Weeping Endures For A Night, But Joy Cometh In The Morning

A Sermon Preached By Mr. Thomas Hull, On Good Friday, March 26^th, 1880.

“The sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.”—1 Peter 1:11

Some of the Lord’s children are continually proving the truth of that word, more or less, “The end of a matter is better than the beginning.” And why is it so? Because we do not always apprehend at the first the good hand and favour of the Lord in it; therefore the beginning of a matter, at times, so seriously affects the mind, weighs so heavily upon the spirit, and so over- comes the measure of faith within, that thoughts of the end not only fill us with fear, but we may ask, in fact, with dread and alarm, what the end of these things will be. Yes, and this even after we have been instructed, time after time, to know that God’s Word, despite our unbelief and fears, stands and prevails according to that declaration, “All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” Because it is not every time trouble comes that we can read our title clearly; it is not every time we are plunged into the fiery trial that we can say we are the sons of God; it is not always we can feelingly say, “My Lord and my God!” Yet we may have received the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and some of us have, I trust, so blessedly realized His pardoning blood and love, that our judgment is established in these things by the blessed experience of them; but then sometimes we lose the sweet feeling sense of them; yea, even the oldest Christians will do this; and thus, although our judgment is settled, we alternate in our experience and enjoyment of these things. And, however strong we may be in faith, or however settled in our judgment, there is a tender feeling in one that is born of God that makes the effects of these changes manifest. That tender grace is “the fear of the Lord,” and I would not be void of that feature of grace for all the world. A blessed measure of that makes those who are the subjects of it manifest, as living epistles of Christ; but to lack that is to lack spiritual sensibility, and entirely to lack that, is to lack the life of God. A man may have all knowledge, he may have faith, and he may have gifts to a wonderful degree, and yet, that one word of the Lord Jesus Christ’s to the rich young man may lay his religion in the dust: “One thing thou lackest.” “And,” says Paul, “though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge “—yea, in a word, as though he had said, I may possess all that a man can boast of—yet, lacking charity, “I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” The sounding brass and tinkling cymbal may make a noise, and charm the ear, but, though giving sound, they are without life.

Then it is a mercy for us to have a feeling religion, and, if we have, that feeling will influence us in a very great degree. In our early days especially, we were much guided by our feelings. Sometimes they lifted us up wonderfully, and at other times they cast us down as sorely. Sometimes we believed we were the children of God, and sometimes we doubted whether we had ever obtained mercy of the Lord. And why? Because when we did not feel it, we feared we did not possess it; thus young Christians are often tossed up and down between hope and fear; if they do not feel that grace in exercise which they at one time hoped they had received, they doubt it altogether. These are the little ones of the Lord’s flock, and it does not do to overdrive them, for they are very tender; they scarcely know how to set their feet to the ground, so as to walk the living way; they need some one to guide and help them along. They are like the poor man at the pool; he needed help, he knew that the healing waters were there, but when the Lord asked him, “Wilt thou be made whole?” The impotent man answered Him, “I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool; but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.” Others were healed, but he was left behind. So it is with these weaklings in faith. Mark, their faith is not weak, but the measure of it is small, and became the measure of it is small, they are weaklings in faith. So, their faith is not weak. You try to move them from the object of it, and you could no more do it than you could move a mighty rock, for it is founded on the Rock of Ages. God has engrafted His Word in their hearts. They have the truth within them, and as far as the Lord unfolds His Word, they embrace it. But their faith is a feeling faith; it looks for and wants what is revealed in the Word of God,—the knowledge of Christ. There are many people who are very ready with their faith; they can read the Word, and set their minds upon it, and are satisfied with the bare letter of it. But these weaklings in faith want to find in the Word the unction of redeeming grace and dying love; there is the cluster of grapes, it is true, and the new wine is found therein. But who is to press it out? Ah! when the Lord the Spirit opens up the Word of the Gospel to these weaklings, they receive it, they eat and drink it, and it is nourishment to their souls. Yea, it is the Word of Life to them; as Jeremiah says, “Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart.” Now, these poor weaklings can very rarely go forward in the Divine life comfortably. His a great thing with them when they can read the Word of God comfortably, or when they can go to the Throne of Grace comfortably. They cannot be content with merely reading the Word, or going on their knees! No, they are feeling after life, after power, after substance. And I hope there are a goodly number of us here this morning that know this sensitiveness of feeling—a feeling after Christ. We want to receive Him, we want by faith to eat His flesh and drink His blood. Now with such as these the future will appear very dark at times, especially if they are in a low state of soul. How very frequently you will find them concerned as to whether they truly know the Lord, and if so, whether they shall endure to the end; whether they shall be found among the wise, or among the foolish virgins, when the Bridegroom’s voice shall be heard. How anxious their heart is as to the future; and they can only be satisfied as to it, when they enjoy a present blessing, for the question with them is, “Am I His, or am I not?” And, even if the Lord favours them at times with some sweet token of His love, and they for a time hope they are of the number of His children, still their anxious fears will return, and they will say with the poet—

