The Pity of the Lord–the Comfort of the Afflicted
(No. 1845)
A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 14, 1885,
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON BEHALF OF THE LONDON
HOSPITALS.
"Behold, we count them happy which endure. You have heard of the
patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is
full of pity, and of tender mercy." James 5:11.
WE are far too apt to entertain hard thoughts of God. The horrible
atheism of our depraved nature continually quarrels with the Most High
and, when we are under His afflicting hand and things go cross to our
will, the evil of our nature becomes sadly evident. When sorely
distressed, we are too apt to think and to speak as we ought not to do
concerning the Most High. Let us never forget that our hard speeches
have all been false speeches and that our suspicions of our God have
always been libels upon Him. When we have not thought and spoken well
of His name, we have thought and spoken amiss! Looking back, we desire,
if possible, to blot out every murmuring thought with our tears and we
would cancel every complaining word with humble sorrow. We would eat
our bitter words–they were all unwarranted and, therefore, with deep
repentance we call them back. On taking a survey of our whole life, we
see that the kindness of God has run all through it like a silver
thread. Goodness and mercy have followed us all our days, always
pursuing us even when we have wickedly fled from them.
Even our apparent ills have been real blessings. As I said in prayer,
so I say now–I do not know for which I would bless God most–for my
sorrows or for my joys. The best piece of furniture I have ever had in
my house is the cross of affliction! Adversity is the richest field in
all the farm of life. We have never reaped such a harvest from any seed
as from that which fell from our hands while tears were falling from
our eyes. When we have gone forth weeping, bearing precious seed, we
have invariably come, again, rejoicing, bringing our sheaves with us! O
Sufferer, when your bed grew hard beneath you and your pain was
exceedingly great, it may be that your groans and complaints were not
altogether those of sorrow, but a measure of rebellion mingled with
them! For this, be ashamed and confounded! Confess those rebellions!
Acknowledge that your hard thoughts were all founded upon error and ask
for Grace to be forever at one with your Lord. You who have suffered
the loss of property or the loss of beloved friends, you, too, perhaps,
have thought of God foolishly–remember those thoughts with shame and
be all the more eager, at once, to bear willing testimony that the Lord
is good and that His mercy endures forever. It is true, however
circumstances may look otherwise, that "the Lord is full of pity, and
of tender mercy." Whatever may or may not be, the Lord must be good!
Set your seal to that Truth of God. Hold up your head and your hand as
one who can speak well of His name and say, "I will bless the Lord at
all times! His praise shall continually be in my mouth!"
Let each restored man say, "He heals all my diseases." Let each tried
one now say, "Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord
delivers him out of them all." Let the aged man bring the spoils of his
experience and lay them down at the feet of the Lord who, up to now,
has helped him. Our desire, this morning, will be to help one another
to avoid future murmuring. We have really nothing to complain
about–even our disappointments will yet be causes for praise! O, may
the Spirit of God now make us wise to avoid such hasty blunders in the
future and teach us to know the Lord so well that we may henceforth be
at peace with Him, whatever He may do! O that we may never bear false
witness against our God! The Apostle James, in this passage, aims at
setting us right in our judgments of the Lord's dealings that patience
may become an easier lesson.
Will you notice that the Apostle, first, in this verse, sites an
instructive instance of the tender pity of God–"Behold, we count them
happy which endure. You have heard of the patience of Job, and have
seen the end of the Lord." Then,
secondly, he makes a consoling statement and lays it down as a matter
of doctrine that "the Lord is full of pity, and of tender mercy." When
we have talked upon those two matters, we shall close by observing the
precious lessons which we ought to gather from them, as bees fetch
honey from the flowers.
I. Notice that when James is exhorting us to full confidence in God in
the hour of trial, he gives us AN INSTRUCTIVE INSTANCE. He quotes the
story of Job. In these days everything is doubted and a new theory is
sure to run like fire among stubble, for this fickle age delights, like
the Athenians, in anything new, however absurd it may be! Hence no part
of Scripture has been left alone and, of the Book of Job, it has been
said that it is a drama, a fiction, a fine piece of Oriental
imagination. But see how the New Testament protects the Old! How can
Job be an imaginary character? Does the Spirit of God quote for our
guidance a fictitious person? Does He set Job before us as an example
when Job never existed? The thing is too absurd to contemplate for a
single moment! There was such a person as Job and possibly the present
passage may confirm us in the belief that the Patriarch lived in the
earliest ages, since this Apostle, when mentioning the Prophets, places
Job in the forefront of them and quotes his case in preference to any
other.
