The Suffering Savior’s Sympathy

The Suffering Savior's Sympathy

DELIVERED BY

C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"For in that He Himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to
succor them that are tempted." Hebrews 2:18.

WE are told by the Apostle in the fifth chapter that one special
requisite in a High Priest was that he have compassion upon men. "For
every High Priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things
pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for
sins: who can have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out
of the way; for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity." You
see, God did not choose angels to be made High Priests because, however
benevolent they might be in their wishes, they could not be
sympathetic. They could not understand the peculiar needs and trials of
the men with whom they had to deal. Ministers who of God are made to be
a flame of fire could scarcely commune familiarly with those who
confess themselves to be as dust and ashes! But the High Priest was one
of themselves. However dignified his office, he was still a man. He was
one of whom we read that he could lose his wife, that he could lose his
sons. He had to eat and to drink, to be sick and to suffer just as the
rest of the people did. And all this was necessary that he might be
able to enter into their feelings and represent those feelings before
God and that he might, when speaking to them for God, not speak as a
superior, looking down upon them, but as one who sat by their side, "a
brother born for adversity," bone of their bone and flesh of their
flesh.

Now this is peculiarly so in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is
sympathetic above all. There is none so tender as He. He has learnt it
by His sufferings, but He proves it by His continual condescension
towards His suffering people. My Brothers, we that preach the Gospel,
you that teach it in the Sunday school–you will always find your
greatest power to lie in love. There is more eloquence in love than in
all the words that the most clever rhetorician can ever put together.
We win upon men not so much by poetry and by artistic wording of
sentences, as by the pouring out of a heart's love that makes them feel
that we would save them, that we would bless them, that we would,
because we belong to them, regard them as brethren and play a brother's
part and lay ourselves out to benefit them. Now, as it should be in the
under-shepherds, so is it in that Great Shepherd of the sheep. He
abounds in tenderness and though He has every other quality to make up
a perfect High Priest–though He is complete and in nothing
lacking–yet if I must mention one thing in which He far outshines us
all, but in which we should all try to imitate Him, it would be in His
tender sympathy to those who are ignorant and out of the way and to all
those who are suffering and sorely distressed.

It is in the spirit of brotherly sympathy that I would endeavor to
preach on this occasion as the Good Spirit shall help me. May I ask my
Brothers and Sisters whose hearts are full ofjoy at this hour to be
praying for others who have not that joy and to be helping me in my
endeavor to speak words of consolation to them? May the Holy Spirit, in
answer to your prayers, make every sentence to be as wine and oil to
the wounds of those who are left half dead in the King's highway! We
have not to look far for "them who are tempted," for they are all
around us, and deserve the thoughtful regard of each one of us. Do not
overlook them, my more happy Brothers and Sisters, "considering
yourself, lest you, also, be tempted."

In my text I think I see two things very clearly. Jesus suffering–"He
Himself has suffered being tempted." Jesus succoring–"He is able to
succor them that are tempted." And then I think I see a third thing
most certainly there, namely, Jesus sought after because in the word
which is translated, "succor," there is a latent meaning of crying. He
is able to hear the cry of them that are tempted. It is a word that
signifies a mother's quickness to answer her child's cry and Jesus is
able to answer our cry, therefore we ought to lift up that cry when our
soul is in distress. It shall be the best thing seen in this Tabernacle
tonight if the third thing be seen, namely, Jesus sought after by every
weary, heavy-laden spirit. Why should it not be? Come, Holy Spirit, and
create in each mourner the spirit of prayer and the Grace of
supplication!

I. First, then, and to begin, here is JESUS SUFFERING.

I call your attention, first, to the feeling that is here
expressed–"in that He Himself has suffered being tempted." Many
persons are tempted, but do not suffer in being tempted. When ungodly
men are tempted, the bait is to their taste and they swallow it
greedily. Temptation is a pleasure to them. Indeed, they sometimes
tempt the devil to tempt them! They are drawn aside of their own lusts
and enticed so that temptation, instead of being suffering to them,
becomes a horrible source of pleasure. But good men suffer when they
are tempted and the better they are, the more they suffer. I know some
children of God to whom temptation is their constant misery day and
night. If it took the form of external affliction, they would bravely
bear it, but it takes the shape of evil suggestions and profane
insinuations which leap into their minds without their will and though
they hate them with their whole heart. These suggestions continue to
annoy some dear saints whom I know, not only daily, but nightly, and
month after month. These thoughts beset them as a man may be surrounded
by swarms of gnats or flies from which they cannot get away. Such
Brothers and Sisters are tempted and they suffer being tempted. Our
Lord Jesus Christ enters into this trying experience very fully because
His suffering through being tempted must have been much greater than
any suffering that the purest-hearted Believer can know, seeing that He
is more pure than any one of us.

