The Three Hours of Darkness

The Three Hours of Darkness

(No. 1896)

A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 18, 1886,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the
ninth hour." Matthew 27:45.

FROM nine till noon the usual degree of light was present, so that
there was time enough for our Lord's adversaries to behold and insult
His sufferings. There could be no mistake about the fact that He was
really nailed to the Cross, for He was crucified in broad daylight. We
are fully assured that it was Jesus of Nazareth, for both friends and
foes were eyewitnesses of His agonies–for three long hours the Jews
sat down and watched Him on the Cross, making jests of His miseries. I
feel thankful for those three hours of light, for otherwise the enemies
of our faith would have questioned whether, in very deed, the blessed
body of our Master was nailed to the tree and would have started false
rumors as many as the bats and owls which haunt the darkness! Where
would have been the witnesses of this solemn scene if the sun had been
hidden from morn till night? As three hours of light gave opportunity
for inspection and witness-bearing, we see the wisdom which did not
allow it to close too soon.

Never forget that this miracle of the closing of the eye of day at high
noon was performed by our Lord in His weakness. He had walked the sea,
raised the dead and healed the sick in the days of His strength, but
now He has come to His lowest–the fever is on Him–He is faint and
thirsty. He hangs on the borders of dissolution. Yet He has power to
darken the sun at noon! He is still very God of very God–

"Behold, a purple torrent runs

Down from His hands and head!

The crimson tide puts out the sun!

His groans awake the dead!"

If He can do this in His weakness, what is He not able to do in His
strength? Fail not to remember that this power was displayed in a
sphere in which He did not usually put forth His might. The sphere of
Christ is that of goodness and benevolence and, consequently, of light.
When He enters the sphere of making darkness and of working judgement,
He engages in what He calls His strange work. Wonders of terror are His
left-handed deeds. It is but now and then that He causes the sun to go
down at noon and darkens the earth in the clear day (Amos 8:9). If our
Lord can make darkness at will as He dies, what Glory may we not expect
now that He lives to be the Light of the city of God forever? The Lamb
is the Light and what a Light! The heavens bear the impress of His
dying power and lose their brightness! Shall not the new heavens and
the new earth attest the power of the risen Lord? The thick darkness
around the dying Christ is the robe of the Omnipotent–He lives again!
All power is in His hands and all that power He will put forth to bless
His chosen!

What a call must that mid-day midnight have been to the careless sons
of men! They knew not that the Son of God was among them nor that He
was working out human redemption. The grandest hour in all history
seemed likely to pass by unheeded, when, suddenly, night hastened from
her chambers and usurped the day! Everyone asked his companion, "What
does this darkness mean?" Business stood still. The plow stayed in
mid-furrow and the axe paused uplifted. It was the middle of the day,
when men are busiest, but they made a general pause. Not only on
Calvary, but on every hill and in every valley, the gloom settled down.
There was a halt in the caravan of life! None could move unless they
groped their way like the blind. The master of the house called for a
light at noon and his servant tremblingly obeyed the unusual summons.
Other lights were twinkling and Jerusalem was as a city by night, only
men were not in their beds! How startled were mankind!

Around the great deathbed an appropriate quiet was secured. I doubt not
that a shuddering awe came over the masses of the people and the
thoughtful foresaw terrible things. Those who had stood about the Cross
and had dared to insult the majesty of Jesus, were paralyzed with fear.
They ceased their ribaldry and, with it, their cruel exultation. They
were cowed though not convinced, even the basest of them. While the
better sort "smote their breasts and returned," as many as could do so,
no doubt, stumbled to their chambers and endeavored to hide themselves
for fear of awful judgments which they feared were near. I do not
wonder that there should be traditions of strange things that were said
during the hush of that darkness. Those whispers of the past may or may
not be true–they have been the subject of learned controversy, but the
labor of the dispute was energy ill spent. Yet we could not have
wondered if one did say, as he is reported to have done, "God is
suffering, or the world is perishing." Nor should I drive from my
beliefs the poetic legend that an Egyptian pilot passing down the river
heard among the reed banks a voice out of the rustling rushes,
whispering, "The great Pan is dead." Truly, the God of Nature was
expiring and things less tender than the reeds by the river might well
tremble at the sound!

