The Tenderness of Jesus

The Tenderness of Jesus

A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 8, 1890,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"We have not a High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of
our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet
without sin." Hebrews 4:15.

BELOVED, we have a High Priest. All that Israel had under the Law we
still retain, only we have the substance of which they had only the
shadow. "We have an Altar, of which they have no right to eat which
serve the tabernacle." We have a Sacrifice, which, being once offered,
forever avails. We have "One greater than the temple," and He is to us
the Mercy Seat and the High Priest. Take it for granted that all the
blessings of the Law remain under the Gospel. Christ has restored that
which He took not away, but He has not taken away one single possible
blessing of the Law–on the contrary, He has secured all to His people.

I look to the Old Testament and I see certain blessings appended to the
Covenant of Works and I say to myself by faith, "Those blessings are
mine, for I have kept the Covenant of Works in the Person of my
Covenant Head and Surety. Every blessing which is promised to perfect
obedience belongs to me, since I present to God a perfect obedience in
the Person of my great Representative, the Lord Jesus Christ." Every
real spiritual blessing which Israel had, you have as a Christian.

Note, next, not only do we read that there is a High Priest, but in the
14th verse we read, "We have a High Priest." It would be a small matter
to us to know that such-and-such blessings existed–the great point is
to know by faith that we personally possess them! What is the great
High Priest to me unless He is mine? What is a Savior but a word to
tantalize my despairing spirit, until I can say that this Savior is
mine? Every blessing of the Covenant is prized in proportion as it is
had– "We have a High Priest." I pray you, never talk of the blessings
and Doctrines of Grace as matters apart from personal possession, but
seek habitually to enjoy and experience them! That was a grand
exclamation of Thomas, "My Lord, and my God," and this is a sweet word
for the saints–"We have a High Priest."

Beloved, come boldly to the Throne of God for you have a High Priest.
Grasp firmly by faith the choice favors which your interest in the Lord
Jesus secures to you. It is precious to reflect that Jesus, as High
Priest, is still ours, though, according to the text, He "is passed
into the heavens." He does not forget us now that He has passed through
the lower heavens into the Heaven of heavens where He reigns supreme in
His Father's Glory. He is still touched with a feeling of our
infirmities. Though He has left behind Him all pain, suffering and
infirmity, He retains to the fullest the fellow feelings which His life
of humiliation has developed in Him.

"The Man is near of kin unto us" and no difference of situation or
condition has changed His kinship or the boundless love which goes with
it. Our Joseph, though Lord of all Egypt, is our Brother, still, and
beneath the vestments of a king there beats the heart of love. Think of
our High Priest as not having laid aside that breastplate of His on
which our names are engraved, nor the "two onyx stones, set in pouches
of gold," which He wore upon His shoulders, inscribed in the same
manner. On His heart and on His shoulders our exalted High Priest bears
all His people–His heart and His arms are both engaged for them–His
love and His power are engrossed by them.

Our Lord carries in His pierced hands, feet and side, the memorials of
His redeemed, as it is written, "I have engraved you upon the palms of
My hands." We have in Him who has passed into the heavens as truly
merciful a High Priest as if He were still on this side of the veil
ministering as in the day of His humiliation. Put those things together
and read them experimentally, each Believer for himself. We have a High
Priest–we have Him now–and while He is beyond the heavens, in the
Glory of glories, He is still ours, in all tenderness exercising His
Grace and power towards us.

Observe here that the Apostle delights to dwell upon the majesty and
glory of our High Priest. What does he say? "Seeing, then, that we have
a great High Priest," as if Aaron and all his sons were little
personages compared with Him!

In Jesus, the Son of God, we have "a great High Priest." The long
succeeding line of priests called of God to stand before Him in the
holy place on earth have all passed away–but we have "a great High
Priest," seeing He never dies. These men were all faulty–but we have a
"great High Priest," who is absolutely perfect. These men did but
humbly represent Him, as in a dewdrop the sun may be reflected. But He
is the true High Priest between God and man and therefore the epithet
"great" is put before His name as it could not be before any other.