“Assure my conscience of her part 

In the Redeemer’s blood;

And bear Thy witness with my heart, 

That I am born of God.”

“Oh,” says some poor exercised soul, “if I could only be assured of that! If the blessed Spirit would but set His seal upon my heart, and give me this blessed testimony, then I could say, with good old Simeon, ‘Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.’ “I hope that all such anxious ones who are present may find something in our subject this morning to encourage them.

In the first place, let us notice that in these words we have set before us, as an encouragement to us in the time of suffering, the fact that our Lord and Master went before, in the same path that we now tread. Yea, He went through a baptism of suffering. He hid not His face from shame and spitting. He endured the cross, while at the same time He despised the shame. And what was the secret of it all? Why, the glory that was to follow! And, since it was the condition of the covenant, and according to the Father’s will, that He should go through suffering to receive the glory at the end (for the consummation of His suffering must be glory), therefore He despised the shame that was put upon Him, for His people’s sake; and, though the garden agony reduced Him very low, and wrung that memorable cry from Him, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me,” yet He said. “Not My will, but Thine be done.”

The sufferings of Christ were testified of by the Holy Ghost from the beginning; for the redemption by Christ was preached in the garden of Eden. No sooner had the malady of sin entered into the world than the remedy was made known; mercy, peace, and salvation were proclaimed in the garden of Eden. There the transgression was committed; there the Gospel was unfolded; there, where the work of Satan had blighted God’s creation, God’s great scheme of salvation was revealed; there, where man was ruined Christ was set up, and where the serpent gave the wound, the blood of healing was applied. And so it has been from that day to this in the Gospel of the grace of God—the sufferings of the Lord of life and glory have been set over against transgression, sin, and the curse. And while we trace, on the one hand, the sufferings of the Lamb of God, on the other His glory is revealed in the accomplishment of the work of redemption and the bringing in of love, joy, peace, and salvation. And now the Gospel is proclaimed through the length and breadth of the land, “Peace on earth, goodwill towards man;” and the result is that glory redounds unto God in the salvation of the vessels of mercy. What a sweet chapter(Isaiah 53) that was I read at the commencement of the service! How the Holy Spirit went before in testifying of Jesus! how blessedly He lifted Him up upon the Gospel pole, and revealed Him in all ages as the Anointed One-the Lamb of God! There is very little recorded of what was said in the garden of Eden either concerning the dreadful malady or of the wonderful remedy. It was said that the serpent would bruise the heel of the promised seed, but that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head. This was a very blessed promise concerning the conquest of Christ; and the Gospel record shows that, though the serpent did bruise His heel, yet He, as foretold, did tread with fatal power upon the head of the serpent. And I have often been glad of that other blessed promise made to the saints, “The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.” Thus victory is sure to all the saints, for as Christ suffered for the whole, and entered into glory, so shall all His people enter there too. And as He triumphed over hell and the grave, and ascended upon high, so they shall triumph too, but in Him. It is sweet at times to trace how, from that first opening up of the Gospel in the garden of Eden, that living stream has gone forth far and wide in all directions.

