These are God’s own words! Man cannot say so. There are many sensitive fibers in the soul, which the best and tenderest human sympathy cannot touch. But the Prince of Sufferers, He who led the way in the path of sorrow, “knows our frame.”
When crushing bereavement lies like ice on the heart–when the dearest earthly friend cannot enter into the peculiarities of our grief–Jesus can! Jesus does! He who once bore my sins–also carried my sorrows. That eye, now on the throne–was once dim with weeping! …
He may seem at times thus to forget and forsake us–leaving us to utter the plaintive cry, “Has God forgotten to be gracious?” When all the while, He is bending over us in tenderest love. He often allows our needs to reach their extremity–that He may stretch forth His supporting hand, and reveal the plenitude of His grace! “You can see how the Lord was kind to Job at the end–for the Lord is full of tenderness and mercy!” James 5:11
“You keep track of my sorrows! You have collected my tears in Your bottle and recorded each one in Your book!” Psalm 56:8. Each one is counted and recorded–drop by drop–tear by tear! Tears are God’s sacred treasures!
Suffering believer, the iron may have entered deeply into your soul; yet rejoice! Jesus, a sorrowing, sympathizing Jesus–“knows” your aching pangs and burning tears, and He will “come down to deliver you!”
And of this divine sympathy, we are also assured in the New Testament,
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tested in every way, just as we are!” Hebrews 4:15. What an elevating truth! We have the Sympathy of the God-Man-Mediator in our sorrows! What a green pasture to lie down upon, amid the windy storm and tempest, or in the dark and cloudy day!
Jesus has Himself passed through every experience of woe. There are no depths of sorrow or anguish into which I can be plunged–but His everlasting arms are lower still!
Child of Sorrow! A human heart beats on Heaven’s Throne–and He has your name written on that heart! He cares for you as if no other claimed His regard–as if you were the only object of His care!
He “has been tested in every way, just as we are!” Blessed assurance! I never can know a sorrow into which the “Man of Sorrow” cannot enter. Ah rather, in the midst of earth’s most lacerating trials–let me listen to the unanswerable challenge from the lips of a suffering Savior, “Was there ever any sorrow, like unto My sorrow!” Yet He willingly drank the cup of wrath! He did not shrink back from the appointed cross! And even when He hung upon the bitter tree–He refused the sour wine which would have assuaged the rage of thirst and mitigated physical suffering.
Are we tempted at times to murmur under God’s hand? “Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart!”
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