He is "the great High Priest," for He has passed, not within a material
veil into some inner sanctuary encompassed with curtains, but into the
heavens where God dwells! His name is Jesus. There is His Manhood–He
was born of a woman to save His people from their sins. But we read
further, "Jesus, the Son of God." There is His Deity. He is the
Only-Begotten of the Father–as glorious in His Godhead as He is
gracious in His Manhood. Paul delights to dwell upon these points of
glory.

But when he has done so, it seems to occur to him that when we consider
the greatness of our High Priest, some poor trembling sinners may be
afraid to draw near to Him–and the Apostle ever has a longing eye
towards drawing souls to Jesus. Therefore he falls back upon our Lord's
tenderness. Great as He is, our High Priest is not One who "cannot be
touched with the feeling of our infirmities." He puts a negative on
that fear which might naturally arise in trembling bosoms. This
morning, being myself more than usually compassed with infirmities, I
desire to speak, as a weak and suffering preacher, of that High Priest
who is full of compassion–and my longing is that any who are low in
spirit, faint, despondent, or even at the point of total despair, may
take heart to approach the Lord Jesus!

Let no man be afraid of Him who is the embodiment of gentleness and
compassion! Though conscious of your own infirmities, you may feel free
to come to Him who will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the
smoking flax! I want to speak so tenderly that even the despairing may
look up and may feel a drawing towards our Beloved Master who is so
graciously touched with a feeling of our infirmities.

I. So I am going to begin my sermon by saying of our blessed Lord, HE
HAS ASSUMED A VERY TENDER OFFICE. If the office of high priest had been
fully carried out, as it ought to have been, it would have been one of
the most tenderly helpful that could have been devised. A king may
render great aid to the unhappy, but, on the other hand, he is a terror
to evil-doers–a high priest is in the highest sense "ordained for
men," and he is the friend and benefactor of the most wretched.

It was intended, first, that by the high priest God should commune with
men. That needs a person of great tenderness. A mind that is capable of
listening to God and understanding, in a measure, what He teaches, had
need be very tender so as to interpret the lofty sense into the lowly
language of humanity. If the man is to come from among the Infinite
down to the ignorance and narrow capacities of mortal men, he had need
be tender as a nurse to her children. Great philosophers have not
always been great teachers–their very profundity has prevented their
translating their great thoughts into the speech of common minds. There
is a possibility of knowing so much that the knowledge becomes crowded
up and there remains no possible gate for the orderly going out of such
a multitude of thoughts.

Great knowledge needs great patience if it would instruct the ignorant.
The great loaves of wisdom must be broken and crumbed into a basin of
milk for the children. How few remember the words, "Let the children
first be filled"! Now, the high priest had to be a man who could
commune with God and listen to the sacred Oracle–and then he was bound
to come out to common men of the wilderness, or men of the farm, and
tell them what he had heard in secret from the Infinite God! He must
mediate and allow his mouth to be God's mouth to the people–for "the
priest's lips should keep knowledge." What he had grasped from the Lord
he must so put that the people could grasp it and act upon it. This is
what our Lord has done in the most tender manner.

He reveals the Father. The things of God which He knows, He makes known
unto us by His Holy Spirit, as we are able to bear them. We are to
learn of Him. Some say that they will go from Nature up to Nature's
God–they will do no such thing–the steps are much too steep for their
feeble climbing! They fall into some such abyss of absurdity as
evolution and come not near to God. You have not to go from Jesus
Christ to God, for He Himself is God! "In Him dwells all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. And you are complete in Him." Come, then, and
learn of the great High Priest! His office, itself, is a compassionate
one and you may learn all of God from Him the more readily because He
is meek and lowly of heart and will count it no drudgery to teach you
the very A B Cs of Divine Truth.

But a high priest took the other side also–he was to communicate with
God from men. Here, also, he needed the most tender spirit to rule his
faculties and to move his affections. He must sit down and hear all the
trembling petitions of troubled mothers who had come from the utmost
end of Israel laden with their domestic burdens. He must listen to all
the complaints of the oppressed, the woes of the afflicted, the trials
of the poor, the perplexities of the distracted. And then, as a man of
God, he was ordained to take all these things in prayer before the Host
High and in fitter language to present the requests of the broken in
heart. What a tender office! How few could carry it out!

