UNKNOWN

UNKNOWN

“The Lord is full of tender compassion and pitiful”, and He enters fully and sympathetically into all the sorrows of His own. And none of those sorrows are more acute and distressing than those which affect the mind, and particularly when they are such as to cloud the present enjoyment of spiritual things.

There may be times in the history of His beloved saints when, as to their own consciousness, they walk in darkness and have no light, though fearing God. To such the prophet has a sweet word of cheer: he says, “Let him confide in the name of Jehovah, and stay himself upon his God”, Isaiah 50: 10.

^[p. 370] It is far better even to be in such a case than to be amongst those who compass themselves about with sparks of their own kindling. Blessing is assured to all those who fear God, and who value His favour, even though they may be distressed by not being conscious of that favour. The very fact that they long for the light of His countenance to shine upon them is the proof that He has effected new birth, and He will not fail to carry through the gracious work which He has begun.

There are many deep and agonising experiences recounted in the Psalms which saints of God have gone through, and which others will yet have to go through, and we may be quite sure that not one of these experiences is overlooked by the blessed God, or will fail to find its answer in His wonderful light which shines in Christ.

Many such exercises are, no doubt, the result of the workings of unbelief, or mixtures of unbelief, for how often, practically, faith and unbelief are side by side in the soul! The distressed father said, “Lord, I believe”, but he added, “help thou mine unbelief”, conscious that the latter element was there, though now a sorrow and hindrance to him which he would fain be helped to overcome.

Nervous conditions have a great deal to do with many cases such as you speak of. They are simply cases of extreme physical depression in which everything looks black. Those thus suffering should remember to say continually, “This is my weakness”, and also to remember, “the years of the right hand of the Most High”, Psalm 77: 10. There is that at the right hand of God which is “changeless through all the changing years”. Christ is there in all His blessedness, the delight of God’s heart, and His salvation for men.

What a comfort to see that another Man altogether has come in on God’s part, and that all that God is in grace shines in Him, and God’s salvation is there in its blessed completeness! All that could possibly be experienced of what we are, or of what we are subject to when our nerves get out of order, cannot affect the glorious Man at God’s right hand. He is salvation for us in its fulness.

There may be ten thousand complications in our actual experience: we have been great sinners, we have failed much as believers, we have not had the joy we might have had, or even ought to have had, we have not been faithful as we ought. Exercise as to all these things would be right and godly, but ^[p. 371] when nervous or mental disorder is present the mind dwells on them morbidly, and the enemy does not fail to use them as a darkening cloud over the soul.

But then all these things only serve to prove to us that what we need is something which comes in from God, complete in perfection as being of Him, and wholly apart from everything connected with our moral or physical condition as born into this world. Death is upon all that, and we have to learn it, so as to be intensely thankful to know that death has come upon it in the Person of a divinely provided Saviour and Redeemer.

This clears the way for us to be linked with Christ, and to know that He is made of God to be wisdom for us, and righteousness, and holiness, and redemption.

The Spirit witnesses to the perfection of Christ and to the completeness of the way in which He has glorified God. And even if I lose, through my infirmity, the consciousness of it, it remains in all its blessedness, and God will in His faithfulness bring me from under the cloud. While under it I must humble myself before God as to what I am, while counting confidently (as His grace and mercy would enable me to do) upon being exalted in due time, not in myself, but in that glorious Man who is His light and His salvation for me.

The world is full of people who are satisfied with themselves, who have no conviction of being all wrong, and who are happy in a dreadful way without Christ.

What a mercy it is to be amongst the humble, the contrite, the broken in heart! those who cannot find a spot in themselves on which they can rest complacently! who can only sigh and cry, and smite on their breasts, and feel that nothing but mercy will do for them! The fulness of Christ is for such; the heart of God in all its full measure is set free to pour itself out into repentant souls. He is glorified in blessing them in Christ.

There may still be depression and trying experiences when the nerves and mind are disordered. But all this belongs to the outward man, not the inward. It belongs to that which will be entirely left behind at the rapture, or at the moment of departure. It belongs to the perishing order.

I will add, before I close, that I do not believe any experience of those who fear God will be without some answer ultimately that will be for His praise.

^[p. 372] We learn in a variety of ways that we have a link with the creature of vanity; we have to feel the bondage and the burden that has come into creation. But we learn to look out for a deliverance that shall be worthy of God, and every experience of the vanity and bondage will enhance our appreciation of the deliverance.

There could be no sympathy with a groaning creation if we had not learned what it was to groan as part of it. But if I groan I shall also sing, for I believe it will be found that every groan has something to contribute to the tuning of the stringed instrument on which God’s praise will be sounded eternally.