We are told that this darkness was over all the land. And Luke puts it,
"over all the earth." That portion of our globe which was then veiled
in natural night was not affected–but to all men awake and at their
employment, it was the advertisement of a great and solemn event. It
was strange beyond all experience and all men marveled–for when the
light should have been brightest–all things were obscured for the
space of three hours!

There must be great teaching in this darkness, for when we come so near
the Cross, which is the center of history, every event is full of
meaning. Light will come out of this darkness! I love to feel the
solemnity of the three hours of death-shade and to sit down in it and
meditate with no companion but the august Sufferer, around whom that
darkness lowered. I am going to speak of it in four ways, as the Holy
Spirit may help me. First, let us bow our spirits in the presence of a
miracle which amazes us. Secondly, let us regard this darkness as a
veil which conceals. Thirdly, as a symbol which instructs. And,
fourthly, as a display of sympathy which forewarns us by the prophecies
which it implies.

I. First, let us view this darkness as A MIRACLE WHICH AMAZES US.

It may seem a trite observation that this darkness was altogether out
of the natural course of things. Since the world began, was it ever
heard that at high noon there should be darkness over all the land? It
was altogether out of the order of Nature. Some deny miracles and, if
they also deny God, I will not, at this time, deal with them. But it is
very strange that anyone who believes in God should doubt the
possibility of miracles. It seems to me that, granted the Being of a
God, miracles are to be expected as an occasional declaration of His
independent and active will. He may make certain rules for His actions
and it may be His wisdom to keep them, but surely He must reserve to
Himself the liberty to depart from His own laws, or else He has, in a
measure, laid aside His personal Godhead, deified law and set it up
above Himself! It would not increase our idea of the Glory of His
Godhead if we could be assured that He had made Himself subject to rule
and tied His own hands from ever acting except in a certain manner!
From the self-existence and freedom of will which enters into our very
conception of God, we are led to expect that sometimes He should not
keep to the methods which He follows as His general rule. This has led
to the universal conviction that miracles are a proof of Godhead.

The general works of Creation and Providence are, to my mind, the best
proofs, but the common heart of our race, for some reason or other,
looks to miracles as surer evidence–thus proving that miracles are
expected of God. Although the Lord makes it His order that there shall
be day and night, He, in this case, with abundant reason, interposes
three hours of night in the center of a day! Behold the reason. The
unusual in lower Nature is made to consort with the unusual in the
dealings of Nature's Lord. Certainly this miracle was most congruous
with that greater miracle which was happening in the death of Christ.
Was not the Lord, Himself, departing from all common ways? Was He not
doing that which had never been done from the beginning and would never
be done again? That man should die is so common a thing as to be deemed
inevitable? We are not startled at the sound of a funeral knell–we
have become familiar with the grave. As the companions of our youth die
at our side, we are not seized with amazement, for death is everywhere
about us and within us. But that the Son of God should die, this is
beyond all expectation and not only above Nature, but contrary to it!
He who is equal with God deigns to hang upon the Cross and die! I know
of nothing that seems more out of rule and beyond expectation than
this. The sun darkening at noon is a fit accompaniment of the death of
Jesus. Is it not so?

Further, this miracle was not only out of the order of Nature, but it
was one which would have been pronounced impossible. It is not possible
that there should be an eclipse of the sun at the time of the full
moon. The moon, at the time

when she is in her full, is not in a position in which she could
possibly cast her shadow upon the earth. The Passover was at the time
of the full moon and, therefore, it was not possible that the sun
should then undergo an eclipse. This darkening of the sun was not
strictly an astronomical eclipse–the darkness was doubtless produced
in some other way–yet to those who were present, it did seem to be a
total eclipse of the sun–a thing impossible. Ah, Brothers and Sisters,
when we come to deal with man and the Fall, and sin, and God, and
Christ, and the Atonement, we are at home with impossibilities! We have
now reached a region where prodigies, marvels and surprises are the
order of the day–sublimities become commonplace when we come within
the circle of Eternal Love! Yes, more–we have now left the solid land
of the possible and have put out to sea–where we see the works of the
Lord and His wonders in the deep. When we think of impossibilities in
other spheres, we start back. But the way of the Cross is ablaze with
the Divine and we soon perceive that "with God, all things are
possible."