Even some well-meaning ministers do not seem able to enter into the
struggles of a seeking sinner, or into the conflicts of a tempted soul.
Those who go to them, that they may enjoy their intercessions, are
disappointed. Our High Priest is quite at home with mourners and enters
into their case as a good physician understands the symptoms of his
patients. When we tell our Lord the story of our inward grief, He
understands it better than we do. He rightly reads our case and then
wisely presents it before the Majesty on high, pleading His Sacrifice,
that the Lord may deal graciously with us.

Beloved, this is what Jesus Christ will do for all who desire to speak
with God. He is the "Interpreter, one of a thousand," by whom our sighs
will be reported to Heaven! If you wish to communicate your needs to
the great Father who is able to help in time of need–here is the
Ambassador between earth and Heaven who can plead the cause of your
soul at that Throne from which succor always comes! Is it not gracious
on our Lord's part to undertake so tender an office for those who need
it so greatly and have no other way of access to the God of Grace?

But if I understand the high priest's office aright, he had many things
to do which come under this general description, but which might not
suggest themselves if you did not have the items set before you. The
high priest was one who had to deal with sin and judgment for the
people. We read in Exodus 28:29, "Aaron shall bear the judgment of the
children of Israel upon his heart before the Lord continually." In
consequence, he was called upon to hear confessions of sin and pleas
for pardon. Many came to him and acknowledged known transgressions, or
wished for aid in discovering sins of ignorance.

As God's representative, he judged the errors of those who came to
offer sacrifice for their sins and helped them to deal rightly in the
things of God. This is a very tender post to occupy. No mere man is
fitted to hear, as a rule, the confessions of all sorts of people and
certainly he should not seek to do so. Yet the man whom God calls to
feed His flock is forced, at times, to enter into the soul-conflicts of
his fellow men and to hear the mournful story of their wanderings. And
he needs great tenderness in so doing. We have a High Priest into whose
ears we may pour all the confessions of our penitence without fear. Go
and do so! It is a wonderful easement to the mind to tell Jesus all.
Men who have consciences that tear them to pieces will find perfect
repose follows upon a full pouring out of their soul before the Lord
Jesus. Our merciful High Priest will never make a harsh observation,
nor ask a rasping question, nor pronounce a crushing sentence. Go to
Him, only, for there is none like He. He will come so near to you that
you shall unburden your soul at His feet.

No doubt the high priest was resorted to that he might console the
sorrowful. It must have been a great relief for those who were of a
sorrowful spirit, to go unto the sanctuary of the Lord and sit at the
feet of a man of God who could remind the stricken one of the promises
made to meet such sorrow. Only to tell the story was helpful. Mourners
often get more comfort from telling their griefs than they do from the
remarks of those to whom they unburden themselves. Go to Jesus, dear
Friend, if a sharp grief is now gnawing at your heart. If it is a
trouble which you could not tell to your father or your husband, go to
Jesus with it! That holy woman, Hannah, when she sat in the court of
the Lord's house, got but little at first from Eli–she was telling her
Lord her secret–but the aged priest thought that she was drunk because
her lips were moving and she spoke not aloud!

He rebuked her roughly. But when she explained herself, then he bade
her go in peace, for her prayer would be granted her–and she went away
no more sad. Jesus will make no mistake as to your meaning, dear
Friend, even though you should be as one drunk with sorrow. Go to your
chamber all alone. Tell Jesus your troubles and He will meet it in the
fullness of His compassion and wisdom. Through Him the Comforter shall
come to you and your sorrow shall be turned into joy! Try it. I cannot
preach to you this morning with any power of words, but words are not
needed if you will put everything to the test which I tell you
concerning the tender-hearted Savior. Hasten to lay Rabshakeh's letter

before your Lord! Pour out the wormwood and the gall before Him–He
knows their bitterness and He will surely make them to be swallowed up
in victory. This is the purpose of His office and He will not fail in
it.

