CHRIST'S SYMPATHY TO WEARY PILGRIMS

[nChrist]

CHRIST'S SYMPATHY TO WEARY PILGRIMS
by Octavius Winslow (1808 - 1878 )

        Bring Your Sorrows To Me

        "Bring him here to me." Matthew 17:17

        In your moment of disappointment and despair, Jesus meets you with the gracious words, "Bring it here unto me." And now your spirit revives, your heart bounds, at the words, and you exclaim, "Behold, Lord, I come."

        Jesus says, "Bring your sorrows to Me." Never did the soul find so powerful a magnet, attracting to itself affliction in every form, and sorrow in every shade, as Jesus. Standing as in the center of a world of woe, He invites every daughter of sorrow, of sin, of grief to repair to Him for support, sympathy, and healing. As the High Priest of His Church for whom alone He suffered, and wept, and sobbed, He unveils a bosom capacious enough and loving enough, and sympathizing enough, to embrace every sufferer, and to pillow every grief. Accept, then, His compassionate invitation, and bring your grief to the soothing, sustaining, sanctifying grace of His heart!

[nChrist]

CHRIST'S SYMPATHY TO WEARY PILGRIMS
by Octavius Winslow (1808 - 1878 )

        This Divine Secret!

        "Casting all your care upon him; for he cares for you." 1 Peter 5:7

        How full of soothing and repose are these words! Where, in the world's wilderness, grows the flower of heart's-ease as it blooms and blossoms here? What cares have they lightened! What anxieties have they removed! What burdens have they unclasped! What springs of joy and comfort and hope have they unsealed in many a sad and oppressed heart! But do you not, beloved reader, need to be put in constant remembrance of this divine secret - of rest amid toil - of repose amid disquietude - of soothing amid corroding cares - and of confidence and hope in the midst of change and depression?

        Bewildered and oppressed by the multitude of anxious thoughts within you - is there not a danger of being so absorbed by the care as to overlook the Caretaker? to forget the heart's ease in the overwhelming of the heart's anxiety? Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you!

[nChrist]

CHRIST'S SYMPATHY TO WEARY PILGRIMS
by Octavius Winslow (1808 - 1878 )

        For Me, A Poor, Worthless Sinner!

        "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed." 1 Peter 2:24

        Blessed announcement! Not the less hateful, nor hated, is the sin because it is forgiven and entirely blotted out. Oh no! Let the Lord touch your heart, Christian reader, with a sense of His pardoning love, with the assurance of His forgiveness - and you will go and hate, and mortify, and forsake it, more resolutely and effectually than ever! And must the Son of God become the Son of man, that those who are by nature children of wrath, might become the sons of God! Must God, the eternal God, the high and lofty One, stoop so low as to become incarnate, and that for sinners - for me, a poor worthless sinner!

        To save me from eternal woe, must Jesus suffer, agonize, and die - die in my stead, die for my sins, die an accursed death! Ah! Lord, what must sin be - what must my sin be! How little have I thought of it, how little have I mourned for it, still less have I hated it as I ought to have hated it! Lord, how vile, how unutterably vile I am! Oh hated sin! Do You forgive it, Father of my mercies? This only makes it more hateful still.

[nChrist]

CHRIST'S SYMPATHY TO WEARY PILGRIMS
by Octavius Winslow (1808 - 1878 )

        The Wrath Of God Let Loose Upon His Son!

        Divine holiness is best exhibited in the cross of Jesus. Not hell itself, dreadful and eternal as is its suffering - the undying worm, the unquenchable fire, the smoke of the torment that goes up forever and ever - affords such a solemn and impressive spectacle of the holiness and justice of God in the punishment of sin, as is presented in the death of God's beloved Son.

        An eminent Puritan writer thus strikingly puts it - "Not all the vials of judgment that have or shall be poured out upon this wicked world - nor the flaming furnace of a sinner's conscience - nor the irrevocable sentence pronounced against the rebellious devils - nor the groans of the damned creatures - give such a demonstration of God's hatred of sin, as the wrath of God let loose upon His Son!"

