A Wonderful Transformation
(No. 2983)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 12,1906.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
OCTOBER 3, 1875.
"Your sorrow shall be turned into joy." John 16:20.
You all know that at that time, our Lord was speaking of His death
which would cause the deepest grief to His own people, while the
ungodly world would rejoice and laugh them to scorn. So He bade them
look beyond the immediate present into the future and believe that,
ultimately, the cause of their sorrow would become a fountain of
perpetual joy to them. It is always well to look a little ahead.
Instead of deploring the dark clouds, let us anticipate the fruits and
the flowers that will follow the descent of the needed showers. We
might be always wretched if we lived only in the present, for our
brightest time is yet to come. We are now, as Believers in the Lord
Jesus Christ, only in the twilight of our day– the high noon shall
come to us by-and-by.
But although our Savior's words, just then, related immediately to His
death, He was such a wonderful speaker that everything He said had a
wider meaning in it than one might at first imagine. Even the leaves of
the Tree of Life are for the healing of the nations–and even those
words of Christ which have a direct application to a special occasion
have a further wondrous power about them–and may be used on other
occasions as well as upon the one when they were first uttered. I think
I may fairly say that our Lord did not merely mean that just when He
died, His children would have sorrow, but that we may take His words as
a prophecy that all who truly follow Him will have their seasons of
darkness and gloom. Our Lord Jesus Christ has nowhere promised to His
people immunity from trial. On the contrary, He said to His disciples,
"In the world you shall have tribulation." I cannot imagine a better
promise for the wheat than that it shall be threshed–and that is the
promise that is made to us if we are the Lord's wheat–and not the
enemy's tares, "You shall have the threshing which shall fit you for
the heavenly garner." You need not mourn, Beloved, that it is to be so.
If you do, it will make no difference, for your Lord has declared that
"in the world you shall have tribulation." Rest quite sure of that. If
you could ask those Believers who are now in Heaven, they would tell
you that they came through great tribulation–many of them not only
washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb, but they sealed their
faithfulness to Him with their own blood!
Our Lord meant His disciples to feel the sorrow that was to come upon
them, for He said to them, "You shall weep and lament," and He did not
express any blame upon them for doing so. I would not have any of you
imaging that there is any virtue in stoicism. I once heard a woman who
wished to show the wonders worked in her by the Grace of God, say that
when her baby was taken from her, she was so resigned to the Divine
will that she did not even shed a tear! But I do not believe that it
ever was the Divine will that mothers should lose their babies without
shedding tears over them. I thank God that I did not have a mother who
could have acted like that. And I believe that as Jesus, Himself, wept,
there can be no virtue in our saying that we do not weep. God means you
to feel the rod, my Brother, my Sister. He intends you to sometimes
weep and lament, as Peter says, "if need be, you are in heaviness
through manifold temptations." It is not merely the temptation or trial
for which there is a necessity, but that we should be in heaviness is
also a necessary part of our earthly discipline. Unfelt trial is no
trial! Certainly it would be an unsanctified trial. Christ never meant
Christians to be stoics. There is a wide and grave distinction between
a gracious acquiescence in the Divine will and a callous steeling of
your heart to bear anything that happens without any feeling whatever.
"You shall be sorrowful," says our Lord to His disciples, and "you
shall weep and lament." It is through the weeping and the lamenting,
oftentimes, that the very kernel of the blessing comes to us!
Our Savior mentions one aggravation of our grief which some of us have
often felt–"the world shall rejoice." That is the old story. David
found his own trials all the harder to bear when he saw the prosperity
of the wicked. He had been plagued all the day long and chastened every
morning–he could have endured that if he had not seen that the ungodly
had more than heart could wish! He found himself, sometimes, even
troubled with the fear of death, but as for the wicked, he said, "There
are no bonds in their death: but their strength is firm. They are not
in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men." It
makes our bitterness all the more bitter when the saints of God are
afflicted and the enemies of God are made to dwell in ease. I daresay
when you were a boy, you may have fallen and hurt yourself–and while
you were smarting from your bruises, the other lads who were around
you, were laughing at you! The pain was all the sharper because of
their laughing. And the righteous are wounded to the quick when they
see the ungodly prospering–prospering, apparently, by their
ungodliness. And when these ungodly persons point the finger of scorn
at them and ask, "Where is your God now? Is this the result of serving
Him?" When this is your lot, remember that your Savior told His
disciples that it would be so–and He has told you the same. While you
are sorrowing, you shall hear their shouts of revelry. You shall be up
in your own room weeping and you shall hear the sound of their merry
feet in the dizzy dance. The very contrast between their circumstances
and your own will make you feel your grief more. Well, if this is to be
our lot, we must not count it a strange thing when it comes, but we may
hear our Master say to us, "I told you that it would be so." When it
happens to any of you, Beloved, you must say, "This is even as Jesus
Christ said it would be."