The high priest would hear, also, the desire and wishes of the people.
When men in Israel had some great longing, some overwhelming desire,
they not only prayed in private but they would make a journey up to the
Temple to ask the high priest to present their petitions before the
Lord. Hannah only told Eli her heart's longing after it had been
gratified, for she could not have summoned courage to mention so
special a desire to a man who had so harshly judged her. She had
evidently gone to Shiloh to make petition for a child, since her
husband's other wife had been cruel to her because of her barrenness.
She told Eli that the Lord had heard her and then she consulted him as
to the dedication of her son to the Lord.

My Friend, you may have some very peculiar, delicate desire as to
spiritual things that only God and your own soul may know, but fear not
to mention it to your tender High Priest who will know your meaning and
deal graciously with you! It was the high priest's business to instruct
and to reprove the people. To instruct is delightful, but to reprove is
difficult. Only a tender spirit can wisely utter rebuke. Israel's high
priest needed to be meek as Moses in his rebukes of the erring. Our
Lord Jesus Christ tells us our faults in tones of love. His rebukes
never break our heart. He never upbraids in bitterness, though He does
so in faithfulness. Oh, the tenderness of Christ! I feel my subject
deeply, but I cannot speak it as I would. He has been most gracious in
correcting me. I know His Word is true: "As many as I love, I rebuke
and chasten." We can take anything from Jesus–His hands make the
bitter sweet.

There are men whom you would shun in the hour of your wounding even
though you believe that they would do their best to help you, for you
do not feel that you could reveal your heart to them, nor feel happy to
be under obligation to them. Their kindness is hard and cold. Their
counsel is without the sweetening of compassion. They are as keen as a
sword and as cutting. It may be they are so much above us that we
cannot reach up to them, nor expect them to reach down to us. But there
are other men, blessed among their fellows, who seem to be like havens
for ships–you rejoice to cast anchor under their shelter. You feel, "I
could tell that man anything. I know that he would have patience with
me and pity for me, and that his heart would go out towards me."

Now, Beloved, you will often be disappointed if you select a man or
woman to be your confidante. But if you will resort to the Lord Jesus,
whom God has commissioned to be High Priest for this very end and
purpose, you will find Him just the Friend you need. He loves the
troubled, for "in all their affliction He was afflicted." He is very
careful of the feebleminded and of the little ones, for is it not
written–"He shall gather the lambs with His arms and carry them in His
bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young"? When
circumstances are peculiarly trying, Jesus is peculiarly tender. When
we are grieved, He is gentle. Did you ever hear any of His people say
of their Lord, that He is overbearing? Did His spouse, in the song,
ever say that her Beloved had a rough side to His hand, or a cold place
in His heart?

He can and does chide, for His love is wise, but he has much pity and
His love knows no limit. His heart is made of tenderness and His soul
melts for love of His chosen. We adore our High Priest, not only for
the greatness of His merit, but for the sweetness of His mercy. I wish
I could fitly speak of Him. But this much I must and will say–Come to
Him and rest in Him, for He calls you. He is near at all times and in
all places, and you can come to Him while you sit in the pew, or when
you walk by the way. Come, you that labor and are heavy laden, and lay
your burdens at His feet! Come, you whose souls sink down within you
under a sense of sin, come to Him who, as your great High Priest, has
offered a guilt-removing Sacrifice! He sits at the door of the house of
mercy–He waits to be gracious. This is my first head.

II. Now, secondly, as our Lord Jesus has a tender office, so, next, HE
HAS TENDER FEELINGS. "We have not a High Priest which cannot be touched
with the feeling of our infirmities." Note that it is not said,
"touched by," but touched with. Many a man can be touched by the sorrow
of another, but he is not touched with that sorrow. He has feeling, but
not fellow feeling. He pities the sorrowing, but he does not sorrow
with them.

