Our Glorious Leader
(No. 3545)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 4, 1917.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S DAY EVENING,
JANUARY 4, 1872.
"And when He had thus spoken, He went on ahead, ascending up to
Jerusalem." Luke 19:28.
A VERY beautiful spectacle it is to see the Lord Jesus marching in
front and His followers eagerly following on behind. They were going up
to Jerusalem, where it is true, He would receive some honor, but also
where He would be betrayed into the hands of cruel men and put to a
shameful death–but He went on ahead of them. As the shepherd goes
before the sheep, not driving, but leading. As the captain goes before
his soldiers as taking the post of danger, so our Lord went on before
them. It was far better that He should go first than that they should,
for the disciple is never more out of place than when he outruns his
Master. If he will follow his Master's commands, he shall do well. But
if he shall follow his own devices and invent his own way, he shall do
badly. The pilgrimage behind the cloud is a safe one, but a rush before
the cloud will end in a disaster. The Master must go first, not the
disciple. But then, when the Master advances, it is right to see the
disciple follow, ready of foot, quick at his Master's heel, delighted
with his Master's company. One likes to think of that journey up to
Jerusalem, with Jesus Christ just a little ahead in the front, and His
disciples closely following Him. I thought it was a picture that might
serve us as a model throughout the whole year. I am not going to talk
to you long at this time, but wish just to sketch that picture before
your mind's eyes and say, " So be it unto each one of us." May Jesus be
with us. May Jesus lead the way. And may His own Divine Spirit give us
Grace to follow Him–not like Peter, afar off–but as loving disciples
who keep closely under their Master's guidance! From the beginning of
the year to the end of the year may we rejoice to feel that He goes
ahead of us, but may we also, with cheerful willingness, follow close
behind! I present it to you, I say, as the picture for this New Year of
Grace, and may it be verified in your experience.
Very simply, then, I shall try to call attention to the blessed fact
that Jesus goes ahead of us and, having done so, I shall ask you, in
the second place, to seek after a sweet sensation of this Truth of God.
And the first Truth, then, to consider is–
I. THE BLESSED FACT–He went ahead of them.
We have already said that He was going the way of suffering. He was
going up to Jerusalem to suffer. When you are in the way of suffering,
He will go before you. He was always in the way of service. There was
more to be done at Jerusalem before He had finished His course. May we,
in the way of service, always find Him going before us. And He was
also, in the third place, on the way to death–and if we have any fears
about our passage through the river, may this console us–He went
before us!
To begin, then, at the beginning, here is the blessed fact that Christ
has gone ahead of us in the way of suffering. He has done so by His own
actual experience while He was here in the flesh. "He was a Man of
Sorrows and acquainted with grief." "In all our afflictions He was
afflicted." "He Himself took our sicknesses and carried our sorrows."
Rest assured that in whatever way of suffering you have to go in
consequence of your being a child of man, and especially in consequence
of your being a child of God, you will find that Christ has gone that
way ahead of you! Are you full of bodily pain, stretched upon the bed?
Are you apt to think that none ever suffered as you do? He suffered
more than you! He went ahead of you along that flinty pathway. The
pangs of His death must have been extreme. And remember His Passion in
the Garden, His agony in Gethsemane. You have not in this matter yet
come to having drops of blood oozing in sweat from your countenance.
No, He has gone ahead of you there. In all the pangs of your bodily
frame, Jesus has preceded you. Read the 22nd Psalm, with all its
wonderful expressions–"I am poured out like water, and all My bones
are out of joint." "You have brought Me into the dust of death." He
knew the fever and its thirst upon the Cross when He was dying there.
He said, "You have brought Me to the dust of death." You have not one
suffering that may be imagined to be more exquisite than what He
endured! Your griefs are molehills compared with the Alps of His
sufferings!
