The Night of Weeping
By Horatius Bonar
Preface
Chapter
1—The Family
Chapter
2—The Family Life
Chapter
3—The Family Badge
Chapter
4—The Family Discipline
Chapter
5—The Family Rods
Chapter
6—The Types
Chapter
7—The Proving
Chapter
8—The Rebuking
Chapter
9—The Purifying
Chapter
10—The Arousing
Chapter
11—The Solemnizing
Chapter
12—The Warnings
Chapter
13—The Recollections
Chapter
14—The Consolations
Chapter
15—The Eternal Results
It is no easy matter to write a book for the family of
God. Yet it is for them that these thoughts on chastisement are written.
They may be found not unsuitable for the younger
brethren of the Man of sorrows. For the way is rough, and the desert blast is
keen. Who of them can say aught regarding their prospects here, save that
tribulation awaiteth them in every place as they pass along? This they must
know and prepare for, grasping more firmly at every step the gracious hand that
is leading them on to the kingdom, and looking up for guidance to the loving
eye that rests over them with fondest vigilance, ever bright and ever tender, whether
in shadow or in sunshine, whether amid the crowds of busy life, or in the
solitude of the lonely way.
It is, then, to the members of this family that this
little volume is offered. They may find in it something which may not merely
interest them, but may also meet their case; something, too, in which, perhaps,
they may recognize, not the voice of a stranger, but of a brother: “a companion
in tribulation and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ”(Rev 1:9). For
the tones of the suffering brotherhood on earth have something in them too
peculiar not to be instinctively recognized. It is said of Arabian airs that
they are all plaintive. They all touch some melancholy chord, as if the wail of
the desert echo were the keynote of each melody. It is in some measure thus
with the children of the kingdom, while sojourning in this wilderness of earth.
“Their voice is ever soft, gentle, and low.” Sorrow has smoothed away its
harshness, and breathed gentler feeling into its tones. True, it is the voice
of gladness, for it is the voice of the forgiven; but still it is sorrowing
gladness, calm and serious joy. Their peculiar lot as followers of a hated Lord
and their peculiar circumstances, as standing in the midst of a doomed and
dying world, have wrought into their spirit a deep though serene solemnity of
expression, alike in look and voice. Hence, there is the instinctive
recognition among the brotherhood, not only of the family look, but of the
family tones.
It is of family matters that we speak, and in these
each member has a common interest. The “household of faith” has many concerns,
and not the least of these are its sorrows. These are the lot of all; and there
is no member of the household but has his share in these, either in personal
suffering or in helping to bear the burden of others.
What is now written may be found suitable to all,
whether actually under chastisement or not. It is, however, presented specially
to those who are “in heaviness through manifold temptations,” suffering the
rebuke of the Lord, passing through fire and through water, with “affliction
laid upon their loins”(Psa 66:11,12). The bruised reed must not be broken, the
smoking flax must not be quenched. The hands which hang down must be lifted up,
and the feeble knees confirmed; that which is lame must not be turned out of
the way, but rather healed.*
Our desire is to minister to the saints in the
consolation and admonition of the Lord. We would seek to bear their burdens, to
bind up their wounds, and to dry up at least some out of their many tears. To
comfort those who mourn is not only to act in obedience to the command, “Bear
ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ”; it is to walk by
the side of Jesus in His visits of mercy to His suffering saints on earth; nay,
it is to be fellow‑workers with the Holy Ghost as the Church’s Comforter
in all her tribulations and distresses.
Of these things the world knows little. Its sympathies
are not with the saints, either in their sorrow or their joy. Family concerns,
and especially family griefs, are not for strangers to meddle with. They are
things too high for them. And how shall they understand them so long as they
remain without? They must first come in and take their place among the children
beneath the paternal roof. And what should stay them? The gate stands open day
and night. They would be welcomed in with the kindliest greetings of love.
But though standing afar off from the saints and
unable to mingle its sympathies with theirs, the world still has sorrows of its
own, deep and many. To grieve, and yet have no comforter; to be wounded, and
yet have no healer; to be weary, and yet know no resting‑place—this is
the world’s hard lot.
Yet it is a self‑chosen one. God did not choose
it for them. They chose it for themselves. God invites, nay, pleads earnestly
with them to quit it, yet they will not. Wretched as it is, they prefer it to
the friendship of Him with whom their heart is at enmity, and whose presence is
to them all gloom and terror. Yet He continues to entreat them. He does not let
them alone. The “many sorrows” which compass them about are His many messages
of grace, His unwearied knockings at their fast closed door. He writes “vanity”
upon the creature, “weariness and vexation” upon earth’s best delights that men
may not place their confidence in these. Most mercifully does He hedge them
about with disappointment of every form that they may lift their eyes above
this earth and beyond these heavens to the enduring blessedness that is at His
right hand forever. With what kindness, though with seeming severity, does He
mar their best friendships that He may attract them to the communion of His own
far better and everlasting companionship? With what compassion does He break in
upon their misguided attachments that He may draw them away from earth and bind
them to Himself by the more blessed ties of His own far sweeter love? With what
tenderness does He tear asunder the bonds of brotherhood and kindred that He
may unite them to Himself in far dearer and eternal relationship?
With what mercy does He overthrow their prospects of
worldly wealth and bring down their hopes of earthly power and greatness that
He may give them the heavenly treasure and make them a “royal priesthood” to
Himself in the glorious kingdom of His Son. With what love does He ruin their
reputation among men, breaking in pieces their good name which was their idol
that He may show them the vanity of human praise, leading them to desire the
honor that cometh from God and to know that in His favor is life and that the
light of His countenance is the very sunshine of Heaven.
Oh, that a weary, brokenhearted world would learn
these lessons of grace! Oh, that they would taste and see that God is good! Let
them but come home to Him. He will not mock them with shadows, nor feed them
with husks. He will satisfy their craving souls; He will turn their midnight
into noon; He will give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the
garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness that they may be called trees of
righteousness, the planting of the Lord.
Let the world, however, regard God’s dealings with
them as they may: let not “the children” despise the chastening of the Lord,
nor faint when they are rebuked of Him. They at least should know the meaning
of His actions toward them, for they know HIM. The world may misunderstand His
rebukes or put an unkind construction upon them; they cannot, for they know
that “God is love.”
The thoughts that follow are designed to assist them
in interpreting God’s ways, not merely in finding comfort under trial, but in
drawing profit from it. I have at least attempted to contribute something
toward this end. I have done what I could, rather than what I would. But it may
be that the Head of the family will own it, and send it with His own blessing
to the scattered members near and far. He knows that they need some such words
in season; and that, if thickening signs deceive not, they will ere long need
them more. In such a case even this little volume may be helpful.
It is written in much weakness, and with many sins to
mar it; amid what trials it is of little moment for a stranger to learn. It is
written by one who is seeking himself to profit by trial, and trembles lest it
should pass by as the wind over the rock, leaving it as hard as ever; by one
who would fain in every sorrow draw near to God that he may know Him better,
and who is not unwilling to confess that as yet he knows but little.
It was God’s purpose from the beginning, not merely to
redeem for Himself a people out of a world of sinners, but to bring that people
into a peculiar relationship to Himself. It was His purpose to draw them nearer
to Himself than any other order of His creatures, and to establish a link of
the closest and most peculiar kind between them and the Godhead.
To carry out this purpose was the Word made flesh. “He
took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham”
(Heb 2:16). “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood,
he also himself likewise took part of the same” (Heb 2:14).
Thus a new relationship was established, such as till
then could never have been conceived of as even possible. The tie of creation,
though not dissolved, was now to be lost in the closer, dearer tie of kindred.
“Both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which
cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren” (Heb 2:11). He calls them
brethren, and they call Him brother. Being “made of a woman,” He has become
partaker of our lowly humanity, so as to be bone of our bone, and flesh of our
flesh; and we being “born of God” are made partakers of the divine nature,
becoming “members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.” Thus the saints
are the nearest kinsman of the Son of God; and if of the Son, then of the
Father also, as He hath said, “I and my Father are one,” “believest thou not
that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?”
It is thus that the family relationship is formed and
God’s original design carried out. For thus it is written, “As many as received
him, to them gave he power [or the right] to become the sons of God, even to
them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12,13). And again,
“Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be
called the sons of God” (I John 3:1). We are elevated to creation’s highest
level. We are brought into the inner circle of the Father’s love—nearer his
throne, nearer his heart than angels, for we are the Body of Christ, and
members in particular—“the fullness of him that filleth all in all.”
Out of this new link there springs the family bond
between us and the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, “his Father and our
Father, his God and our God.” And it is especially in this name of family that
God delights. He has many names for His redeemed. They are His chosen ones, His
people, His flock, His heritage. But it is as His family that He speaks of them
oftenest, and it is, as such, that He bends over them so fondly, as over His
first‑born—the children of His heart and the desire of His eyes.
But it is needful that we inquire further concerning
this family and learn from God’s own account of them who and what they are. By nature
they are children of wrath, even as others. And thus far there is no original
difference between them and the world. But they are the eternally chosen of the
Father, “chosen in him [Christ] before the foundation of the world” (Eph 1:4).
This is their true ancestry, and this is their chiefest glory. They are
“predestinated . . . unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself,
according to the good pleasure of his will” (Eph 1:5). They are quickened
together with Christ, from being dead in trespasses and sins, and raised up by
the exceeding greatness of God’s power, the same mighty power by which He
wrought in Christ when He raised him from the dead (Eph 1:19,20). They are
saved by grace through faith, and that not of themselves, it is the gift of
God” (Eph 2:8). They are reconciled to God by the death of His Son (Rom 5:10).
They are delivered from a present evil world according to the will of God their
Father (Gal 1:4). They are washed in the blood of Jesus and justified by faith
in His name. They are redeemed from their vain conversation, not with
corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ,
as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: who verily was foreordained
before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for
them (I Peter 1:18-20). They are made heirs of God, and joint‑heirs with
Jesus Christ, kings and priests unto God, who are to reign with Christ forever
over a redeemed and restored creation.
Such is the family. Surely they are high born. Their
ancestry is from eternity. Their descent is from the King of kings. They are of
the blood royal of Heaven. And though their present condition be a lowly one,
their prospects are the brightest that hope ever painted, brighter than what eye
hath seen or ear hath heard. It doth not yet appear what they shall be; but
they know that when He shall appear, they shall be like Him, for they shall see
Him as He is (I John 3:2).