It was a trying thing to the Blessed Christ even to dwell here among
men. He behaved Himself with most condescending familiarity, but He
must have been greatly sickened and saddened by what He saw in this
world of sinners. They were no fit company for Him, for their views of
things and His were as different as possible–they had no points of
agreement in character with Him. They were as much company for Him as a
patient may be to a surgeon. No, not as much as an imbecile may be to
his teacher, or as a madman to his keeper–they could not come much
closer until His Grace changed and renewed them. Our Lord and Master
had such a delicate sensitiveness of soul with regard to holiness that
the sight of sin must have torn Him as a naked man would be torn by
thorns, thistles and briers. There was no callousness about His Nature.
He had not made Himself familiar with sin by the practice of it, as
many have done–neither had He so associated with those who indulge in
evil as to become, Himself, lenient towards it.

We inherit the customs of our ancestors and do not raise questions
about that which has been commonly done. We begin at an evil point and
start from a wrong point in morals, but it was not so with our Lord. He
had no original, or inherited, or birth sin–neither did He learn evil
in His upbringing. We also commit sin through a comparative ignorance
of its evil, but He knew the horror of it. He felt within His soul the
shame, the wrong, the inherent baseness of sin against a holy Law and a
loving God. His infinite knowledge helped Him to understand and measure
the heinousness and Hell-desert of it and, therefore, to be in contact
with it must have been a perpetual sorrow to Him. He suffered in being
placed where He could be tempted.

When sin actually assailed Him, and He was tempted to prove His Sonship
by working a miracle to feed Himself, thus anticipating His Father's
Providence by a hasty act of self-seeking, how He must have loathed the
suggestion! When Satan bade Him presumptuously cast Himself down from
the Temple's pinnacle, how He must have smarted at the horrible
proposal! When the tempter hissed into His ear that abominable offer,
"All these things will I give You, if You will fall down and worship
me"–it must have grieved the holy heart of Jesus most intensely! He
could not yield to temptation, but He did suffer from it. He did not
suffer from it morally, He was too pure for that, but He did suffer
from it mentally because of His purity. His mind was grieved, vexed and
troubled by the temptation that He had to bear. We specially see this
when we find Him in the Garden. There He showed His grief when He
sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground. In many
other ways He endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself,
such multiplied temptations, that it is said and truly said by the Holy
Spirit in this verse, that He "suffered" being tempted.

Now, then, you poor creatures who can scarcely lift up your heads
because of shame as you tremble at the memory of your own thoughts,
come here and meet with One who suffered being tempted! He knows how
you are hunted by Hell-dogs, go where you may. He knows that you cannot
escape the presence of the tempter and from His own experience He
enters into your feelings to the fullest. He gives you a flood of
sympathy in these deep distresses of your spirit, as you fight against
Apollyon and agonize against temptation, for He suffered being
tempted–

"Exposed to wounds most deep and sore The great Redeemer stood While
Satan's fiery darts He bore And did resist to blood."

Let us meditate for a while upon the fact that our Lord was tempted,
tempted up to the suffering point. I must not omit to mention the
particular use here made by the Spirit of that word, "Himself." It is
not only in that He suffered being tempted, but you see that He Himself
has suffered being tempted. That word is sometimes used to make
passages emphatic. "Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the
tree." We read again and again of Jesus Christ Himself, as if to show
that the matters referred to were really, truly, personally, actually
His. He Himself has suffered. All that there was in Him, that made up
Himself, suffered being tempted. Survey this fact carefully. Our Lord
was tempted by His circumstances, just as you are. Yes, more than many
of you are, for He felt the woes of poverty and poverty, at times,
carried to the extreme. "Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have
nests, but the Son of Man has not where to lay His head."