But you will say that it is not exactly the pathway of personal bodily
pain you are traversing, but you have endured much in the sufferings of
others you have lost. You have had half your heart, perhaps, taken away
at one time. Friend after friend has been carried to the tomb! But He
went ahead of you in this pathway, also. Did you never read where it is
written, "Jesus wept?" "Behold how He loved him," said the Jews, as
they beheld Him at the sepulcher of the most-beloved Lazarus. He knows
what bereavements means as well as you–He has ahead of you. "Ah" you
say, "but in consequence of the bereavement I have suffered, I am left
a widow. How shall I be provided for? In addition to the woe of the
loss, I have to look forward to the future! Will these hands be able to
find me daily bread? My garments may become, by degrees, more and more
thin and time-worn. I fear cold, nakedness and hunger." And suppose it
should come to that, as it will not, I trust, yet He went ahead of you!
You are not so poor as He. Hear His voice tonight, "Foxes have holes,
and the birds of the air have nests, but I, the Son of Man, have not
where to lay My head." To pay the common tax, He must borrow money from
the fish of the sea. His garment was the common seamless robe of
peasants. He was but poorly clad–He was in all respects the child of
poverty. First cradled in a manger, and then laid for His last sleep in
a borrowed grave, for still He had not where to lay His head. In the
sleep of death, Jesus went ahead of you! O son of poverty, O daughter
of need, you may see the print of His footsteps all along that thorny
way!
"Yes," says one, "but still there is added to poverty in my case the
fact that I have been forsaken by friends, and I am very fearful that
even those who stood somewhat faithful to me will soon grow weary, and
I shall be left alone." And did you never hear Him say, "And I shall be
left alone, and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me"? And
have you never read how they all forsook Him and fled, and Peter denied
Him with oaths and curses and, worst of all, Judas, who had been
trusted with His little stock, sold Him for the price of a slave? "He
who eats bread with me has lifted up his heel against me." Ingratitude
most cruel, treachery most base! Your Lord has suffered it! You may see
the prints of His pierced feet along that pathway if you will but look
for them. Jesus went ahead of you in actual suffering. And what if you
have been serving your Lord with zeal and fervor, and you have been
reproached, even by those who love Him? You have met with the cold
shoulder where you expected to find encouragement. If your motives have
been misrepresented by the very persons who ought to have supported you
in your ardor, ah, what then? Was not He also a reproach among His
mother's brethren? When His zeal had eaten Him up, they said that He
was mad–and even His mother and His brethren stood outside desiring
that they might see Him because they thought Him bereaved of His wits!
And if the wicked world has reproached you, did they not call the
Master of the house, "Beelzebub"? Shall they have soft names and
honorable titles for the men of His household? If they said of Him, "He
has a devil, and is mad, why listen to Him?" do you think they will say
great and flattering things of you? O you that are made ashamed for His
sake, and made a spectacle unto men and unto angels, be not afraid! No
strange thing has happened to you! Thousands of saints have passed
along this road and, chief of all, your Master, Christ, has gone ahead
of you! In the path of suffering, then, Jesus has gone ahead of us from
the fact of having actually and literally experienced what we suffer!
He has gone before in another sense, namely, that now, though He reigns
exalted high in the highest heavens, He still goes ahead of us in the
intense sympathy of His sacred heart. Jesus is not separated from His
people by the mere fact of distance. "Lo," He has said, "I am with you
always, even to the end of the world," and you know what mysterious,
yet real union exists between Christ, the Head, and all His members. It
came out clearly in the case of Paul, when Jesus said to Him, "Why do
you persecute Me?" He was persecuting only a few poor people in
Jerusalem, or in Damascus, whom he despised, but Christ said, "Why do
you persecute Me?" because persecuting the saints was persecuting
Christ! Christ suffering in His members. Christ suffering on the Cross
was the Head suffering, but when His people were torn to pieces in the
amphitheatre, when they were burned tat Smithfield, and when, today,
they are hooted and made a jest of, it is Christ suffering–still
suffering in His members–and when any child of God suffers in any
righteous cause, whenever affliction comes upon a saint in any form,
Christ sympathizes with him. Rest assured–
"In every pang that rends the heart, The Man of Sorrows bears His
part." In all their affliction He was afflicted. A finger never suffers
without the brain participating–and no humble member of the true
Church of Christ ever suffers without Christ, the glorious Head,
suffering in sympathy therewith.