But apart from these descriptions which encircle the
saved family with such peculiar glory even here, their simple condition of
being God’s family calls for a little further notice. For it is not outward
circumstances that form, or give interest to, a home or a family, it is the
living pulse of affection that is beating there. Neither earthly pomp nor
earthly poverty can materially alter the real inward character of that little
circle of human hearts which man calls a family. Bright skies and sunshine
cannot weaken or sever the bond; neither can they allure them away from rejoicing
in each other’s joy and love. Dark days and tempests cannot sunder them; they
do but make them gather more closely together then, as being all in all to each
other. So it is with the family of the redeemed. It is not their outward
circumstances or prospects that give them the name; it is something far
tenderer and deeper than these. It is the pulse of heavenly affection,
throbbing through every member and coming down from the infinite heart above;
it is this that makes them what they are. It is under this aspect that God
delights to look upon them. It is for this reason especially that He has given
to them the name they bear.
The word “family” is a sacred one, even among the
children of the world. There is a hallowed tenderness about it, which few, save
the wickedest, do not feel in some measure. One of their own poets has thus
expressed the feeling:
Beneath the foulest mother’s curse
No living thing can thrive;
A mother is a mother still,
The holiest thing alive.
I am by no means in accord with the sentiment contained in these words;
the language is too strong. Still it shows the world’s feeling as to the
strength and sacredness of the family bond. And there is much of truth
contained, or at least implied, in it. No other earthly circle can be compared
with that of the family. It comprises all that a human heart most values and
delights in. It is the center where all human affections meet and entwine, the
vessel into which they all pour themselves with such joyous freedom. There is
no one word which contains in it so many endearing associations and precious
remembrances, hidden in the heart like gold. It appeals at once to the very
center of man’s being—his “heart of hearts.” All that is sweet, soothing,
tender, and true is wrapt up in that one word. It speaks not of one circle or
of one bond, but of many circles and many bonds—all of them near the heart. The
family home, the family hearth, the family table, family habits, family voices,
family tokens, family salutations, family melodies, family joys and
sorrows—what a mine of recollections lies under that one word! Take these away,
and earth becomes a mere churchyard of crumbling bones; and man becomes as so
many grains of loosened sand, or at best, but as the fragments of a torn
flower, which the winds are scattering abroad.
All that is beautiful in human relationship, or tender
in human affection, or gentle in human intercourse; all that is lovable and
precious in the movements of a human heart from its lowest depth to its
uppermost surface—all these are wrapt up in the one word: family. For close‑knit
bonds, for steadfast faithfulness in love, for depth of sympathy, for endurance
in trial and danger—where shall we find anything that can be compared with the
story of earth’s family circles? Conjugal love, parental love, filial love,
brotherly love, sisterly love—all are here. The many streams of human affection
empty themselves into it, or flow out of it, for the fertility and gladness of
the earth.
We need not wonder, then, that this name should be
chosen as one of the Church’s peculiar names. God delights in it as the name by
which His company of chosen ones is to be specially called. The Family of
God—that is the Church’s name. As such He dwells in the midst of it, cares for
it, and watches over it. His dealings with it are those of a father—fond yet
strict—loving yet wise—sitting among His children, having His eye on each, and
ordering in His gracious wisdom all the concerns of His household.
His heart is there! Yes, it is in His Church that
God’s heart may be said specially to be. There it unfolds itself in a way such
as it can do amid no other order of His creatures. There it shows itself in all
its manifold fullness such as it has no scope for elsewhere. It is in the
family alone that the one thing we call affection or love is divided and spread
out, like a sunbeam into the rainbow’s sevenfold hues, there to display itself
in all the rich tints of hidden beauty. So it is in the Church alone that the
love of God is fully seen, not merely in all its intensity, but in all its
varied riches. All kinds of love are unfolded there. There is room for such a
wide variety of affection, both between the Head and the members, and between
the members one with the other, that it seems as if there had been given new
powers of loving as well as new objects to love.
No doubt there are other names for the saints besides
this one. But none of them expresses what this is intended to do. God calls
them His flock, which implies tender watchfulness on His part, and dependent
helplessness on theirs. He calls them a vine, denoting their oneness, as well
as the unceasing nourishment that is ever circulating through them from the
parent stem. He calls them a temple, signifying their compactness of structure,
symmetry of design, beauty of form, and above all, fitness for the inhabitation
and worship of Jehovah. He calls them a body, to set forth, not merely their
comely proportions, but their marvelous unity and conscious vitality of being,
as well as the closeness of the binding tie, and their various serviceableness
to each other. He calls them a city, intimating their happy community of
privileges and rights and well‑ordered government; the security, peace,
abundance which they enjoy, the comforts of neighborhood with all its cheerful
greetings and mutual offices of love. He calls them a kingdom, as expressive of
their high and honorable estate, of the royalty, the glory, the dominion, of
which they have been made the heirs.
But various and expressive as are these well‑known
names, they are still imperfect. They describe as it were only the outer
circles, each name a circle of its own. But the inner circle—the inner region
of our spiritual being— they do not touch upon. It is that well‑known
word, that magic name, family, which alone can express all that God sees of
what is comely and tender, loving and lovable in the Church of Christ into
which He is pouring His love through which He delights to see that love
circulate unhindered, and out of which he expects that love to flow abroad.
There is one thing that strikes us much concerning
this family. It is the way in which Christ speaks of the special interest which
He takes in each member. “Those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of
them is lost” (John 17:12). How like the family feeling! Each name, each face
is known; known so familiarly that the least and youngest would at once be
missed. The place where each sits, the room which each occupies, the time of
his going out and coming in; his looks, his habits, his tones are so thoroughly
known that the moment anyone is absent, he is missed. And then no other can
supply his place. His absence makes a blank which none but he can fill. An
acquaintance or fellow‑townsman may drop away and never be missed. His
place is easily filled by another. Not so with a member of the family. Where
there is a break in the circle, there is a dismal blank; and when death has
carried off a brother, a sister, or a parent, who or what can ever fill his
room? When one flower fades, another springs up, fresher perhaps and more
fragrant—and we forget the faded one. But the withered family flower can have
no successor: it dies, and there is a blank forever. Might it not be with some
such feeling that Jesus looked around upon His vast household circle, and,
while surveying each well‑known face, gave thanks that not one was lost;
as if He could not have spared so much as one of those whom the Father had
given Him.
Oh, the deep interest which Jesus takes in each! Truly
it is a personal and peculiar attachment for each member. Do we not lose much
by forgetting this? Even in human things we are apt to overlook this. We call
the feeling which the Father entertains for each of His children, love; and
well we call it so, but this is not all. There is a difference in the love He
bears for his eldest and His youngest born, a difference in the case of each,
called forth by the peculiar character of each. It is this minute and special
love which is so precious. Were it not for this, we should feel as if we had
only part of our Father’s heart, as if we had not all of that which rightfully
belongs to us. But, realizing this, we feel as if we had His whole heart, and
yet our having the whole did not rob our brothers and sisters of any. It is with
a family as with the sun in the firmament. It is the property of all, and yet
each has the whole of it. Even so with Jehovah, our heavenly Father; even so
with Jesus, our elder brother. His is a special, personal, peculiar love, just
as if He loved no other, but had His whole heart to spare for us. His is a
minute and watchful care, bending over each, day and night, as if He had no
other to care for. How sweet to think that each of us is the special object of
such personal attachment, the peculiar object of such unwearied vigilance! What
manner of love is this! Now we believe and are sure that we shall be fully
cared for, and not one want or sorrow will be overlooked. Now we know that “all
things shall work together for our good,” and that the end of everything which
befalls us here shall be light and glory forever! “I know the thoughts that I
think towards you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give
you an expected end” (Jer 29:11). “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I
comfort you” (Isa 66:13). “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord
pitieth them that fear him” (John 15:9).
It is sweet to realize the common love flowing out of
the Father’s bosom to the whole happy household of His saved ones; but it is no
less sweet, specially in the day of trial, to dwell upon the personal love He
bears so peculiarly to each. It is blessed to identify ourselves with such a
family who are all joying in the sunshine of paternal love; but it is as
blessed at times to isolate oneself and realize the individual love which is
our own peculiar heritage. Thus felt the Bride when she said, “Let him kiss me
with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine” (Song 1:12). “I
am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine” (Song 26:3).
It was when the Holy Spirit first opened our ears to
listen to the tale of love which the Gospel brought to us that we sought our
Father’s house and rested not until we had found ourselves in His embrace. It
was when we first received “the gift of God,” and understood the love which
that gift declared, that we took our place in the family circle, tasting the
plenty of our Father’s table and enjoying the sweetness of our Father’s smile.
And even as we entered in, so are we to abide forever, “rooted and grounded in
love,” realizing the words of Jesus, “As the Father hath loved me, so have I
loved you: continue ye in my love” (John 15:9).
They live by faith. Thus they began and thus they are
to end. “We walk by faith and not by sight.” Their whole life is a life of
faith. Their daily actions are all of faith. This forms one of the main
elements of their character. It marks them out as a peculiar people. None live
as they do.
Their faith is to them “the substance of things hoped
for, the evidence of things not seen.” It is a sort of substitute for sight and
possession. It so brings them into contact with the unseen world that they feel
as if they were already conversant with, and living among, the things unseen.
It makes the future, the distant, the impalpable, appear as the present, the
near, the real. It removes all intervening time; it annihilates all interposing
space; it transplants the soul at once into the world above. That which we know
is to be hereafter is felt as if already in being. Hence, the coming of the
Lord is always spoken of as at hand. Nay, more than this, the saints are
represented as “having their conversation in heaven,” as being already “seated
with Christ in heavenly places,”(Eph 2:16) as having “come to Mount Zion, and
unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable
company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn. which
are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just
men made perfect” (Heb 12:22). The things amid which they are to move hereafter
are so realized by faith as to appear the things amid which they are at present
moving. They sit in “heavenly places” and look down upon the earth, with all
its clouds and storms, as lying immeasurably far beneath their feet. And what
is a “present evil world” to those who are already above all its vicissitudes
and breathing a purer atmosphere?
