SUMMER AND WINTER
SUMMER AND WINTER
In my judgment the Lord’s way with you is the natural one; I mean by natural, that it is according to divine order. There are two ways in which He deals with souls: out of the depths of sorrow or sickness leading into light, or after a season of special brightness leading one into the desert. The latter is the way in which He has dealt with you. You had a bright summer before this long and dreary winter set in; but this is the natural way; and unless the winter follows summer, there will be no real strength in the growths of summer.
It was thus with Abraham after he had seen the [p. 237] star-lit sky, and had by faith apprehended the evidence of things not seen; he was subjected to a deep sleep and horror of great darkness. And so it was with Saul of Tarsus. After his stay in paradise he was assaulted in a new and most painful way, marking the contrast of the two scenes; and thus, I apprehend, it has been with you.
The Lord first revealed to you the excellence and beauty of His presence and sphere; and then He subjected you to a deep painful sense of your own feebleness, in order that you might know that His gift to you was entirely independent of and apart from anything in yourself, nay, in spite of it. If, like a Jonah, you had learnt the delight out of the depths, you would be true and devoted, but not with a broken or subject will; you would still require the experience of the loss of the gourd, a further learning. But when you have learnt the Lord’s side first, and then are set to learn your own side, you come forth delighting in Christ because yourself is entirely in contrast. Learning the good out of the effects of evil is too much of the nature of simple relief, and you must be subjected to great darkness again, as Jonah was in the matter of the gourd, in order that you may prove where your resources are. In the one case, you are subjected to the contrast in order to enhance the perfection made known to you; and in the other, you are introduced into the contrast from relief.
I mean that here lies the difference between those who are subjected to darkness, the practical death here, after knowing Christ in glory, and those who are, Jonah-like, led to see Him out of the depths.
If I am right in my opinion, you ought to come forth now counting everything loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. You had learnt joyfully of His beauty before; now in contrast, you have seen the weakness and unprofitableness of yourself, and of everything; the best of you is as nothing, and He is everything.
[p. 238] This I trust will be the happy and effectual result of your late time of trial.