Now this is very cheering to those who have faith to receive it,
because very much of the heart-breaking that comes into the world is
from a sense of loneliness. When men feel that somebody sympathizes
with them. When those who are being beaten feel that others smart as
they do, then they take courage. Oh, there is One who loves you more
than you can love yourself, who sympathizes with you, you suffering
saint, from the Throne of His Glory! Be you, therefore, glad! Be of
good courage and let this comfort your heart!
There is a third way in which Christ goes ahead of us in the path of
suffering–that is, in the matter of Providence. While He has Himself
suffered, and sympathizes, in a third respect He always goes ahead of
us in our sufferings, in preparing them for us, and preparing us for
them. Our Lord has gone to Heaven to prepare a place for us–and I
believe He has prepared all the road as well as a place at the end of
it. You shall find, O child of God, when you come into the deep waters,
that Christ is there–there by His Grace and Spirit, and there, also,
by His Providence, to take care of you. It was appointed that Jacob and
his tribes should all go down to Egypt. To Egypt they must go, but
Joseph went down there before them and became lord over all Egypt–not
for his own sake, but for the sake of his brothers, for all the wealth
of Egypt shall be used, if necessary, in order that Jacob and all his
household shall be preserved during the time of famine! Now if there is
an Egypt to which you are to go, Jesus, your Joseph, has gone before
you to make it ready for you, to find you a Goshen and to nourish you
there till such day as you shall come from it. God, even your Savior,
Jesus, leads the van! As the cloud, like a mighty banner of fire, went
through all the mazes of the winding way of Israel over the desert, so
Jesus marches before us, the Leader, the Standard-Bearer among ten
thousand, always in the front and with His eternal power and Godhead
making straight the pathway for His people's feet! Let us be of good
courage, then, in this respect. In the matter of suffering, He went
ahead of you.
But now realize here the retrospect. If He goes ahead of you, then
follow Him. You love not suffering. It were not suffering if you did
love it, but still, if Jesus leads, look not to the way. It were better
that that way should be full of thorns and briars which would tear your
flesh, and Christ be with you, than that it should be a long green
pathway, and your Shepherd lead you not! Go on! He went to His
sufferings without a murmur. Moreover, even His flesh shrank and, at
last, He said, "Not My will, but Yours be done." Say you, the same. Dot
you fear as you enter into the cloud? Within that cloud shall be the
secret tabernacle of the Most High, wherein He will reveal Himself to
you as He never did before! Some of us owe much to the anvil and the
hammer, and the fire, much to suffering, much to trials–and we thank
God we had them! And you will yet have to do the same, but, oh, stay
not back! Remember, after all, a lack of resignation will not assist
you in your suffering, but, on the contrary, nothing makes suffering so
light as resignation to it–and a perfect acquiescence in the Divine
Will does much to take away the gall from the cup! You must go where
Jesus leads–go, therefore, willingly, cheerfully, trustingly and even
joyfully, for it is a triumph to a Christian to bear the cross after
Jesus– and to be crucified and buried with Him were a high honor to
any child of God. Go on, then, for Christ leads the way!
But now I must not tarry so long on that part, but I observe it is said
Christ leads the way in serviceas well as in suffering. He was going up
to Jerusalem to accomplish the rest of His life-work before He
surrendered His Spirit to His Father. Now you and I, and each of us,
have a service to perform. We were redeemed and with a price that we
might serve the Lord. We are a royal priesthood, a peculiar people. We
have a priesthood to fulfill. All God's children, all God's servants
are priest and kings, and they have a rule to discharge, and a
priesthood to fulfill. Now we are beginning a new year of service. It
will be a very sweet thing to us if we can know that Jesus Christ has
gone ahead of us in the path of service. Beloved, I might take the same
Truth of God and say that He has actually gone before us in having
fulfilled the same service. If there is any good thing for you to do,
Christ has done it before you! Are we called to preach the Gospel? You
know how He was anointed to preach glad tidings to the poor. Are you
called to teach the little ones? Did not He say, "Suffer the little
children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the
Kingdom of Heaven"? Have you to feed the hungry? On what a large scale
did He do it! Have you to visit the sick and to minister to their
needs? Oh, how many thousands owed their opened eyes or restored limbs
to Him! Christ's life anticipates all the service of the Church. One
might very easily, in taking the life of Christ, find all the
operations of a truly active Church prefigured there–all of them.