How many of the rich are sorry for the poor, but they were never poor
themselves, so they may be touched by the woe of poverty, but they are
not touched with a feeling for it. Our Lord is touched with a feeling
of our infirmities. You are touched and He is touched at the same time.
A pang shoots through my heart–that pang has been felt by my Lord,
also. A grief has stirred the waters of my spirit and the spirit of the
great High Priest has moved in harmony with me. They say, but I know
not that it is true, that when the strings of one harp are touched, if
there is another harp in the room, it gently responds in unison, though
not touched by any hand.

Assuredly it is so with the Believer and his Lord. Touch any one of His
members and you touch the Head of the spiritual body. Your present
trouble is upon the heart of our Well-Beloved–

"He, in His measure, feels afresh What every member bears."

It is not merely true that He is apprised of our infirmities, since the
Lord has said, "I know their sorrows," but He "is touched with the
feeling of our infirmities." Hold that thought! It is a great matter
that our God should note the trials of His people, that His
condescending Omniscience should concern itself with their everyday
distresses! But this word goes further–He feels with His people–He is
"touched with the feeling of our infirmities." The sense of feeling is
more intense, vivid and acute than the sense of sight. It is one thing
to see pain, but another thing to be touched with the feeling of it.
Treasure up this view of your Lord's sympathy, for it may be a great
support in the hour of agony and a grand restorative in the day of
weakness.

Note again, "The feeling of our infirmities." Whose infirmities? Does
not "our" mean yours and mine? Jesus is touched with the feeling of
your infirmities and mine. You, my venerable Brother, and you, my
younger Sister–you who have come here from a fresh grave and you that
will return to a bed shortly to be emptied of your dearest one–you
that are slandered and you that are sick. You that can scarcely hold up
your head for sadness–and you that are distracted with fear–He is
"touched with a feeling of our infirmities." I do not know how you feel
about it, but the text draws me very near to all of you who are under
infirmities even as I am. We nestle together in that little word,
"our." We meet in the hospital ward of that other word, "infirmities."
The best of all is that Jesus meets us all there and is touched with
the feeling of the infirmities, not only of renowned divines in their
pulpits and of great saints in their closets, but with "our"
infirmities–even ours, who are "less than the least of all saints."

Note well that word, "infirmities"–"touched with the feeling of our
infirmities." If it had only said sorrows, there would have been a
sound of the sublime about it. But our Master stoops to "infirmities."
He is not only touched with the feeling of the heroic endurance of the
martyrs, but He sympathizes with those of us who are not heroes but can
only plead–"the spirit, indeed, is willing, but the flesh is weak."
While you are entreating the Lord, thrice, to take away the thorn in
the flesh He is sympathizing with you! Is it not well that it does not
say, touched with the feeling of our patience? Our self-denial, our
valor? But "with a feeling of our infirmities"–that is, our weakness,
our littleness–the points in which we are not strong nor happy. Our
pain, our depression, our trembling, our sensitiveness–He is touched
with these though He falls not into the sin which so often comes of
them. Hold fast this Truth of God, for it may greatly tend to your
consolation some day.

Jesus is touched, not with a feeling of your strength, but of your
infirmity. Down here, poor, feeble nothings affect the heart of their
great High Priest on high who is crowned with glory and honor! As the
mother feels the weakness of her babe, so does Jesus feel with the
poorest, saddest and weakest of His chosen! Why is this, Brothers and
Sisters? Let us think of it a while! Our Lord has a tender Nature. Some
people are not sympathetic and never will be. Their spirit is not
generous. We are all made of clay, but some clay is stiffer and more
gritty than another–and in some cases very hard grit is in it. Some
men have no more feeling than granite. They will say about the
collection today, "I shall not give anything to the hospitals. Let the
people take care of themselves. If they were more thrifty they would
have a little laid by for a rainy day and would not need to have
hospitals provided for them."

This gentleman can supply wagon-loads of the same sort of hard
material. I know you, my Friend. I have known you, too, a long time. I
was going to say, "I would be happy to attend your funeral," but I will
not say so, lest it seem that I am hardening myself under your
influence. And besides, there are so many of your order, that one more
or less is of no great consequence. You know the people who are always
griping against charity and finding a shilling's worth of reasons why
they should not give a penny. Such people will not willingly put
anything into the box–but as it will come round to them,
anyway–possibly they will do so for fear of being known!