"Take, my brethren, the Prophets, who have spoken in the name of the
Lord, for an example of suffering, affliction and of patience…You
have heard of the patience of Job." He might have mentioned Jacob, or
Moses, or David as examples of heroic endurance, but he cites Job–in
all probability as being first in order of time and in degree of trial.
I conceive him to have been one of the earliest of those gracious
persons who walked with God through much tribulation– and endured as
seeing Him who is invisible.
At any rate, we are certain that James does not bring before us the
imaginary actor in an Oriental tale as an argument for patience, for
when men are suffering, they have no patience with fiction–they are in
no humor for amuse-ment–and suffering men will only endure to be
comforted by the story of real persons who have literally known the
sufferings of life. Should you try to stimulate the afflicted to
patience by a piece of fiction, they would turn upon you with
indignation and say–"Yes, you demand a patience of me which was never
found in mortal man. You ask me to display a virtue which was never
actually exemplified in history and so you are driven to invent a
person for my imitation!" It is too absurd!
Observe, that when this Apostle introduces Job, it is with the view of
pointing out the tender mercy of God in his case. He begins by saying,
"Behold, we count them happy which endure." The pity and tender mercy
of God are to be seen in the happiness of those who are called to
suffer. "We count them happy which endure." Who counts them happy? It
is a counting which is not general. This arithmetic is only known to
faith and must be learned of the Lord Jesus. "We," that is, the Church
of God, count them happy who are counted worthy to suffer for Christ's
sake. We do not deem those to be happy who sport their lives away and
end a wasted life of luxury by a dreadful death in unbelief. We do not
count those to be happy who are fattened like the beasts in the
pasture, but shall soon be brought to the slaughter–such are all
around us–we sorrow because of them! We are not so foolish as to count
those happy who spread themselves like a green bay tree, only to be the
sooner laid low by the axe of doom!
We count those happy who endure because our Savior has taught us so to
reckon. Did He not say, "Blessed are you, when men shall revile you and
persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely,
for My sake. Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward
in Heaven, for so persecuted they the Prophets which were before you"?
Did He not also say, "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be
comforted"? This is the verdict of the Savior and the true disciple
must not dream of disputing with His Master! It is ours to believe that
those who endure the will of God are among the happiest of the race,
for the inspired Psalmist has said, "Blessed is the man whom You
chasten, O Lord."
I may venture to say that the more sensible part of mankind, in some
measure, concur with the people of God in this accounting. We count
that man happy who has passed through trial and hardship with a brave
endurance. Such life is of an interesting and manly kind. But life
without struggle and difficulty is thin and tasteless. How can a noble
life be constructed if there is no difficulty to overcome, no suffering
to bear? What was there about Dives–his fine linen and sumptuous
fare–to make life of? Who envies him? Studying the lives of eminent
men, we come to the conclusion that on the whole, it is good for a man
to bear the yoke; good for a man to breast the billows; good for a man
to pass through fire and through water–and so to learn sublime
lessons. When we see what poor, paltry things those are who are nursed
in the lap of luxury and, consequently, never come to a real manhood,
"we count them happy that endure." No wise man would seek to be
exempted from the healthy discipline of trouble any more than an
intelligent child would wish to be
excused from school and to be allowed to play all day and every day in
the meadows. No–we are not butterflies that flit from flower to
flower–life is real, life is earnest and the tonic of sorrow braces
and strengthens us to make it so! As a matter of faith and even as a
matter of reasonable judgment, "we count them happy which endure."
This counting is not mere fancy, but it is a correct estimate–there is
a happiness in affliction which none will doubt who have tasted it.
Within the rough shell of sorrow, we find a sweet kernel. When we look
to the end of affliction; when we see all its comfortable fruit; when
we mark what it corrects and observe what it produces, we judge that it
is no mean blessing! Happy is the man who has been enabled to endure!
He rises from the deeps of woe like a pearl-finder from the sea, rich
beyond comparison. He has gained more than he has lost, even though he
has lost everything, if he has gained contentment, conformity to the
will of God, a deep experience and a surer hope. Beloved, those of us
who have done business upon great waters and have endured abundant
pain, count them happy that endure, even while they are enduring! The
people of God find themselves more buoyant in the most salty seas of
sorrow than in other waters. The cross does, in very deed, raise us
nearer to Christ when it is fully sanctified! It could not do so if it
were not sanctified by the Holy Spirit to that noble end–but under His
hand it works out our lasting good. Rare gems glisten in the mines of
adversity.
