RELIEF BY PRESENT SUCCOUR OR BY THE LORD'S COMING

^[p. 279] RELIEF BY PRESENT SUCCOUR OR BY THE LORD’S COMING

There are two ways of relief for the sorrowing one here. One is present nearness to Christ, where whatever the heart needs is found in Him. The want indicates the supply, but there must be nearness to Him for this. Take the priest that offered the blood of the peace offerings, the right shoulder shall be his part; that is, something over and above what the offering itself conferred. It is touching Christ that draws out the needed virtue, and this, while it places me superior to the pressure of the hour, enables me to be, though sorrowful yet always rejoicing, able to serve without being incommoded by the strait-waistcoat of circumstances here. There are songs in the night.

Then there is another mode of relief, and the one I apprehend which you look for, and that is the immediate coming of our Lord. Surely this will be a perfect relief, but I fear that you are looking for the termination of incongruities more than seeking present succour — which would make you like a giant refreshed with wine — making moral space for Christ here in the midst of the most elaborate opposition, or like a rose breaking through the dense jungle to shed its fragrance when there was no one apparently to appreciate it. In the one, you are made superior to the thorns and briars of the wilderness by the succour of His presence, who will speedily quash them in the day of His coming, and perpetuate to you the joy without a check which has sustained you in the dreariest hour here. The other is simply the termination of everything adverse in the brightness and joy of a day when all shadows will be dispersed for ever. Is it the termination of the incongruous and sorrowful that you look for, or is it the present succour of Christ enabling you to be superior to all the sorrow and incongruity now, knowing that if we suffer with Him we shall also reign with Him? I fear that you are more a captive, waiting for and expecting the coming Deliverer, than the one in whom His heart doth safely ^[p. 280] trust, delighting in His love and succour and thinking of the joy and welcome that He will have at His return.

As to ————, if her heart has been broken here, that is, if she has had a full cup and it has been upset, then I could understand her saying that she does not fear; and again, if she could say that Christ had fully satisfied her heart I could understand her saying so. In my experience I find the two go together. One has lost by some means or another that which would brighten this scene to one; but besides this, one has found Christ, who satisfies beyond expression one’s heart in the scene where He has prepared a place for us. I fully believe that one may be so satisfied by the superior things in Christ and in association with Him, that everything here would lose its charm for one.

I think when we see any one specially in the Lord’s hand with the purpose of leading such an one on, we ought to be found near the bell to do anything He might suggest to further the same.