His first disciples, if they ventured out into the streets of Jerusalem
after their Savior's crucifixion, and while He was lying in the tomb of
Joseph, must have found it very trying to hear the jests and jeers of
those who had put the Nazarene to death. "There is an end of Him now,"
they said. "His imposture is exposed and His disciples–poor, foolish
fanatics–will soon come to their senses and the whole thing will
collapse." Just so. That was what Jesus said would happen, "you shall
weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice."
Now, what was the Savior's cure for all this? It was the fact that this
trial was to last only for a little while–for a very little while. In
the case of His first disciples, it was only to last for a few days and
then it would to over, for they would hear the joyful announcement,
"The Lord is risen, indeed, and has appeared to Simon." So is it to be
with you and with me, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ. Our sorrows
are all, like ourselves, mortal. There are no immortal sorrows for
immortal saints! They come, but, blessed be God, they also go like
birds of the air–they fly over our heads but they cannot make their
abode in our souls. We suffer today, but we shall rejoice tomorrow!
"Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning." But as
for yonder laughing sinner, what weeping and wailing will be his
portion unless he repents and weeps in penitence over his many sins!
The prosperity of the wicked is like a thin layer of ice on which they
always stand in peril. In a moment they may be brought down to
destruction! And the place that knew them will know them no more
forever. Our weeping is soon to end, but their weeping will never end.
Our joy will be forever, but their joy will speedily come to an end.
Look a little ahead, Christian pilgrims, for you will soon have passed
through the Valley of the Shadow of Death and have come into the land
where even the shadow of death shall never fall across your pathway
again!
In speaking those comforting words to His disciples, our Savior made
use of this memorable sentence, "Your sorrow shall to turned into joy."
As I read the whole passage, I pondered over those words and tried to
find out their meaning. Perhaps you think, as you glance at them, that
they mean that the man who was sorrowful would be joyous. That is part
of their meaning, but they mean a great deal more than that. They mean,
literally and actually, your sorrow, itself, shall be turned into
joy–not the sorrow to be taken away and joy to be put in its
place–but the very sorrow which now grieves you, shall be turned into
joy! This is a very wonderful transformation and only the God who works
great marvels could possibly accomplish it–could, somehow, not only
take away the bitterness and give sweetness in its place, but turn the
bitterness, itself, into sweetness!
That is to be the subject of our present meditation and I am glad to
have, in the communion at which many of us will presently unite in the
highest act of Christian fellowship, an apt illustration of my theme.
You know that the Supper of the Lord is not at all a funereal
gathering, but it is a sacred festival at which we sit at our ease,
restfully enjoying ourselves as at a banquet. But what are the
provisions for this feast and what do they represent? That bread, that
wine– what do they mean? They represent, my dear Friends,
sorrow–sorrow even unto death! The bread, separate from the
wine, represents the flesh of Christ separate from His blood, and so
they set forth death. The broken bread represents the flesh of Christ
bruised, marred, suffering, full of anguish. The wine represents
Christ's blood poured out upon the Cross amidst agony which only ended
with His death. Yet these emblems of sorrow and suffering furnish us
with our great feast of love! This is, indeed, joy arising out of
sorrow! The festival is itself the ordained memorial of the greatest
grief that was ever endured on earth. Here, then, as you gather around
this Table, you shall see, in the outward signs and emblems, that
sorrow is turned into joy!
I. If you will keep that picture in your mind's eye, it will help me to
bring out the meaning of the text. And our first point will be
this–OUR SORROW AS TO OUR BLESSED LORD IS NOW TURNED INTO JOY. The
very things that make us grieve concerning Him are the things which
make us rejoice concerning Him!
