THE great world and its people are sick unto death, sick with the leprosy of sin, miserable with all its out-springing accompaniments and progeny,—vice and crime and disease,—doomed unto death. Yet even in these conditions "hope springs eternal in the human breast," false tho that hope often be; and many are happy for little times and enjoy "the pleasures of sin for a season." Some do not know that they are sick; that the virus of the leprosy of sin is in their veins, and they go on carelessly for years, consuming in pleasure or selfish pursuit the abundance of health and life, unmindful of the certain end.
BUT sooner or later crises come. The rosy cheek grows pale; the strong limbs totter; the stout heart beats feebly. Moral failure, open shame, sickness, the loss of property or friends or loved ones, afflict the soul, and it longs for consolation in some source of relief from poignant grief and agony, or keen and bitter disappointment. Where will the soul find it?
SHALL we seek consolation in the sources whence the world for ages has vainly sought to draw it? Why repeat the folly and reap its reward, disappointment? Shall we seek comfort or consolation in the light, the trivial, the foolish? So some recommend. Such things may divert us for a time, but they neither strengthen us nor fit us to strengthen others. They are like the heathen fetish which the pagan priest gives to the afflicted mother, and tells her that the spirit of her child inhabits it.
CHRIST THE CONSOLER.
The poor woman talks to it, but it does not answer. She carries and fondles the ugly image, but there is no response to her caresses. Her heart is uncomforted, her grief unconsolable. Cicero, when his daughter died, sought consolation in writing a book on all the consoling things which a pagan philosophy offered, but his grief was not assuaged. He finally sought consolation in erecting to his beloved Tullia a monument in the gardens of Rome, but this merely ameliorated his grief; it did not comfort his heart.
SOME persons in affliction seek diversion in the beauties and bounties of nature, in the pleasure of travel and art and scenery, in conversation with the wise and witty and agreeable, in a thousand and one things which divert and cause to forget, but do not cure. The heart is just as weak when the next affliction comes, just as sore under the next sorrow, and grows in anguish equally under the next great grief. The old remedies are not sufficient for this sorrow, and new sources of relief must be sought. And, O, so many lives drift on and on, uncomforted, unconsoled, unto the great, dark, boundless night of death.
YET there is a Consoler who is able to comfort. He can comfort the soul who awakes to the despairing consciousness that he is afflicted with the4deadly virus of the leprosy of sin, and is therefore under the just wrath of God and is doomed to death. The divine Consoler, Christ Jesus, does not comfort you by telling you that you have not the leprosy badly; that there is no serious outbreaking symptom; that you need not be worried for a long time, etc., etc. He does not say that your sin is small; that your case is not comparable to the thief, or the adulterer, or the murderer. All such comfort is futile and deceptive, and dooms to disappointment. The divine Consoler does not falsify your case. He does not minimize your diseased condition. He knows that the human "heart is deceitful above all things, and it is desperately sick." But His remedy is efficacious. It can cure the sin-sick heart. It can cleanse the sin-sick soul. "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." He receives the soul who comes to Him, and stands before the throne of God in his place. He reaches down to the crimson-dyed, scarlet-stained sinner, and in tones divinely heartening says: "Come on now, and let us plead together." Isa. 1:18 (Lowth's rendering). "Tho your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; tho they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." There is consolation in this; for He who cleanses by His word is able to keep by His word, even to the end. John 15:3; Rev. 3:10.
THERE is consolation to the sorrowing. Have you lost the sordid wealth of earth? There was no comfort in it anyway; and He will give you the riches of His grace, and access to the divine storehouse in their stead. Rom. 5:2. Have you lost friends and loved ones?—He will prove to you a Friend, such as no earthly friends you ever knew. He suffered the vacancy to come into your life that He might fill it with His own fragrant presence. He has suffered you to know disappointment that you might learn His appointment. There is but a change of letter in the two terms, but that represents a change of infinite importance. He assures you that "to them that love God, God worketh all things with them for good." He does not want you to go on in mere selfish enjoyment, for that, too, will end in death. He longs that your enjoyment shall be larger, and therefore you must have fellowship in Christ's sufferings, that you may be partakers in His joy. Then you can say: "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort: who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ."
"Who is among you that feareth Jehovah?
That obeyeth the voice of His servant?
He that walketh in darkness, and hath no light,
Let him trust in the name of Jehovah,
And rely upon his God."
"For tho the fig-tree shall not flourish,
Neither shall fruit be in the vines;
The labor of the olive shall fail,
And the fields shall yield no food;
The flocks shall be cut off from the fold,
And there shall be no herd in the stalls;
Yet I will rejoice in Jehovah,
I will joy in the God of my salvation.
Jehovah, the Lord, is my strength."