Such is the power of faith. It throws back into the
far distance the things of earth, the things that men call near and real; and
it brings forward into vital contact with the soul the things which men call
invisible and distant. It discloses to us the heavenly mansions, their passing
splendor, their glorious purity, their blessed peace. It shows us the happy
courts, the harmonious company, the adoring multitudes. It opens our ears also,
so that when beholding these great sights we seem to hear the heavenly melody
and to catch the very words of the new song they sing, “Thou art worthy . . .
for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every
kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and hast made us unto our God
kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth” (Rev 5:9).
It, moreover, points our eye forward to what is yet to
come: the coming of the Lord, the judgment of the great day, the restitution of
all things, the kingdom that cannot be moved, the city which hath foundations
whose builder and maker is God. While thus it gives to things invisible a body
and a form which before they possessed not in our eyes, on the other hand, it
divests things visible of that semblance of excellence and reality with which
they were fomerly clothed. It strips the world of its false but bewildering
glow, and enables us to penetrate the thin disguise that hides its poverty and
meanness. It not only sweeps away the cloud which hung above us, obstructing
our view of heavenly excellence, but it places that cloud beneath us to
counteract the fallacious brightness and unreal beauty which the world has
thrown over itself to mask its inward deformity.
Thus it is that faith enables us to realize our true
position of pilgrims and strangers upon earth, looking for the city which hath
foundations, whose builder and maker is God. It is into this that we are introduced
by faith at our conversion. For what is our conversion but a turning of our
back upon the world and bidding farewell to all that the heart had hitherto
been entwined around? It is then that like Abraham we forsake all and go out
not knowing whither. Old ties are broken, although sometimes hard to sever. New
ones are formed, although not of earth. We begin to look around us and find all
things new. We feel that we are strangers—strangers in that very spot where we
have been so long at home. But this is our joy. We have left our father’s
house, but we are hastening on to a more enduring home. We have taken leave of
the world—but we have become heirs of the eternal kingdom, sons and daughters
of the Lord Almighty. We have left Egypt, but Canaan is in view. We are in the
wilderness, but we are free. Ours is a pathless waste, but we move forward
under the shadow of the guardian cloud. Sorrowful, we yet rejoice; poor, we
make many rich; having nothing, yet we possess all things. We have a rich
inheritance in reversion and a long eternity in which to enjoy it without fear
of loss, or change, or end.
Walking thus by faith and not by sight, what should
mar our joy? Does it not come from that which is within the veils? And what
storm of the desert can find entrance there? Our rejoicing is in the Lord, and
He is without variableness or shadow of turning. We know that this is not our
rest; neither do we wish it were so, for it is polluted; but our joy is this,
that Jehovah is our God, and His promised glory is our inheritance forever. Our
morning and our evening song is this “The Lord is the portion of mine
inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot. The lines have fallen unto
me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage” (Psa 16:5).
Why should we, then, into whose hands the cup of
gladness shall ere long be put, shrink from the vinegar and the gall? Why
should we, who have dearer friends above better bonds that cannot be dissolved,
be disconsolate at the severance of an earthly tie? Our homes may be empty, our
firesides may be thinned, and our hearts may bleed: but these are not enduring
things; and why should we feel desolate as if all gladness had departed? Why
should we, who shall wear a crown and inherit all things, sigh or fret because
of a few years’ poverty and shame? Earth’s dream will soon be done; and then
comes the day of “songs and everlasting joy”—the long reality of bliss! Jesus
will soon be here; and “when he who is our life shall appear, then shall we
also appear with him in glory.”
Shall trial shake us? Nay, in all this we are more
than conquerors through Him that loved us. Shall sorrow move us? Faith tells us
of a land where sorrow is unknown. Shall the death of saints move us? Faith
tells us not to sorrow as those who have no hope, for if we believe that Jesus
died and rose again, them also that sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.
Shall the pains and weariness of this frail body move us? Faith tells us of a
time at hand when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and death shall
be swallowed up in victory. Shall privation move us? Faith tells us of a day
when the poverty of our exile shall be forgotten in the abundance of our
peaceful, plenteous home, where we shall hunger no more, neither thirst any
more.
Shall the disquieting bustle of this restless life
annoy us? Faith tells us of the rest that remaineth for the people of God—the
sea of glass like unto crystal on which the ransomed saints shall stand—no
tempest, no tumult, no shipwreck there. Shall the lack of this world’s honors
move us? Faith tells us of the exceeding and eternal weight of glory in
reserve. Have we no place to lay our head? Faith tells us that we have a home,
though not in Caesar’s house, a dwelling, though not in any city of earth. Are
we fearful as we look around upon the disorder and wretchedness of this
misgoverned earth? Faith tells us that the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Do
thoughts of death alarm us? Faith tells us that “to die is gain,” and whispers
to us, “What, are you afraid of becoming immortal, afraid of passing from this
state of death, which men call life, to that which alone truly deserves the
name!”
Such is the family life—a life of faith. We live upon
things unseen. Our life is hid with Christ in God that when He who is our life
shall appear, we may appear with Him in glory. This mode of life is not that of
the world at all but the very opposite. Nevertheless, it has been that of the
saints from the beginning. This is the way in which they have walked, going up
through the wilderness leaning on their Beloved. And such is to be the walk of
the saints till the Lord comes. Oh, how much is there in these thoughts
concerning it, not only to reconcile us to it, but to make us rejoice in it,
and to say, I reckon that the sufferings of this present life, are not worthy
to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us! For all things are
ours, whether life or death, things present or things to come, all are ours;
for we are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. Yea, we are heirs of God, and joint‑heirs
with Jesus Christ. “This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their
righteousness is of me, saith the Lord” (Isa 54:17).
We know not a better type or specimen of the family
life than Abraham or Israel in their desert wanderings. Look at Abraham. He
quits all at the command of the God of glory. This begins his life of faith.
Then he journeys onward not knowing whither. Then he sojourns as a stranger in
the land which God had given him. Then he offers up Isaac. Then he buys for
himself a tomb where he may lay his dust till the day of resurrection. All is
faith. He lives and acts as a stranger. He has no home. He has his altar and
his tent, but that is all—the one he builds wherever he goes, in the peaceful
consciousness of sin forgiven and acceptance found; the other he pitches from
day to day in token of his being a pilgrim and a stranger upon earth. And what
more does any member of the family need below, but his altar and his tent—a
Saviour for a sinful soul, and a shelter for a frail body until journeying days
are done?
Or look at Israel. They quit Egypt. There the life of
faith begins. Then they cross the Red Sea. Then they take up their abode in the
desert. They have no city to dwell in now. They have no fleshpots now—nothing
but the daily manna for food. They have no river of Egypt now— nothing but a
rock to yield them water. All is waste around. All is to be of faith, not of
sight. They are alone with God, and the whole world is afar off. They rear
their altar, they pitch their tents, as did Abraham, with this only difference:
above their heads there floats a wondrous cloud, which, like a heavenly canopy,
stretches itself out over their dwellings when they rest, or like an angel‑guide,
it takes wing before them when God summons them to strike their tents that it
may lead them in the way. Nay, and as if to mark more vividly the pilgrim
condition of the family, God Himself, when coming down into the midst of them,
chooses a tent to dwell in. It is called “the tabernacle of the Lord,” or more
literally “Jehovah’s tent.” Jehovah pitches His tent side by side with Israel’s
tents, as if He were a stranger too, a wanderer like themselves!
This is our life. We are to be strangers with God as
all our fathers were. It is the life of the desert, not of the city. But what
of that? All is well. Jehovah is our God, and we shall soon be in His “many
mansions.” Meanwhile, we have the tent, the altar, and the cloud. We need no
more below. The rest is secured for us in Heaven, “ready to be revealed in the
last time.”
The family of which we speak is gathered out of every
nation and kindred, and people, and tongue. It is “a great multitude that no
man can number.”
Yet it is but one family. There is a family likeness
among all its many members; and a family name by which they are known. They
have many things in common; nay, there are few things which are not common to
all. They are all of earth. It is their native clime. They are all sprinkled
with the same blood and begotten again by the same Spirit. They all sing one
song, use one language, rejoice in one hope, and are heirs of one inheritance.
This oneness of feature and feeling and habit, throughout so many ages and amid
so many diverse nations, marks them out as a peculiar people and reveals their
relationship to Him who is “the same yesterday, and to‑day and forever.”
But they have one mark more peculiar than any of
these. It is truly a family badge: they are all cross‑bearers. This is the
unfailing token by which each member may be recognized. They all bear a cross.
Nor do they hide it as if ashamed of it. They make it their boast. “God forbid
that we should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the
world is crucified to us, and we unto the world.” Sometimes it is lighter, and
sometimes it is heavier; sometimes it has more of shame and suffering, and
sometimes less, but still it is upon them. They carry it with them wherever
they go. And it is always a cross: not merely so in name, but in reality, a
token of reproach and sorrow. Sometimes they are represented as carrying it,
and sometimes as being nailed to it, but it is still the cross.
They took it up when first they believed in Jesus and
owned Him as their all. Then it was that they forsook the world’s tents and
went without the gate, bearing the reproach of the crucified One. He whom they
follow both bore the cross and was nailed to it, and why should they shrink
from the like endurance? Shall they be ashamed of Him? Shall they not rather
count it honorable to follow where He has led the way, and to bear for Him some
faint resemblance of what He bore for them? Shall anything in the world be
esteemed more precious, more honorable than the cross of their beloved Lord? The
world derides and despises it, but it is the cross of Jesus; and that is all to
them. A saint of other days, a cross‑bearer of the olden time, has said,
“O blessed cross of Christ, there is no wood like thine!”
Besides, this was the Master’s will. He has laid on
each the command to bear the cross. “If any man will come after me, let him
deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23). “He that
taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me” (Matt
10:38). The cross, then, is the badge of discipleship, and no follower of the
Lord can be without it. The two things are inseparable. God has joined them,
and man cannot sunder them. No cross, no saint. No cross, no Son. We must carry
His cross all our life; we must be baptized with His baptism; we must endure
His reproach; we must glory in being clothed with His shame. The flesh must be
crucified with its affections and lusts: our members must be mortified; our old
man must take the place of shame; we in whom the flesh still remaineth, though
its dominion is broken, must be willing to appear as outcasts and malefactors
before the world, as Jesus did when He bore our sins upon the hill of shame.