And, first, this comes to pass when we look upon Him as tempted, tried
and tested in a thousand ways. We see Him no sooner rising from the
waters of Baptism than He is led into the desert to be tempted by the
devil. And we grieve to think that, for our sakes, it was necessary
that He should there bear the brunt of a fierce duel with the Prince of
Darkness. We see Him afterwards, all His life, tempted, tried and
tested this way and that–sometimes by a scribe or a Pharisee,
sometimes by a Sadducee. All sorts of temptations were brought to bear
upon Him, for He "was in all points tempted like as we are." But, oh,
how thankful we are to know that He was thus tempted, for those very
temptations helped to prove the sinlessness of His Character! How could
we know what there was in a man who was never tested and tried? But our
Lord was tested at every point–and at no point did He fall. It is
established, beyond all question, that He is the Lamb of God without
blemish and without spot. You cannot tell what a man's strength of
character is unless he is tried. There must be something to develop the
excellence that lies hidden in his nature. And we ought to rejoice and
bless God that our Savior was passed, like silver, through the furnace
seven times and, like gold, was tried again and again in the crucible
in the hottest part of the furnace yet there was found no dross in Him,
but only the pure, precious metal without a particle of alloy! Therein
do we greatly rejoice! He "was in all points tempted like as we are,
yet without sin." He was tempted by Satan and contradicted by sinners,
yet He was found faultless to the end and, thus, our joy arises out of
that which otherwise would have made us mourn!
Further, dear Brothers and Sisters, remember that the griefs and trials
of our Lord not only manifested His sinless Character, but they made
Him fit for that priestly office which He has undertaken on our behalf.
The Captain of our salvation was made "perfect through sufferings." It
was necessary that He who would really be a Benefactor to men should
know them thoroughly and understand them. How can He sympathize with
them in their sorrows unless He has, at least to some extent, felt as
they do? So, our merciful and faithful High Priest is one who can be
"touched with the feeling of our infirmities," seeing that He was
tempted and tried even as we are. I think that had I been alive at the
time, I would have spared my Lord many of His griefs had it been in my
power–and many of you will say the same. He would never have needed to
say, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of
Man has not where to lay His head," for you would gladly have given Him
the best room in your house! Ah, but then the poor would have missed
that gracious Word of God which, I have no doubt, has often comforted
them when they have been houseless and forlorn! You would not have
allowed Him, if you could have helped it, to be weary, and worn, and
hungry, and thirsty. You would have liberally supplied all His needs to
the utmost of your power. But then He would not have been so fully in
sympathy as He now is with those who have to endure the direst straits
of poverty, seeing that He has passed through a similar experience to
theirs. What joy it is to a sorrowing soul to know that Jesus has gone
that way long before!
I had a great grief that struck me down to the very dust, but I looked
up and saw that face that was marred more than any other. And I rose to
my feet in hope and joyful confidence and I said, "Are You, my Lord,
here where I am? Have you suffered thus, and did you endure far more
than I can ever know of grief and brokenness of heart? Then, Savior, I
rejoice and bless Your holy name!" I know that you, Beloved, must often
have grieved over your Savior's suffering, though you have been, at the
same time, glad to remember that He passed through it all–because He
thus became such a matchless Comforter, "who can have compassion on the
ignorant, and on them that are out of the way" because of the very
experience through which He passed–"for in that He Himself has
suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted."
The meaning of the text comes out even more clearly when we think of
the sorrows to which our Lord had been referring, which ended in His
death Oh, the griefs of Jesus when He laid down His life for His sheep!
Have you not
sometimes said, or at least thought, that the ransom price was too
costly for such insignificant creatures as we are? Think of the agony
and bloody sweat, the scourging, the spitting, the shame, the hounding
through the streets, the piercing of the hands and feet, the mockery,
the vinegar, the gall, the "Eloi Eloi, lama Sabachthani?" and all the
other horrors and terrors that gathered around the Cross! We wish that
this might never have happened and yet the fact that they did happen
brings to us unspeakable bliss! It is our greatest joy to know that
Jesus bled and died upon the tree! How else could our sins be put away?
How else could we, who are God's enemies, be reconciled and brought
near to Him? How else could Heaven be made secure for us? We might,
from one aspect of Christ's sufferings, chant a mournful miserereat the
foot of the Cross, but before we have done more than just commence the
sad strain, we perceive the blessed results that come to the children
of men through Christ's death–so we lay down our instruments of
mourning and take up the harp and the trumpet–and sound forth glad
notes of rejoicing and thanksgiving!