See, then, in the death of Jesus, the possibility of the impossible!
Behold, here, how the Son of God can die! We sometimes pause when we
meet with an expression in a hymn which implies that God can suffer or
die. We think that the poet has used too great a license, yet it
behooves us to refrain from hypercriticism since, in Holy Writ, there
are words like it. We even read (Acts 20:28) of "the Church of God
which He has purchased with His own blood"–the blood of God! Ah well!
I am not careful to defend the language of the Holy Spirit, but in its
presence I take liberty to justify the words which we sang just now–

"Well might the sun in darkness hide, And shut his glories in, When
God, the mighty Maker, died For man, the creature's sin."

I will not venture to explain the death of the Incarnate God. I am
content to believe it and to rest my hope upon it.

How should the Holy One have sin laid upon Him? That, also, I do not
know. A wise man has told us, as if it were an axiom, that the
imputation or the non-imputation of sin is an impossibility. Be it
so–we have become familiar with such things since we have beheld the
Cross. Things which men call absurdities have become foundational
Truths of God to us! The Doctrine of the Cross is, to them that perish,
foolishness. We know that in our Lord was no sin and yet He bore our
sins in His own body on the Cross. We do not know how the innocent Son
of God could be permitted to suffer for sins that were not His own. It
amazes us that Justice should permit one so perfectly Holy to be
forsaken of His God and to cry out, "Eloi, Eloi, lama Sabachthani?" But
it was so and it was so by the decree of the highest Justice–and we
rejoice in it! As it was so, that the sun was eclipsed when it was
impossible that it should be eclipsed, so has Jesus performed, on our
behalf, in the agonies of His death, things which, in the ordinary
judgment of men, must be set down as utterly impossible! Our faith is
at home in wonderland where the Lord's thoughts are seen to be as high
above our thoughts as the heavens are above the earth!

Concerning this miracle, I have also further to remark that this
darkening of the sun surpassed all ordinary and natural eclipses. It
lasted longer than an ordinary eclipse and it came in a different
manner. According to Luke, the darkness all over the land came first
and the sun was darkened afterwards–the darkness did not begin with
the sun, but mastered the sun! It was unique and supernatural. Now,
among all grief, no grief is comparable to the grief of Jesus–of all
woes, none can parallel the woes of our great Substitute! As strongest
light casts deepest shade, so has the surprising love of Jesus cost Him
a death such as falls not to the common lot of men. Others die, but
this Man is "obedient unto death." Others drink the fatal draught, yet
reckon not of its wormwood and gall–but my Master "tasted death." "He
poured out His soul unto death." Every part of His Being was darkened
with that extraordinary death-shade–and the natural darkness outside
of Him did but shroud a special death which was entirely by itself.

And now, when I come to think of it, this darkness appears to have been
most natural and fitting. If we had to write out the story of our
Lord's death, we could not omit the darkness without neglecting a most
important item. The darkness seems a part of the natural furniture of
that great transaction. Read the story through and you are not at all
startled with the darkness. After once familiarizing your mind with the
thought that this is the Son of God and that He stretches His hands to
the cruel death of the Cross, you do not wonder at the rending of the
veil of the Temple! You are not astonished at the earthquake or at the
rising of certain of the dead. These are proper attendants of our
Lord's passion–and so is the darkness. It drops into its place, it
seems as if it could not have been otherwise–

"That Sacrifice!–the death of Him–

The high and ever Holy One!

Well may the conscious Hea ven grow dim,

And blacken the beholding sun."