Jesus, then, with His own hand lays the cross on each one who comes to Him, saying,
“Take this and follow me. Take it and be reproached for Me. Take it and endure
tribulation for Me. Take it, and count all things but loss for the excellency
of the knowledge of Jesus Christ thy Lord. Take it and be willing to go even to
prison or to death for Me, not counting your life dear unto you, that you may
follow Me to the end and receive the unfading crown.” Learn to endure the cross
and to despise the shame.
But further, we have the Master’s example as well as
the Master’s will concerning this. I do not mean merely that He hung upon the
cross. I do not refer simply to the fact of His crucifixion. I mean much more
than that. That was but the closing scene of a whole life of crucifixion. He
was a cross‑bearer from the hour that He was laid in the manger. All His
days He bore the cross. His life was but a pilgrimage to Calvary with the cross
upon His shoulders. Tradition tells us that, as He left the Judgment Hall, He
was led along the “dolorous way” to Golgotha. But in truth, His whole course on
earth was the mournful way. It was all reproach and sorrow from His cradle to
His grave. His was a sorrowing life; His death was but the summing up of His
many sorrows, the gathering of them all together and pressing them into His cup
at once, till the vessel burst, because it could hold no more. And then, for
Him, the cross and the shame and the sorrow were at an end forever. But for us
the cross remaineth still.
Throughout life He was the “man of sorrows.” He was
“acquainted with grief.” And herein we see something more of the family badge
as it was displayed in the Elder Brother. Acquaintanceship with grief! This is
the description given us of it. It is not one visit that makes us acquainted
with a fellow‑man. Companionship is the result of continued intercourse.
So one sorrow does not make us acquainted with grief, however deep and sharp
its pangs may be. It may be the beginning of our acquaintanceship, but that is
all. There must be daily, hourly intercourse. Thus it was with Jesus. Thirty‑three
years daily converse with grief made Him acquainted with it. And so it is with
us. The saints are men of sorrows still; and their acquaintanceship with grief
must be obtained by daily fellowship. The disciple is not above his Master, nor
the servant above his Lord. We need not think of another process than that
which He underwent. He was made perfect through sufferings, and so must we. The
Captain of our salvation is, in this respect, the model and pattern of His
saved ones. We are always to bear “about in the body the dying of the Lord
Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body” (II Cor
4:10).
It is the Lamb that we follow: the Lamb “as it had
been slain.” This surely speaks most plainly of the family badge. We are
followers of the Man with the pierced hands and feet, the Man who is covered
all over with the marks of the buffet and the scourge and the spitting, the Man
with the crown of thorns. Yea, He is our Elder Brother. He is bone of our bone
and flesh of our flesh. And if we see so distinctly the family badge on Him,
shall we shrink from taking it up and binding it in triumph as a jewel on our
forehead—as a crown upon our head? Surely the purple robe of mockery may beseem
us better than it suited Him.
There is one mark by which, from the beginning, he has
been distinguished as the woman’s seed predicted in Eden. It is the bruised
heel. This is, in truth, only another way of expressing His character as the
suffering, the crucified Son of Man. This was the mark which God gave by which
He was to be known. Yet it was just at this stumbling stone that Israel
stumbled. They had no eyes for the dying Saviour. The humbled Jesus found no
favor with them. The bruised heel they could not away with. The very mark which
God set upon Him as Messiah was that on account of which Israel rejected Him.
Yet it is the bruised heel in which we rejoice. It is the Man with the bruised
heel who has won our hearts. It is He whom we follow; and His bruised heel we
engrave upon our banner as our most honorable badge.
The similar bruising we look for as our portion here.
Nor are we ashamed of it. All the saints before us have experienced it; are we
better than they? Shall the soldiers of the last days be ashamed to wear the
uniform which the army of the saints has gloried in for six thousand years?
It is very remarkable that the apostle fixes upon
affliction as the mark of true Sonship. Truly, he makes it the family badge.
Nay, he makes it the test of our legitimacy. “What son is he whom the father
chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers,
then are ye bastards, and not sons” (Heb 12:7,8). Strong language this! Had any
but an inspired apostle used it, there would have been outcry against it as
absurd and extravagant. Let us, how ever, take it as it is, for we know that it
speaks the mind of God. Chastisement is, then, really one of the chief marks of
our lawful and honorable birth. Were this characteristic not to be found on us,
we should be lacking in one of the proofs of our sonship. Our legitimacy might
be called in question. It might be said that He was not recognizing us as his
true‑born sons, and that either He had never received us as such, or had
rejected us. There must be the family badge to establish our claim of birth and
to be a pledge of paternal recognition on the part of God our Father.
It is a solemn thought. Flesh and blood shrink from
it. We look around to see if there be no way of escaping, and ask if it must be
so. Yes, it must be, as we shall shortly see, and the attempt to shun it is
vain. Yet it is also a blessed thought. It cheers us under trial to remember
that this is the Father’s seal set upon His true‑born sons. Oh! how it
lightens the load to think that it is really the pledge of our divine adoption.
We need not then count upon bright days below, nor
think to pass lightly over the pleasant earth as if our life were but the
“shadow of a dream.” Joy within we may expect—“joy unspeakable and full of
glory”—for that is the family portion. But joy from without, the joy of earth’s
sunshine, the joy of the world’s ease and abundance, the joy of unsevered bonds
and unweeping eyes is not our lot in this vale of tears.
Still, in the midst of the ever‑wakeful storms
through which we are passing to the kingdom, there is peace— deep peace—too
deep for any storm of earth to reach. In the world we have tribulation, but in
Jesus we have peace. “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, not as
the world giveth give I unto you.” And it is this which gives the peculiar
aspect to the saints, the aspect of mingled joy and grief. The eye is dim with
tears, yet, behold! it glistens with joy. There is the brow of shaded thought,
yet peace is playing round it. Clouds overshadow them, but on every cloud we
see calm sunshine resting.
Their “peace is like a river.” It is not stagnant as
the lake, nor tumultuous as the sea, but ever in calm motion, ever flowing on
in its deep channel like a river. The course may sometimes be through rocks,
sometimes through level plains, sometimes through tangled brakes, sometimes
along the cornfield or “the hill of vines,” yet still it moves unhindered on.
It may be night or day, it may be winter or summer, it may be storm or calm,
but it is there—flowing on till the embrace of ocean receives it. Such is our
peace! Let us hold it fast.
Nor need we hide our peace any more than we should
hide our cross. Let the world see both and learn how well they agree together.
For it is the cross that makes this peace feel so sweet and suitable. Amid the
tears of grief peace keeps her silent place like the rainbow upon the spray of
the cataract; nor can it be driven thence so long as Jehovah’s sunshine rests
upon the soul. “The work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of
righteousness, quietness and assurance forever.”
“Train up a child in the way he should go” is the
injunction God lays on us. But it is, moreover, the principle on which He
Himself is acting with His Church. He is training up His children here. This is
the true character of His dealings with them. The education of His saints is
the object He has in view. It is training for the kingdom; it is education for
eternity.
How momentous, then, is the training! It is God who is
carrying it on by the Holy Ghost. It is the Church, which is the Body of
Christ, that is the subject of it. And it is to prepare her for an everlasting
kingdom! In bringing many sons unto glory, it was needful that even the Captain
of their salvation should be made perfect through suffering. Surely, then, God
lays vast stress upon this discipline. In His estimation it is no unimportant
nor unmeaning exercise. Knowing this, the apostle exhorts us on this very
point, “My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord.” It is too solemn
to be despised, too momentous to be overlooked. The education of God’s family
is concerned with it. The preparation of an heir of glory depends on it.
This discipline begins at our conversion. The moment
we are taken into the family it commences. “He scourgeth every son whom he
receiveth.” It is not always visible; neither are we at all times conscious of
its operation. Nevertheless, from the very day that “we are begotten again to a
lively hope” it begins.
It ends only with life, or in the case of the last
generation of the Church, with their being “caught up to meet the Lord in the
air.” It is a whole lifetime’s process. It is a daily, an hourly discipline
which admits of no cessation. The rod may not always be applied, but still the
discipline goes on.
1. It is the discipline of love. Every step of it is
kindness. There is no wrath or vengeance in any part of the process. The
discipline of the school may be harsh and stern, but that of the family is
love. We are sure of this; and the consolation which it affords is unutterable.
Love will not wrong us. There will be no needless suffering. Were this but kept
in mind there would be fewer hard thoughts of God among men, even when His
strokes are most severe. I know not a better illustration of what the feelings
of a saint should be, in the hour of bitterness, than the case of Richard
Cameron’s father. The aged saint was in prison “for the Word of God and the
testimony of Jesus Christ.” The bleeding head of his martyred son was brought
to him by his unfeeling persecutors, and he was asked derisively if he knew it.
“I know it, I know it,” said the father, as he kissed the mangled forehead of
his fair-haired son, “it is my son’s; my own dear son’s! It is the Lord! good
is the will of the Lord, who cannot wrong me or mine, but who hath made
goodness and mercy to follow us all our days.”
2. It is the discipline of wisdom. He who administers
it is the “God only wise.” What deep wisdom then must there be in all His
dealings! He knows exactly what we need and how to supply it. He knows what
evils are to be found in us, and how these may be best removed. His training is
no random work. It is carried on with exquisite skill. The time and the way and
the instrument are all according to the perfect wisdom of God. The fittest time
is chosen, just the very moment when discipline is called for, and when it
would be most profitable. The surest, most direct, and at the same time
gentlest method is devised. The instrument which will be surest yet safest,
most effectual yet least painful, is brought into operation. For all is wisdom
in the discipline of God.
