Life's Trouble and its True Remedy.
I. By Divine will there is a trouble common to man a trouble of life in which all and each may expect some share, and which, at particular times of life, grows very intense. If any one seems to be excepted, such an one might almost fear Divine desertion thereby, or some Divine displeasure resting on him; for how few of God's own children get through the world and into the heavenly home with little or no trouble by the way. There is a sense in which Christians drink more deeply of trouble than ordinary men, for in proportion as they are really Christian they have more refined and developed sensibilities. They live with Christ; therefore they feel with Christ, and receive life's trouble full on the Christian moral sense; and if that does not make the trouble more in itself, it makes it more to them.
II. There are many kinds of so-called consolation in which men seek relief from the trouble and sorrow of their life. (1) First, there is what may be called the desperate consolation of the ostrich when it sticks its head into the sand, and does not see the pursuing foe. I mean the way of complete thoughtlessness, of designed, persistent thoughtlessness indifference to the deepest things of human life and experience. It is a poor policy; it is unworthy of a man, and it does not succeed. (2) Then there is another kind of so-called consolation which is quite insufficient for the strong trouble of life, and which may be called the presumptuous consolation. "Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God," and then, indeed, you may expect to be "exalted in due season;" (3) There is the superficial consolation for the trouble and sorrow of life that, I mean, which soothes the mind, and quiets certain feelings, without going down to the roots and foundations of things. No consolation can be suitable to man, or can be a real strength and confirmation if it does not sink down to the foundation of things. In one word, we want nothing else than "everlasting consolation and good hope through grace." Work your way by any of these lines, or by all of them. See what men can do by their thinking and their endeavours, and you will find, when you come at length to this consolation, that it stands sublimely alone.
III. You cannot think through the problem by the unaided human faculty, and you cannot drive yourself through it by the unaided human faculty, and you cannot forget it. No, there is but one way, and that is to come to God; all consolation is in Him. He is everlasting, and from everlasting He hath loved us. Believe the Gospel; accept its truth; hold its truth; do its duty; breathe its spirit; conform to its ideal in no transcendental spirit, but humbly and earnestly, in common things and in daily life and you have the everlasting consolation of God. Our God consoles us not only by surprising us with mercies, and lighting all our great future by hope, but by binding us to daily duty, and helping us day by day, amid trouble and care and toil, from the fountains of His everlasting care and purity, so that we are in some humble measure stablished in every good word and work.
A. Raleigh, Penny Pulpit,new series, No. 822.
The Eternal Comforter.
I. Our sorrow is greatly enhanced by the mystery of life. If we could only understand the reason of it, it would be easier to bear. But the tears seem to be so unnecessary, the wounding so needless, the pain and anguish so inexplicable. Life is a tangled skein, and we can get no clue. Now in this mystery and perplexity of life there comes One who says, "Trust Me." He does not, indeed, throw scientific light on the mystery of life. He does not solve its enigma. He does not put the clue into our hands. But He says "Trust Me." It is not a poet who speaks to us, who has gotten a little deeper insight than we have gotten. It is a witness-bearer, who out of the eternal life is come and into the eternal life is going. His is the witness; and in this is the root and ground of all that Christianity has offered us faith, not in a poet, not in a philosopher, not in a theologian, but faith in a witness-bearer.
II. But this mystery of life does not so greatly enhance the pain of life as the fragmentariness of it. It is not without semblance of reason, at least, that the broken column is put up in our graveyards. Life seems to be such a series of separated fragments; it seems to be so broken, so inharmonious, so discordant. And now Christ brings us this further message. Life is not fragmentary. There is no break. Life is like a song, and the singer goes from us, and the song grows dimmer and more indistinct and fades away; but the singer has not stopped his singing, though our eye cannot follow him into the unknown whither he is gone.
III. The injustice of life is hardest of all to bear. He who has shed on the mystery of life the light of trust, and He who has shed on the fragmentariness of life the light of hope, sheds on our awful unfaith in God, our awful sense of injustice and wrong against which we protest in vain endeavour, the light of love: for this is Christ's declaration everywhere and always; that the devil is not the god of this world, nor humanity the god of this world, nor furies, nor a god of fury, but infinite and eternal love is working out the web of human destiny.
L. Abbott, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxxvi., p. 161.
References: 2 Thessalonians 2:16; 2 Thessalonians 2:17. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxvi., No. 1542; vol. xix., No. 1096. 2 Thessalonians 3:1. E. Cooper, Practical Sermons,vol. iii., p. 312.