You are sometimes tempted with the thought that you will be out of
house and home before long. Where will you find a nightly shelter?
Jesus can sympathize with you. He also was weary with incessant labors.
"Being wearied, He sat thus on the well." Weariness has its
temptations. He that is weary is hardly in the condition to judge
rightly of things. When we are weary, we are apt to be impatient,
complaining, hasty. If you are weary and can scarcely keep your eyelids
from dropping down, remember before you quite yield to fatigue that
your Lord was weary, too. Once, "they took Him even as He was, into the
ship"–and I think it must mean that He was too weary to go into the
ship, Himself, so that they took Him in His absolute exhaustion and
gently laid Him down, in the back part of the ship, placing His head
upon a pillow. Do not blame yourself for feeling tired in the House of
Prayer, if, after long watching or hard working you feel more fit for
sleep than for a sermon!

I shall not blame you, certainly, for I remember how little my Lord
blamed the disciples when they fell asleep in the Garden during His
agony. He said, "The spirit, indeed, is willing, but the flesh is
weak." And He never would have thought of so tender an excuse for their
untender slumbers if His own flesh had not, also, been weak when He,
too, was weary. So you see that the Lord knows from His own
circumstances what are the temptations of poverty and of weariness. He
Himself was hungry. He Himself said, "I thirst." Everything round about
Him contributed to fulfill the tale of His trials. He Himself was,
above us all, "a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief."

And then He Himself suffered from temptations arising from men. He
endured sadly much from good men. It would seem that even His beloved
mother tried Him. His mother was with His brothers and sisters when we
read that they were outside, desiring to speak with Him. Was it not at
that time that they desired to take Him, for they said, "He is beside
Himself"? The men of His own kindred thought that surely He was a
distraught man who ought to be put under restraint! "Neither did His
brethren believe in Him."

His disciples, though He loved them so intensely, yet each one tried
Him. Even John, the dearest of them all, must ask for places at the
right and the left hand of His Throne for himself and his brother,
James! Even Peter, "took Him and rebuked Him." All the disciples were
much of Peter's mind when He described Himself as about to be crucified
and slain. Their spirit was often so worldly, so selfish, so foolish as
to greatly grieve their Lord and Leader. While He was the Servant of
all, they were seeking who should have the pre-eminence! While He was
seeking the lost, they were for calling fire from Heaven upon rebels!
They spoke unadvisedly with their lips and committed their Master by
their words. And you know how, worst of all, He had to complain in
utmost bitterness of spirit, "He who eats bread with Me has lifted up
his heel against Me." So that from the circle of His own favored ones
He gathered more thorns than roses! He received wounds in the house of
His friends, even as you may have done. Herein you see His power to
exhibit sympathy with us. He suffered just as we do. He "suffered being
tempted" even by the failures of those whom He loved–

"If wounded love my bosom swells Deceived by those I prized so well, He
shall His pitying aid besto w Who felt on earth severer woe; At once
betrayed, denied, or fled By those who shared His daily bread."

As for His enemies, need I speak about them? Did they not all tempt
Him? Herodians and Sadducees–the openly skeptical! Pharisees and
Scribes–the professedly religious, were equally His fierce foes! Those
to whom He was a benefactor took up stones to stone Him and Jerusalem,
over which He had wept, cried, "Crucify Him, crucify Him," and would
not rest till He was slain! Ah, Lord! We have, none of us, such foes as
You had! However cruel our adversaries, they are not so numerous or so
fierce as Yours. Besides, they have some cause to hate us, but of Your
enemies it is true

that they hated You without a cause. They could bring no true charge
against Him and, therefore, they forged the cruel-est of falsehoods
until their reproaches broke His heart! So you see how He was tempted
and how He suffered.

Moreover, it is a very amazing fact–one could scarcely have imagined
it–but the record is most clear. He was tempted of the devil–Jesus
was tempted of the devil! He in whom all evil is personified dared to
stand foot to foot in single duel with Him in whom all goodness is
concentrated! The infernal fiend dared to face the Incarnate God! God
in our mortal flesh encountered the devil in the wilderness of
temptation. How could the fiend have ventured to assail our Lord? Truly
Lucifer was lifted up to the extreme of pride when He dared thus to
confront his Lord. But Christ was tempted of the devil early in His
public career and again, near its close, He exclaimed, "This is your
hour and the power of darkness." He seemed to hear the dragon's wings
as they beat the midnight air and He cried, "The prince of this world
comes." Calmly He added, "And has nothing in Me." Yet His heart grew
chill in the hideous presence of the great adversary.