For a moment think again. Has it not appeared as if the death which
that darkness shrouded was also a natural part of the great whole? We
have grown, at last, to feel as if the death of the Christ of God were
an integral part of human history. You cannot take it out of man's
chronicles, can you? Introduce the Fall and see Paradise Lost–and you
cannot make the poem complete till you have introduced that greater Man
who did redeem us–and by His death gave us our Paradise Regained. It
is a singular characteristic of all true miracles, that though your
wonder never ceases, they never appear to he unnatural–they are
marvelous, but never monstrous! The miracles of Christ dovetail into
the general run of human history. We cannot see how the Lord could be
on earth and Lazarus not be raised from the dead when the grief of
Martha and Mary had told its tale. We cannot see how the disciples
could have been tempest-tossed on the Lake of Galilee and the Christ
not walk on the water to deliver them! Wonders of power are expected
parts of the narrative where Jesus is! Everything fits into its place
with surrounding facts.

A Romish miracle is always monstrous and devoid of harmony with all
beside it. What if St. Winifred's head did come up from the well and
speak from the coping to the astonished peasant who was about to draw
water? I do not care whether it did or did not–it does not alter
history a bit, nor even color it–it is tagged on to the record and is
no part of it! But the miracles of Jesus, this of the darkness among
them, are essential to human history and especially is this so in the
case of His death and this great darkness which shrouded it! All things
in human story converge to the Cross which seems not to be an
afterthought nor an expedient, but the fit and foreordained channel
through which Love should run to guilty men!

I cannot say more from lack of voice, though I had many more things to
say. Sit down and let the thick darkness cover you till you cannot even
see the Cross and only know that out of reach of mortal eyes your Lord
worked out the redemption of His people. He worked in silence, a
miracle of patience and of love by which the Light of God has come to
those who sit in darkness and in the valley of the shadow of death.

II. Secondly, I desire you to regard this darkness as A VEIL WHICH
CONCEALS. The Christ is hanging on yonder tree. I see the dreadful
Cross. I can see the thieves on either side. I look around and I
sorrowfully mark that motley group of citizens from Jerusalem–along
with scribes, priests and strangers from different countries–mingled
with Roman soldiers. They turn their eyes on Him and, for the most
part, gaze with cruel scorn upon the Holy One who is in the center. In
truth it is an awful sight. Mark those dogs of the common sort and
those bulls of Bashan of more notable rank who all unite to dishonor
the Meek and Lowly One. I must confess I never read the story of the
Master's death, knowing what I do of the pain of crucifixion, without
deep anguish–crucifixion was a death worthy to have been invented by
devils! The pain which it involved was immeasurable! I will not torture
you by describing it. I know dear hearts that cannot read of it without
tears and without lying awake for nights afterwards.

But there was more than anguish upon Calvary–ridicule and contempt
embittered all. Those jests, those cruel gibes, those mockeries, those
thrusting out of the tongues–what shall we say of these? At times I
have felt some little sympathy with the French Prince who cried, "If I
had been there with my guards, I would soon have swept those wretches
away!" It was too terrible a sight–the pain of the Victim was grievous
enough–but the abominable wickedness of the mockers, who could bear
it? Let us thank God that in the middle of the crime there came down a
darkness which rendered it impossible for them to go further with it!
Jesus must die. For His pains there must be no alleviation and from
death there must be for Him no deliverance–but the scoffers must be
silenced. Most effectually their mouths were closed by the dense
darkness which shut them in.

What I see in that veil is, first of all, that it was a concealment for
those guilty enemies. Did you ever think of that? It is as if God,
Himself, said, "I cannot bear it. I will not see this infamy! Descend,
O veil!" Down fell the heavy shades–

"I asked the heavens, 'What foe to God has done This unexampled deed?'
The heavens exclaim, 'Twas man! And we, in horror, snatched the sun
From such a spectacle of guilt and shame.'"

Thank God, the Cross is a hiding place. It furnishes for guilty men a
shelter from the all-seeing eyes, so that justice need not see and
strike. When God lifts up His Son and makes Him visible, He hides the
sin of men. He says that "the times of their ignorance He winks at."
Even the greatness of their sin He casts behind His back, so that He
need not see it, but may indulge His long-suffering and permit His pity
to endure their provocations. It must have grieved the heart of the
Eternal God to see such wanton cruelty of men towards Him who went
about doing good and healing all manner of diseases. It was horrible to
see the teachers of the people rejecting Him with scorn–the seed of
Israel, who ought to have accepted Him as their Messiah–casting Him
out as a thing despised and abhorred! I therefore feel gratitude to God
for bidding that darkness cover all the land and end that shameful
scene! I would say to any guilty ones here–Thank God that the Lord
Jesus has made it possible for your sins to be hidden more completely
than by thick darkness! Thank God that in Christ He does not see you
with that stern eye of Justice which would involve your destruction!
Had not Jesus interposed, whose death you have despised, you had worked
out in your own death the result of your own sin long ago! But for your
Lord's sake you are allowed to live as if God did not see you. This
long-suffering is meant to bring you to repentance. Will you not come?

