Joy Upon Joy, with Charles SpurgeonНамуна

 All the saints have waited for Jesus. Our mother Eve waited for the coming of Christ; when her first son was born, she said, “I have gotten a man from the Lord” (Genesis 4:1). True, she was mistaken in what she said: it was Cain, and not Jesus. But by her mistake, we see that she cherished the blessed hope. That Hebrew patriarch, Abraham, who took his son, his only son, to offer him for a burnt offering, expected the Messiah, and well did he express his faith when he said, “My son, God will provide himself a lamb” (Genesis 22:8). Jacob, who once had a stone for his pillow, the trees for his curtains, the heaven for his canopy, and the cold ground for his bed, expected the coming of Jesus, for he said on his deathbed—“Until Shiloh come” (Genesis 49:10). Moses the lawgiver of Israel, who was “king in Jeshurun,” spoke of Him, for he said, “A Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken” (Deuteronomy 18:15). David celebrated Him in many a prophetic song—the Anointed of God, the King of Israel, Him to whom all kings shall bow, and all nations call Him blessed. How frequently does he in his psalms sing about “my Lord”! “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool” (Psalm 110:1). But need we stop to tell you of Isaiah, who spoke of His passion and “saw his glory” (John 12:41)? Of Jeremiah, of Ezekiel, of Daniel, of Micah, of Malachi, and of all the rest of the prophets, who stood with their eyes strained, looking through the dim mists of futurity, until the weeks of prophecy should be fulfilled—until the sacred day should arrive, when Jesus Christ should come in the flesh? 

They were all waiting for the consolation of Israel. And, now, good old Simeon, standing on the verge of the period when Christ would come, with expectant eyes looked out for Him. We are, we trust, some of us, in the same posture as Simeon. We have climbed the staircase of the Christian virtues, from whence we look for that blessed hope, the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.