“Far and wide the cleansing flood 

O’er the sin-cursed garden ran, 

Preaching peace by Jesus’ blood, 

Blissful sound to rebel man.”

And from that day to this the same doctrine has been carried and preached wherever the Word of the Lord is known. Men have changed, but the Gospel has not changed. Times and seasons have changed, but the Gospel remains unaltered. All things around us change, but the Word of God remains the same. It is immutable—like unto Himself, and His name is “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and for ever.” We have many new theories started, many (so-called) Gospels preached, and many new views are set forth as doctrines. These will endure but for a time and then pass away, but the Word of God lives and abides for ever; the Gospel of His grace remains immovable, and the doctrines of Christ continue unshaken. The devil may cast the waters of error out of his mouth as a flood after the woman, to cause her to be carried away thereby. But no; for while many of the enemies of Christ are given up to error, the mystery of redeeming grace and dying love is still the theme of the Gospel. And this Gospel still goes forth by the power of the Holy Ghost. Still it reaches one here and another there, and still poor sinners are made glad as they find it is by the smart of Christ they are healed, by the sufferings of Christ they are delivered, by His death they live, and by His being reduced to poverty, shame, and death, they are clothed with honour and raised to the high position of kings and priests unto God.

Now, when the blessed Spirit testified beforehand of these things in His Word and in the midst of the Church, it was, as I have before hinted, for the good of God’s elect; and wherever that Gospel has been preached, there have been those who have not only heard the glad sound, but have received the Word in their heart, and they have been savingly benefited by it. For as it was in the days of the disciples, so it is now. “As many as were ordained to eternal life believed.” The Word of God went forth, and fell with power into the hearts of God’s elect; and so now, wherever the vessels of mercy are scattered abroad, the Word of God not only comes with power upon them, but abides in them and brings forth fruit unto God. Thus the Apostle says, “The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.” It appears unto all men, while it teaches only God’s elect. “Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” All may see the Gospel and hear it; but as it was in the days of the Lord Jesus Christ, so it is now. There were many who looked upon Him, many who saw His works, many that were professedly waiting for the kingdom of the Messiah; but they received Him not; they had no place for Him in their hearts. As Mr. Hart says, speaking of the inn at Bethlehem—

“The crowded inn, like sinners’ hearts, 

(O ignorance extreme!)

For other guests of various sorts 

Had room; but none for Him.”

And, as John says, “He came unto His own” (the Jewish nation), “and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power,” or privilege, “to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

In the second place, let us notice that, as glory followed the sufferings of Christ, so a saving knowledge of Him follows trouble in the soul of one that is convinced of sin. The testifying of the sufferings of Christ is a theme that is sweet to sin-sick souls, and to them only; and if you have never been made sick of sin, you have never been in love with the Lord Jesus Christ; if you have never known the malady of sin, you have never known the suitability and blessedness of the remedy that is in Christ. But where the malady is felt, there sooner or later the remedy is made known; where iniquity is felt, there the blood of Christ becomes a purifying stream. And why? Because when God convinces a sinner of sin, he feels he is unholy, and that he has to do with that God who is holy as well as just, who will by no means clear the guilty without a surety; and he feels the law holds out no mercy, for it says, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” Thus, as the Holy Spirit convinces of sin, the sinner is brought to stand before Mount Sinai, and, as he bears the thunderings of God’s law, he finds that the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight, but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.

And this begets the heartfelt cry, “What must I do to be saved?” To such as these the Gospel theme becomes a Gospel theme indeed, for it is the glad tidings of salvation to all such. As the angel said unto the shepherds, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.”