There is nothing new under the sun, and when a man has found something,
and thought, "Here is something that is fresh," you shall find Christ
has looked after the halt, the blind and the lame before you–and if
you seek to raise the fallen woman, you will be made to remember Him
who said, "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more." I should be
afraid to undertake any service in which I could not see that He has
gone before. What Christ has done, it is right for us to do, save only
in that work of Expiation where we cannot help Him. There He treads the
winepress alone, and of the people there is none with Him–but in all
in which He is our Exemplar, it is always a safe thing for us to follow
very closely–and we shall find that He has gone before us!
And truly He goes before us in all our works by His Holy Spirit
actively proving His Divine sympathy still with us. I do not look upon
the Church of God as so many pious men and women at work by themselves,
but I see God working by them, working in them, working through them!
They are the workers to the eye, but no further. It is God who works in
them to will and to do of His own good pleasure! If Satan saw in the
work only the man, he would laugh at him, but he perceives "the hand of
Joab" is there–a mightier hand than the hand of man and, therefore, it
is that he is often put to the rout. O you that speak for Jesus, that
pray for Jesus, that give to His cause and work for His name, let this
be your joy and your comfort–that Jesus Christ is with you and goes
ahead of you in all this service!
And so He does in His Providence. If we had but eyes to see it, and
could know all things, we would perceive that when we come to preach
the Gospel, God has been preparing men's hearts to receive it. Many a
time a man will come up to the House of Prayer, and he has a trouble
that has been plowing up and down, and the minister has got a handful
of seed to sow, which the birds would have devoured if they had fallen
on hard soil–only God has plowed the man and made him like soil, ready
to receive it! He has gone ahead of us! If ever I see these benches
full, I feel a little distressed, and yet elated, because I always
reckon that I have got a picked congregation and each man is sent with
a design. Though there may not be salvation in every case, yet there
are some to whom God will bless the Word, to which the Word will be
fitted to the very letter, for God will guide the preacher and
oftentimes as much reveals Himself from the pulpit as ever a
Nebuchadnezzar' s dream was revealed again by Daniel when it was gone
altogether from his mind. You shall be sure that God is in the Word if
it comes home to you in that way! And if you are a Christian worker,
you may expect that the Providence of God will prepare men's hearts for
that work which you are trying to do!
I would that the Church of God would now recollect that assuredly God
is going ahead of her in all her service at this moment. The world is
prepared for the Gospel if we were but willing to present the Gospel to
the world! When our Lord Christ came into this world there was a
universal peace, and the peace of the public mind and the state of the
public pulse was just suitable for the preaching of the Gospel by the
Lord and by His Apostles–and there is some such suitability as that
now. Chains that long have galled unhappy nations have been filed
through. The people that sat in darkness have seen a great light–they
have demanded liberty and won it with a good right hand–and mean to
hold it! And now is the time when the darkness flies and light comes
for those who have the still brighter light of the everlasting Gospel
of the ever blessed God to spring into the gap and proclaim salvation
by a Crucified Redeemer to all the sons of men! Up, Churches of London,
and to your work! Even now the very demand for education among you, and
the stir that there is among the people, the breaking up of hoary
systems of abomination, the motion and commotion–all this means good
to you! You have been embedded in the ice and frozen up these long
wintry days, but, lo, the sun has risen and the long summer days shall
soon come and your boat shall be freighted and put out to sea–and
bring a blessed cargo of souls home to God their Father! Let us be up
and doing, for Jesus goes ahead of us in the matter of Providence. May
He help us to keep always near Him. What He would have us do, oh, may
we do it! Word for word what He would have us speak, thought for
thought what He would have us think, act for act what He would have us
do! Let us never have a glorious Leader and be a laggard people. Oh,
for the Grace that is in Him to bedew us plenteously, that as He goes
ahead of us we may follow Him in the path of service!
