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Out of the Deep: Words for the Sorrowful
I. OUT OF THE DEEP OF SUFFERING AND SORROW
Save me, O God, for the waters are come in even unto my soul: I am come into deep waters; so that the floods run over me.
I am brought into so great trouble and misery: that I go mourning all the day long.
The sorrows of my heart are enlarged: Oh! bring Thou me out of my distress.
The Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping: the Lord will receive my prayer.
In the multitude of the sorrows which I had in my heart, Thy comforts have refreshed my soul.
Each heart knows its own bitterness; each soul has its own sorrow; each man’s life has its dark days of storm and tempest, when all his joys seem blown away by some sudden blast of ill-fortune, and the desire of his eyes is taken from him, and all his hopes and plans, all which he intended to do or to enjoy, are hid with blinding mist, so that he cannot see his way before him, and knows not whither to go, or whither to flee for help; when faith in God seems broken up for the moment, when he feels no strength, no purpose, and knows not what to determine, what to do, what to believe, what to care for; when the very earth seems reeling under his feet, and the fountains of the abyss are broken up.
When that day comes, let him think of God’s covenant and take heart. Is the sun’s warmth perished out of the sky because the storm is cold with hail and bitter winds? Is God’s love changed because we cannot feel it in our trouble? Is the sun’s light perished out of the sky because the world is black with cloud and mist? Has God forgotten to give light to suffering souls, because we cannot see our way for a few short days of perplexity?
No. God’s message to every sad and desolate heart on earth, is that God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all; that God is Love, and in Him there is no cruelty at all; that God is One, and in Him there is no change at all. And therefore we can pray boldly to Him, and ask Him to deliver us in the time of our tribulation and misery; in the hour of death, whether of our own death or the death of those we love; in the day of judgment, whereof it is written—“It is God who justifieth us; who is he that condemneth? It is Christ who died, yea, rather who is risen again, who even now maketh intercession for us.” To that boundless love of God, which He showed forth in the life of Christ Jesus; to that perfect and utter will to deliver us which God showed forth in the death of Christ Jesus, when the Father spared not His own Son, but gave Him freely for us; to that boundless love we may trust ourselves, our fortunes, our families, our bodies, our souls, and the bodies and souls of those we love.
To all, sooner or later, Christ comes to baptise them with fire. But do not think that the baptism of fire comes once for all to a man, in some one terrible affliction, some one awful conviction of his own sinfulness and nothingness. No; with many—and those perhaps the best people—it goes on month after month, year after year. By secret trials, chastenings, which none but they and God can understand, the Lord is cleansing them from their secret faults, and making them to understand wisdom secretly; burning out of them the chaff of self-will, and self-conceit, and vanity, and leaving only the pure gold of righteousness. How many sweet and holy souls, who look cheerful enough before the eyes of man, yet have their secret sorrows. They carry their cross unseen all day long, and lie down to sleep on it at night; and they will carry it perhaps for years and years, and to their graves, and to the throne of Christ before they lay it down; and none but they and Christ will ever know what it was; what was the secret chastisement which God sent to make that soul better which seemed to us already too good for earth. So does the Lord watch His people, and tries them with fire, as the refiner of silver sits by his furnaces watching the melted metal till he knows that it is purged from all its dross by seeing the image of his own face reflected on it.
By sufferings was Christ made perfect; and what was the best path for Jesus Christ is surely good enough for us, even though it be a rough and thorny one. Let us lie still beneath God’s hand; for though His hand be heavy upon us, it is strong and safe beneath us too; and none can pluck us out of His hand, for in Him we live and move and have our being. He waits for us year after year, with patience which cannot tire; therefore, let us wait awhile for Him. With Him is plenteous redemption, and therefore redemption enough for us and for those likewise whom we love. And though we go down into hell with David, with David we shall find God there (Ps. cxxxix. 8; Ps. xvi. 10), and find that He does not leave our souls in hell, nor suffer His holy ones to see corruption. Yes, have faith in God. Nothing in thee which He has made shall see corruption; for it is a thought of God’s, and no thought of His can perish. Nothing shall be purged out of thee, but thy disease; nothing shall be burnt out of thee but thy dross; and that in thee of which God said in the beginning, “Let us make man in our own image,” shall be saved and live to all eternity. Yes, have faith in God, and cry to Him out of the deep, “Though Thou slay me, yet will I love Thee, for Thou lovedst me in Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world.”
Oh, sad hearts and suffering! Anxious and weary ones! Look to the cross of Christ. There hung your King! The King of sorrowing souls, and more, the King of Sorrows. Ay, pain and grief, tyranny and desertion, death and hell—He has faced them one and all, and tried their strength, and taught them His, and conquered them right royally. And since He hung upon that torturing cross, sorrow is divine, godlike, as joy itself. All that man’s fallen nature dreads and despises, God honoured on the cross, and took unto Himself, and blest and consecrated for ever. And now blessed are the poor, if they are poor in heart as well as purse; for Jesus was poor, and theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the hungry, if they hunger for righteousness as well as food; for Jesus hungered, and they shall be filled. Blessed are those who mourn, if they mourn not only for their sorrows, but for their sins; for Jesus mourned for our sins, and on the cross He was made sin for us, who knew no sin; and they shall be comforted. Blessed are those who are ashamed of themselves, and hate themselves, and humble themselves before God, for on the cross Jesus humbled Himself; and they shall be exalted. Blessed are the forsaken and despised; did not all men forsake Jesus in His hour of need? And why not thee, too, thou poor deserted one? Shall the disciple be above his Master? No. Every one that is perfect must be as his Master.
Never let us get into the common trick of calling unbelief Resignation; of asking, and then because we have not faith to believe, putting in a “Thy will be done” at the end. Let us make God’s will our will, and so say, “Thy will be done.” There is a false as well as a true and holy resignation. When the sorrow is come or coming, or necessary apparently for others’ good, let us say with our Master in the Agony, “Not what we will, but what Thou wilt!” But up to that point, let us pray boldly.
Christianity heightens as well as deepens the human as well as the divine affections. I am happy; for the less hope, the more faith. God knows what is best for us. I am sure we do not. Continual resignation, I begin to find, is the secret of continual strength. “Daily dying,” as Bœhmen interprets it, “is the path of daily living.”
In all the trials of life, there is still some way of escape to be found if a man goes to the right place to look for it; and, if not of escape, still of compensation. I speak of that which I know. Of my own comfort I will not speak—of the path by which I attained it I will. It was simply by not struggling, doing my work vigorously where God had put me, and believing firmly that His promises had a real, not a mere metaphorical meaning, and