3. It is the discipline of faithfulness. “In
faithfulness thou hast afflicted me,” said David. All is the doing of a
faithful God—a God who is faithful to us as well as faithful to Himself. “Faithful
are the wounds of a friend,” says Solomon; and the believer finds in trouble
the faithfulness of the truest of friends. He is so faithful that He will not
pass by a single fault that He sees in us, but will forthwith make it known
that it may be removed. He gave this command to Israel, “Thou shalt in any wise
rebuke thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him,” (Lev 19:17) and He Himself
acts upon the command He gave. He is too faithful a Father to suffer sin upon
His children unreproved. He is true to us, whether in sending the evil or the
good; shall we not say, truer and more faithful when He inflicts the evil than
when He bestows the good? It almost at times seems to break the heart of a
loving friend to be obliged to say or do anything severe toward the friend he
loves. Yet for love’s sake he will do it. In faithfulness he will not shrink
from it. And in doing so, is he not true to his friend? So with a chastening
God. He is faithful when He blesses—more faithful when He chastens. This surely
is consolation. It may well allay all murmuring and establish our hearts in
peace.
4. It is the discipline of power. He who is carrying
it on is not one who can be baffled and forced to give up His design. He is
able to carry it out in the unlikeliest circumstances and against the most
resolute resistance. Everything must give way before Him. This thought is, I
confess, to me one of the most comforting connected with the discipline. If it
could fail! If God could be frustrated in His designs after we have suffered so
much, it would be awful! To be scourged and suffer pain by one who is not able
to make good to us the profit of this would add inconceivable bitterness to the
trial. And then our hearts are so hard, our wills so stubborn, that nothing
save an Almighty pressure applied to them can work the desired change. Oh, when
the soul is at strife within itself, battling in desperate conflict with its
stormy lusts, when the flesh rises up in its strength and refuses to yield,
when the whole heart appears like iron or is adamant, it is most blessed to
think upon God’s chastisements as the discipline of power! It is this that
assures us that all shall yet be well. And it is in the strength of this
assurance that we gird ourselves for the battle, knowing that we must be more
than conquerors through Him that loved us.
There might be love in the dealing—love to the
uttermost—and yet all be in vain. For love is oftentimes helpless, unable to do
aught for the beloved object. There might be wisdom, too, and yet it might prove
wholly ineffectual. There might also be untiring faithfulness, yet no results.
It might be altogether impotent even in its fondest vigilance. It might be
baffled in its most earnest attempts to bless. But when it is infinite power
that is at work, we are sure of every obstacle being surmounted, and everything
that is blessed coming most surely to pass. My sickbed may be most lovingly
tended, most skillfully provided for, most faithfully watched, and I may be
most sweetly soothed by this fond and unwearied care; yet, if there be no power
to heal, no resistless energy such as sweeps all hindrances before it, then I
may still lie hopeless there; but, if the power to heal be present, the power
that makes all diseases flee its touch, the power that, if need be, can raise
the dead, then I know of a truth that all is well.
Oh, it is blessed and comforting to remember that it
is the discipline of power that is at work upon us! God’s treatment must
succeed. It cannot miscarry or be frustrated even in its most arduous efforts,
even in reference to its minutest objects. It is the mighty power of God that
is at work within us and upon us, and this is our consolation. It is the grasp
of an infinite hand that is upon us, and nothing can resist its pressure. All
is love, all is wisdom, and all is faithfulness, yet all is also power. The
very possibility of failure is thus taken away. Were it not for this power
there could be no certainty of blessing, and were it not for this certainty,
how poor and partial would our comfort be! He, yes, He who chastises us is
“able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to
the power that worketh in us” (Eph 3:20).
Hence to a soul, conscious of utter helplessness and
weary of the struggle within, between the spirit and the flesh, there is
“strong consolation” in remembering the power of Him whose hand is now grasping
him so firmly on every side. His sorely tossed spirit finds peace in calling to
mind “the years of the right hand of the Most High”— all the “works of the Lord
and his wonders of old.” The “strength of Israel” is the name he delights in,
as the name of his Chastener. He thus bethinks himself, “The God who made these
heavens and stretched them out in their vastness and majesty, who moves these
stars in their courses and arrests them at a word, is the God who is chastening
me. He who raises and stills the mighty deep and all the multitude of its
waves, the God of the tempest and of the earthquake, ‘the framer of light and
dark, the wielder of the lightning and the builder of the everlasting hills,’
is the God who is now laying His rod so heavily upon me.” Thus each new proof
or aspect of Jehovah’s power becomes a new source of consolation in the day of
chastisement and sorrow.
Such, then, is the nature of the family discipline
when viewed in reference to God. Love, wisdom, faithfulness, and power unite to
devise and carry it out. It must, then, be perfect discipline, the completest
and most successful that can be thought of or desired. It is well to look at it
in this light, for it is thus that we become entirely satisfied with all that
comes to pass and feel that “it is well.” But let us consider it in another
aspect. We have seen what it is when flowing out of God; let us see what it is
when operating upon man.
As we observed before, God’s object in chastisement is
the education of His children, the training up of the saints. It is their
imperfect spiritual condition that makes this so necessary. And now we proceed
to inquire in what way it works, and toward what regions of the soul it is
specially directed. For while, doubtless, it embraces the whole soul in all its
parts and powers, it may be well to consider it as more especially set to work
upon its mind, its will, its heart, and its conscience.
1. It is the training of the mind. We are naturally
most unteachable as well as most ignorant, neither knowing anything nor willing
to know. The ease of prosperous days augments the evil. God at length
interposes and compels us to learn. “The rod and reproof give wisdom” (Prov
29:15). He sends trial and that makes us willing to learn. Our unteachableness
gives way. We become aware of our ignorance. We seek teaching from on high. God
begins his work of instruction. Light pours in on every side. We grow amazingly
in knowledge. We learn the meaning of words now which we had hitherto used but
as familiar sounds. Scripture shines out before us in new effulgence; it
flashes into us; every verse seems to contain a sunbeam; dark places become
light; every promise stands out in illuminated splendor; things hard to be
understood become in a moment plain.
How fast we learn in a day of sorrow! It is as if
affliction awoke our powers and lent them new quickness of perception. We
advance more in the knowledge of Scripture in a single day than in years
before. We learn “songs in the night,” though such music was unknown before. A
deeper experience has taken us down into the depths of Scripture and shown us
its hidden wonders. Luther used to say, “Were it not for tribulation I should
not understand Scripture.” And every sorrowing saint responds to this, as
having felt its truth—felt it as did David, when he said, “Blessed is the man
whom thou chasteness, . . . and teachest him out of thy law”(Psa 94:12). “It is
good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statures” (Psa
119:71). What teaching, what training of the mind goes on upon a sickbed, or
under the pressure of grief! And, oh, what great and wondrous things will even
some little trial whisper in the ear of a soul that is “learning of the
Father”!
In some cases this profit is almost unfelt, at least
during the continuance of the process. We think that we are learning nothing.
Sorrow overwhelms us. Disaster stuns us. We become confused, nervous, agitated,
or perhaps insensible. We seem to derive no profit. Yet ere long we begin to
feel the blessed results. Maturity of judgment, patience in listening to the
voice of God, a keener appetite for His Word, a quicker discernment of its
meaning— these are soon realized as the gracious results of chastisement. The
mind has undergone a most thorough discipline, and has, moreover, made wondrous
progress in the knowledge of divine truth through the teaching of the Holy
Ghost.
2. It is the training of the will. The will is the
seat of rebelliousness. Here the warfare is carried on. “The flesh lusteth
against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.” At conversion the will
is bent in the right direction, but it is still crooked and rigid.
Rebelliousness is still there. Prosperous days may sometimes conceal it so that
we are almost unconscious of its strength. But it still exists. Furnace heat is
needed for softening and strengthening it. No milder remedy will do. “It
requires,” says a suffering saint, “all the energy of God to bend my will to
His.” Yet it must be done. The will is the soul’s citadel. Hence, it is the
will that God seems so specially to aim at in chastisement. Fire after fire
does He kindle in order to soften it; and blow after blow does He fetch down on
it to straighten it. Nor does He rest till He has made it thoroughly flexible
and hammered out of it the many relics of self which it contains. He will not
stay His hand till He has thoroughly marred our self‑formed plans and
shown us the folly of our self‑chosen ways.
This is specially the case in long‑continued
trials; either when these come stroke after stroke in sad succession, or when
one fearful stroke at the outset has left behind it consequences which years
perhaps will not fully unfold. The bending and straightening of the will is
often a long process, during which the soul has to pass through waters deep and
many, through fires hot and ever kindling up anew. Protracted trials seem
specially aimed at the will. Its perversity and stiffness can only be wrought
out of it by a long succession of trials. It is only by degrees that it becomes
truly pliable and is brought into harmony with the will of God. We can at a
stroke lop off the unseemly branch; but to give a proper bent to the tree
itself, we require time and assiduous appliances for months or years. Yet the
will must give way. However proud, however forward, it must bend. God will not
leave it till He has made it one with His own. [1]
3. It is the training of the heart. Man’s heart beats
false to God. It is true to many things but false to Him. When first the Holy
Spirit touches it, and shows it “the exceeding riches of the grace of God,”
then it becomes in some measure true. Yet it is only in part. Much
falseheartedness still remains. It clings too fondly to the creature. It
cleaves to the dust. It is not wholly God’s. But this cannot be. God must have
the heart; nay, and He must have it beating truly toward Him. He is jealous of
our love, and grieves over its feebleness or its falling away. It is love that
He wants, and with nothing but truehearted love will He be satisfied. For this
it is that He chastises.
These false throbbings of the heart; these goings out
after other objects than Himself He cannot suffer but must correct or else
forego His claim. Hence, He smites and spares not till He has made us sensible
of our guilt in this respect. He strips off the leaves whose beauty attracted
us; He cuts down the flowers whose fragrance fascinated us; He tears off one
string after another from the lyre whose music charmed us. Then when He has
showed us each object of earth in its nakedness or deformity, then He presents
Himself to us in the brightness of His own surpassing glory. And thus He wins
the heart. Thus He makes it true to Him. Thus He makes us ashamed of our
falseheartedness to Himself and to the Son of His love.
Yet this is no easy process. This training is hard and
sore. The heart bleeds under it. Yet it must go on. No part of it can be
spared. Nor will it cease till the heart is won! If the Chastener should stay
His hand before this is effected, where would be His love? What poor, what
foolish affection! He knew this when He said, “Let them alone”; and it was the
last thing that His love consented to do, after all else had failed. One of the
sharpest, sorest words He ever spoke to Israel was, “Why should ye be stricken
any more?” Let us remember this, and not faint, even though the heart has been
long bleeding. Let us remember it, and seek to make the sorrow shorter by
gladly joining with Him in His plan for getting possession of our whole heart.