Now very briefly upon one other point, which was the path of death. Our
Lord was going to Golgotha, and there was to be, as far as this world
was concerned, the end of His journey. To the Cross He must be nailed,
and in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, the Lord Jesus must sleep.
Death is not a pleasant thing. It matters not how you gild the pill, it
is a pill. If the Lord comes not, however, before that time we shall
have to pass through death, and we shall find it, if we are His people,
to be infinitely less painful than the fear of death! We feel a
thousand deaths in fearing one, and if our faith were greater, we would
have no fear of death. "Ah," says one, "what I dread is parting,
leaving my friends." He went before them–He parted from them all, and
from His mother. And He said to John, "Behold, your mother," and to His
mother," "Woman, behold your son," as the light faded from His eyes. He
went ahead of us in the path of death. "Ah, but I cannot bear to think
of the pain of dying," says one. You will never have such pain as His
in death–He went ahead of you. He had a sense of sin in dying. He was
made a curse for us, as it is written, "Cursed is everyone that hangs
on a tree," but no curse can ever light on you, Believer. The blessing
is yours because the curse was His! Oh, He has gone ahead of you–He
has gone where you shall never go, for He suffered the wrath of God,
which you never shall suffer, for that wrath is gone and passed away
forever! There are none of the surroundings of a dying bed which can
suggest such horror as that which surrounded the death of our Lord–so
that He has gone ahead of you in everything that might alarm you in the
prospect of your departure. He has gone ahead of you. Be content to
follow Him to the grave. It is no more–
"A charnel-house of sense,
Relics of lost innocence,
The place of ruin and decay;
The imprisoning stone is rolled away."
It is now a nest of sweetness since Jesus laid in it. The grave is no
longer unfurnished–there are His grave clothes left for you and,
moreover, the stone being rolled away, you have the promise that you
shall come out of it again! When the trumpet of the archangel sounds,
those poor bones shall arise and the body that was sown in weakness
shall be raised in power! What joy it is, then, to think that He went
ahead of us and how obediently, no, triumphantly, may we follow Him,
even to death itself! Here, then, is the blessed fact, in suffering, or
service, or departure, Christ goes ahead of us! Now the point we close
with is this–
II. MAY WE, ALL OF US, HAVE A SWEET REALIZATION OF THIS TRUTH DURING
THIS YEAR.
We believe a good deal of Doctrine which we have never yet realized. We
know much to be food which we have never fed upon. Many Christians are
like those who have sacks of flour in the house, but no bread. They
have nothing available for present food. Some are like rich men that
may happen to be abroad with thousands in gold, but no small silver, no
spending money. May you be able to coin the bullion of precious promise
so as to use it in the journey of life. May you make practical
application of precious Truths of God, tasting the honey, drinking the
wine and being satisfied with them. Now, then, to realize that Christ
goes ahead of us is to realize that we are never alone. If I am in my
study, and a problem staggers me, I am not alone–my Lord will teach
me. You are in your little chamber with the needle, working hard for
very scanty pay. You have to suffer–you have not got to suffer that
alone. "I am with you when you pass through the fire; you shall not be
burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon you." But you have got to
go into the workroom and there are those that point at you, and they
have a jest for you, whom they know to be a follower of Christ. You
have not to bear that alone! He has the heaviest end of that cross and
He is persecuted in His persecuted members. But you are busy in
business, and your cares afflict you. Blessed be God you have not got
to bear those cares alone! No, nor yet at all, for concerning them He
has said, "Cast all your care upon Him, for He cares for you." I have
got to come here and preach. Who is sufficient for these things? But I
am not to preach alone–"My Grace is sufficient for you." His strength
shall be made perfect in your weakness. You have to go to that Sunday
school class. Oh, how incorrigible those boys are and how careless
those girls–but you have not got to win those souls alone–Jesus will
go and His Spirit will be there, and you shall be helped in your work!
Do try and realize all through this year that you are never alone. Not
only is it, "You, God, see me," but it is this, "Fear not, I am with
you; be not dismayed, I am your God." And Christ is not with you
behind, or pushing you into the danger, but He is with you ahead of
you–He goes ahead of you–He is the shield catching the fiery darts
upon Himself! You shall come behind the screen and be sheltered by His
precious promise.