I believe that the child of God seldom trusts God so simply at other
times as he does when he is in great trouble. Then the second causes
are all knocked away like dog-shores from a new-built vessel and the
soul glides like a ship from the stocks into the waters of Grace which
are her element. Creatures too often come between us and the
Creator–and when they are removed, we see Him more distinctly, whom to
see is joy and peace! We never get so near to the source of all
heavenly consolation as when earthly comfort is removed far away. God
seems never so much a husband to any as to the widow and never so much
a father as to the fatherless! Our Lord Jesus assures us that the rich
man seldom enters His Kingdom–the general Truth of God which lies
within that fact is this–the wealth which we possess, be it of what
kind it may, impoverishes us by making faith more difficult. And it is
only by faith that we enter the Kingdom of God. It is hard to learn
swimming on dry land, but he that is in the water is driven to strike
out. Our troubles are such "waters to swim in." We are obliged–strange
that we should need such forcing to it–we are obliged, I say, to cast
ourselves on God when other helpers fail! It is written, "Blessed is he
that trusts in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is." Thus you see how
sorrow compels us to the trust which makes us blessed and thus you see
why, "we count them happy which endure."
Endurance also works in the child of God a close clinging to God which
produces near and dear communion with Him. Have you not, in time of
trouble, found yourself admitted to inner chambers which, before, had
been closed to you? Oh, the rare fellowship of tried saints! Sorrows
reveal to us the Man of Sorrows! Griefs waft us to the bosom of our
God! See the little chicks in the sunshine–they are running all over
the yard to gather what they can. But a hawk is in the sky and the
mother calls them with a sharp alarm. They perceive the danger and now
they thrust themselves into her feathers and are hidden beneath her
wings. He was a much afflicted man who wrote, "He shall cover you with
His feathers and under His wings shall you trust." The most delicious
of sensations outside of Heaven is to faint away upon the bosom of the
Lord! We find strength in helplessness, joy in submission, rest in
resignation, Heaven in a full surrender!
It is delightful to look up to a stripping and chastening God and to
say to Him, "My soul is even as a weaned child. Do what You will, for
Your will is my will. I submit myself to the withdrawal of what has so
long seemed the only source of my comfort and the fountain of my
life–for You are better to me than all the breasts of consolation. I
am sorely wounded, but You have done it and You always do well.
Therefore, I will take pleasure in the grief You send." Beloved, that
suffering which gives new life to prayer and opens to us the palace
gates through which we pass into Divine fellowship is so great a gift
that, "we count them happy which endure."
Besides, the Lord has a choice way of manifesting Himself unto His
servants in their times of weakness. I speak what I know, for I have
trod "that path which no bird of prey knows, neither has the falcon's
eye seen it"–the path upon which shines the inward personal revelation
of God! He draws the curtain about the bed of His chosen sufferer and,
at the same time, He withdraws another curtain which before concealed
His Glory! He takes away the delights of health and vigor and then He
implants energy of another and a higher order, so that the inner man
waxes mighty while the outer man decays. So wondrously does Grace work
beyond Nature that it transfigures bodily sickness into spiritual
health! Men of
God have been known to cry, "Take me back to the furnace, for there One
like unto the Son of God was evidently with
me!"
When they have had solace in the creature, they have somewhat missed
the sweetness of the Creator, and have sighed amid their earthly
comforts for the loneliness which afforded them the nearer company of
Jesus. I have never known more blissful seasons than those which my
Lord vouchsafed me when I was abused by men and had to fight a weary
battle. After all, there is no place in all our pilgrim ways which,
taken for all in all, has all the charms of the Valley of Humiliation!
The tops of the Delectable Mountains are royal spots–from them we
sometimes see the Golden City! But these are heights too steep for our
trembling feet to continually stand upon–the lowly valley suits us
better, though flesh and blood find it hard to go downhill. Here the
herb, called heart's-ease, grows luxuriantly and he that wears it is
happier than the courtier in silk and velvet! Delightful is that
well-shaded valley where the shepherd's boy sits and sings among his
father's sheep–
"He that is down need fear no fall; He that is low, no pride; He that
is humble ever shall Have God to be His guide."
