Frivolous or foolish conversation or actions sometimes bring clouds over our sky. The Spirit reproves us and we see our fault. To chide and condemn ourselves does no good. The only profitable thing for us to do at such times is to be open-hearted and frank toward the Lord and tell him about it, to ask his help that we may do better the next time, and to determine in our hearts that we will do better. I do not mean that we should get into bondage. God wants us to be free, to live naturally, and not to live under a strain, but to exercise a proper degree of caution.
I suppose we all have regrets and come more or less short of our ideals at times. But if we are as careful and as true as we ought to be, we shall not have so many of these home-made clouds; but if we do have them, let us bear up patiently. It will do no good to chastise ourselves. The only thing we can do that will be profitable is to trust in the Lord, and go ahead until the darkness passes away and the sun shines again. Let us be true to God and hold fast our confidence and our decision to serve him and be ready to confess our faults before him. He will treat our faults as faults, not as sins. He will not cut us off for such things. He will have mercy upon us and will show his loving-kindness toward us. Let us therefore trust in him and make as few of these home-made clouds as possible.
TALK THIRTEEN. IT PLEASED THE LORD TO BRUISE HIM
It is a mystery in the minds of many why Christian people often have to suffer. With all the promises of physical healing, they still are many times in pain, notwithstanding God’s faithfulness and his omnipresence. They also suffer temptations, persecutions, and soul-conflicts. How can we explain these things? How can we harmonize these with the teachings of a loving God? When we read Paul’s experience, we find it largely a record of privation and suffering, of sorrow and heaviness. It is true that in it all there is a note of joy and an unquenchable shout of victory, but nevertheless soul, mind, and body often had to endure the lash of pain. Did God love him? Why, then, must such things be?
God loved Christ with a perfect love, but we read that “although he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth, yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him; he hath put him to grief” (Isa. 53: 9, 10, A.S.V.). What strange language! He had done no evil, he was guilty of nothing, and yet “it _pleased_ the Lord to bruise him.” Is it true that love is tender, the tenderest of all things, and yet can bruise and find pleasure in it? But this is just what happened. Jesus, the innocent Lamb of God, was “smitten, stricken of God.” When we remember Gethsemane, the crown of thorns, the cruel cross, it does not seem an act of love for God to give his Son over to such suffering; yet it was love, truest love. Why did God thus deal with him? It was not because the Father-heart did not feel that agony. It was the only means to an end, and love desired that end so much that it pleased it to make the great sacrifice that out of it might come the infinite joy of a world’s redemption.