It was nothing less than an agony in Gethsemane–a painful wrestling
between Jesus and the powers of darkness. You that are tempted of the
devil. You that are troubled by mysterious whispers in your ear. You
that, when you sing or pray, have a blasphemy suggested to you. You
that even in your dreams start with horror at the thoughts that cross
your minds, be comforted, for your Lord knows all about temptation!
Some of you do not understand this and I hope you never may. But I am
speaking with a purpose to others to whom this is a life's gloom. To
you, I say, you can enter into fellowship with your Lord in His being
tempted of the devil–that which is incomprehensible to others is plain
enough to you. Be of good cheer, for in this respect your Lord Himself
has suffered being tempted–

"If anything should tempt my soul to stray

From heavenly wisdom's narrow way.

To fly the good I would pursue,

Or do the sin I would not do.

Still He, who felt temptation's power,

Shall guard me in that dangerous hour." Once again–our Lord knew those
temptations which arise out of being deserted by God. There come times
to certain of us when our soul is cast down within us, when faith
becomes feeble and joy languishes because the light of the Divine
Countenance is withdrawn. We cannot find our God. We enter into the
language of Job, "Oh that I knew where I might find Him! That I might
come even to His seat." We cry with David, "My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? My tears
have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me,
Where is your God?" Nothing chills the marrow like an eclipse of the
great Sun whose Presence makes our day! If the Lord withdraws from us,
then the strong helpers faint–

"He frowns and darkness veils the moon!

The fainting sun grows dim at noon!

The pillars of Heaven's starry roof

Tremble and start at His reproof." In this great temptation our Lord
has suffered His full share. He cried, "Eloi, Eloi, lama Sabachthani."
There was condensed into that dying cry an infinity of anguish such as
we cannot conceive! Some of us know what the surface of this Black Sea
is like, but we have never descended into its utmost depths as He did.
And, if we have done so, this is our comfort–that HE has been there!
He has been to the very bottom of it! He has suffered being tempted
even by that heaviest of all the trials which ever fall upon the sons
of God. There is the fact.

I desire to go a step farther, to comfort you upon the fruit of all
this, for though our Lord thus suffered being tempted, He suffered not
in vain, for He was made perfect through His sufferings and fitted for
His solemn office of High Priest to His people. From that fact I want
you to gather fruit, because our heavenly Father means to also bless
you. We cannot comfort others if we have never been comforted
ourselves. I have heard–and I am sure that it is so–that there is no
comforter for a widow like one who has lost her husband. Those who have
had no children and have never lost a child, may talk very kindly, but
they cannot enter into a mother's broken heart as she bows over yonder
little coffin. If you have never known what temptations mean, you make
poor work when attempting to succor the tempted! Our Lord obtained a
blessing from suffering temptation and you may do the same.

Brother, the Lord means to make of you a man that shall be used like
Barnabas to be a "son of consolation." He means to make a mother in
Israel of you, my dear Sister, that when you meet with others who are
sorely cast down, you may know how to drop in a sweet word by which
they shall be comforted. I think you will one day say, "It was worth
while to go through that sorrow to be enabled to administer relief to
that wounded heart." Will you not comfort others when you are
delivered? I am sure you will! You will be ready and expert in the
sacred surgery of consolation. Therefore, be content to suffer being
tempted and look for the comfortable fruit which all this shall produce
in you.

So you have seen the feeling, the fact and the fruit. Now, what are the
inferences to be drawn from this part of the subject? I must be short
with them.

I want you that are tempted to draw the following inferences from the
suffering and temptation of the Lord Jesus– First, that temptation to
sin is no sin. It is no sin to be tempted, for in Him was no sin and
yet He was tempted. "He suffered being tempted," but there was no sin
in that because there was no sin in Himself. You may be horribly
tempted and yet no blame whatever may attach to you, for it is no fault
of yours that you are tempted. You need not repent of that which has no
sin in it. If you yield to the temptation, therein is sin–but the mere
fact that you are tempted, however horrible the temptation, is no sin
of yours.

And, in the next place, temptation does not show any displeasure on
God's part. He permitted His only-begotten Son to be tempted–He was
always the Son of His love and yet He was tried. "This is My beloved
Son," said He at His baptism and yet the next hour that Son was led of
the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil! It does not
even show displeasure on God's part that He permits you to be tempted.
On the contrary, it may be consistent with the clearest manifestations
of Divine favor.

And again, temptation really implies no doubt of your being a son of
God for the Son of God was tempted, even the unquestioned Son of the
Highest! The prime model and paragon of sonship, Christ, Himself, was
tempted. Then why not you? Temptation is a mark of sonship rather than
any reflection thereupon.