Bunyan truly says, "The Valley of Humiliation is, of itself, as
fruitful a place as any the crow flies over." It is chiefly so because
in its wildernesses the Lord speaks to our hearts. To His child, when
passing through the glens of tribulation, the Lord says, "Certainly I
will be with you." In the furnace of affliction, the Lord manifests
Himself to His chosen as He does not to the world–yes, as He does not
even to those of His people who are basking in prosperity! Therefore,
"we count them happy which endure." Brothers and Sisters, do you not
see how this changes the face of affliction? This brightens everything,
for if it is, in the judgment of those who have experienced it, a happy
thing to endure! Then it is true that "the Lord is full of pity, and of
tender mercy."
Further, the Apostle gives us a hint of another matter. He adds, "you
have heard of the patience of Job." Now, notice here, the notability–I
had almost said the nobility–of endurance. As one truly says, Job's
bones had lain, this day, in the common morgue of oblivion if it had
not been for his suffering and his patience. "You have heard of the
patience of Job." Who has not? But you would have never heard of Job if
he had always been prosperous! His flocks and his herds, his gold and
his silver, his children and their banquets would, none of them, have
earned immortality for his name. But his poverty and his sickness have
done it! He had been simply an Oriental sheik, honored in his own day,
but forgotten like his fellows, had not the malice of Satan and the
Grace of God forced him into notice. He was knighted on the
battlefield. The stream of time has rolled over every other prince of
his age and we have never heard of them but, "you have heard of the
patience of Job"! Who gets a patent of nobility from the Throne of God
unless it is by endurance? The names of the heroes of the Cross are
written in black ink with a heavy pen!
Even in worldly histories it is by enduring hardness that men build
their memorials. Who that has read the classics has not heard of Mutius
Scaevola? And why? He was a valiant man, but he did not win his name by
a common deed in battle. His fights are unrecorded, but you have heard
of his laying his right hand upon the burning coals of an altar–to let
Porsenna see how a Roman could endure pain without shrinking. When he
suffered his right hand to burn, he was writing his name in his
country's annals. A thousand instances prove that only by endurance can
names be engraved in the brass of history! To make a man a man–to
bring his manhood forward and to make other men see it–there must be
endurance! Read the lives of any who have become the leaders of our
race–read the stories of any that are written in the beadroll of
fame–and you shall find that not without trial did they come to be
renowned.
Poor tailors, husbandmen and apprentices live in the story of the
Church of God because they counted not their lives dear to them for
Christ's sake. Simple maids and wives, unlettered and poor, are heard
of, to this day, and shall be heard of in eternity because they were
burned as martyrs for the Truth of God! Who would have heard of Ann
Askew if it were not that she was put upon the rack and, when every
bone was out of joint and all her body was in exquisite torture, she
baffled her tormentors! Well did she say–
"I am not she that list My anchor to let fall For every drizzling mist.
My ship's substantial."
She that could suffer and sing gained high rank among "the ladies of
the Covenant." He who is content to go down to a dishonorable grave may
choose the bastard's portion and escape the rod–but the true-born
child of God has no such desire! You may, if you please, enjoy the
pleasures of sin for a season, but if God intends to honor you, you
will choose to suffer affliction with the people of God! If you would
reign in Christ's Kingdom, you must drink of His cup and be baptized
with His baptism. Do not, therefore, look down upon those who suffer,
but rather look up to them as among the higher classes of our race. The
trials of Job elevated him into the peerage of the saints and,
therefore, we gather from this honorable result of endurance, "that the
Lord is full of pity, and of tender mercy," when He sends afflictions
to His beloved ones.
Once again, in order to see the pity of God in sorrow, we must see the
Lord's end in it, for, says the Apostle, "You have seen the end of the
Lord." God's end in affliction is that which proves that He is full of
pity and of tender mercy. Does it not strike you as rather a singular
thing that when James wants to show us that the Lord is full of pity
and of tender mercy, he points us to Job on a dunghill with all his
property gone, with his children dead, with his wife ill-advising him,
with his friends provoking him and he covered with sores from head to
foot? Who can see the pity and tender mercy of God there? Nobody who is
blind, but he who has had his eyes opened by the Spirit of God can see
it because he does not look so much at the process as at the result–he
stays not with the crucible and the furnace, but joyously gazes upon
the pure gold which comes from the refining pot! We see not so much how
Grace works as what it works. The design of the Lord is more to be
noted than the method He pursues!
