式，因爲这些事情能使肉体满足；但真实地相信，却很不合属肉体之人的口味，因爲那太卑屈、太扎心、太彻底了；他们宁愿喜欢一些浮夸、虚幻和属世的事。外表的仪式是暂时安适的，既可取悦耳目，又可满足自尊心，更可借此靠己称义；但他们是完全自欺的，因爲在死时和在审判的日子，人的灵魂还得靠赖比仪式和礼节更真实的东西才行。若无真实的敬虔，一切宗教的仪式都是完全虚空的；若无诚心，一切敬拜的形式都是虚僞的，幷且也是冒渎了天上的神。
撕裂心肠是神所成就的事，幷且也能深深地感到。这种隐秘的忧伤乃是个人经验中的事，不仅在形式方面，而且在信徒心灵的深处大大受了圣灵的感动。这幷不是徒托空言，单单相信的事，而是在永活神的每一个孩子心中所切实感到的。大大谦卑，完全除罪，然后便可尝到恩慰的甜蜜滋味，这是高傲的人所不能领受到的；这恩乃是特特分别归与神的选民，幷单单属他们。
这节经文叫我们撕裂我们的心肠，但我们的心肠自有生一来，就坚硬如石；那末，怎麽行呢？我们要把我们的心肠带到十字架下：救主死时大声一喊磐石爲之震裂，他的声音现在也能撕裂我们的心肠。圣灵啊！愿你使我听到耶稣死时的呼喊，好使我们的心肠裂开，正像人在悲哀之日撕裂自己的衣服一样。
December 18
“Rend your heart, and not your garments.”—Joel 2:13
Garment-rending and
other outward signs of religious emotion, are easily manifested and are
frequently hypocritical; but to feel true repentance is far more difficult, and
consequently far less common. Men will attend to the most multiplied and minute
ceremonial regulations–for such things are pleasing to the flesh–but true
religion is too humbling, too heart-searching, too thorough for the tastes of
the carnal men; they prefer something more ostentatious, flimsy, and worldly.
Outward observances are temporarily comfortable; eye and ear are pleased;
self-conceit is fed, and self-righteousness is puffed up: but they are ultimately
delusive, for in the article of death, and at the day of judgment, the soul
needs something more substantial than ceremonies and rituals to lean upon.
Apart from vital godliness all religion is utterly vain; offered without a
sincere heart, every form of worship is a solemn sham and an impudent mockery
of the majesty of heaven.
Heart-rending is
divinely wrought and solemnly felt. It is a secret grief which is personally
experienced, not in mere form, but as a deep, soul-moving work of the Holy
Spirit upon the inmost heart of each believer. It is not a matter to be merely
talked of and believed in, but keenly and sensitively felt in every living
child of the living God. It is powerfully humiliating, and completely
sin-purging; but then it is sweetly preparative for those gracious consolations
which proud unhumbled spirits are unable to receive; and it is distinctly
discriminating, for it belongs to the elect of God, and to them alone.
The text commands us to rend our hearts, but they are
naturally hard as marble: how, then, can this be done? We must take them to
Calvary: a dying Saviour’s voice rent the rocks once, and it is as powerful
now. O blessed Spirit, let us hear the death-cries of Jesus, and our hearts
shall be rent even as men rend their vestures in the day of lamentation.
