the Fourth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Mornings and Evenings with Jesus
Hath he smitten him as he smote those that smote him? or is he slain according to the slaughter of them that are slain by him? In measure, when it shooteth forth, thou wilt debate with it: he stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind. - Isaiah 27:7-8.
THE afflictions of the Lord’s people are never unalloyed. However severe the trial or painful the affliction, there are many alleviations. Let us take our condition, however trying, and we shall see whether there is nothing in the time, the place, the manner, or the nature of the affliction that is not calculated to alleviate the suffering, or lessen its pressure. Let candour, let gratitude, let truth, examine into the circumstances of the case, and we shall discover that it might have been much worse, much more painful, and more difficult to bear. If we take our case and lay it by the side of our desert, what should we have suffered had he “dealt with us after our sins, or rewarded us according to our iniquities”? And, if we place our trouble by the side of the condition of others, we shall find that, though we may have lost much of our substance, they have nothing left.
Some may have buried one of their children, but the grave has written others childless in the earth. Some walk upon crutches, but others are bedridden. Some have months of vanity, but others have wearisome nights, and the multitude of their bones is filled with strong pain. But, oh, let us think of the sufferings of Jesus,-think of his dignity, of his pre-existent state, of his innocency. We suffer justly, for we suffer the due reward of our deeds; but he did no evil. He could say to his most inveterate foes, “Which of you convinceth me of sin?” Yet see him. We suffer partially, but he suffered in every part that was capable of pain. We suffer occasionally, and for hours and days of pain we have weeks and months of ease and pleasure. His sufferings extended from the manger to the cross. He was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”
Our sufferings are unforeseen by us; his were known from the beginning, and he bore them in prospect before he endured them in reality; and what tongue can express-whose imagination can conceive-what he endured when “he began to be sore amazed, and very heavy”? when his “soul was exceeding sorrowful even unto death”? when “his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground”? when he exclaimed, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
“Now let our pains be all forgot,
Our hearts no more repine;
Our sufferings are not worth a thought
When, Lord, compared with thine.”
Bless the Lord, O my soul, who healeth all thy diseases, who redeemeth thy life from destruction. - Psalms 103:2-4.
WHAT is required of those who have experienced at the hand of the great Physician his recovering mercy? First, To be adoringly thankful; and shall not we call upon our souls, and all that is within us, to bless his holy name that he restoreth our souls, that he healeth our bruised hearts, and bindeth up our wounds; and shall we not make the grateful acknowledgment, “Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling; therefore will I walk before the Lord in the land of the living;” presenting “our bodies unto him as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service.”
Secondly, If we are healed, it is our duty to recommend our gracious deliverer to others, to tell them “what a dear Saviour we have found.” We often observe in the public prints acknowledgments from patients when they have obtained relief, and those acknowledgments arise from two things-from compassion towards their fellow sufferers, and also a regard to the physician. If all the cases which our Saviour has cured from the beginning had been so testified of, the world, I suppose, would not contain the books that would be written. Hereafter they will all be made known, to the honour of this Physician, “when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe.” Let us be concerned, therefore, to seize every opportunity to tell what God hath done for our souls. If we do this with simplicity and sincerity, we maybe the means of saving souls from death; and the deliverance of one soul from Spiritual death is of more consequence than the delivering of an empire from civil bondage. But let us be careful to recommend the great Physician by our lives as well as our lips, by our tempers as well as our tongues.
“Thus shall we best proclaim abroad
The honours of our Saviour God,
When the salvation reigns within,
And grace subdues the power of sin.”
Thirdly, If we have been healed, let us avoid a relapse, and abstain from those indulgences from which we have suffered so much already. Let us guard against the sin which doth so easily beset, and by which we have been so degraded and injured, and brought down to the very gates of death and hell, taking heed to what our Saviour said: “Go thy way and sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon thee;” and as David said: “Ye that fear the Lord hate evil.”