        Never did Divine holiness appear more beautiful and lovely than at the time our Savior's countenance was most marred in the midst of His dying groans. This He Himself acknowledges in that penitential psalm, when God turned His smiling face away from Him, and thrust His sharp knife into His heart, which forced that terrible cry from Him, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? But thou art holy."

        Such an impressive view of God's holiness the angels in heaven never before beheld - not even when they saw the non-elect spirits hurled from the heights of glory down to the bottomless pit, to be reserved in chains of darkness and woe forever! Jesus was the innocent One dying for the guilty ones - the holy One dying for the sinful ones!

        Divine justice, in its mission of judgment, as it swept by the cross, found the Son of God impaled upon its wood beneath the sins and the curse of His people. Upon Him its judgment fell - on His soul its wrath was poured - in His heart its flaming sword was plunged - and thus, from Him, justice exacted the full penalty of man's transgression - the last farthing of the great debt!

        Go to the cross, then, my reader, and learn the holiness of God. Contemplate the dignity of Christ - His preciousness to His Father's heart - the sinlessness of His nature. And then behold - the sorrow of His soul - the torture of His body - the tragedy of His death - the abasement - the ignominy - the humiliation - into the fathomless depths of which the whole transaction plunged our incarnate God! And let me ask, standing, as you are, before this unparalleled spectacle, "Can you cherish low views of God's holiness, or light views of your own sinfulness?"

[nChrist]

CHRIST'S SYMPATHY TO WEARY PILGRIMS
by Octavius Winslow (1808 - 1878 )

        Oh, Encouraging Truth!

        "I the Lord search the heart." Jeremiah 17:10

        Solemn as is this view of the Divine character, the believing mind finds in it sweet and hallowed repose. What more consolatory truth in some of the most trying positions of a child of God than this - the Lord knows the heart! The world condemns us, and the saints may wrongly judge us - but God knows the heart! And to those who have been led into deep discoveries of their heart's hidden evil, to whom have been made startling and distressing unveilings, how precious is this character of God, "I the Lord search the heart."

        Is there a single recess of our hearts we would veil from His penetrating glance? Is there a corruption we would hide from His view? Is there an evil of which we would have Him ignorant? Oh no! Mournful and humiliating as is the spectacle, we would throw open every door, and uplift every window, and invite and urge His scrutiny and inspection, making no concealments, and indulging in no reserves, and framing no excuses when dealing with the great Searcher of hearts, exclaiming, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

        And while the Lord is thus acquainted with the evil of our hearts, He most graciously conceals that evil from the eyes of others. He seems to say, by His benevolent conduct, "I see my child's infirmity." Then, covering it with His hand, exclaims, "but no other eye shall see it, but my own!" Oh, the touching tenderness, the loving kindness of our God! Knowing, as He does, all the evil of our nature, He yet veils that evil from human eye - that others may not despise us as we often despise ourselves. Who but God could know it? Who but God would conceal it?

        And how blessed, too, to remember that while God knows all the evil, He is as intimately acquainted with all the good that is in the hearts of His people! He knows all that His Spirit has implanted - all that His grace has wrought. Oh encouraging truth! That spark of love, faint and flickering - that pulsation of life, low and tremulous - that touch of faith, feeble and hesitating - that groan, that sigh - that low thought of self that leads a man to seek the shade - that self-abasement that places his mouth in the dust - oh, not one of these sacred emotions is unseen, unnoticed by God! His eye ever rests with infinite compassion and delight on His own image in the renewed soul.

[nChrist]

CHRIST'S SYMPATHY TO WEARY PILGRIMS
by Octavius Winslow (1808 - 1878 )

        Your Present Adversity

        "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28

        It is palpably clear and emphatically true that all that occurs in the Lord's government of His people conspires for, and works out, and results in, their highest happiness and their greatest good. The gloomiest and most painful circumstances in the history of the child of God, without a solitary exception, are all conspiring, and all working together, for his real and permanent good.

        The painful and inexplicable dispensations, which at the present moment may be thickening and deepening around your path, are but so many mysteries in God's government, which He is working out to their certain, satisfactory, and happy results. And when the good thus embosomed in the lowering cloud of some crushing providence, accomplishes its benevolent and heaven-sent mission, then trial will expand its dark pinions and fly away - and sorrow will roll up its somber drapery and disappear!