Jesus, our Lord, is tender by Nature. Amid the bliss of Heaven He
foresaw the miseries of earth and resolved to leave His Glory that He
might come here to rescue man. His innate tenderness brought Him from
the Throne to the manger, from the manger to the Cross. Our Lord is not
only tender of Nature but quick of understanding as to the infirmities
of men. Lack of sense often prevents men being sensitive and
sympathetic. If you have never suffered a disease, you need a little
imagination to realize it so as to be touched with the feeling of it. I
noticed a very able address delivered by Mr.

Hutchinson before the Lord Mayor, last Friday, in which he advises a
person who mourns his lack of sympathy to go for a week to his usual
city vocation with a black patch over one eye, or wearing a wooden leg.

"If this does not effect the business," he says, "let him choose some
leisure day in the country in bright spring and resolutely, for 24
hours, keep a bandage firmly placed over both eyes. His organization
is, I fear, in this direction, well-near hopeless if next morning he
does not feel inclined to send a liberal donation to some hospital that
has for its mission the prevention of blindness." I have no doubt that
improvable persons might be all the better for some such attempt to
gain feeling for their fellows. The same doctor thinks that the wearing
of a truss, or a spinal apparatus for one day might be a help to
tenderness.

I will not urge these modes of cure, but the thought is good and it
might be tried in other directions. Suppose the squire of the parish
who thinks 10 or 12 shillings abundant wages for a week, should say to
his lady, "We have always said that our agricultural laborers have
quite enough money to live upon–let us try their fare. We will leave
this house for a week and take one of the old cottages in the village
and live, all of us, on the wages we pay our men." What a capital
school for social economy! How well would some people know the value of
our silver currency and of the copper coinage, also! Only we would like
members of Parliament to have a longer experience than one week, lest
it might be a pleasant change from feasting to fasting! Say six months
for the honorable member! This might foster sympathy.

Our blessed Lord had real experience and, beside that, the faculty of
being able to put Himself into the place of sufferers and so to be
"acquainted with grief." His quick understanding made Him realize, as
High Priest, the sorrows of His people. Too many people are so wrapped
up in their own grief that they have no room in their souls for
sympathy. Do you not know them? The first thing when they rise in the
morning is the dreadful story of the night they have passed. Ah, dear,
and they have not quite eaten a hearty breakfast before their usual
pain is somewhere or other coming over them! They must have the special
care and pity of the whole household.

All the day long the one great business is to keep everybody aware of
how much the great sufferer is enduring. It is this person's patent
right to monopolize all the sympathy which the market can supply and
then there will be none to spare for the rest of the afflicted! If you
are greatly taken up with self, there is not enough of you to run over
to anybody else. How different this from our Lord, who never cried,
"Have pity upon Me! Have pity upon Me, O My friends!" He is described
as "enduring the Cross, despising the shame." So strong was He in love
that, though He saved others, Himself He could not save! Though He
succored the afflicted, none succored Him!

Men who are wrapped up in their own glories are not sympathetic. Is it
not a fine thing to spend life in contemplating one's own magnificence?
Those who are amazed at their own greatness have no thought to spare
for the suffering. "No," says the man, "the masses must obey the laws
of supply and demand and get on as well as they can. Let them do as I
have done. I might have been as poor as they are if I had shown as
little push and enterprise as they do." The gentleman talks on a great
scale and he has no sympathy for the small woes of common life. His
sympathy is needed at home and his charity begins there–and is so
satisfied with its beginning that it never goes any further.

Our Lord is at the opposite pole from all this. He never glorified
Himself. He "made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form
of a servant," thus displaying the tenderness of His heart. Let me say,
once more, our Lord is tender to us without any effort–not only
because of the reasons I have mentioned, but because He has made our
cause His own. We are His friends and does not a friend act tenderly to
a friend? We are more than that–we are married to Him and shall not a
husband be tender to his spouse? More than that, "we are members of His
body, of His flesh and of His bones"–and shall not the Head feel every
pain of the members? It must be so! Jesus has so identified Himself
with His own redeemed that He must forevermore be in living, loving,
lasting sympathy with them!