I hope there are some who are looking for the mercy of Christ, because nothing short of that will suffice them, and they are saying, “Oh, if I did but know that He shed His blood on Calvary’s tree to atone for my sin and bring me near to God; but alas! alas! while I can believe that He died to save sinners, I fear there is no mercy for such a wretch as I.” What can I say to such as these, save point them to the Gospel? But then I have no power to preach it home to their hearts. I often wish I could. I may speak of the mercy of God in Christ, and how I have experienced it; and I may tell the poor sinner that He is all-sufficient for their case, as I have found Him to be in mine; but I cannot give them the experience of it, for I cannot bring the Word of God home to either my own soul or theirs. But we speak of these things in faith, believing that God the Holy Ghost can apply them in a moment, for ours is not a Gospel void of the Holy Ghost. We both believe in and speak of His ability, as the Comforter, to bind up and heal a broken heart. Does He not know our hearts? does He not know our troubles? and is He not able to bring a word to suit our every case? Yes, I have found, and so will all poor, needy, burdened sinners find, that He can apply the remedy to the malady, for—

“The Holy Ghost must give the wound 

And make the wounded whole.”

We preach these things in faith, and sometimes the Holy Ghost so brings the Word of truth home to the heart—yea, in a moment—that we are ready to say, What a blessed portion of the Word of God that is! how it testifies of Christ! Ah! but we could not have seen so much in it but by the enlightenings of the Holy Ghost. Of old it was said, “The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy,” and so it is now; and, as it was then the work of the Blessed Spirit to make the Lord Jesus Christ known to poor afflicted sinners, so it is now. The Gospel is not changed. Whoever may turn away from it, or seek to substitute something else for it, that does not alter the way of God, nor hinder the work of God. His dealings with sinners are still the same; and, when the Gospel is made known to them, and they by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ receive the pardon of sin, they can say, with Hart—

“Faith in the bleeding Lamb, 

Oh, what a gift is this!

Hope of salvation in His name, 

How comfortable ’tis!”

Some one here this morning may say, “Oh, that I had that faith! If I could but believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, I could then feel satisfied as to the result.” Well, if you have faith to hang upon Him, you have that faith there spoken of. Then says the poor soul, “I fear I have none at all.” But here is the point. You may not be able with the eye of your faith to see Christ in a comfortable way, or as clearly as you desire; yet that does not prove that you have no faith. God takes His own time and ways for you to stand on Mount Sinai and hear the thunderings of God’s holy law, and He will make you to endure this schooling; for Paul says, “The heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father.” Well, while your eyes art fixed on these things you do not see Christ as your Friend. Sinai’s thunderings do not speak of Christ; they only show God to be a consuming fire. Therefore, while you are at Mount Sinai, Mount Zion is veiled from your view; but by-and-by the Holy Spirit comes, and says to the poor, distracted sinner, “Ye have compassed this Mount long enough.” “Well,” says the poor soul, “where is the next step to be—to the flames of hell?” Oh, no. “Then where to?” Oh, there is Mount Zion and the cleft Rock, and the Holy Spirit will lead thee, and bring thee to Calvary, and there is quite another sight for thee to behold; and oh, what a sight is that! The bleeding, suffering Son of God. And what does that sight do? Why, the moment you see Him, your burden falls off—your guilt is gone—your trouble subsides; and, as the joy of God’s salvation flows into your soul, and you realize by faith the sweet truth contained in that chapter I read at the commencement of the service (Isaiah 53:3, 5, 6): “The Lord bath laid on Him the iniquity of us all,” &c. These sufferings of Christ were vicarious sufferings; they were not sufferings due to Him; they were due to us—

“Yes, the Redeemer left His throne, 

His radiant throne on high—

Surprising mercy, love unknown—

To suffer, bleed, and die.

“He took the dying traitor’s place, 

And suffered in our stead;

For man—oh, miracle of grace!—

For man the Saviour bled.”

There we see Him as the Paschal Lamb, roasted in the flame of God’s just wrath; there we see the Daysman, by whom we may approach unto God, standing in the breach; there we see Him as our peace: “This Man shall be the peace;” and there is no peace to be found elsewhere. Now, when we are enabled to trace the substance of this Gospel in our experience, how the heart melts, how sin and self are abhorred, and how heartily we sing, with the poet—

“Why me, why me, O blessed God?