First, remember that the Lord's end in sending affliction to His people
is corrective. Sanctified sorrow is a sharp frost which kills the germs
of spiritual disease. Our griefs, like a hailstorm, break off the buds
from the branches of sin so that they do not produce the black,
accursed fruit of actual transgression! How much we owe to the knife
which cuts out the canker and the gangrene! Christ's vines would soon
be in an evil case if it were not for the Pruner. Let us bless God that
though, before we were afflicted, we went astray, yet now, by the
sanctifying processes of His Providence and Grace, we have learned to
keep His Word! Look at the corrective influence of sorrow and you will
not quarrel with the rod in a father's hands.
Moreover, affliction is sent for the display of Grace. Our graces lie
asleep within us like slumbering soldiers until affliction strikes its
terrible drum and awakens them. You shall not know that there is a bird
in the woods if you are quiet. But if you break a branch, they will
become visible, and thus affliction, passing through our soul, startles
all our graces and we perceive them–and God is honored thereby. You
cannot see the stars while the sun shines! Wait till it is dark and
then you shall behold them! Many a Christian Grace is quite
imperceptible until the time of trial–and then it shines out with
great luster. All this supposes that Grace is there, but if it is
lacking, trial discovers the lack. You know not what spirit you are of
till you have been under tribulation. You count yourself rich, but in
the fire your gold is tested. You reckon that your house is well built,
but the flames find out the wood, hay and stubble. Self-knowledge is
never sure if it come not of tests and temptations. Therefore, we count
them happy who endure because they are less likely to be deceived. God
is to be praised for the discovery of our graces, for thus affliction
becomes a blessing without disguise.
Further, our trials are an education for the future. I do not think Job
was fit to have any more substance until his heart had been enlarged by
trouble. Then he could bear twice as much as before. A man of God is
not prepared to enjoy success till he has tasted defeat. Many an heir
of Heaven will never be fit for Heaven till, first of all, he has been
brought near to the gates of Hell. You have been strengthened and
prepared and made ready for a nobler future by your late experience of
grief. A traveler said to me, yesterday, speaking of the heat, how
different it is from cold, for the more you suffer heat, the less you
can endure it. But the more you are tried with cold, the more you can
bear it, for it hardens you. I am sure it is so as to the influences of
prosperity and adversity. Prosperity softens and renders us unfit for
more of itself. But adversity braces the soul and hardens it to
patience.
Beloved, I would not have you forget that "the end of the Lord" is
always with His tried people to give them greater happiness as the
result of it. Job's double portion was an instructive type of what God
does with His children in some form, or other, after trial. "You have
seen the end of the Lord." Job came to the end of his words with great
bitterness and sorrow of heart–but God's end was not yet–and when it
came, it was glorious and full of joy for His servant! Make note in Job
31:40, it is written, "The words of Job are ended"–ended amid thistles
and cockle–but the end of
the Lord was very different, for He loaded His servant with pieces of
money, earrings of gold and blessed his latter end more than his
beginning! Your end, O you that are tossed with tempest and not
comforted, shall come forth from your God when He shall lay your stones
with fair colors and your foundations with sapphire! He will restore
your soul even in this life and give you joy and rest out of your
sorrow!
As for the life to come, how little do we take it into our estimate! It
is as the main ocean and this life is no better than the village brook!
The sorrows of time are a mere pin's prick, at the most, if we contrast
them with the joy eternal! What shall we think of these temporary
inconveniences when we reach eternal happiness? We shall look back upon
our passing grief with wonder that we ever made so much of it! When the
sunshine bursts upon us, we shall smile to think of the flying clouds.
We shall laugh to think that we were so depressed by our light
affliction which is but for a moment! The far more exceeding and
eternal weight of Glory will cause us to despise the trivial trials of
our mortal life. All this makes me say and makes you see that the end
of the Lord is LOVE–and that, in the trouble which He sends He is
still–"full of pity, and of tender mercy."
II. Secondly, OUR APOSTLE MAKES A CONSOLING STATEMENT–"the Lord is
full of pity, and of tender mercy." Observe that this is the teaching
of God's Holy Word and, therefore, if we have, at this moment, no
evidence of it perceptible to sight or sense, we are bound to believe
it all the same. I ask the child of God to settle this in his mind.
"Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart."