I do not know where you may be this year, but let this thought abide
with you–He will be with you! Perhaps you will cross the sea. Your lot
may be to help to colonize some distant land. Over the sea and on the
billows, and on the shore so strange to you–He will be your near
Companion! Perhaps this year there is a trial awaiting you, very heavy,
or perhaps a temptation arising out of some new joy or fresh
prosperity. Do not fear it–you shall be safe on the hilltops of joy
and in the Valley of Humiliation. He is with you anywhere! A child is
told, perhaps at nightfall, that he has to go a considerable distance.
It is to a lonely farmhouse and the little one trembles to go across
the moor in the dark. "Oh," the mother says. "but Father is going with
you." Oh, then that changes the aspect of everything! The boy is
pleased to go! Even the dangers that seemed so great, only attract him
now–he will be glad to be with his father. Through the moor land of
another year, you have to go, and it may be dark and cold, but your
heavenly Father and your blessed Elder Brother will be with you!
Therefore, be not afraid. You will have to contend this year for "the
faith delivered once for all to the saints," and to do much service,
too. If you are to render a good account at the year's end, you are to
try and live this year, not at a slow rate, like the cold-blooded frog,
but to have hot blood in you! Regulated by prudence, and yet boiling
over with a burning zeal, you are to serve the Lord! And it may be you
think you cannot do it. Is anything impossible when He helps you? Is
any sacrifice impossible when it is for Him? Is any difficulty
insurmountable when He, Himself, gives the all-sufficient strength? Oh,
this is a very choice thought, though a very simple one, that Jesus
will be with you all the year through!
The only other thought is, take care that you abide with Him. He is a
quick walker. Idle souls will be left behind. He is a holy liver.
Unclean spirits will find Him part company with them. Be you watchful,
vigilant, sober, careful, zealous, and seek to have perpetual
fellowship with Jesus Christ. I am sure those are the happiest that
live nearest to God! I am certain of it. I do know it is not the
wealthiest who are the happiest. It is not those who have the most
health that are always happiest, and those who are most esteemed among
their fellow men. There is one rule without any exception–he who lives
nearest to God has the most of that profound peace of God which passes
all understanding. He says to you, "Abide in Me." May His words abide
in you! May you abide in Him and may this be to each one of you, and to
this Church, the very happiest year we have ever had! Oh, that some
poor sinner would seek the Savior! May the Lord's lovely attractions
entice Him!
And I shall close by saying this–that if any soul longs for Christ,
Christ is already longing for Him–and if you have a half of a desire
towards Him, He has a heart full of desire towards you! There never was
a soul that had a head start on Christ in the matter of desire for
salvation. God grant you Grace to touch Jesus and then to follow after
Him, and to make His blessing abide with you, both now and forever.
Amen and amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ISAIAH 35, HEBREWS 12:1-6.
Verse 1. The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them.
They shall be so glad that they shall inspire gladness where all was
desolation, brooding, melancholy and dragon's howls. "The wilderness
and the solitary place shall be glad for them."
1. And the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. God's people
are a happy-making people. They are a blessing in themselves and they
shall be a blessing to others till all shall say, "These are the seed
that the Lord has blessed." "The desert shall rejoice and blossom as
the rose."
2. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing:
the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellence of Carmel
and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the LORD, and the excellency of
our God. A wonderful sight to see, for there is one of the most lovely
sights in the world when the Glory and excellency of God are to be seen
in the works of His Grace in His own people. It is such a sight that it
makes men first rejoice in their hearts and then rejoice with their
tongues. They shall "rejoice with joy and singing," which is the double
rejoicing of the heart and of the lips. Well, these must be a favored
people who, wherever they go, can make others glad after this fashion!
Brothers and Sisters, they must be full or they could not overflow!
They must be alive, or else they could not quicken the desert places.