Our sorrow about Christ's death is also turned into joy because not
only do we derive the greatest possible benefit from it, but Jesus
Himself, by His death, achieved such wonders. That precious body of
His, that fair lily all stained with crimson lines where flowed His
heart's blood must have been a piteous sight for anyone to see. I
wonder how any artist could ever paint the taking down of Christ from
the Cross, or the robing Him for the sepulcher? They were sorrowful
sights for art to spend itself upon. Jesus, the final Conqueror, lies
in the grave! The cerements of the tomb are wrapped about Him who once
wore the purple of the universe! But we have scarcely time to sorrow
over these facts before we recollect that the death of Christ was the
death of sin! The death of Christ was the overthrow of Satan! The death
of Christ was the death of death! And out of His very tomb we hear that
pealing trumpet note, "O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is
your victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the
Law. But thanks be to God, which gives us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ." I am glad that He fought with Satan in the Garden and
vanquished Him. I am glad that He fought with sin upon the Cross and
destroyed it. I am glad that He fought with grim death in that dark
hour and that He seized him by the throat and held him captive. I am
glad that He ever entered the gloomy sepulcher, for He rifled it of all
its terrors for all His loved ones, tore its iron bars away and set His
people free! So you see, it is all gladness, even as He said to His
disciples, "Your sorrow shall be turned into joy."
And whatever else there may be of sorrow that came out of Christ's
Cross, we may all be glad of it, for now Christ Himself is the more
glorious because of it It is true that nothing could add to His Glory
as God, but seeing that He assumed our Nature and became Man as well as
God, He added to His Glory by all the shame He bore! There is not a
reproach that pierced His heart which did not make Him more beautiful!
There is not a line of sorrow that furrowed His face which did not make
Him more lovely–that marred Countenance is more to be admired by us
than all the comeliness of earthly beauty! He was always superlatively
beautiful. His beauty was such as might well hold the angels spellbound
as they looked upon Him! The sun and moon and stars were dim compared
with the brightness of His eyes. Heaven and earth could not find His
equal and if all Heaven had been sold, it could not have purchased this
precious Pearl! Yet the setting of the pearl has made Christ appear
even brighter than before–the setting of His Humanity, the setting of
His sufferings, His pangs, His shameful death has made His beauty shine
out the more resplendent! The plant that sprang from Jesse's root is
now the plant of renown! He who was despised at Nazareth is glorified
in Paradise and the more glorified because, between Nazareth and
Paradise, He was "despised and rejected of men, a Man of Sorrows and
acquainted with grief." Blessed Savior, we rejoice that You have gained
by all Your sorrows, for therefore has God highly exalted You, and
given You a name which is above every name!
II. But, now, secondly, and very briefly, I want to remind you that THE
SORROW OF THE WHOLE CHURCH
HAS ALSO BEEN TURNED INTO JOY.
In speaking of the sorrows of the persecuted Church of Christ, I will
not compare them to the sorrows of her Lord. But if anything could have
been comparable to the suffering of the Bridegroom, it would have been
the suffering of the bride. Think of the early ages of the Church of
God under the Roman persecutions. Think of the Church of Christ among
the Vaudois of the Alps, or in England during the Marian persecution.
Our blood runs cold as we read of what the saints of God have suffered!
I have often put up Foxe's Book of Martyrs upon the shelf and thought
that I could not read it any more–it is such a terribly true account
of what human nature can bear when faith in Christ sustains it. Yet,
Brothers and Sisters, we are not sorry that the martyrs suffered as
they did. Or if we are, that very sorrow is turned into joy at the
remembrance of how Christ has been glorified through the sufferings of
His saints! Even our poor humanity looks more
comely when we recall what it endured for Christ's sake. When I think
of the honor of being a martyr for the Truth of God, I confess that I
would sooner be a martyr than be the angel Gabriel, for I think it
would be far better to have gone to Heaven from one of Smithfield's
stakes than to have been always in Heaven. What honor it has brought to
Christ that poor, feeble men could love Him so that they could bleed
and die for Him! Yes, and women, too, like that brave Anne Askew, who,
after they had racked her till they had put every bone out of joint,
was still courageous enough to argue on behalf of her dear Lord! When
they thought that her womanly weakness would make her give way, she
seemed stronger than any man might have been as she said to her
persecutors–
"I am not she that lyst
My anker to let fall
For every dryslynge myst;
My shippe's substancyal"–
and so defied them to do their worst! The Church of God may well
rejoice as she thinks of the noble army of martyrs who praise the Lord
on high for, among the sweetest notes that ascend even in Heaven, are
the songs that come from the white-robed throng who shed their blood
rather than deny their Lord!