But, further, that darkness was a sacred concealment for the blessed
Person of our Divine Lord. So to speak, the angels found for their King
a pavilion of thick clouds in which His Majesty might be sheltered in
its hour of misery. It was too much for wicked eyes to gaze so rudely
on that Immaculate Person! Had not His enemies stripped Him naked and
cast lots for His garments? Therefore it was meet that the holy Manhood
should, at length, find suitable concealment. It was not fit that
brutal eyes should see the lines made upon that blessed form by the
engraving tool of sorrow. It was not meet that revelers should see the
contortions of that sacred frame, indwelt with Deity, while He was
being broken beneath the iron rod of Divine Wrath on our behalf! It was
meet that God should cover Him so that none should see all He did and
all He bore when He was made sin for us. I devoutly bless God for thus
hiding my Lord away–thus was He screened from eyes which were not fit
to see the sun much less to look upon the Sun of Righteousness! This
darkness also warns us, even we who are most reverent.

This darkness tells us all that the Passion is a great mystery into
which we cannot pry. I try to explain it as substitution and I feel
that where the language of Scripture is explicit, I may and must be
explicit, too. But yet I feel that the idea of substitution does not
cover the whole of the matter and that no human conception can
completely grasp the whole of the dread mystery. It was worked in
darkness because the full, far-reaching meaning and result cannot be
beheld of finite mind. Tell me the death of the Lord Jesus was a grand
example of self-sacrifice–I can see that and much more. Tell me it was
a wondrous obedience to the will of God–I can see that and much more.
Tell me it was the bearing of what ought to have been borne by myriads
of sinners of the human race, as the chastisement of their sin–I can
see that and found my best hope upon it. But do not tell me that this
is all that is in the Cross! No, great as this would be, there is much
more in our Redeemer's death. God only knows the love of God–Christ
only knows all that He accomplished when He bowed His head and gave up
the ghost. There are common mysteries of Nature into which it were
irreverence to pry, but this is a Divine mystery before which we take
our shoes off, for the place called Calvary is holy ground! God veiled
the Cross in darkness–and in darkness much of its deeper meaning
lies–not because God would not reveal it, but because we have not
capacity enough to discern it all! God was manifest in the flesh and in
that human flesh He put away sin by His own Sacrifice–this we all
know. But "without controversy great is the mystery of godliness."

Once again, this veil of darkness also pictures to me the way in which
the powers of darkness will always endeavor to conceal the Cross of
Christ. We fight with darkness when we try to preach the Cross. "This
is your hour and the power of darkness," said Christ, and I doubt not
that the infernal hosts made, in that hour, a fierce assault upon the
spirit of our Lord. Thus much we also know, that if the Prince of
Darkness is anywhere in force, it is sure to be where Christ is lifted
up! To becloud the Cross is the grand objective of the enemy of souls!
Did you ever notice it? These fellows who hate the Gospel will let
every other doctrine pass muster–but if the Atonement is preached and
the Truths of God which grow out of it, straightaway they are awakened!
Nothing provokes the devil like the Cross. Modern theology has for its
main goal the obscuration of the Doctrine of the Atonement. These
modern cuttlefish make the water of life black with their ink! They
make out sin to be a trifle and the punishment of it to be a temporary
business–and thus they degrade the remedy by underrating the disease.
We are not ignorant of their devices. Expect, my Brothers, that the
clouds of darkness will gather as to a center around the Cross, that
they may hide it from the sinner's view. But expect this, also, that
there

darkness shall meet its end. Light springs out of that darkness–the
eternal Light of the undying Son of God, who, having risen from the
dead, lives forever to scatter the darkness of evil!