Why such a wretch as me,

Who must for ever lie in hell, 

Was not salvation free?”

What! the Son of God come from heaven to seek and save me? The Lamb of God slain for me? The Holy Christ of God made a curse for me? What! God punish His Son for me? Yes, “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised. for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” Oh, if it were not for the end of these things, the glorious result of them, the very thought of them would be intolerable! As it is, a view by faith of the sufferings of Christ while a Man of Sorrows here below, and of His cruel death on the cross, does at times sink us so low that we need, like John, to have strength put into us, to be “strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man,” in order to be able to bear it.

Let us notice, in the third place, that sufferings go before establishment in the faith; and I feel sure that there is not one of the Lord’s exercised children here this morning but would say, “I could welcome the trials and sufferings I meet with by the way, if I was certain they would end in the promised blessing.” But when the suffering comes, the question is, Is it right? and sometimes the clouds so cover everything of a promising nature, that we feel persuaded it is anything but right. Unbelief says it is not right, and that the things we are tried by are not to be found in the Word of God, and therefore have no relation to His promise; and the adversary puts such a colouring upon the Word, and casts such a cloud upon the mind, that the exercised soul fears its case is as opposite to the Word of God as possible, and that he has no part or lot in the promised blessing.

Now, when the soul is thus laid low in the dust, the devil is very busy, and he makes sad work in the heart of a poor, cast-down sinner; and why? Because all sensible enjoyment in the Word of God and in the ways of God is perished, and now the enemy comes. and tries to persuade the poor sinner that he is received; that he is not one that is born of the Spirit, and that the end of these trials will prove him to be nothing more than an empty professor or a hypocrite; and he says, “You know that the end of all such will be an awful end.” Ah! friends, I am not a stranger to these things. I have been tried like this for years together; yea, sorely tried. “Well, some may say, “Are you not tried now?” Yes, I am, but the Lord has by these means taught me a little which is of great service to me; and I will tell you one thing that I have found, which is this: Satan never comes to try me with these things except when the Lord has hidden His face from me. When the Lord lets me enjoy a little of His love, and when His mercy flows sweetly into my heart, Satan skulks away; but when the Lord withdraws the light of His countenance, it is with me as with my Master when He said, “This is your hour and the power of darkness.” Sometimes the enemy has tried me much by setting before me the reality of true religion. Ah! he will preach that up wonderfully at times; and why? Because he knows it will fill me with shame, confusion, and fear, on account of the difference there is between my feelings and what I see in that. And then again, when the Lord blesses me, he tries afterwards to make me believe that it is only a delusive fancy of the mind, and thus stirs up my unbelief and infidelity respecting that which he before set that as such a reality. The Apostle says, “We are not ignorant of his devices.” Still, this is most trying, I grant; but I am something like Rutherford. He says, when speaking of the tactics of the enemy, “I am come to like a rumbling and a raging devil best, because I know his working then; but when he comes with a plausible subject, he often ensnares me.” What a mercy, therefore, if we are so instructed as not to be ignorant of his devices; and even the disciples of the Lord, who have grown old in His ways, are not free from these changes. They are not left to settle on their lees. Oh, no; not but that, by continual exercises and deliverances, they become more established in the faith, for they thereby “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,” so that it is with them as Peter says, “But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.”

Now the latter part of that text is what every child of God desires…to have the heart established with grace; to be established not only in faith, but in experience. He desires to be blessedly established in the things of God, and to be able to say, with the Apostle, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” “Oh, that is what I have been looking for for years!” say some of my aged friends who are here this morning. “I have been hoping and looking for that day, but it has not come yet.” Well, perhaps you are hoping now, although you have been waiting so long, that the day will come when you shall be blessedly established in Christ. Then, I would say, “In patience possess ye your souls,” for the time of love will come. But, after all, how difficult it is at times to feel satisfied that the way we are walking in is the right way to the right end!