Note, next, that temptation need not lead to any evil consequences in
any case. It did not, in your Lord's case, lead up to sin. The Lord
Jesus was as innocent in temptation and after temptation as before
it–and so may we be through His Grace. It is written by the beloved
John concerning the man that is born of God, that "He keeps himself and
that wicked one touches him not."

Moreover, do not make it any cause of complaint that you are tempted.
If your Lord was tempted, shall the disciple be above his Master, or
the servant above his Lord? If the Perfect One must endure temptation,
why not you? Accept it, therefore, at the Lord's hands and do not think
it to be a disgrace or a dishonor. It did not disgrace or dishonor your
Lord and temptation will not disgrace or dishonor you. The Lord, who
sends it, sends also with it a way of escape–and it will be to your
honor and profit to escape by that way.

Far from your hearts be the idea that any temptation should lead you to
despair. Jesus did not despair. Jesus triumphed and so shall you! And,
therefore, He cries, "In the world you shall have tribulation: but be
of good cheer, I have overcome the world." You are a member of His body
and when the Head wins the victory, the whole body shares the triumph!
"Because I live," He said, "you shall live, also," and so you
shall–even in the poisonous atmosphere of temptation you shall be in
health. They of old overcame through the blood of the Lamb and you
shall do the same. Therefore comfort one another with these words, "He
Himself has suffered being tempted," for you who have His life in you
shall first suffer with Him and then reign with Him.

That is the first part of our discourse and it is rich with comfort, if
the Spirit of God shall but apply it to the tempted heart. I feel such
a poor bungler–I have ointment and soft linen wherewith to bind on the
healing ointment–but perhaps I have put it on too tightly, or too
loosely, and if so, I may fail. O Divine Comforter, undertake the work!
It needs the pierced hands to fitly apply the sacred liniment.

II. But now I come, secondly and briefly, to notice JESUS SUCCORING.
Jesus suffering is preparatory to Jesus succoring. Observe, then, "He
is able to succor them that are tempted." In this we note His pity,
that He should give Himself up to this business of succoring them that
are tempted. Have you a tempted friend living in your house? If so, you
have a daily cross to carry, for when we try to comfort mourners we
often become cast down, ourselves, and the temptation is for us to get
rid of them, or stay out of their way. Has it ever occurred to any
friend here to say, "That good Brother, who sits in the pew near me, is
rather a burden to me. I have spoken to him several times, but he is so
unhappy that he

drags me down. I go out of another door now to get out of his way"? So
might your Lord have done to the unhappy and to you if He had not been
your Lord, but He is full of pity that He seeks out those that are cast
down! He heals the broken in heart and binds up their wounds. He lays
Himself out to succor them that are tempted and, therefore, He does not
hide Himself from them, nor pass them by on the other side.

What an example is this for us! He devotes Himself to this Divine
business of comforting all such as mourn. He is Lord of All, yet makes
Himself the servant of the weakest! Whatever He may do with the
strongest, He succors "them that are tempted." He does not throw up the
business in disgust. He does not grow cross or angry with them because
they are so foolish as to give way to idle fears. He does not tell them
that it is all their nerves and that they are stupid and silly and
ought to shake themselves out of such nonsense. I have often heard
people talk in that fashion and I have half wished that they had felt a
little twinge of depression, themselves, just to put them into a more
tender humor. The Lord Jesus never overdrives a lame sheep, but He sets
the bone and carries the sheep on His shoulders, so tenderly
compassionate is He. Here is His pity.

The text, however, treats also of His fitness. He is just the very
Person to succor them that are tempted. I have already been showing you
this. He has the right, acquired by His suffering, to enter in among
sufferers and deal with them. He is free of the company of mourners–

"When our heads are bowed with woe, When our bitter tears overflow,
When we mourn the lost, the dear– Then the Son of Man is near. You our
throbbing flesh ha ve worn. You our mortal griefs have borne. You have
shed the human tear, Son of Man, to mourners dear." He has the right to
succor them that are tempted, for they are His own, since He has bought
them with His blood. The feeble, the weak, the trembling, the
desponding are His care, committed to Him by God. He said, "Fear not,
little flock," which shows that His flock is little and timid. He says,
"Fear not, little flock," because they have great tendency to fear and
because He does not like to see them thus troubled. He has bought them
and so He has the right to succor them and preserve them to the end.