We need not grudge it. He has “good measure” to give us in return. His love
will taste the sweeter, and it will abide and satisfy us forever. It is well
for us to be thus trained to love Him here, with whom, in love and fellowship
unbroken, we are to spend the everlasting day.
4. It is the training of the conscience. A seared
conscience is the sinner’s heritage. It is upon this that the Holy Spirit first
lays His hand when He awakens the soul from its sleep of death. He touches the
conscience, and then the struggles of conviction come. He then pacifies it by
the sprinkling of the blood, showing it Jesus and His cross. Then giving it to
taste forgiveness, it rests from all its tumults and fears. Thoughts of peace
are ever breathed into it from the sight of the bleeding sacrifice. It trembles
no more, for it sees that that which made it tremble is the very thing
concerning which the blood of Christ speaks peace. “Their sins and their
iniquities will I remember no more.” Thus it is softened. Its first terrors
upon awakening could not be called a softening. But now conscious forgiveness
and realized peace with God have been to it like the mild breath of spring to
the ice of winter. It has become soft and tender. Yet only so in part.
God’s desire, however, is to make it altogether
tender. He wishes it to be sensitive in regard to the very touch of sin, and
earnest in its pantings after perfect holiness. To effect this, He afflicts;
and affliction goes directly home to the conscience. The death of the widow’s
son at Sarepta immediately awakened her conscience, and she cried to the
prophet, “O man of God, art thou come to call my sin to remembrance?”(I Kings
17:18). So God by chastisement lays His finger upon the conscience, and
forthwith it springs up into new life. We are made to feel as if God had now
come down to us, as if He were now looking into our hearts and commencing a
narrow search. Moreover, we see in this affliction God’s estimate of sin. Not,
indeed, the full estimate. No, that we only learn from the sufferings of Jesus.
But still we gather from this new specimen of sin’s bitter fruits somewhat of
His mind regarding sin. This teaches the conscience by making the knowledge of
sin a thing of experience—an experience that is deepening with every new trial.
“If they be bound in fetters, and be holden in cords of affliction; then he
showeth them their work, and their transgressions that they have exceeded. He
openeth also their ear to discipline, and commandeth that they return from
iniquity”(Job 36:8-10).
In these last days how little is there of tenderness
of conscience! The world seems to know nothing of it save the name. It is a
world without a conscience! And how much do we find the Church of Christ a
partaker in the world’s sins! “Evil communications corrupt good manners.” It is
sad to observe in many saints, amid much zeal and energy and love, the lack of
a tender conscience. For this God is smiting us, and will smite us yet more
heavily until He has made it thoroughly tender and sensitive all over, “hating
even the garments spotted by the flesh.” This training of the conscience is a
thing of far greater moment than many deem it. God will not rest till He has
wrought it. And if the saints still continue to overlook it, if they will not
set themselves in good earnest to ask for it, and to strive against everything
that would tend to produce searedness and insensibility, they may yet expect
some of the sharpest strokes that the hand of God has ever yet administered.
Such, then, is the family discipline! We have seen it
as it comes forth from God, and we have seen it as it operates upon man. And is
it not all well? What is there about it that should disquiet us, or call forth
one murmur either of the lip or heart? That which opens up to us so much more
of God and lets us more fully into the secrets of His heart must be blessed,
however hard to bear. That which discovers to us the evils within ourselves,
which makes us teachable and wise, which gives to the stiff will, flexibility
and obedience, which teaches the cold heart to love and expands each straitened
affection, which melts the callous conscience into tender sensitiveness, which
trains up the whole soul for the glorious kingdom—that must be precious indeed.
Besides, it is the Father’s will; and is not this
enough for the trustful child? Is not chastisement just one of the methods by
which He intimates to us what He would have us to be? Is not His way of leading
us to the kingdom the safest, surest, shortest way? It is still the paternal
hand that is guiding us. What though in seeking to lift us up to a higher
level, it has to lay hold of us with a firmer, or it may be a rougher grasp? It
is still the paternal voice “that speaketh unto us as unto children”—dear children—only
in a louder, sharper tone to constrain the obedience of His too reluctant sons.
One remark more would I add to these concerning this
family discipline. It is not designed even for a moment to separate them and
their God, or to overshadow their souls with one suspicion of their Father’s
heart. That it has done so at times, I know; but that it ought never to do so I
am most firmly persuaded. Is it not one of the tests of sonship, and shall
that, without which we are not accounted sons, make us doubt our sonship, or
suspect the love of our God? That love claims at all times, whether in sorrow
or in joy, our simple, fullhearted, peaceful confidence. It is at all times the
same, and chastisement is but a more earnest expression of its infinite sincerity
and depth. Let us do justice to it, and to Him out of whom it flows. Let us not
give it the unworthy treatment which it too often receives at our thankless
hands. Let us beware of “falling from grace” at the very time when God is
coming down to us to spread out before us more largely than before all the
treasures of His grace. “We have known and believed the love that God hath to
us,” is to be our song. It ought always to be the family song! And shall it
cease or sink low at the very time when it ought to be loudest and strongest?
Should not trial just draw from us the apostle’s triumphant boast: “Who shall
separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” “Nay, in all these things
we are more than conquerors through him that loved us; for I am persuaded that
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,
shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our
Lord” (Rom 835-39). For is it not just when we are brought under chastening
that we enter upon the realities of consolation, the certainties of love, and
the joys of heavenly fellowship in ways unknown and unimagined before?
We hear of the “rod of the wicked,” and we are told
that it “shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous” (Psa 125:3). This may
mean that wicked men are God’s rod for chastening His people, and that, though
permitted to light upon them, it shall not rest or abide upon them, but shall
be destroyed, as was the Assyrian, who was used by God as the “rod of his
anger” for afflicting Israel. In this sense it gives us the blessed assurance
that the triumph of the wicked over the saints is short, that their devices and
oppressions shall last but for a moment, and that the church’s sufferings at
their hands shall soon be over. Wicked men may be the sword of God, (Psa 17:13)
as was Pilate, when he lifted the sword against the man that was Jehovah’s
friend, or as Herod was when he beheaded John in prison; but that sword shall
soon be broken. A wound now and then it may inflict, but that is all. It
neither moves nor smites save when God allows. Nor does it come, save with a
blessing on its edge. “They mean it not so,” yet God means it, and that is
enough for us. He makes the wrath of man to praise Him. “There shall no evil
happen to the just; when he shall hear of evil tidings he shall not be afraid.”
But the “rod of the wicked” may mean that rod with
which He smites the wicked in His fierce anger. In this sense there is no rod
for the righteous. Such a rod never either lights upon them nor rests upon
them. Their rod is not the rod of the wicked. It is the family rod. They have
done with wrath. Over them no curse can ever rest. “There is . . . no
condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” The rod may seem to speak of
frowns and anger, but it is only a seeming; there is not a glance of vengeance
in the Chastener’s eye. It is a correcting rod, but not a destroying one. Its
object is not to punish but to chasten; not to injure but to bless. “God
distributeth sorrows in his anger,” (Job 21:17) but these are not for His saints.
God has, however, not one rod for His children, but
many. For each child He has a peculiar rod, and at different times He uses
different rods. It will be profitable for us to consider what those are, and
how they are applied.
1. Bodily sickness. The body operates very powerfully
upon the soul both for good and for evil. In what way or to what extent we
cannot tell. Nor do I wish to discuss this question at all. But, knowing how
the soul is acted on by the body, I cannot help think that one of God’s designs
in sickness is to operate upon the soul through the body. We are not conscious
of this; we cannot analyze the process; the effects are hidden from view. Yet
it does seem as if sickness of body were made to contribute directly to the
health of the soul in some way or other known only to God. Hence, the apostle
speaks of delivering “such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh,
that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (I Cor 5:5). On this
point, however, I do not dwell; only it would be well for us to consider
whether God is not by this intimating to us the exceeding danger of pampering
the flesh: for the weakening of the flesh does help forward the strengthening
of the spirit; and the mortifying of our members which are upon the earth—the
crucifying the flesh with its affections and lusts—does tend to quicken and
invigorate the soul. Apart from this, however, there are other things to be
kept in view.
Sickness prostrates us. It cuts into the very center
of our carnal nature; it exposes in all their deformity “the lust of the flesh,
the lust of the eye, and the pride of life.” What vanity is seen in these upon
a sickbed! These are our three idols; and these, sickness dashes down into the
dust.
Sickness takes us aside and sets us alone with God. We
are taken into His private chamber, and there He converses with us face to
face. The world is far off, our relish for it is gone, and we are alone with
God. Many are the words of grace and truth which He then speaks to us. All our
former props are struck away, and we must now lean on God alone. The things of
earth are felt to be vanity; man’s help useless. Man’s praise and man’s
sympathy desert us; we are cast wholly upon God that we may learn that His
praise and His sympathy are enough. “If it were not for pain,” says one, “I
should spend less time with God. If I had not been kept awake with pain, I
should have lost one of the sweetest experiences I ever had in my life. The
disorder of my body is the very help I want from God; and if it does its work
before it lays me in the dust, it will raise me up to Heaven.” It was thus that
Job was “chastened upon his bed with pain, and the multitude of his bones with
strong pain,” that after being tried he might “come forth as gold” (Job 23:10).
Sickness teaches that activity of service is not the
only way in which God is glorified. “They also serve who only stand and wait.”
Active duty is that which man judges most acceptable; but God shows us that in
bearing and suffering He is also glorified. Perhaps we were pursuing a path of
our own and required to be arrested. Perhaps we were too much harassed by a
bustling world and needed retirement, yet could find no way of obtaining it
till God laid us down, and drew us aside into a desert place, because of the multitude
pressing upon us.
No one of the family rods is more in use than this,
sometimes falling lightly on us, at other times more heavily. Let us kiss the
rod. Let us open our mouth wide to the blessing, seeking so to profit by each
bodily ailment, slight or severe, that it may bring forth in us the peaceable
fruits of righteousness. “I know,” says one, “of no greater blessing than
health, except pain and sickness.”