Though as for me, "my feet were almost gone; my steps had well near
slipped," yet surely God is good to His own people. Whatever appears to
conflict with this, nothing can possibly shake the certainty of this
fact that, "the Lord is full of pity, and of tender mercy." O weeping
heir of Heaven, though your Father scourges you, believe this, for He
scourges every son whom He receives! And this also is true, that He
receives every son whom He scourges! Rest your heart upon this. Do not
be persuaded by man or devil to think ill of your God. He has a
father's heart even when He makes you feel the strokes of His hand.
Your God cannot be unkind to you. He cannot forsake you. Has He not
said, "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have
compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, they may forget, yet will I not
forget you"?–
"Such pity as a father has
Unto his children dear
Like pity shows the Lord to such
As worship Him in fear."
Do you believe this?
But, further, the text tells us that this truth may be seen. And though
it is a matter of faith, yet it may be also a matter of sight. "You
have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is full of pity." This is
so plain that you can see it! See, then, the pity of God in upholding
His people under trouble. He presses down with one hand, but He lifts
up with the other. "Though He cause grief, yet will He have
compassion." His dealings with us are of the nature of the raindrop and
the sunbeam–these are united in fashioning the Covenant rainbow.
Beloved, it is true, the Lord has burdened you. Is it not also true
that He has sustained you? Above is the billow, but, "underneath are
the everlasting arms." See the pity of God in this!
How often the mercy of God is seen in sickness and suffering by His
mitigating the pain and loss! One ounce more and the back had broken,
but that ounce never came. One breath more and the ship, that even then
staggered before the gale, would have been driven to the bottom of the
sea, but that breath of wind did not come. There is always a
restraining of affliction, even in the hour of severest trial. Those
who are washed in the blood of Jesus shall never be drowned in the sea
of sorrow.
Observe, also, the tender pity of God in forgiving the sin of His
suffering people. I bless the Lord that He has not taken notice of what
I have thought and said when I have been greatly depressed and
distracted by pain. Our Lord knows that the spirit is willing, even
when the flesh is weak, and He thinks still kindly of us. If He did
mark my foolish despondencies, what could I say but, "Lord, have mercy
upon Your foolish child"? When your child has a fever, it may be he is
fretful and begins to talk foolishly. Maybe he says unkind things
against those very persons whom, in his heart, he loves best. Do you
ever say to the child, afterwards, "John, I am very grieved that you
said such shocking things about me and about your mother"? Far from it!
You say, "Poor dear, he does not know what he is saying–he is
wandering in his mind." So does God deal with our naughtiness when we
are under His hand–when He sees that it is rather weakness than
willfulness. He is full of pity and full of compassion and blots out
the transgressions of His people
See how the tenderness and pity of God are also seen in the revelations
He makes to His saints–but of that I have spoken, though I would not
have you forget it.
So, also, in the overruling of our sorrows, His love is conspicuous. He
often sends a great sorrow that we may not be compelled to bear a
greater one. By fire He prevents conflagration. By pain He kills a
greater pain. If you had not endured a certain trouble you might have
been visited by seven troubles, each one more terrible than your
present one. Thank God for the preventive operations of His Providence!
Bless Him, above all, for the sweet rewards that come to His tried
people when, afterwards, they bear the comfortable fruits of
righteousness and especially when He comes to them in the riches of His
Grace and turns their midnight into everlasting day.
In closing the second head I should like to say I wish we could all
read the original Greek, for this word, "The Lord is full of pity," is
a specially remarkable one. It means literally that the Lord has "many
bowels," or a great heart, and so it indicates great tenderness. The
god in whom some believe is unable to feel–they lay it down in their
theology as an axiom that God cannot feel. This, however, I take leave
to deny. God is able to do all things. I cannot regard Him as though He
were a block of wood, or a mass of iron unable to feel. On the
contrary, He is represented to us as greatly feeling–the God of a
great heart! You know how a sensitive person is affected at the sight
of suffering. Some persons cannot bear to see a creature in pain–they
are unmanned, thereby, and begin to weep like children. Our God is not
only full of pity, but very full of pity–not only of mercy, but of
tender mercy. Our Lord Jesus Christ, when He was here on earth, was the
image of the Father and we often read of Him that, "He was moved with
compassion." After this sort are we to think of the great God who is
full of pity towards suffering men.
The other word is the complement of the first–"and of tender mercy."
