HAS God allowed sorrow to come? Have you lost some one very dear to you? Have trials or losses fallen to your lot? Sickness and disappointments? If so, depend upon it, there is blessing waiting for you! “The end of the Lord... is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.” Take care you do not miss the end the Lord has in view. Turn to Him. Humble yourself before Him, like Manasseh. Ask Him why He has allowed, and permitted, the deep waters you are in?
“God nothing does, nor suffers to be done,
But what thou would’st thyself,
Could’st thou but see
Through all the events of time, as well as He.”
An old lady with whom I was conversing said to me, “The death of my husband was the life of my soul.” She had lived without God until death robbed her of the dearest on earth. She turned to God in her sorrow, she reaped the blessedness spoken of by David when he wrote, “Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord,” and, in her old age, could rejoice that her darkest hour of sorrow became the harbinger of an eternal day of joy. She found the end of the Lord, she could sing,
“Thy mercy found me in my sins,
And gave me to believe;
Then, in believing, peace I found,
And in Thy Christ I live.”
What God desires and seeks is your soul’s welfare. He is not willing that any should perish. He will have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, you among them. Let me tell you how He reached a bereaved and sorrowing husband. He had all this world could give, easy circumstances, a good home, health, friends. A wife who loved him tenderly, and whose love he reciprocated with the most ardent affection. She was everything to him. The hand of death came, and when his wife breathed her last breath he could not believe she had gone. He folded her in his arms, pressed her to his heart; alas, the only response was icy coldness, and the immobility of death! When at last it dawned upon him that she was really gone, the pent-up grief of his heart burst forth into sorrowful wailing and lamenting tears. Hard, bitter thoughts of God filled his soul. His wife had been a Christian. He was one in name only. He had never known the healing virtue of Christ’s precious blood. He did not know God as the Father of Mercies, as the God of all comfort. He had none to whom he could turn in his hour of sorrow. He could only weep as he dwelt upon the desolation which had come into his house and heart.
Not far away lived an old Scotchwoman named Jenny. She had very little of this world’s goods. Her cottage was a tumbled down affair, and, like herself, crumbling to decay. A straw bed, a broken chair, a board for a table, was about the sum and substance of her earthly possessions; but if she was poor in this world’s goods, she was rich in faith. She could look forward to a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. The presence of her Saviour filled her heart, and amidst all her poverty she was the possessor of untold wealth. Through Christ’s poverty she had become rich.
The dead lady had been very kind to her, often giving her food, and speaking comforting words, so she felt she must make an effort and go to the funeral. As she stood round the grave Jenny’s heart bled for the sorrow-stricken husband. His face of blank despair was white and rigid. Jenny whispered to one of her friends, “The puir body, does he na ken God?” This thought haunted her so much that the next day the old woman might have been seen slowly toiling up the hill to the rich man’s house. The servant who opened the door refused her admittance, but she would not be denied. “Tell your master a poor mean body has come to gi’e him comfort”. The servant said he received no ‘visitors. “Dinna stand looking in my face, mon,” she continued; “go tell him I have brought him a message from the Lord of Life and Glory.”
The servant went, returned, and ushered Jenny into a darkened room. There, rocking himself backward and forward, with his forehead bowed in his hands, a white handkerchief thrown over his head, covering his dry tearless eyes, sat the bereaved husband. Jenny stood in the doorway and said, “The Lord comfort ye.”
He beckoned her to come in and be seated. She advanced, and standing directly opposite to him said, “My mon was drowned in the loch, my two children lay dead together in these arms, my mither was stone blind, and naebody but me to the fore. I ha’e seen affliction in every shape, I tide seen poverty and sickness, but God’s Word was true to this day. I hugged it to my bosom, and found it dearer than husband or bairns; and so will you, puir mon, if you will believe it.”
“It’s all dark, Jenny, all dark; I have buried all my happiness in my wife’s grave.”
“Dear mon, ye may be happy this moment if ye sorrow wi’ a godly sorrow. Do you believe such a man as Jesus Christ ever spoke on this earth?”
“I must believe it,” he replied.
“Well, now, fist; I want to tell you what He did speak. He spoke these words ‘Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.’ Mind ye, these were the words of a God.”
Her listener started up exclaiming, “Find it for me, Jenny, for oh, I want comfort; I am almost overwhelmed in the deep waters!”
“Get your Bible, and find it for yourself,” exclaimed Jenny in her abrupt manner. “Stir yourself to know God’s counsel, ye ha’e been long enough without it, pair mon. I tell you, mon, God never lies; He has taken that bonny wife to Himself to save your soul, and you must mourn with a godly sorrow, and ye will get such comfort that ye’ll think the very Son of God Himself glorifies your room.”
“Jenny,” he replied, “I would give all the world to feel His comfort.”
“You’re a brave mon, to give what isn’t your own—a pretty gift the Lord would think it! I would na thank ye, if ye said, ‘Jenny, I will give you the house over yonder,’ when I know it belongs to Squire M—. Na, na, be not so boastful; gi’e what belongs to you, your own puir sinful heart, and He’ll show why He took the sweet lady. Oh, my dear mon, mourn before God, an’ you’ll bless the day poor old Jenny came to the great house to tell ye about Christ.”
Old Jenny departed. Her message remained. The words struck home. He got into the presence of God. He found he was all wrong. Sorrow for sin filled his heart as he reviewed the past; repentance toward God followed. Many a visit was paid to old Jenny’s hovel. At length he got comfort, but such comfort as he had never expected. He found life where death had been. God is the God of all comfort. He knows how to comfort the sin-stricken as well as the bereaved. The bereaved husband lived to testify to the all-sufficiency of God to bring the highest good out of the most seeming evil.
He is the same God today. Whatever your sorrow, only turn to God. The Lord often visits men in order that they might turn to Him. “Lord, in trouble have they visited thee; they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them” (Isa. 26:1616Lord, in trouble have they visited thee, they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them. (Isaiah 26:16)).
Manasseh is an illustration of this. His wickedness had been great, but when he was in affliction he humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. And He was intreated of him and heard his supplication. “Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God” (2 Chron. 33:1212And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, (2 Chronicles 33:12)).
Elihu said, “If men be holden in cords of affliction, then he showeth them their work, and their transgressions that they have exceeded. He openeth also their ear to discipline, and commandeth that they return from iniquity” (Job 36:8-108And if they be bound in fetters, and be holden in cords of affliction; 9Then he showeth them their work, and their transgressions that they have exceeded. 10He openeth also their ear to discipline, and commandeth that they return from iniquity. (Job 36:8‑10)). Solomon tells us the “house of mourning” is better than the “house of feasting” (Eccles. 8:23).
Death, losses, broken health, failing friendships, all have one end in view. God is weaning your heart from earth, and fixing it on heaven, turning you from sin and disappointment here, to find rest, peace, joy, and satisfaction in Jesus.
Beloved reader, whatever your sorrow, God has a voice to you in it. Harden not your heart, close not your ears, turn to God in your misery, and you shall be comforted with everlasting consolation.
H. N.
PEOPLE have often a much clearer view of the work of Christ than they have of what it is to walk with Christ as a living person ever occupied with them; and until they get this they will not walk with Him. We cannot walk with Christ in that vivacity of joy, and power of the Holy Ghost which the early Christians had, unless we know Christ as a living person with His eyes ever fixed upon us.
G. V. W.