III. Now we pass on to speak of this darkness as A SYMBOL WHICH
INSTRUCTS. The veil falls down and conceals, but at the same time, as
an emblem, it reveals. It seems to say, "Attempt not to search within,
but learn from the veil, itself–it has cherub work upon it." This
darkness teaches us what Jesus suffered. It aids us to guess at the
griefs which we may not actually see.

The darkness is the symbol of the wrath of God which fell on those who
slew His only begotten Son. God was angry and His frown removed the
light of day. Well might He be angry, when sin was murdering His only
Son–when the Jewish farmers were saying, "This is the heir; come, let
us kill Him, and let us seize o His inheritance." This is God's wrath
towards all mankind, for practically all men concurred in the death of
Jesus. That wrath has brought men into darkness– they are ignorant,
blinded, bewildered. They have come to love darkness better than light
because their deeds are evil. In that darkness they do not repent, but
go on to reject the Christ of God. Into this darkness God cannot look
upon them in complacency, but He views them as children of darkness and
heirs of wrath, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever!

The symbol also tells us what our Lord Jesus Christ endured. The
darkness outside of Him was the figure of the darkness that was within
Him. In Gethsemane a thick darkness fell upon our Lord's spirit. He was
"exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death." His joy was communion with
God–that joy was gone and He was in the dark. His day was the light of
His Father's face–that face was hidden and a terrible night gathered
around Him. Brothers, I should sin against that veil if I were to
pretend that I could tell you what the sorrow was which oppressed the
Savior's soul–only so far can I speak as it has been given me to have
fellowship with Him in His sufferings. Have you ever felt a deep and
overwhelming horror of sin–your own sin and the sins of others? Have
you ever seen sin in the light of God's love? Has it ever darkly
hovered over your sensitive conscience? Has an unknown sense of wrath
crept over you like midnight gloom and has it been about you, around
you, above you, and within you? Have you felt shut up in your
feebleness and yet shut out from God? Have you looked around and found
no help, no comfort, even, in God–no hope, no peace? In all this you
have sipped a little of that salt sea into which our Lord was cast. If,
like Abraham, you have felt a horror of great darkness creep over you,
then you have had a taste of what your Divine Lord suffered when it
pleased the Father to bruise Him and to put Him to grief.

This it was that made Him sweat great drops of blood falling to the
ground–and this it was which, on the Cross, made Him utter that
appalling cry, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" It was not
the crown of thorns, or the scourge, or the Cross which made Him
cry–it was the darkness, the awful darkness of desertion which
oppressed His mind and made Him feel like one distraught. All that
could comfort Him was withdrawn and all that could distress Him was
piled upon Him. "The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a
wounded spirit who can bear?" Our Savior's spirit was wounded and He
cried, "My heart is like wax, it is melted in the midst of My heart."
He was bereft of all natural and spiritual comfort and His distress was
utter and entire. The darkness of Calvary did not, like an ordinary
night, reveal the stars, but it darkened every lamp of Heaven. His
strong crying and tears denoted the deep sorrow of His soul. He bore
all it was possible for His capacious mind to bear, though enlarged and
invigorated by union with the Godhead! He bore the equivalent of
Hell–no, not that, only–but He bore that which stood instead of
10,000 Hells, so far as the vindication of the Law is concerned! Our
Lord rendered, in His death agony, a homage to Justice far greater than
if a world had been doomed to destruction! When I have said that, what
more can I say? Well may I tell you that this unutterable darkness,
this hiding of the Divine Face, expresses more of the woes of Jesus
than words can ever tell.

