THE SINNER’S FRIEND by Augusta W. Heald

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 2, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 34.

THE SINNER’S FRIEND.

By Augusta W. Heald

We have seen in past articles that the Lord Jesus is the great Physician and the divine Teacher; but there is yet a nearer and dearer relationship which he assumes toward sinful man. Christ said to his disciples, “Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth; but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.” John 15:15. “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you; continue ye in my love.” John 15:9.

Nor was the divine love confined to the inner circle of the chosen twelve. When the proud Pharisees reproached our Lord, calling him the friend of publicans and sinners, he did not deny the charge, but said, “I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Matt. 9:13.

The love of Jesus reaches out to the vilest sinner; it embraces the whole human race. In the arms of infinite love our divine Friend desires to present each one faultless before his Father’s throne. This Friend is omniscient and omnipotent. He knows the grief we dare not breathe to mortal ear; he knows each trial and difficulty; he knows when we tremble and faint beneath the burden, and in tenderest compassion he says, “Come unto me, . . . and I will give you rest.” Matt. 11:28. He knows each feeble impulse toward the good and every secret inclination to sin; his power will help us to cherish the one and combat the other.

When the woman who was a sinner, accused by scribes and Pharisees, stood before Jesus, he read each heart, and as the conscience-stricken hypocrites went out one by one from his presence, he said to the woman, “Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more.” John 8:11. And when, afterward, the sinful but repentant one came to Jesus as he sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, “and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet,” and anointed them with costly ointment, did he scorn the humble ministration?—No, but he said to the penitent woman, “Thy sins are forgiven.” “Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.” See Luke 7:38-50.

Is your life record marred and blotted? Have you sinned again and again? But are you repentant? Do you desire the Lord Jesus to be your Friend? He will not tell you nay.

“Not till earth, and not till heaven pass away.”

He has already laid down his life for you, and can he now refuse? “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13. “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Rom. 5:8. Will we not respond to this

“Love divine, all excelling,”

by offering the heart’s best affections as a fitting acknowledgment? This is all we have to give; it is all he requires.

But how shall finite man show himself the friend of the infinite God? how show that the heart’s affections are consecrated to him? “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.” John 15:14. “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.” John 15:10. “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” John 13:34, 35. These words of our Lord are not generally heeded, and hence to acknowledge their claims involves a separation from the world. As said the apostle, “The friendship of the world is enmity with God.” James 4:4.

But said Jesus to his friends: “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.” “The servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.” John 15:18, 20.

How the loving heart of the Saviour yearned over his chosen ones, as he was about to leave them to the persecutions of an ungodly world! How tenderly he pleads in their behalf: “Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.” “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.” “Sanctify them through thy truth.” John 17:11, 15, 17. Think not that this divine prayer was offered only for the chosen twelve: “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.” John 17:20, 21.

And, O, most gracious petition of all: “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me; for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.” John 17:24. Thus did the blessed Jesus declare himself the sinner’s Friend, and, “having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.” John 13:1.

“O, for grace our hearts to soften! Teach us, Lord, at length to love; We, alas, forget too often What a Friend we have above.”

AUGUSTA W. HEALD.