They must be in flower, blooming like the rose, or they could not make
the wilderness so full of verdure. The Lord grant that we may be in
that state, that we may be able to go into the wilderness. There are
some of God s people that cannot trust themselves to go where they are
needed because they have not Divine Grace enough. They are so weak that
they are like the weak man standing on the river s brink who cannot
leap in to pull out a drowning man for fear he should be pulled in
himself. But, oh, they are blessed, indeed, who dare go into the
wildernesses and into the solitary places, and carry the transforming
benediction of Heaven with them till the wilderness changes its
dress–and the brown of the arid sand gives place to the ruddiness of
the rose–because God has come there with His people!
3. Strengthen you the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Are
there such here tonight? No doubt there are– weak at work and weak at
praying. The two things go together–weak hands and feeble knees. May
they both be strengthened!
4. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not:
behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense;
He will come and save you. It is very singular how salvation and
vengeance are so often associated together in Scripture. It is the day
of salvation, "and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all who
mourn." Vengeance upon the false is the best consolation to the true!
When God smites the sham, even to the heart, then does He bless those
in which His Truth is found. "He will come and save you."
5. 6. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the
deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and
the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break
out, and streams in the desert See what the Presence of Christ does?
See what the presence of Christ's people will do when He comes in them
and with them! They make the wilderness rejoice. But, besides that, the
dwellers that are found in the wilderness–these lame and deaf
people–get the blessing. Oh, may God make us to be a desert to others
of this sort!
7. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land
springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall
be grass with reeds and rushes. The greenest spots your eyes ever
rested upon are just there where the grass is so rooted in the morass
that it is always green with a delicate tinge, and the reeds and rushes
spring up abundantly. O God, make poor parched hearts to become like
this! You barren ones, you desolate ones–He can give you the best
verdure that is possible! Your hearts shall be as green and fresh as
the spots where there is grass with reeds and rushes.
8. And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The
Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it: but it shall be
for others: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. Oh,
what a blessing that is to us poor fools! We could err anywhere. To err
is human and we seem to have come in for a double share of it. The more
we look at our lives, the more we see the folly of our hearts. What a
mercy it is that when we walk in the way of faith, in the way of
Christ, fools as we are, we shall not err!
9, 10. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go on it,
it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there. And the
ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with songs and
everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. Like frightened things. They
kept us company part of our road, but when the Lord appeared, they took
to themselves wings and fled away. We could not tell where they were
gone. We were surprised to find that they had quite vanished. Oh, for
the appearing of the Lord tonight to His mourning people who may be
here!
HEBREWS 12:1-8.
Verse 1. Therefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a
cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which
does so easily beset us. Or. "entangle us."
1-3. And let us run with patience the race that is set before us.
Looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith; who for the
joy that was set before Him endured the Cross, despising the shame, and
is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God. For consider Him
who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself lest you be
wearied and faint in your minds. The Lord does not wish His people's
hands to hang down and their knees to become weak, so in this passage,
as in many others, He administers gracious remedies! Among the rest, He
bids us consider His own dear Son. Shall we faint under our small
afflictions when He endured so well under His heavy burdens? Come, be
strengthened, my weak heart–
"His way was much rougher and darker than thine– Did Christ, your
Lord, suffer, and will you repine?'
4. You have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. It has
hardly come to blows and bruises yet–certainly not to bloody strokes!
You have not yet lost blood for Christ.
5. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks unto you as unto
children, My son, despise not you the chastening of the Lord, nor faint
when you are rebuked of Him.Neither think too little of it, nor too
much of it–too little of it by despising it and not listening to the
voice of the rod, nor too much of it by fainting when you are rebuked
of
Him.
6. For whom the Lord loves, He chastens, and scourges every son whom He
receives. Oh, what comfort there is here! Whenever we are under the
scourging hand of God, how we ought to be cheered with the thought that
this is a part of the heritage of the children! There are Elis who
spoil their children. God is not one of them. He spares not the rod and
the more He loves, often the more He corrects. A tree of common fruit
may be left alone so long as there is some little fruit on it, but the
very best fruit gets the sharpest pruning–and I have noticed that in
those countries where the best wine is made, the vinedressers cut the
shoots right close in, and in the winter you cannot tell that there is
a vine there at all unless you watch very carefully! They must cut them
back sharp to get sweet clusters. The Lord does thus with His beloved.
It is not anger. Afflictions are not always anger. There are often
tokens of great love!