2. Bereavement. This is the bitterest of all earthly
sorrows. It is the sharpest arrow in the quiver of God. To love tenderly and
deeply and then to part; to meet together for the last time on earth; to bid
farewell for time; to have all past remembrances of home and kindred broken
up—this is the reality of sorrow. To look upon that face that shall smile on us
no more; to close those eyes that shall see us no more; to press those lips
that shall speak to us no more; to stand by the cold side of father, mother,
brother, sister, friend, yet hear no sound and receive no greeting; to carry to
the tomb the beloved of our hearts, and then to return to a desolate home with
a blank in one region of our souls, which shall never again be filled till
Jesus come with all His saints; this is the bitterness of grief; this is the
wormwood and the gall!
It is this rod which ever and anon God is laying upon
us. Nor is there any that we need more than this. By it He is making room for
Himself in hearts that had been filled with other objects and engrossed with
other loves. He is jealous of our affection, for He claims it all as His own;
and every idol He will utterly abolish. For our sakes as well as for His own He
can suffer no rival in the heart. Perhaps the joys of an earthly home are
stealing away our hearts from the many mansions above. God breaks in upon us in
mercy and turns that home into a wilderness. Our sin finds us out; we mourn
over it and seek anew to realize our heavenly citizenship and set out anew upon
our pilgrim way, alone and yet not alone, for the Father is with us. Perhaps we
are sitting “at ease in Zion,” comfortable and contented, amid the afflictions
of a suffering Church and the miseries of a world that owns no Saviour and
fears no God. Jehovah speaks and we awake. He takes to Himself some happy
saint, or smites to the dust some wretched sinner. We are troubled at the
stroke. We mourn our lethargy. While we slept, a fellow‑saint has gone up
to be with Christ, and a fellow‑sinner has gone down to be with the devil
and his angels. The death of the one stirs us up; the death of the other
solemnizes and overawes us.
Thus as saint after saint ascends to God, we begin to
feel that Heaven is far more truly the family home than earth. We have far more
brethren above than we have below. And each bereavement reminds us of this. It
reminds us, too, that the coming of the Lord draweth nigh, and makes us look
out more wistfully from our eastern casement for the first streaks of the
rising dawn. It kindles in us strong desires for the day of happy meeting in
our Father’s house, when we shall clasp inseparable hands and climb in company
the everlasting hills. Meanwhile it bids us give our hearts to Jesus only. It
does for us what the departure of the two strangers from Heaven did to the
disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration—it leaves us alone with Jesus. It
turns into deep experience that longing for home contained in the apostle’s
words, “having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better.”
The more that bereavement transforms earth into a
desert, the more are our desires drawn up to Heaven. Our treasures having been
transferred to Heaven, our hearts must follow them. Earth’s hopes are smitten,
and we are taught to look for “that blessed hope, the glorious appearing of the
great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” The night is falling and the flowers
are folding up; but as they do so they bid us look upward and see star after
star appearing upon the darkening sky.
3. Adversity. This may be the loss of substance, or it
may be the loss of our good name, or it may be the falling away of friends, or
it may be the wrath of enemies, or it may be the disappointment of our hopes
these are what is meant by adversity. But let Job tell us what it means.
“Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again, he shutteth up a man,
and there can be no opening” (Job 12:14). “He hath made me weary: thou hast
made desolate all my company.... I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder:
he hath also taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for
his mark; his archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and
doth not spare; . . . he breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon
me like a giant.... My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the
shadow of death” (Job 16:7,12,13,14,16). “My days are past, my purposes are
broken off, even the thoughts of my heart” (Job 17:11). “He hath fenced up my
way that I cannot pass, and he hath set darkness in my paths; he hath stripped
me of my glory and taken the crown from my head; he hath destroyed me on every
side, and I am gone: and mine hope hath he removed like a tree . . . He hath
put my brethren far from me, and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from
me” (Job 19:8-10,13). These are some of the drops in the bitter cup of
adversity that was given to that patient saint to drink. And they are recorded
for our use, on whom the ends of the world have come, and to whom these last
days may perhaps fill a cup as bitter and protracted as his.
Yet let us count it all joy when we fall into divers
tribulations, knowing this, that the trying of our faith worketh patience: but
“let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting
nothing” (James 1:2-4). We are cast into poverty, but how can we be poor so
long as Christ is rich; and is not this poverty sent to make us prize His
unsearchable riches and to buy of Him the gold tried in the fire that we may be
rich? Our good name is lost through slander and false accusation. The finger of
public scorn is perhaps pointed at us, and wicked men are exalted over us triumphing
in our reproach. Yet have we not the approving eye of God, and is it not enough
if He still honors us and knows our innocence? Let our good name go if God sees
fit thus to humble us. We have the “white stone, and in the stone a new name
written, which no man knoweth save he that receiveth it” (Rev 2:17).
Friends fall off and enemies arise: false brethren
turn against us, and we are doomed to bear the revilings and persecutions of
those whom we have never wronged but ever loved. But the friendship of Jesus is
still ours. No earthly disaster or persecutor can ever rob us of that. Nay, the
coldness of those we counted on as tried and true only draws us the closer to
Him, the warmth of whose love knows no abatement nor end. Joseph passed
thoroughly this trial, and the Lord set him upon Pharaoh’s throne.
Moses passed through it and became “king in Jeshurun.”
Job passed through it and was blessed a thousandfold. Daniel passed through it
and was exalted with double honor. Let us “take . . . the prophets, who have
spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of
patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the
patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very
pitiful, and of tender mercy” (James 5:10,11).
Oftentimes nothing but adversity will do for us. “I
spake unto thee in thy prosperity; but thou saidst, I will not hear. This hath
been thy manner from thy youth, that thou obeyedst not my voice” (Jer 22:21).
We need to be stripped of every earthly portion that we may seek entirely our
portion in Jehovah Himself. We need to be turned out of a home on earth that we
may seek a home in Heaven. Earth’s music is too seducing and takes away our
relish for the new song. God must either hush it or take us apart into a desert
place that we may no longer be led captive by it but may have our ear open only
to the heavenly melody. We cannot be trusted with too full a cup, or too
pleasant a resting‑place. We abuse everything that God has given us, and
prove ourselves not trustworthy as to any one of them. Some God cannot trust
with health; they need sickness to keep them low and make them walk softly all
their days. They need spare diet, lest the flesh should get the mastery. Others
He cannot trust with prosperity; they need adversity to humble them, lest, like
Jeshurun, they should wax “fat and kick.” Others He cannot trust with riches;
they must be kept poor, lest covetousness should spring up and pierce them
through with many sorrows. Others He cannot trust with friends; they make idols
of them, they give their hearts to them; and this interferes with the claims of
Jehovah to have us altogether as His own.
But still in all this God dealeth with us as with the
members of His own family. Never for a moment does He lose sight of this.
Neither should we. So that when these things overtake us, when we are thus
“judged,” we should feel that we are “chastened of the Lord, that we should not
be condemned with the world”; we should learn not merely to submit to the rod,
but to kiss and welcome it, not merely to acquiesce in chastisement, but to
“glory in tribulation, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience
experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed.” We should learn
not merely to praise God in affliction, but to praise Him for it. We should see
that the lot of the afflicted is far more enviable than that of him who is “let
alone”; and, instead of trembling when we see the dark cloud of sorrow coming
over us, we should tremble far more when we see it passing off, lest,
perchance, that which came charged with blessing to us, should, through our
stoutheartedness and unteachableness, leave us callous and unblessed.
The ordinance in Israel concerning the meat‑offering
of the firstfruits was of a very peculiar kind. Thus it was commanded, “If thou
offer a meat‑offering of thy firstfruits unto the Lord, thou shalt offer
for the meat‑offering of thy firstfruits, green ears of corn dried by the
fire” (Lev 2:14).
Christ is, we know, preeminently the firstfruits. It
is He, then, who is specially prefigured by these green ears of corn dried by
the fire. In this “corn” we discern the type of one who belongs to earth,
partaker of our very nature. It springs up in our fields, it is nourished by
our soil, it is watered by our showers, it is ripened by our sun. So was it
with Jesus. He was truly Man, one of us, “the Word made flesh,” the Man who
“drank of the brook by the way.”
This corn was to be plucked when green and then
dried by the fire, not in the ordinary gradual way by the heat of the sun. It
was to be prematurely ripened by what we would call unnatural means, the
exposure to artificial heat. In this also we see Jesus, the Man of sorrows,
subjected to the Father’s wrath, the wrath of Him who is a consuming fire, and
withered into ripeness before His time. He did not come to His grave “in a full
age, like a shock of corn in its season” (Job 5:26). He did not grow up to manhood
in the calm, refreshing sunshine of Jehovah’s smile.
He was scorched with fiery heat, within and without,
till age appeared upon His much‑marred visage, while as yet the greenness
of His strength was upon Him, so that the Jews, looking upon His wasted form,
spoke of Him as one who had well‑nigh reached his fiftieth year (John
8:57).
Such is the view He gives of Himself in the Book of
Psalms. In these we at once recognize the “green ears of corn dried by the
fire.” For thus He speaks, “My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my
tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me unto the dust of death”
(Psa 22:15). Again, He says, “Mine eye is consumed with grief, yea, my soul and
my belly; for my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing: my
strength faileth . . . my bones are consumed” (Psa 31:9). Again, we hear Him
saying, “Mine eye is consumed because of grief; it waxeth old because of all
mine enemies” (Psa 6:7). Such, then, was Jesus: withered and dried up before
His time by reason of the sorrow which He endured for us.
But these green ears dried up by the fire are no less
a description of the saints than of their Lord. Certainly they apply to Him in
a way such as they never can apply to us. Yet they do stand forth as a type of
the whole Church, who are also called like Jesus, “the firstfruits.” All the
members of His body from the beginning have been just such as these dried ears
of green corn. Hear, for instance, one of them speaking, “I am like a bottle in
the smoke”; or again, “My bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long .
. . my moisture is turned into the drought of summer” (Psa 32:3,4).