But He also has the disposition to succor them. He obtained that tender
temper through suffering, by being Himself tempted. The man that has
seen affliction, when he is blessed of God, has the disposition to
cheer those that are afflicted. I have heard speak of a lady who was
out in the snow one night and was so very cold that she cried out, "Oh,
those poor people that have such a little money, how little fuel they
have and how pinched they must be! I will send a hundredweight of coals
to 20 families, at least." But I have heard say that when she reached
her own parlor, there was a fine fire burning and she sat there with
her feet on the fender and enjoyed an excellent tea. She then said to
herself, "Well, it is not very cold, after all. I do not think that I
shall send those coals. At any rate, not for the present." The sufferer
thinks of the sufferer, even as the poor help the poor. The Divine
wonder is that this Lord of ours, "though He was rich, yet for our
sakes became poor," now takes a delight in succoring the poor! Having
been tempted, He helps the tempted! His own trials make Him desire to
bless those who are tried.

And then He has the special ability. "He is able to succor them that
are tempted." I know certain good Brothers and Sisters whom I am very
pleased to see and I am very happy in their company when I am perfectly
well. But I do not enjoy their presence when I am ill. Thank you, no! I
would rather not have their visits multiplied when I am not well. They
walk heavily across the room. They have a way of leaving doors open, or
banging them. And when they talk, they talk so loudly and roughly that
the poor head aches and the sick man is worried. The things they say,
though they are meant to be kind, are the sort of remarks that pour
vinegar into your wounds! They do not understand the condition of a
sufferer and so they say all their words the wrong way upwards. If
Christians are to be comforters, they must learn the art of comforting
by being themselves tried! They cannot learn it otherwise.

Our Blessed Master, having lived a life of suffering, understands the
condition of a sufferer so well that He knows how to make a bed for
him. "What a strange thing to say!" cries one of my audience. Not at
all. David says, "You will make all his bed in his sickness." He would
not have said that if the Lord did not know how to make a bed! There is
a

dainty way of beating up a pillow and a peculiar art in shaking up a
bed when the sick man is lifted out of it. Yes, and there is a way of
putting on every piece of covering so as to make it a comfort. By this
figure we are taught that the Lord Jesus Christ knows how to deal with
us in the weakness and pain of our affliction. He has become so good a
Nurse, so Divine a Physician, so tender a Sympathizer because He has
passed through our sorrows. "In all our affliction He was afflicted."
"He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses."–

"He knows what sore temptations mean For He has felt the same." He has
a fitness for dealing with tempted ones.

Let me spend a minute or two in telling you His methods of succoring
them that are tempted. He does it in many ways and perhaps there may be
many here who know more about those ways than I do.

Usually He succors the tempted by giving them a sense of His sympathy.
They say, "Yes, my Lord is here. He feels for me." That is, in itself,
a succor of no mean order. Sometimes He succors them by suggesting to
them precious Truths of God which are the sweet antidote for the poison
of sorrow. There is in the Bible a remedy exactly fitted for your grief
if you could only find it.

Sometimes you lose the key of a drawer and you must have it opened and,
therefore, you send for the locksmith and he comes in with a great
bunch of keys. Somewhere among them he has a key that will open your
drawer. The Bible contains keys that will open the iron gates of your
trouble and give you freedom from your sorrow. The point is to find out
the right promise–and the Spirit of God often helps us in that matter
by bringing the Words of the Lord Jesus to our remembrance. We had
never known the richness of the Word of God if it had not been that in
our varied distresses the Lord has shown us how He foresaw all and
provided for all in the Covenant of promise.

Sometimes the Lord succors His people by inwardly strengthening them.
"Oh," one has said, "I am under a heavy trouble, but I do not know how
it is I can bear it much better than I thought I could." Yes, through
Divine Grace, a secret Divine energy is poured into the soul. We are
treated, as Mr. Bunyan puts it, by secret supplies of Grace imparted in
a hidden manner. We are like yonder fire. One is throwing water on it
and yet it burns on. Behind the wall another is secretly pouring oil on
the fire so that it will keep burning.

