A DEATH-WOUND

^[p. 188] A DEATH-WOUND

I do not find that a death-wound is ever cured or forgotten. It is not intended to be, though the more the heart is in company with the Lord, the more His sympathy assuages the pain of it, and thus there is great present gain from it. We go through a double death here, in order that we may be fit for the Lord here. First that I am not only a sinner, but that I am lost like Jonah in the depths of the sea. Through grace, I am dead with Christ, but I must go through the sense of it, as much as Jonah did. Then I live in Christ. This is the first death - but I have for evermore the unchanging and deepening sense that I am by nature a lost, ruined thing. I abhor myself. The next death is symbolised by the gourd - something in natural things outside myself, which is a shelter and a comfort to me as the gourd was to Jonah. This dies, and I am a derelict. The Lord then becomes my only source of comfort, my only stay, and then I am not only devoted to Him, which the first death produces, but I surrender my will entirely to Him, for He is my all in all. It is very blessed when we come to this. Many, nay, every believer rejoices that he has passed through the first death on himself, but yet he may not accept cheerfully that everything here to him should die, and that he himself should survive, like a pelican in the wilderness, or as a sparrow on the housetop. It is very cheering the way the Lord proves every one of us “He stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind”. (Isaiah 27: 8) But He desires to have our hearts absolutely: “son, give me thine heart”. (Proverbs 23: 26)