III. I must now notice very briefly, in the third place, that our LORD
HAD TENDER TRAINING. Hear what Paul says of it. He "was in all points
tempted like as we are, yet without sin." Beloved, our Lord was tried
as we are–that is one meaning of the passage. As to all manner of
bodily ills, He was subject to them all. Hungry, weary, faint, without
a place to lay His head, He was tried in all the points to which
poverty exposes its victims. "He Himself took our infirmities and bore
our sicknesses." Even to the death-sweat and the cry, "I thirst!" Jesus
has gone along our pathway of pain and grief. No step of it has been
spared Him.

Our Lord has been tried mentally. There is never an exceeding
heaviness, nor a sore amazement, nor a wound of treachery, nor a stab
of ingratitude of which He did not feel. The sharpest arrows in the
quiver of anguish have been shot

at His dear heart. "Oh," says one, "I do not think anybody has been
tried as I have been by cruel unkindness." Say not so, for Jesus was
forsaken of all and betrayed by the friend in whom He trusted. As to
spiritual distress, our Lord has been there, also. Where any sinless
foot could go, He has gone. The abyss has heard Him cry, "My God, My
God, why have You forsaken Me?" Tried in all points from above and from
below, from without and from within, He can sympathize with every form
of tribulation.

"Like as we are." Who are meant by the "we"? That again is like the
"our"–it means you and I. Jesus Christ passed through a training
similar to ours. The discipline of life for all the children is much
the same. The first-born is tried as the rest of the household are
tried. But the text says, "tempted" and that bears a darker meaning
than "tried." Our Lord could never have fallen the victim of
temptation, but through life He was the object of it. He could never
have been so tempted as that the sin of a temptation could spot His
soul. Far from it! Yet remember that in the wilderness He was tempted
to unbelief The Evil One said, "If you are the Son of God." Most of us
know how he can hiss that "if into our ears. "If you are the Son of
God."

Upon our Lord that "if" fell painfully but harmlessly. Then came the
temptation to help Himself and anticipate the Providence of God by
selfish action–"Command that these stones be made bread." We, too,
have had this rash act suggested to us. The tempter has said, "You
could get out of your difficulties by doing a wrong thing–do it! It is
not a very wrong thing, either–indeed, it is questionable whether it
might not be justifiable under the circumstances! In vain will you wait
for the Lord–put out your own hand and provide for yourself! The way
of faith in God is slow and you are in pressing need." Our Lord was
tempted just like that. When no bread in the house is made the
background of a great temptation, remember that our Lord has undergone
the counterpart of that temptation.

Next, the Lord Jesus was tempted to presumption. Set on the pinnacle of
the temple, He heard a voice saying, "If You are the Son of God cast
Yourself down from here, for it is written, He shall give His angels
charge over You, to keep You." Are you haunted by a similar suggestion
to presume? Is it suggested that you quit your old standing and try the
new notions, or that you speculate in business, or that you profess to
understand what God has never taught you? Resist earnestly! Ah, dear
Friends, your Lord knows all about this and as He escaped that
temptation, you shall do the same. Then Satan–how often I have
wondered at him–dared to say to Christ, "All these things will I give
You if You will fall down and worship me."

Picture the Lord of angels, with all the royalty of Heaven shining on
His brow, and the black fiend daring to say, "Fall down and worship
me." It may be that a like temptation is coming home to you–live for
gold, live for fame, live for pleasure–in some form or other worship
the devil and renounce faith in God. "Worship me," says the Prince of
Darkness–"take to the new doctrines. Practice the current worldliness.
Leave the Word of God for the wisdom of the philosophers." In some such
form will the temptation come, but even though Satan could fulfill his
promise and all the world should be ours, we are bound to resist unto
the death and we are encouraged to do so by the fact that we are upon
the old ground where our Redeemer fought and conquered!

