IS IT WELL WITH YOU?
The question was put to this woman, “Is it well with thee?” That is what we might say to one another when we meet. We would ask, ‘How are you?’, and we might get a very quick and easy answer, ‘I am well’; but it may not be true. That is what this woman did here. She was asked this question, “Is it well with thee” and she said, “It is well”. But it was not well – her son had just died. It is one thing for us to ask another person, ‘Are you well?’, but if God asks you that question, you cannot pretend you are well when you are not, because God knows. And the prophet knew; he said, “her soul is troubled within her”. She pretended that she was well when she was not.
God has an interest in our souls. You might ask, ‘What is my soul?’ I would say, ‘It is you’. God is interested in how you are in your soul. It is good if you are troubled in your soul. It shows that God is working there in your conscience. But if you are troubled in your soul about your sins, there is good news in the glad tidings. God has the answer to your soul trouble. He has the answer in One who said, “Now is my soul troubled”, John 12:27. How much that meant to the Lord Jesus! His soul was troubled about what lay before Him. He went that way, dear friend, that you might have peace in your soul. If you have peace with God, you can sing truly, ‘It is well, it is well with my soul’ (Hymn 238). I trust that everyone in this room can truly say that. The man who wrote that hymn was in circumstances of awful trouble, yet he was able to write ‘it is well with my soul’.
The woman in John 4 said, “Come, see a man who told me all things I had ever done: is not he the Christ?” (v.29). The Lord Jesus knows all about us. The blessed Man of whom that woman spoke was on His way to the cross. God knows every detail of our lives, all the sins we have committed, yet He does not have an accusing attitude towards you, dear friend. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them (2 Cor.5:19). What a wonderful thing that was. The Lord Jesus was here in lowly manhood, having compassion for persons, knowing them better than they knew themselves, and yet He was marked by wonderful grace. Dear friend, if it was true that God was against you as a judge, you would run away. But He is not. His attitude is one of forgiveness, righteously based on the work of His beloved Son on the cross. How much the Lord Jesus suffered from men, men energised by Satan who did their very worst to the meekest, lowliest Man who ever trod this earth. He was the lowly, unresisting Sufferer. Does it not attract our hearts to Him, the meek way in which He suffered at the hands of the very creatures He had made? And yet He said on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”, Luke 23:34. That call for forgiveness gives character to this whole dispensation.
It is wonderful good news for us as sinners. You are either a saved sinner or an unsaved sinner. You know which class you are in. Think about the Lord Jesus on that cross, about those three hours of darkness when He cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”, Matt.27:46. Why was He forsaken? Because He was there as made sin under the righteous and holy judgment of God. It is a marvel to me how such a sinless, holy One could be made sin. How did that come to pass? Scripture tells us that the One who knew not sin was made sin for us (2 Cor.5:21). How much that meant for the Lord Jesus! The One who through the whole of His life was the object of God’s favour became the object of God’s wrath. He did that for me, dear friend. Can you say that He took that place for you? If you can say that, you can sing, ‘It is well, it is well with my soul’. The Lord Jesus exhausted that judgment against sin upon the cross, and He emerged from that judgment. Then He died; He died for me. The apostle says, “Christ died for our sins” (1 Cor.15:3); He shed His precious blood and He was buried. But God raised Him from among the dead, leaving every other person who had died still in death; He chose that One and raised Him. Now He is at God’s right hand, available as a Saviour for sinners. He asked the Father to send forth the Holy Spirit, and gave believers the gift of the Holy Spirit. Therefore there is forgiveness of sins available through the work of Christ, and there is the gift of the Holy Spirit. These are two very important things.