I have known the Lord bless His people by making them very weak. The
next best thing to being strong in the Lord is to be extremely weak in
yourself. They go together, but sometimes they are divided in
experience. It is grand to feel, "I will not struggle any more. I will
give up and lie passive in the Lord's hands." Oh, it is the sweetest
feeling, I think, outside Heaven! You may think it strange for me to
say so, but I believe that as in the center of a cyclone there is a
little spot where there is perfect calm–and as it is said that in the
center of the greatest fire that ever burned there is a spot where no
fire is raging–so there is in a deep sense of yielding up to God in
the very center of your pain, grief, misery and your depression–a
place of perfect repose when you have once yielded yourself fully up to
God. I know this to be true, even though I may not be understood.

In these ways He that was tempted, Himself, succors those who are
tempted.

III. I will close by thinking of JESUS SOUGHT AFTER. Let us seek Him!
Come, you weary, heavy-laden ones, come to Him who is able to succor
you! Do not stay away until you are a little comforted, but come in
your despair. Do not wait until you have a little more faith, but come
just as you are and say to Him, "Dear Lord, You have felt all this and
I lie down at Your dear feet! Do help me, I beseech You!" Let these few
thoughts help to bring you now, in prayer and trust and hope, to the
feet of this Great High Priest.

First, where else can you go? Who can help a soul like you? Come to
Him, then! Men are nothing–miserable comforters are they all. The
cisterns are all broken–come to the Fountain. Come to my Lord! Every
other door is shut, but yet you may not despair, for He says, "Behold I
set before you an open door."

Where better can you go? Do you need to find a friend able to help you?
Do you really need a comrade that can be a brother to you? To whom
should you go but unto your own Lord, the sympathizing Son of Man? To
whom better can you go? Do you say that you are downcast? Do you tell
me you are afraid you are no child of God? Never mind about that! Come
as a sinner if you cannot come as a saint! Do you mourn that you have
no good thoughts? Come and confess your bad ones! Do you lament that
you are not broken-hearted over sin as you ought to be? Come, then, to
be brokenhearted! Do you mourn that you are unspeakably bad? Then come
at your worst! It is never a good thing if you need a

surgeon, to say, "My bone is broken, but I shall not have it set until
it begins to mend." Poor foolish thing! Go while it is broken! O
perishing sinner! Cry to the Savior. Ask Him to save you now. Are you,
of all men, the worst? Then go to Him who is the best! Remember He
never casts anyone out. Never yet! Not one! I have declared this
everywhere and I have said, "If Jesus Christ casts any one of you out
when you come to Him, pray let me know, for I do not want to go up and
down the country telling lies." Again I give the challenge! If my Lord
does cast out one poor soul that comes to Him, let me know it and I
will give up preaching! I would not have the face to come forward and
preach Christ after that, for He, Himself, has said it, "Him that comes
to Me, I will in no wise cast out," and He would be a false Christ if
He acted contrary to His Word! He cannot cast you out! Why should He?
"Oh, but then I am so bad." So much the less likely is He to refuse
you, for there is the more room for His Grace.

"I am lost," said Mr. Whitefield's brother to the Countess of
Huntingdon. "I am delighted to hear it," said the Countess. "Oh," he
cried, "what a dreadful thing to say!" "No," she said, "'for the Son of
Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost.' Therefore I know
He is come to save you." O Sinner, it would be unreasonable to despair!
The more broken you are, the more ruined you are, the more vile you are
in your own esteem, so much the more room is there for the display of
infinite mercy and power!

Come, then, just as you are, saint or sinner, whoever you may be! Have
done with yourself, your good self and your bad self, too, and say, "If
I perish I will trust in Jesus." Trust in Jesus and you cannot perish.
If you perish believing in Jesus, I must perish with you. I am in the
same boat with you. You may be a very seasick passenger and I may be an
able-bodied seaman, but if you are drowned, I shall be, for I cannot
swim any more than you can. I depend upon the seaworthiness of this
vessel of Free Grace in which we are embarked–and we must either reach
the Fair Havens together, or sink together. You and I, poor broken-down
one, oh, will we not sing when we get safely to land? Will we not sing?
If we once get to Heaven, will we not sing aloud and clash the
high-sounding cymbals with all our might? I will contend with you as to
which shall praise God the most! You say that you will. I say that I
shall! Will we not vie with each other and with all the blood-redeemed
ones, sing hallelujah to God and the Lamb? If ever such sinners as you
and I get inside the gates of Heaven, we will give forth such outcries
of holy joy and gladness as never came from angels' throats, but can
only come from the lips of sinners bought with blood

The Lord, who succors the tempted, Himself, bless and comfort you!
Amen.