He can enter into the distress which this temptation is causing you,
for He has felt the same. How the Lord Jesus must have started back
with horror from the suggestions of the devil! He never entertained
them for an instant, but the mere passing of those temptations over the
drum of His ear and the apprehension of His mind must have caused Him
the sharpest wounding–for He hated sin with immeasurable hate.
Beloved, our Lord has endured so much of temptation that He will be
tender towards you this morning, "touched with the feeling of your
infirmities," because He was tempted at all points as you are. Even
though temptation follows you as the serpent which bites at the horses'
heels, your Lord knows it and will deliver you.

IV. I am happy to come to my last point, through Divine aid. OUR LORD
HAS A PERFECT TENDERNESS. As I read the verse–"In all points tempted
like as we are, yet without sin," I thought I heard you say, "But that
is just the pinch of the matter. He cannot sympathize with me in sin
and that is my great trouble!" Brother, do you wish that your Lord had
become a sinner like yourself? Abhor the idea! It would be blasphemy if
understood and indulged. You see at once that you could not wish
anything of the kind! But listen to me–do not imagine that if the Lord
Jesus had sinned He would have been any more tender toward you–for sin
is always of a hardening nature.

If the Christ of God could have sinned, He would have lost the
perfection of His sympathetic Nature. It needs perfection of heart to
lay self all aside and to be touched with a feeling of the infirmities
of others. Listen again–do you

not think that sympathy in sin would be a poisonous sweet? A child, for
instance, has done wrong and he has been wisely chastened by his
father. I have known cases in which a foolish mother has sympathized
with the child. This may seem affectionate, but it is wickedly
injurious to the child. Such conduct would lead the child to love the
evil which it is necessary he should hate. Have you not felt, yourself,
that in unbelieving moments it would have been a great evil for a
Christian Brother to have petted you in your unbelief? Have you not
felt it was far better for you to have heard a bracing word of
upbraiding?

We ought not to wish for sympathy in wrong. Sympathy in sin is
conspiracy in crime. We must show sympathy with sinners but not with
their sins. If, then, you dream that our Lord Jesus would have derived
any gracious power to sympathize with us from Himself sinning, you
greatly err! Such sympathy, had it been possible, would have been to
the last degree injurious to us. Inasmuch as He had no sin we can drink
in His words of comfort without fear. His oil and wine will bring no
evil to our wounds. His holy experience comforts us and puts us in no
risk. It is a blessed thing for a sinner to have the sympathies of one
who never sinned! Rejoice, you people of God! Rejoice in this, that the
Sinless One has perfect sympathy with you in your infirmities! He
sympathizes all the more graciously because He is without sin.

I have done when I have said this–if our Lord was thus sympathetic,
let us be tender to our fellow men. Let us not restrain our tender
feelings, but encourage them. Love is the brightest of the Graces of
God and most sweetly adorns the Gospel. Love to the sorrowing, the
suffering, the needy, is a charming flower which grows in the garden of
a renewed heart. Cultivate it! Make your love practical! Love the poor
not in word only, but in actual gifts to them! Love the sick and help
them to a cure! Today I cannot conceive of you as thinking of the sick
poor of London without wishing that you could house them all, relieve
them all with medical skill and then send them for a little respite
into the country, or by the seaside, to gather strength!

It is a painful fact that our great hospitals have so many beds
unoccupied while patients are in need of them! As a governor of St.
Thomas's Hospital, I have seen, from time to time, how the endowments
have decreased in value through the agricultural depression and the
lowering of rents. Surely London is rich enough to make up the deficit
of 100,000 pounds! To do this the collections must be at least doubled.
Will you allow the poor to pine in their narrow rooms? Shall they
perish for lack of surgical care and medical help? Do you call
yourselves followers of the tender Jesus? Do you hope to be saved
through his compassion?

On this Hospital Sunday I charge rich Christians to delay no longer but
to be touched with the feeling of the sufferings of those who are made
of one flesh with them. Let all of us do our best. I will not insult
you by pleading with you as though you were unwilling. You are eager to
give for His dear sake who sympathizes with you so tenderly and helps
you so graciously. Let the collection be made at once!

PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON– Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:1-14.
HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"–306, 328, 326.