I want to address myself briefly to the question of how it is that many Christians in times of difficulty and trial find such little sustaining grace from Christ. It is, alas! anything but rare to see Christians gloomy, dejected, and cast down during such seasons. And why is this? Is it that God has ceased to be the God of all comfort and the Father of mercies? Is it that the blessed ascended Son of God is not our great High Priest, and is unable to succour the people of His choice? A thousand times NO. Let the tongue perish that affirms it. Never, dear troubled child of God, suffer the thin edge of such a suggestion to enter your mind.
How is it then that some Christians fear death and pass away—die—under a cloud? Scarcely, alas! resigned to go, whereas the resignation should be needed rather for the staying than the going—the living than the dying. Again, how is it that when trouble and trial come, hard thoughts of God creep into the mind—often there, when one feels that to utter them would be a libel upon a Father’s heart? As a Christian said to me in a very sad fashion the other day, “It’s easy to talk about being sustained in your trials when you are not in them, but it’s a different thing when you are.”
I believe there are thousands of God’s dear children in such a condition, and our heart bleeds for them. And what is the solution to the difficulty? Simply this, Where are you looking? Peter walked upon the tempestuous deep when he looked at Jesus, but began to sink when he looked at the waves. And so it is with us.
Now, I believe that when any of us are in the condition just described there is a reason for it. If we are in easy circumstances, without trials and pinches, and we live independently of Christ—if we satisfy ourselves with the world, with the broken cisterns around us, when we feel the reversal of circumstances, and the pinch and trial and bereavement, God, as a Father who loves His children, will suffer us to feel our weakness by allowing us to lean on a broken reed, and to be mocked by our empty cisterns. The world can give no true comfort. Our Father is infinitely tender and gracious, but His love would wean us from the world, its spirit and its creature resources.
In the Song of Solomon, when the drowsy bride at length rouses herself to seek the company of her Beloved, He had withdrawn Himself, and the search for Him was sad and shameful, but necessary.
Ah! have we not sometimes to search for Jesus? When more links have been formed with the world than with the saints of God—more care taken for what we shall eat and drink and be clothed with, than for the kingdom of God and His righteousness, no wonder that we are allowed to feel the emptiness and hollowness of all these things! You may be outwardly orthodox, and go to meetings regularly, but where is your heart feeding, and where are your eyes looking? Is your Christianity a thing of joy right through the piece—in the home circle, the business circle, the social circle?
Well, should one reading these lines say, “This is all true”; dear troubled friend, go to God and confess it all, and He will show you His tender mercy and grace and restoring hand. And, by the grace of God, may it be your happy portion and mine to cultivate the acquaintance of Jesus, so that, weaned from the world by the exceeding and ineffable compensation of His company, we shall, in separation of spirit, find out, in such seasons as we have been speaking of, the sustaining power of the one great High Priest—Jesus the Son of God—and learn too the infinite tenderness and comfort of the heart of the Father. “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with him also freely give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32). “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting” (Gal. 6:7-8).
Again I would challenge my own heart and yours—Looking, where?