        All things under the government of an infinitely great, all-wise, righteous, and beneficent Lord God, work together for good. What that good may be - the shape it may assume - the complexion it may wear - the end to which it may be subservient - we cannot tell. To our dim view it may appear an evil, but to God's far seeing eye it is a positive good. Oh, truth most divine! Oh, words most consolatory!

        How many whose eye traces this page, it may be whose tears bedew it, whose sighs breathe over it, whose prayers hallow it, may be wading in deep waters, may be drinking bitter cups, and are ready to exclaim - "All these things are against me!" Oh no, beloved of God, all these things are for you! Do not be afraid! Christ restrains the flood upon whose heaving bosom He serenely sits. Christ controls the waters, whose sounding waves obey the mandate of His voice. Christ's cloudy chariot is paved with love! Then, fear not! Your Father grasps the helm of your storm-tossed vessel - and through cloud and tempest will steer it safely to the port of endless rest!

        Will it not be a real good, if your present adversity results in the dethronement of some worshiped idol? in the endearing of Christ to your soul? in the closer conformity of your mind to God's image? in the purification of your heart? in your more thorough fitness for heaven? Will it not be a real good if it terminate in a revival of God's work within you - in stirring you up to more prayer? in enlarging your heart to all that love the same Savior? in stimulating you to increased activity for the conversion of sinners, for the diffusion of the truth, and for the glory of God?

        Oh yes! good, real good, permanent good must result from all the Divine dispensations in your history. Bitter repentance shall end in the experienced sweetness of Christ's love. The festering wound shall but elicit the healing balm. The overpowering burden shall but bring you to the tranquil rest. The storm shall but quicken your footsteps to the Hiding Place. The bitter-cold north wind and the balmy south wind shall breathe together over your garden, and the spices shall flow out.

        In a little while - oh, how soon! you shall pass away from earth to heaven, and in its clearer, serener light shall read the truth, often read with tears before, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."

[nChrist]

CHRIST'S SYMPATHY TO WEARY PILGRIMS
by Octavius Winslow (1808 - 1878 )

        The Little Things Of Life!

        "But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered." Luke 12:7

        You know so little of God, my reader, because you live at such a distance from God. You have so little communion with Him - so little confession of sin - so little searching of your own conscience - so little probing of your own heart - so little transaction with Him in the little things of life. You deal with God in great matters. You take great trials to God, great perplexities, great needs; but in the minutiae of each day's history, in what are called the little things of life, you have no dealings with God whatever - and consequently you know so little of the love, so little of the wisdom, so little of the glory, of your resplendent covenant God and reconciled Father.

        I tell you, the man who lives with God in little matters - who walks with God in the minutiae of his life - is the man who becomes the best acquainted with God - with His character, His faithfulness, His love. To meet God in my daily trials, to take to Him the trials of my calling, the trials of my church, the trials of my family, the trials of my own heart; to take to Him that which brings the shadow upon my brow, that rends the sigh from my heart - to remember it is not too trivial to take to God - above all, to take to Him the least taint upon the conscience, the slightest pressure of sin upon the heart, the softest conviction of departure from God - to take it to Him, and confess it at the foot of the cross, with the hand of faith upon the bleeding sacrifice - oh! these are the paths in which a man becomes intimately and closely acquainted with God!

[nChrist]

CHRIST'S SYMPATHY TO WEARY PILGRIMS
by Octavius Winslow (1808 - 1878 )

        All Dropping From The Outstretched, Munificent Hand Of A Loving, Gracious, And Bountiful Father!

        Beloved, remember that all our past and all our coming prosperity, if indeed He shall so appoint it - is in the hand of God. It is His wisdom that suggests our plans, it is His power that guides, and it is His goodness that makes them successful. Every flower that blooms in our path - every smile that gladdens it - every mercy that bedews it, comes to us from our heavenly Father. Oh! for grace to recognize God in all our mercies! How much sweeter will be our sweets - how much more blessed our blessings - and endeared our endearments - to see them all dropping from the outstretched, munificent hand of a loving, gracious, and bountiful Father! Oh! for a heart lifted up in holy returns of love, gratitude and praise!