There is, then, you see, in these two words, pity for misery and mercy
for sin. There is inward pity in the heart of God and outward action in
the mercy of God. There is sympathy for suffering and Grace for guilt.
These two things make up what we need. That God should pity our griefs
and forget out sins–that God should think kindly of us and act
helpfully towards us–these are our greatest needs. What a sea of
goodness is in my text–"full of pity, and of tender mercy!" Believe
you, then, of God, and see it to be true that for the woes of man He
has a tender heart!
Forget not that word, "In all their afflictions He was afflicted, and
the angel of His Presence saved them." Our God is not cold and hard,
but full of pity! He is infinitely just and will assuredly punish
sin–but side by side with His justice stands His love! He is as full
of pity as if He had forgotten to be righteous. Indeed, He is much more
so, for were He less righteous, He would be less kind. If you would see
His goodness and His justice blended, behold the Son of God upon the
tree, dying in our place. Never doubt His tenderness who gave His
Only-Begotten Son, "that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but
have everlasting life."
III. Now I have to close with THE LESSONS TO BE LEARNED out of the
whole subject. I will but hint at them.
The first is be patient. The whole context teaches us patience. Read
the chapter at home and see how James continues to say, "Be patient."
Be patient for this reason, that God "is full of pity, and of tender
mercy." A person going to a surgeon will bear sharp pain when he is
convinced that by such pain his cure will be worked. If a man proposes
to gash me with a lance, I decline his offer. But if I know that I
shall die unless the incision is made and, if I believe that an
intolerable pain will thus be the result, I say, "Welcome the knife."
Let him cut without mercy, if, by it he intends mercy. It might be
unmerciful to stay the hand in such a case.
Such knowledge should make us patient under Divine chastisement. The
Lord never grieves us because He likes to grieve us. "He does not
afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men." There is a
necessity for every sorrow. Though now, for a season, we are in
heaviness, there is a necessity for it. Do not kick against the goad,
lest it prick you all the more. Be silent before God, lest He rebukes
you for your foolish speech. When the sheep is being shorn, if it
kicks, it will be cut with the shears. But if it will lie quite still,
the shearer will take off all the wool and never harm the flesh. Lie
still, Brothers and Sisters–let the Good Shepherd clip as He pleases!
Though He may cut very close to the skin, He is full of pity and will
only rid you of that which would harm you.
The next lesson is, be penitent. You unconverted ones here, today, if
you are suffering and sorrowful, I want you to feel that God is sending
this sorrow in love to your souls. He smites you that you may turn to
Him in repentance. He chastens you that He may bring you to Himself,
that you may not perish forever. He "is full of pity." His hand is
strong to smite, but it is also strong to save. Return to your Father,
O you prodigal! Though you have spent your substance,
though you have brought yourself to rags, return to your Father–there
is bread enough in His house and, better still, there is love enough in
His heart to welcome even you! See, He hastens to meet you as soon as
your face is toward Him, for He is ready to forgive! Oh, you that have
been hardened by your distresses, repent of this wickedness, lest, like
Pharaoh, you are plagued even to destruction! Seek the Lord while He
may be found! Call upon Him while He is near. He welcomes all who
repent. He is eager to forgive! Delay no longer. O Spirit of the Lord,
hasten the returning sinner!
The last lesson is, be full of pity. If God is full of pity and of
tender mercy, children of God, you are to imitate Him and to be full of
pity, too. This Truth of God is to be remembered at all times. And,
just now, you have an opportunity of showing your pity towards the poor
and sick of this great city. When you relieve the needs of a man in
health, you may possibly assist him in his vices, but in helping the
sick poor you can do no wrong. The door of a hospital is open for good
and only for good. I am concerned to know that there are many beds
unoccupied and many suffering persons kept out of the hospitals from
lack of funds. Whole wards are rendered useless for lack of income. In
some cases the authorities are compelled to use those wards for persons
who can pay for attendance and though this is a good thing, yet I
cannot forget that those who cannot pay are thus deprived of what they
need so much more than others.
You that have been sick, yourselves, should give liberally, today, out
of sympathy. You that have never been sick ought to give twice as much
out of gratitude. Yet I must correct myself–those who have been
afflicted and healed should feel both sympathy and gratitude–and so
should give the double of those from whom I have asked double
liberality. Let us try to give to this fourfold degree! When the box is
passed round, be full of pity and of tender mercy, like your Father and
your God–and then the hospitals will be largely helped this day.
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Psalm 103.
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