Well, one thing is certain, and that is in our favour. The Lord does thus bring many of His people through suffering to the establishment they desire; and was not this, as we have noticed, the path of the Son of God? Did He not pass through suffering to glory? Was not that glory set before Him? As it is said, “Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame.” He looked forward to the consummation of the glorious purposes of God—the perfecting of the salvation of the Church; and, while that awful baptism of suffering was before Him, He said, “I have a baptism to be baptised with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!” He was, so to speak, pent up in Himself until He had waded through that awful baptism of suffering for the accomplishment of the end—the finishing of the work which the Father gave Him to do; and if we are His we must follow in His steps. We are to tread the way our Lord and Master trod, for all the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ are to walk in His footprints, and to follow in His ways; and this is a very sweet trait of discipleship, to look upon our Master; and covet to follow Him, to be like Him—yea, to be conformed to the image of Christ Jesus, God’s dear and well-beloved Son. Mark how the Apostle prays: “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death;” and cannot many of us breathe as our desire what says Mr. Hart in hymn called ”The Wish”—

“If dust and ashes might presume, 

Great God, to talk with Thee;

If in Thy presence can be room 

For crawling worms like me;

I humbly would my wish present, 

For wishes I have none;

All my desires are now content 

To be comprised in one.”

“The single boon I would entreat 

Is, to be led by Thee

To gaze upon Thy bloody sweat 

In sad Gethsemane;

To view (as I could bear at least) 

Thy tender broken heart,

Like a rich olive, bruised and prest

With agonizing smart.

“To see Thee bowed beneath my guilt— 

Intolerable load!

To see Thy blood for sinners spilt, 

My groaning, gasping God!

With sympathizing grief to mourn 

The sorrows of Thy soul,

The pangs and tortures by Thee borne 

In some degree condole.

“There, musing on Thy mighty love, 

I always would remain;

Or but to Golgotha remove, 

And thence return again.

In each dear place the same rich scene 

Should ever be renewed;

No object else should intervene, 

But all be love and blood.”

Oh, if we could hear those sighs and groans, and were favoured to see, by faith, the suffering Lamb of God more frequently, how this would deaden us to sin, to self, and to the world! We should be more spiritually-minded and free, and our affections and conversation would be in heaven, “From whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

And now let us briefly observe that as the Scriptures testify, so you, in all your experience, will find that the way to glory is through suffering; so Peter says, “Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind.” So we are to look out for the suffering. If we would have fellowship, with Him. Do not think that because Christ endured the cross you are never to know the bitterness of sin and the curse, for if you are His disciples you must drink of His cup and be baptized with His baptism, in your measure; not in a way of merit, but of fellowship. But as we experience this fellowship with Him in His sufferings, so the time comes when we realize what John says in the third chapter of his first epistle, “Behold, what manner of love the Father bath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God;” and when, as we are raised to this blessed experience, we realize not only that we are Christ’s, but that the time is coming when we shall be with Him, and shall be like unto Him—yea, when we shall be glorified together with Him. So John says, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.” So when we have passed through the sufferings we shall come to the glory; for as we have a part with Him in His death now, so also we shall have a part with Him in His resurrection, for He said, “I ascend unto my Father and your Father; and to my God, and your God;” and as we have a part with Him in His sufferings now, so also we shall have a part with Him in His glory, for He who is now set down at the right hand of the Father, before He left this world said, “Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given to be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory.”

Oh, that in all our afflictions and troubles by the way we may ever “consider Him who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest we be wearied and faint in our minds.” For how light are our afflictions compared with His, and what is our cross compared with that He bore for us? And then we have His own word for every time of need, “My grace is sufficient for thee;” and He has not only said, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world,” but He has also declared, “Where I am, there also shall My servant be.” Thus through all our warfare we have His example, conquest, and promise set before us for our encouragement and assurance respecting the glorious issue of the struggle. May the God of all grace make these truths rich blessings to our souls, and He shall bear the glory.