The Church of Christ has also passed through a fierce fire of
opposition, as well as of persecution. Heresy after heresy has raged.
Men have arisen who have denied this, and that, and the other Doctrines
taught in the Scriptures. And every time these oppositions have come,
certain feeble folk in the Church have been greatly alarmed but, in
looking back upon them all up to the present, I think that they are
causes for joy rather than sorrow! Whenever what is supposed to be a
new heresy comes up, I say to myself, "Ah, I know you! I remember
reading about you. There was an old pair of shoes, worn by heresy many
hundreds of years ago which were thrown on a dunghill–and you have
picked them up and refurbished them a little, and brought them forth as
if they had been new." I bless the Lord that at this moment there
scarcely remains anyDoctrine to be defended for the first time, for
they have all been fought over so fiercely in years gone by that there
is hardly any point that our noble forefathers did not defend! And they
did their work so well that we can frequently use their weapons for the
defense of the Truth today. Who would wish to have kept the Word of God
from going through this furnace of opposition? It is like silver seven
times purified in a furnace of earth. Philosophers have tried you, O
precious Book, but you were not found wanting! Atheists have tried you!
Sneering skeptics have tried you! They have all passed you through the
fire, but not even the smell of fire is upon you to this day! And
therein do we rejoice, yes, and will rejoice! And the day will come
when the present errors and opposition will only be recorded on the
pages of history as things for our successors to rejoice over just as
we now rejoice over the past victories of the Truth of
God!
And once again, dear Friends, not only is it so with the persecutions
and oppositions of the Church of Christ, but the Church's difficulties
have also become themes of rejoicing. As I look abroad upon the world
at the present time, it does seem an impossible thing that the nations
of the earth should ever be converted to Christ. It is impossible so
far as man alone is concerned, yet God has commanded the Christian
Church to evangelize the world! Someone complains that the Church is
too feeble and its adherents too few to accomplish such a task as this.
The fewer the fighters, the greater their share of glory when the
victory is won! In order to overcome indifference, idolatry, atheism,
Mohammedanism and Popery, the battle must be a very stern one, but who
wants Christ's followers to fight only little battles? My Brothers and
Sisters, let us thank God that our foes are so numerous! It matters not
how many there may be of them–there are only the more to be destroyed!
What said David concerning his adversaries? "They compassed me about;
yes, they compassed me about; but in the name of the Lord I will
destroy them." When the Last Great Day shall come and Jehovah's banner
shall be finally furled because the Book of the Wars of the Lord shall
have reached its last page, it will be a grand thing to tell the story
of the whole campaign! Then it will be known to all that the fight for
the faith was not a mere skirmish against a few feeble folk, nor was it
a brief battle which began and ended in an hour–but it was a
tremendous conflict "against principalities, against powers, against
the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness
in high places." They gather, they gather, my Brothers and Sisters,
thick as the clouds in the day of tempest, but, out of Heaven Jehovah,
Himself, will thunder and give battle and scatter them–and they shall
fly before Him like the chaff before the wind!
III. Now, lastly, to come down from those high themes to minor matters,
OUR OWN PERSONAL SORROW
SHALL BE TURNED INTO JOY.
When I think of the sorrows of Christ and the sorrows of His Church as
a whole, I say to myself, "What pin pricks are our griefs compared with
the great gash in the Savior's side, and the many scars that adorn His
Church today!" But, dear Friends, whatever our sorrows may be, they
will be turned into joy. Sometimes we witness this wonderful
transformation. Poor old Jacob sorrowed greatly when he thought that he
had lost his favorite son, Joseph. "An evil beast has devoured him," he
said. "Joseph is without doubt torn in pieces." And he wrung his hands
and wept bitterly for many a day over his lost Joseph. Then came the
famine and the poor old man was dreadfully alarmed concerning his large
family. He must send some of his sons into Egypt to buy corn, and when
he sends them there, they do not all come back, for Simeon is detained
as a hostage–and the lord of the land says that they shall not see his
face again unless they bring Benjamin with them–Benjamin, the dear and
only remaining child of the beloved Rachel! Jacob cannot bear the
thought of parting with him, so he says to his sons, "You have bereaved
me of my children; Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and you will take
Benjamin away: all these things are against me." Poor old soul, what a
mistake he made! Why, everything was as much for him as it could
possibly be! There was his dear Joseph, down in Egypt, next to Pharaoh
on the throne and ready to provide for his poor old father and all the
family during the time of famine! Then there was the famine to make him
send down to Egypt and find out where Joseph was, so that he might go
and see his face again, and confess that the Lord had dealt graciously
with him. You dear children of God who get to fretting and are troubled
should carry out Cowper's good advice–
"Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His Grace–
Behind a frowning Providence
He hides a smiling face!"