By such an emblem as this was the Church’s career of
tribulation set before Israel. And it is most interesting for us to look at our
trials in the light of so expressive a figure. Their object is to ripen us: it
may be before the time; it may be in a way such as the flesh shrinks from; but
still their object is to ripen us. The sorrows that compass us about are all
ripening our graces, as well as withering out of us the green, rank, unripe
luxuriance of earth. The heat may be great, but it shall not consume us; it
will only make the ripening process a speedier one. It will shorten the way to
perfect holiness and eternal glory; and shall we shrink from that which makes
the process shorter?
But there was another ordinance in Israel setting
forth the tribulation of the Church. The mercy seat and the cherubim were to be
both made of pure gold, “of beaten work” (Exo 25:17,18). Now, as the cherubim
were doubtless the symbols of redeemed men, the Church of Christ, this type is
very striking. Both the mercy seat and the cherubim were to be of one piece,
for “both he who sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one.” They
are of pure gold, and this denotes their exceeding preciousness. They are made
of “beaten gold,” to intimate the process through which they both had passed.
The mercy seat was fashioned into shape and made after the pattern showed in
the mount by the stroke of the hammer. So Jesus was “made perfect through
suffering.” In like manner the cherubim were to be beaten into the intended
shape and model. So with the saints. It is through this process that they must
pass, and it is thus they are brought into that perfect shape which God has
designed for them.
What, then, is the process through which the saints
are passing now but just this? They are now under the hammer of the Spirit,
that by this they may be fashioned into the likeness of cherubim, which in the
Book of Revelation are set before us as the upbearers of Jehovah’s throne and
glory, as well as the inheritors thereof. And what is all the “beating” to
which we may be subjected when compared with the glory for which it is
preparing us?
There is another figure used by our Lord in speaking
of His Church. He compares her to an injured, afflicted, friendless widow.
Widowhood, then, is properly the Church’s condition here. And this is her
grief. Her Lord is absent, and His absence is one of her bitterest trials. It
forms one long‑continued sorrow. It makes such a blank on earth that we
feel as if this of itself were grief enough, even were there none besides. And
were the Church to realize fully her estate of widowhood, until the Lord come,
she would find in this, no doubt, a new grief to which she was blind before,
but a grief which operates with most blessed efficacy in sanctifying her and in
keeping her apart from the world.
She is a stranger in a land of strangers. She is
lonely and unfriended, sitting apart from earthly joy and fellowship. He whom
she loves is far away. This separation is, as a saint of old expresses it,
“like a mountain of iron upon her heavy heart.” She longs to be with Him. She
sighs for the day of meeting. And all this though sad is both sanctifying and
solemnizing. It is a daily burden, a continual chastening, yet it is well. It
loosens from earth. It lifts up to Heaven. It makes the world less fascinating.
It prepares for the inseparable union: the meeting time—the bridal day.
There are other figures given us of the suffering
Church. But let these suffice. They will help us to understand our true
condition and to expect nothing else than tribulation here No strange thing is
happening to us. It is no strange thing that the green ears of corn should be
dried with fire.
It is no strange thing that the cherubim should be
made of beaten gold. It is no strange thing that, in the absence of the
Bridegroom, the bride should mourn.
There are no beings about whom we make so many
mistakes as our own selves. “The heart is deceitful above all things,” and
besides this, the “deceitfulness of sin” is unsearchable. So that when the
deceitfulness of our heart and the deceitfulness of sin come together, we need
not wonder that the effect should be ignorance of ourselves.
Besides, we are unwilling to search. We shrink from
the exposure which such a scrutiny would make. No doubt the consciousness of
being forgiven takes away much of this reluctance. We are not so unwilling to
know the worst when we are assured that however hideous the pollution thus
dragged to light, it can never come between us and God. For with God all is
peace. The blood that sprinkles us has made it a simple impossibility for God
ever to be angry with us again. So that we come to realize in some degree the
blessedness of the man whose transgression is forgiven; our spirit is “without
guile.” We have no object now in concealing anything from God or ourselves. We
become open, frank, straightforward. Still the search is a painful one, and we would
rather postpone it. It might bring many things to light which would shock and
humble us. It might alarm us with the extent of the evil which still remains in
us, even though it could not bring us into condemnation. Hence, we are slow to
learn, or even to inquire into, the evil that cleaves to us still.
Moreover, we are not at all persuaded that there is so
very much evil in us. We do not know ourselves. Our convictions of sin have
been but shallow, and we are beginning to imagine that the conflict between the
flesh and the spirit is not so very fierce and deadly as we had conceived it to
be. We think we have rid ourselves of many of our sins entirely, and are in a
fair way speedily getting rid of all the rest. The depths of sin in us we have
never sounded; the number of our abominations we have never thought of marking.
We have been sailing smoothly to the kingdom, and perhaps at times were
wondering how our lot should be so different from the saints of old. We
thought, too, that we had overcome many of our corruptions. The old man was
crucified. It seemed dead, or at least feigned itself to be so in order to
deceive us. Our lusts had abated. Our tempers had improved. Our souls were calm
and equable. Our mountain stood strong, and we were saying, “We shall never be
moved.” The victory over self and sin seemed, in some measure, won. Alas, we
were blind! We were profoundly ignorant of our hearts.
Well, the trial came. It swept over us like a cloud of
the night, or rather through us like an icy blast, piercing and chilling us to
the vitals. Then the old man within us awoke, and, as if in response to the
uproar without, a fiercer tempest broke loose within. We felt as if the four
winds of Heaven had been let loose to strive together upon the great deep within
us. Unbelief arose in its former strength. Rebelliousness raged in every region
of our soul. Unsubdued passions resumed their strength. We were utterly
dismayed at the fearful scene. But yesterday this seemed impossible. Alas, we
know not the strength of sin nor the evil of our hearts till God thus allowed
them to break loose.
It was thus He dealt with Israel; and for this end He
led them into the desert. “The Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the
wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart”
(Deu 8:2). Their desert trials put them to the proof. And when thus proved,
what iniquity was found in them! What sin came out which had lain hidden and
unknown before! The trial did not create the evil: it merely brought out what
was there already, unnoticed and unfelt, like a torpid adder. Then the heart’s
deep fountains were broken up, and streams of pollution came rushing out, black
as Hell. Rebellion, unbelief, fretfulness, atheism, idolatry, self‑will,
self‑confidence, self‑pleasing—all burst out when the blast of the
desert met them in the face and called Egypt to remembrance with its luxurious
plenty. Thus they were proved.
Even so it is with the saints still. God chastens them
that He may draw forth the evil that is lying concealed and unsuspected within.
The rod smites us on the tenderest part, and we start up in a moment as if in
arms against God. The flesh, the old man, is cut to the quick, and forthwith
arouses itself, displaying all of a sudden much of its former strength. When it
was asleep we did not know its power, but now that it has been awakened, its
remains of strength appall us.
It is not till the sea is “troubled,” that “its waters
cast up mire and dirt.” When all was calm, there seemed naught but purity pervading
it, and ripple folded over ripple in the still brightness of its transparent
green. But the winds break loose, the tempest stirs its lowest depths, and then
all is changed. Thus we see it in the saints. When calamity breaks over them
like a tempest, then the hidden evils of their hearts awaken. Sins scarcely
known before display themselves. The heart pours out its wickedness. Hard
thoughts of God arise. Atheistical murmurings break out and refuse to be
restrained.
Questionings both of His wisdom and of His love are
muttered; yea, how often do they assume a more explicit form, and we ask, “If
God be so loving and wise, why is it thus?” We could not have expected such
treatment at His hands. Distrust and unbelief assume the mastery, and we refuse
to acquiesce to His will. It seems hard to be smitten so severely and laid so
low. For a while it seems as if the heart were determined to think evil
thoughts of God and never to think well of Him again. And, though a calm ensues
and we become both ashamed and terrified at our rebelliousness, still the heart
has given forth its pollution. We have learned its unsearchable depths of evil.
We are led, on the one hand, into deeper views of our own amazing and
incredible vileness; and on the other, into fuller discoveries of the abounding
grace of God. We learn to prize more the open fountain, and we betake ourselves
anew for covering to the righteousness of the Righteous One.
It is remarkable that when the saints of old were
tried and proved, there was found in them not only evil but the very evil we
should least of all have anticipated. We should have said of Noah, for
instance, that he was one whose sobriety and self‑restraint would be
carried with him to his grave. He stood alone amid a luxurious, sensual,
intoxicated world, condemning their lasciviousness and revelry. Yet no sooner
is he placed in circumstances of temptation than he falls. Noah becomes
drunken!
Again, Abraham stands out preeminent for faith and
courage; yet, when he goes to Egypt and Gerar, his faith gives way, and he
utters lies through fear. Lot had withstood all the sensuality and filthiness
of Sodom, and his righteous soul mourned over their abominations; yet, scarce
is he delivered from the city’s destruction than he falls into drunkenness and
lust equal to that of the cities that had been consumed. Job, though marked for
his patience, gave way to impatience in the day of trial. Moses, the meekest of
all men, displayed his anger and “spake unadvisedly with his lips.” David was
one of the bravest that ever fought the battles of the Lord in Israel, and he
had gone out against Goliath with a sling and a stone, yet when he fled before
Saul and came to King Achish at Gath, his courage was gone, and he feigned
himself a madman through fear of his enemies. Elijah had stood before kings
without trembling to pronounce the sentence of judgment, to shut up the
heavens, and to wield the sword of Jehovah’s vengeance, though alone amid tens
of thousands. Yet he flees before a woman’s threat, he gives up all for lost
and requests to die.
Ezekiel, whose character shines out as one of singular
holiness and obedience, yet records against himself a strange instance of
unsubmissiveness, when sent by God on an errand of judgment to Israel: “I went
in bitterness, in the heat [marg. hot anger] of my spirit; but the hand of the
Lord was strong upon me (Exe 3:14). Peter’s attachment to his Lord is one of
his peculiar characteristics, yet it was Peter who denied Him. John was the
disciple who seems to have been most like his Master in gentleness and love,
yet it was John who wanted to call down fire from Heaven upon the Samaritan
village.
Lord, what is man! And what is a human heart—the heart even of thy saints when proved and held up to view? “O heart, heart,” said John Berridge of himself, “what art thou? A mass of fooleries and absurdities, the vainest, wickedest, craftiest, foolishest thing in nature.” What deep‑hidden evil, what selfishness, what pride, what harsh tempers, what worldliness come out in a moment, when the stro