Dear friend, are you troubled about your sins? There is no need to continue in that state of soul; “repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21) is the way into the blessing of the glad tidings. That scripture is not only about what is initial. Repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ are to characterise us, because as believers in the Lord Jesus, we still sin. But the Lord Jesus wants you to have an undisturbed relationship with Him, that you might enjoy a close and personal relationship with Him. It is a wonderful thing that as soon as you believe on the Lord Jesus, there is an eternal bond there that will never be broken. But we need to be maintained in full communion with the Lord Jesus – through repentance if as a believer you have sinned, and through faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. You have that blessed Man who is your Saviour and Lord as your Object, the One who can satisfy your heart, not only because of what He has done for you in His precious work, but because of what He is in the attractiveness of His person. There is what is inexhaustible in the Lord Jesus. In eternity, we will not exhaust the glory and the personal worth of the Lord Jesus. Dear friend, never, ever, think of neglecting your link, your personal link, with the Lord Jesus. You might get into a pattern of not speaking to Him, not praying to Him, and you might say to yourself, ‘My life is just the same’, and so you do not miss Him. But dear friend, He misses you! He wants your company. It is the only way you can be preserved in this scene of His rejection. It is the only way that you can truly say as a believer in the Lord Jesus that it is well with your soul. What glorious glad tidings God has for you, giving the gift of the Holy Spirit to those who believe and repent, so that you might have that real link with Christ where He is. I mentioned peace with God earlier; that is a wonderful thing which no one can disturb, based on faith in the finished work of Christ. If you can truly say that you know Him as your Saviour, and that it is well with your soul, then He wants to be your Lord. You have trusted your soul, your eternal salvation, to Him, but what about the time that is left until He comes? Are you going to be here for Him? You belong to Him. He has bought you with His precious blood. Therefore, dear friend, there is no one who cares about you as much as He does. He will do the best for you, better than anyone else can do, and He knows what is best for you. The way to being sustained here as a Christian is to be subject to the Lord Jesus and to be here in some little measure for Him.
There was a man in prison called Joseph, and there was another man in prison with him, Pharaoh’s cupbearer. Joseph said that the cupbearer was going to be released from prison and asked him to “bear a remembrance with thee of me when it goes well with thee, and deal kindly, I pray thee, with me”, Gen.40:14. The Lord Jesus has done everything for you and He is asking us as lovers of Himself to bear a remembrance of Him when it goes well with us. And it certainly has gone well with us, dear friends. We have joy in that glorious Man; joy and peace in believing. We have no fear of future judgment because He has exhausted God’s judgment against sin and sins. God, through grace, has provided us with a place eternally with Him. That moment will come, but until that time, the Lord Jesus asks us to bear a remembrance of Him. One distinctive way of doing that is remembering Him in the breaking of bread, as He said, “this do in remembrance of me”, Luke 22:19. What a precious thing that is, that we can remember in the scene of His rejection the One who loves us and therefore we love Him. Joseph was still in prison when he made that request. The Lord Jesus is still in rejection. The cupbearer was liberated and continued with his occupation of pressing the grapes into Pharaoh’s cup. When he did that, he should have thought of Joseph. In our lives and in our occupations, do we think of Him, and consider for Him? Are we living our lives around the Lord Jesus? That is another way in which we can bear a remembrance of Him – to consider what would be pleasing to Him. How the Lord appreciates lovers of Himself who have been saved through grace, loving Him and being in some measure here for the rejected Saviour. Soon He will be publicly owned. The sufferings of this present time are not to be compared with the coming glory (Rom.8:18). We have the presence of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, to sustain us and give us power to go through this scene rejoicing in our glorious Saviour and walking here in some measure in the path of His will.
What a change the glad tidings brings about in the lives of persons. We are all naturally selfish, but we have been brought to love the unselfish One, therefore we are to take character from the One we love, and we become formed in our spirits after that glorious Man in view of His coming for us. Do you have that hope – the soon coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? The apostle in writing to the Thessalonians speaks of our gathering together to Him (2 Thess.2:1). What a moment that will be, when He comes for everyone who loves Him. Will you be among that host, dear friend? The simple way of salvation is to acknowledge that you are a sinner and you will be immediately forgiven. God does not keep persons waiting. It has often been said, and this is our experience, that we sin more after conversion than before, but as you repent, God does not keep you waiting. His forgiveness is immediate. We sometimes quote the scripture in the Song of Songs, where the speaker says that she could not find the one that her soul loved (Song of Songs 3:1). That is not Christianity. Peter said, “Lord, save me” and immediately the Lord stretched out His hand and saved him (Matt.14:30). How great the work of Christ is and how great Christianity is! Divine Persons are for us far more that we realise. The Lord wants us for Himself, for His own enjoyment.
May we be encouraged, dear friends. As the apostle could say, “If God be for us, who against us?”, Rom.8:31. May the Lord bless the word.
Preaching of the gospel, Bad Endbach, Germany
2 October 2016
G.B. Grant
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