You have quite enough to cry over without fretting concerning things
that, some day, you will rejoice over! The Lord will put your tears
into His bottle and when He shows them to you, by-and-by, I think you
will say, "How foolish I was ever to shed them, because the very thing
I wept over was really a cause for rejoicing if I could but have seen a
little way ahead." It is so sometimes, in Providence, as you will find
over and over again between here and Heaven!
Our sorrows, dear Friends, are turned into joy in many different ways.
For instance, there are some of us who are such naughty children that
we never seem to come close to our Heavenly Father unless some sorrow
drives us to Him. We ought to be more with Him in days of sunshine, if
it were possible, than in days of storm, but it is not always so. It is
said that there are some dogs which, the more you whip them, the more
they love you. I should not like to try that plan even on a dog, but I
fear that some of us are very much like dogs in that respect, if the
saying is true. When we have a great trouble, or get a sharp cut, we
seem to wake up and say, "Lord, we forgot You when all was going
smoothly. We wandered from You, then, but now we must come back to
You." And there is a special softness of heart and mellowness of spirit
which we often get through being tried and troubled. And when that is
the case, you and I have great cause to rejoice in our sorrows, if they
draw us nearer to God and bring us to a clear and more careful walk
with Him. If they draw us away from worldliness, self-sufficiency and
self-complacency, our sorrows, if we are wise men and women, will be
immediately turned into joy!
Again, there is no doubt that, to many, sorrow is a great means of
opening the eyes to the preciousness of the promises of God. I believe
that there are some of God's promises of which we shall never get to
know the meaning until we have been placed in the circumstances for
which those promises were written. Certain objects in Nature can only
be seen from certain points of view. And there are precious things in
the Covenant of Grace that can only be perceived from the deep places
of trouble. Well, then, if your trouble brings you into a position
where you can understand more of the loving kindness of the Lord, you
may be very thankful that you were ever put there and may thus find
your sorrow turned into joy.
Again, sorrow often gives us further fellowship with Christ There are
times when we can say, "Now, Lord, we can sympathize with You better
than we ever did before, for we have felt somewhat as You did in Your
agony here below." We have sometimes felt as though that prophecy had
been fulfilled to us, "You shall indeed drink of My cup, and be
baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with." For instance, if
friends forsake you–if he that eats bread with you lifts up his heel
against you, you can say, "Now, Lord, I know a little better what Your
feeling was when Judas so basely
betrayed You." You cannot so fully comprehend the griefs of Christ
unless, in your humble measure, you have to pass through a somewhat
similar experience. But when you perceive that you can sympathize more
with Christ because of your own sorrow, then, for certain, your sorrow
is turned into joy.
Sorrow also gives us fellowship with our Lord in another way–when we
feel as if Christ and we had become partners in one trouble. Here is a
cross and I have to carry one end of it. But I look around and see that
my Lord is carrying the heavier end of it–and then it is a very sweet
sorrow to carry the cross in partnership with Christ! Rutherford says,
in one of his letters, "When Christ's dear child is carrying a burden,
it often happens that Christ says, 'Halves, My love,' and carries half
of it for him." It is indeed sweet when it is so. If there is a ring of
fire on your finger and that ring means that you are married to Christ,
you may well be willing to wear it, whatever suffering it may cause
you. Those were blessed bolts that fastened you to the Cross even
though they were bolts of iron that went right through your flesh, for
they kept you the more closely to your Lord! Our motto must be,
"Anywhere with Jesus, nowhere without Jesus." Anywhere with Jesus! Yes,
even in Nebuchadnezzar's furnace! When we have the Son of God with us,
the glowing coals cannot hurt us–they become a bed of roses to us when
He is there! Where Jesus is, our sorrow is turned into joy.