Again, I think I see in that darkness, also, what it was that Jesus was
battling, for we must never forget that the Cross was a battlefield to
Him, wherein He triumphed gloriously. He was fighting, then, with
darkness–with the powers of darkness of which Satan is the head–with
the darkness of human ignorance, depravity and falsehood. The battle
thus apparent at Golgotha has been raging ever since. Then was the
conflict at its height, for the chiefs of the two great armies met in
personal conflict. The present battle in which you and I take our
little share is as nothing compared with that wherein all the powers of
darkness in their dense battalions hurled themselves against the
Almighty Son of God! He bore their onset, endured the tremendous shock
of their assault and, in the end, with shout of victory, He led
captivity captive! He, by His power and Godhead, turned midnight into
day, again, and brought back to this world a reign of light which,

blessed be God, shall never come to a close! Come to battle again, you
hosts of darkness, if you dare! The Cross has defeated you–the Cross
shall defeat you! Hallelujah! The Cross is the ensign of victory–its
light is the death of darkness! The Cross is the lighthouse which
guides poor weather-beaten humanity into the harbor of peace–this is
the lamp which shines over the door of the great Father's house to lead
His prodigals home.

Let us not be afraid of all the darkness which besets us on our way
Home, since Jesus is the light which conquers it

all!

The darkness never came to an end till the Lord Jesus broke the
silence. All had been still and the darkness had grown terrible. At
last He spoke and His voice uttered a Psalm. It was the 22nd Psalm. "My
God," He said, "My God, why have You forsaken Me?" Each repeated,
"Eloi," flashed morning upon the scene! By the time He had uttered the
cry, "Why have you forsaken Me?" men had begun to see, again, and some
even ventured to misinterpret His words–more in terror than in
ignorance. They said, "He calls Elijah!" They may have meant to mock,
but I think not. At any rate, there was no heart in what they said, nor
in the reply of their companions. Yet the light had come by which they
could see to dip the sponge in vinegar. Brothers and Sisters, no light
will ever come to dark hearts unless Jesus shall speak and the light
will not be clear until we hear the voice of His sorrows on our behalf
as He cries, "Why have you forsaken Me?" His voice of grief must be the
end of our grief! His cry out of the darkness must cheer away our gloom
and bring the heavenly morning to our minds!

You see how much there is in my text. It is a joy to speak on such a
theme when one is in good health and full of vigor–then are we as
Naphtali, a hind let loose–then we give goodly words! But this day I
am in pain as to my body and my mind seems frozen. Nevertheless, the
Lord can bless my feeble words and make you see that in this darkness
there is a deep and wide meaning which none of us should neglect. If
God shall help your meditations, this darkness will be light about you.

IV. I come to my fourth point and my closing words will deal with THE
SYMPATHY WHICH PROPHESIES. Do

you see the sympathy of Nature with her Lord–the sympathy of the sun
in the heavens with the Sun of Righteousness? It was not possible for
Him by whom all things were made to be in darkness and for Nature to
remain in the light.

The first sympathetic fact I see is this–all lights are dim when
Christ shines not. All is dark when He does not shine. In the Church,
if Jesus is not there, what is there? The sun, itself, could not yield
us light if Jesus were withdrawn. The seven golden lamps are ready to
go out unless He walks among them and trims them with the holy oil.
Brothers, you soon grow heavy, your spirits faint and your hands are
weary if the Christ is not with you! If Jesus Christ is not fully
preached. If He is not with us by His Spirit, then everything is in
darkness. Obscure the Cross and you have obscured all spiritual
teachings! You cannot say, "We will be clear in every other point and
clear upon every other doctrine, but we will shun the Atonement since
so many quibble with it. No, Sirs! If that candle is put under a
bushel, the whole house is dark! All theology sympathizes with the
Cross and is colored and tinctured by it! Your pious service, your
books, your public worship must all be in sympathy with the Cross, one
way or another. If the Cross is in the dark, so will all your work be–

"What do you think of Christ?is the test To try both your work and your
scheme; You cannot be right in the rest Unless you think rightly of
Him."

Conjure up your doubts; fabricate your philosophies and compose your
theories–there will be no Light of God in them if the Cross is left
out. Vain are the sparks of your own making–you shall lie down in
sorrow! All our work and travail shall end in vanity unless the work
and travail of Christ is our first and only hope! If you are dark upon
that point, which alone is Light, how great is your darkness!

