Hebrews. 4:12-16; 10:19-23
Chapter four of Hebrews is the character of Christ’s support to me here on the earth. It is no question of sin. Priesthood is for me a poor feeble person down here. We are going on to the rest, and how are we to get on by the way? Chapter four tells us how Christ supplies us as we pass on through this world. The first thing is the Word of God; the second, the sympathy of Christ. I could not be sustained here where Christ is not, save by the grace of Christ. I have His sympathy.
In John 11, I find two sisters, both believers, suffering from the same affliction, a very terrible bereavement, they both are suffering, but in very different states of soul, and we see how the Lord meets and deals with each. When a soul goes wrong it is not priesthood sets him right; it is advocacy; the advocate has to do with sin.
If I am not subject to the Word, I do not get the Lord’s sympathy. See the difference between His way with Martha and with Mary, though both were suffering, and He loved them both; but one was subject to Him, the other was not. He gave Martha no sympathy. She was not subject. He does not go a step along with her. He stayed “in that place where Martha met Him.” He did not advance at all.
But when Mary comes to Him, we see His sympathy. He comes along side of her, as it were. He groans in His spirit. He is feeling what death is. He says to her, I have a deeper sense of death than you have. They were right to feel the death of their brother, but they were to be subject to the Lord in it.
Sympathy is that I feel what you feel. A great characteristic of Christ’s sympathy is that He always. presents Himself in the character that suits the person with whom He sympathizes. Trial does not soften people; sympathy does. This terrible bereavement was used by the Lord as an opportunity to acquaint Mary with the heart she would never lose, with all the depth and tenderness of the love that could never be taken from her; so that “out of the eater came forth meat.”
Weakness is not sinfulness. If a thing is wrong, Christ does not sympathize with us in it; nevertheless His love never ceases. He says;
“I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” (Heb. 13:5).
But He does not show sympathy to a person that is perverse; the Word must deal with that person.
I often ask myself, Does the Lord sympathize with me in this? The first ministry of His grace brings the soul to understand, “I have considered for you.” Is the Lord thinking about me? Yes, what I want is the Lord’s grace. I know Him, I belong to Him, I feed on the manna, Christ on earth.
If I have not the sense that the Lord sympathizes with me, that He is looking after my affairs, I cannot turn round and think of His affairs. If you can, “the God of peace shall be with you.”
“Whatsoever things are true,... think on these things.”
If I am not going in company with the Lord, I am worried about my own affairs, but if I have the sympathy of Christ, I shall not be worried, I know that He is thinking about my affairs, and I leave them all to Him.
The Lord grant that each of us may know better His sympathy as we walk through this evil world.