I must not fail to remind you that there is a time coming when "the
sorrows of death" will get hold upon us and I want you, Brothers and
Sisters, to understand that unless the Lord shall come first, we shall
not escape the sorrow of dying, but it will be turned into joy. It has
been my great joy to see many Christians in their last moments an earth
and I am sure that the merriest people I have ever seen have been dying
saints! I have been to wedding feasts. I have seen the joy of young
people in their youth. I have seen the joy of the merchant when he has
made a prosperous venture and I have, myself, experienced joys of
various kinds, but I have never seen any joy that I have so envied as
that which has sparkled in the eyes of departing Believers! There rises
up before me now a vision of the two eyes of a poor consumptive
girl–oh, how bright they were! I heard that she must soon die, so I
went to try to comfort her. To comfort her? Oh, dear, she needed no
comforting from me! Every now and then she would burst forth into a
verse of sacred song and when she stopped, she would tell me how
precious Jesus was to her, what love visits He had already paid her,
and how soon she expected to be with Him forever! There was not, in all
the palaces of Europe, or in all the mansions of the wealthy, or in all
the ballrooms of the happy, such a merry and joyous spirit as I saw
shining through the bright eyes of that poor consumptive girl who had
very little here below, but who had so much laid up for her in Heaven
that it did not matter what she had here!
Yes, Beloved, your sorrow will be turned into joy! Many of you will not
even know that you are dying–you will shut your eyes on earth and open
them in Heaven! Some of you may be dreading death, for there is still a
measure of unbelief remaining in you, but also in your case, death will
be swallowed up in victory! Just as when some people have to take
medicine which is very bitter, it is put into some sweet liquid and
they drink it down without tasting the bitterness, so will it be with
all of us who are trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ when we have to
drink our last potion. In a few more days, or weeks, or months, or
years–it does not matter which, for it will be a very short time at
the longest–all of us who love the Lord will be with Him where He
is–to behold His Glory and to share it with Him forever! Have any of
you any sorrows that you still wish to talk about? Some of you are very
poor and others of you are very much tried and troubled in many ways,
but, my dear Friends, when you and I get up there–and we shall do so
before long–I think you will have the best of it! If there is any
truth in that line–
"The deeper their sorrows, the louder they'll sing"– the more sorrows
you have had, the more will you sing! Nobody enjoys wealth like a man
who has been poor. Nobody enjoys health like a man who has been sick. I
think that the most pleasant days I ever spend are they that follow a
long illness when I, at last, begin to creep outside and drink in the
sweet fresh air again. And, oh, what joy it will be to you poor ones
and you sick ones and you tried ones to get into the land where all is
plentiful, where all is peaceful, where all is gladsome, where all is
holy! You will be there soon–some of you will be there very soon. Dr.
Watts says that–
"There, on a green and flowery mount,
Our weary souls shall sit.
And with transporting joys recount
The labors of our feet."
That is to say, the very sorrows that we pass through in our earthly
pilgrimage will constitute topics for joyful conversations in Heaven. I
do not doubt that it will be so.
In Heaven we shall be as glad of our troubles as of our mercies!
Perhaps it will appear to us, then, that God never loved us so much as
when He chastened and tried us. When we get home to Glory, we shall be
like children who have grown up, who, sometimes say to a wise parent,
"Father, I have forgotten about the holidays you gave me. I have
forgotten about the pocket money you gave me. I have forgotten about a
great many sweet things that I very much liked when I was a child, but
I have never forgotten that whipping which you gave me when I did
wrong, for it saved me from turning altogether aside. Dear Father, I
know you did not like to do it, but I am very grateful to you for it
now–more grateful for that whipping than for all the sponge cakes and
sweetmeats that you gave me." And, in like manner, when we get home to
Heaven, I have no doubt that we shall feel and perhaps say, "Lord, we
are grateful to You for everything, but most of all for our sorrows. We
see that had You left us unchastised, we would never have been what we
now are and, thus, our sorrows are turned into joy."
As for you who are not Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, I want you
to ponder most solemnly these few words and carry them home with you.
If you remain ass you are, your joys will be turned into sorrows. God
grant that they may not be, for Jesus Christ's sake Amen.