Next, see the dependence of all creation upon Christ, as evidenced by
its darkness when He withdraws. It was not meet that He who made all
worlds should die and yet all worlds should go on just as they had
done. If He suffers eclipse, they must suffer eclipse, too. If the Sun
of Righteousness is made to set in blood, the natural sun must keep
touch with Him. I believe, my Friends, that there is a much more
wonderful sympathy between Christ and the world of Nature than any of
us have ever dreamed. The whole creation groans and travails in pain
together until now because Christ, in the Church, is in His travail
pangs. Christ in His mystical body is in travail and so the whole
creation must wait for the manifestation of the Son of God.

We are waiting for the coming of the Lord from Heaven and there is no
hill or dale–there is no mountain or sea but what is in perfect
harmony with the waiting Church! Wonder not that there should be
earthquakes in many places, blazing volcanoes, terrible tempests, and
sore spreading of deadly disease! Marvel not when you hear of dire
portents and things that make one's heart to quail, for such things
must be till the end shall come! Until the Great Shepherd shall make
His crook into a scepter and shall begin His unsuffering reign, this
poor earth must bleed at every vein! There must be darkness till these
days of delay are ended. You that expect placid history till Christ
shall come expect you know not what! You that think that generous
politics shall create order and contentment and that the extension of
free-trade shall breathe universal peace over the nations, look for the
living among the dead! Till the Lord shall come, the word has gone out,
"Overturn, overturn, overturn," and overturned all things must be–not
only in other kingdoms, but in this also, till Jesus comes! All that
can be shaken shall be shaken and only His immovable Throne and Truth
shall abide. Now is the time of the Lord's battle with darkness and we
may not hope, as yet, for unbroken light.

Dear Friends, the sin which darkened Christ and made Him die in the
dark, darkens the whole world. The sin that darkened Christ and made
Him hang upon the Cross in the dark is darkening you who do not believe
in Him–and you will live in the dark and die in the dark unless you
get to Him, only, who is the Light of the World and can give light to
you. There is no light for any man except in Christ! And until you
believe in Him, thick darkness shall blind you and you shall stumble in
it and perish! That is the lesson I would have you learn.

Another practical lesson is this–if we are in the dark at this time;
if our spirits are sunk in gloom, let us not despair, for the Lord
Christ, Himself, was there. If I have fallen into misery on account of
sin, let me not give up all hope, for the Father's Well-Beloved passed
through denser darkness than mine. O believing Soul, if you are in the
dark, you are near the King's cellars and there are wines on the lees
well refined lying there! You have gotten into the pavilion of the Lord
and now may you speak with Him! You will not find Christ in the gaudy
tents of pride, nor in the foul haunts of wickedness! You will not find
Him where the viol and the dance and the flowing bowl inflame the lusts
of men! But in the house of mourning you will meet the Man of Sorrows!
He is not where Herodias dances, nor where Bernice displays her charms.
He is where the woman of a sorrowful spirit moves her lips in prayer.
He is never absent where penitence sits in darkness and bewails her
faults–

"Yes, Lord, in hours of gloom, When shadows fill my room When pain
breathes forth its groans, And grief its sighs and moans, Then You are
near."

If you are under a cloud, feel for your Lord, if haply you may find
Him. Stand still in your black sorrow and say, "O Lord, the preacher
tells me that Your Cross once stood in such darkness as this–O Jesus
hear me!" He will respond to you–the Lord will look out of the pillar
of cloud and shed a light upon you. "I know their sorrows," He says. He
is no stranger to heart-break. Christ also once suffered for sin. Trust
Him and He will cause His light to shine upon you! Lean upon Him and He
will bring you up out of the gloomy wilderness into the land of rest.
God help you to do so!

Last Monday I was cheered beyond all I can tell you by a letter from a
Brother who had been restored to life, light, and liberty by the
discourse of last Sabbath morning [Sermon No. 1895, Volume 32–Love
Abounding, Love Complaining, Love Abiding]. I know no greater joy than
to be useful to your souls. For this reason I have tried to preach,
this morning, though I am physically quite unfit for it. Oh, I do pray
I may hear more news from saved ones! Oh that some spirit that has
wandered out into the dark moorland may spy the candle in my window and
find its way home! If you have found my Lord, I charge you, never let
Him go, but cleave to Him till the day breaks and the shadows flee
away! God help you so to do for Jesus' sake! Amen.