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Comfort for the Oppressed

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Comfort for the Oppressed

8 minuten leestijd Arcering uitzetten

“Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame…. Consider Him, that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds” (Hebrews 12:2-3).

What greater or more effectual examples can be propounded to arm us with patience and fortitude than this of the Captain of salvation, who was made perfect by sufferings, and calls His people forth to no harder encounters than what He Himself has already broken through. Indeed, there is no one aggravation of sufferings, nothing that can put a sting and acrimony into them, but we shall find it so paralleled and exceeded in the sufferings of Jesus Christ, that the consideration of His patience and meekness under them should, at least, shame one out of impatience and fretfulness.

Do you suffer from men indignities unworthy your place and person? Look unto Jesus, the eternal Son of the ever-glorious God. Remember that He who is the great Creator and universal Monarch of the whole world, who has many legions of angels under Him, meekly endured the petulant affronts of a company of vile worms. They bowed the knee to Him in derision, at whose Name all the powers of heaven bow with humble veneration. Those very hands buffeted Him which He Himself had made. They clad Him in purple, crowned Him with thorns, put a reed-scepter into His hand, and, with all the most disgraceful contumelies that spite could invent, at last they cruelly murdered Him by whom they themselves live. And yet, although He was infinitely able to speak, to look, to think them into nothing, yet we find Him putting forth His almighty power only in acts of patience and mercy. “He was oppressed, and He was afflicted; yet He opened not His mouth: He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter; and, as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth,” but only with most sweet and melting affection to pray for them: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

Or do you suffer injuries unworthy of your merits and deserts? Are you traduced and persecuted by them to whom you have been most beneficial? Look unto Jesus. Remember that He, who went about continually doing good, healing the diseases of the body by His miracles, and the more dangerous diseases of the soul by His doctrine; carrying health and salvation with Him into every house where He entered, whose whole life was nothing else but a pilgrimage of charity and good works, yet He suffered most unworthy indignities from the ingratitude of some, whose leprosy certainly struck into their souls when they thought their cure not worthy thanks; and by the slanders of others, who reproached His doctrine to be blasphemy and His miracles sorcery. And yet He endured their unjust censures with infinite patience: “When He suffered, He threatened not,” and “When He was reviled, He reviled not again.” Neither did their injurious requital make Him neglect any opportunity of doing good. But, although their cruelty at last broke off the course of His life, yet it could not of His mercy; but He causes blessings, pardons, and salvation to stream out upon them, together with that blood which they despitefully shed.

Or do you suffer any heavy affliction from the immediate hand of God? Does He impoverish your estate, or chastise your person, or terrify your conscience? Look unto Jesus, who, though He were the heir of all things, yet birds and foxes were better provided for than He. No shelter, no sustenance; not enough to pay the tribute either to nature or to Caesar, but what He was beholden for, either to the charity of others, or His own miracles. Look unto Jesus, who, though He was the only beloved of His Father, yet conflicted with His wrath till He had strained His soul into an agony. And, when He was wrapped about with horror and darkness in His spirit, and the bitter cup of His passion was presented unto Him with all the baleful ingredients that a revenging God could prepare, He repented not His undertaking, exclaimed not against the justice of God or the injustice of men; but, with a fixed resolution, though a trembling hand, meekly took the cup, and drank the very dregs of it. Look unto Jesus: trace Him, by the drops of His blood, from the garden to the hall, from that to the cross; see Him there hanging, a ruthful spectacle to men and angels, the greatest scene of dolors and miseries that ever was represented to the world. Yet we hear no complaints against God, nor threatenings against men, which are usually the impotent solace of those that suffer turbulently; but, with infinite patience, when the full end of all His sorrows was come, He bowed His head and placidly breathed out His soul. And, what! shall not this great example powerfully persuade us to patience and submission under all our sufferings? Ours are all but the least desert of our sins; His were only the desert of ours. And shall we be any longer impatient against God, or revengeful against men? Shall we fret, and rage, and be exasperated, and fly out into all the extremes of passion and violence, when the Lord Christ Himself, the infinitely holy, blessed, and glorious God, calmly endured such shame, such pain, such wrath, that the very utmost one can suffer after Him is but only a faint shadow and resemblance of it? Certainly, we do, in a great measure, make void the sufferings of Christ and render them ineffectual, if we do not learn meekness and patience by that most excellent pattern and example that He hath set before us.


But, although their cruelty at last broke off the course of His life, yet it could not of His mercy; but He causes blessings, pardons, and salvation to stream out upon them, together with that blood which they despitefully shed.


And now, certainly we are, beyond measure, stupid and senseless, if the serious consideration of all the causes and miseries which our blessed Savior underwent, cannot affect us with a tender mourning for His sorrows, and a holy hatred of the sins which caused them. View Him from first to last, you shall find Him “a man of sorrows, acquainted” and familiar “with grief.”

Was it not an infinite abasement that the great God should lay by His glory, eclipse His brightness, and hide His Deity in a lump of clay? that He should choose to be born of a mean and poor virgin? The best entertainment He found was among beasts in a stable. A manger was His cradle, and straw or hay the softest pillow His yearning mother could lay under Him.

Well: doth His life repair the meanness of His birth? No: He was all along “a man of sorrows.” He sustained Himself by a laborious calling; He was hated and reviled by the Jews: some railing at Him for a glutton and a drunkard; and some for a madman and possessed; and all for an impostor and deceiver. He had not of His own where to lay His head; but was maintained only by the alms of a few well-disposed women. He was tempted by the devil; and afterwards endured a far sorer temptation from His Father's wrath, the extremity of which squeezed great drops of blood from Him. And, at last, He was betrayed by one of His own followers.

This was the course of His life. Let us follow Him to His death, and there see Him hanging among malefactors, as the chiefest of them; scurrilously mocked and derided, crowned with thorns, pierced to the heart; and the precious blood trickling from His head, to overtake those other rivers that ran from His side and feet. We see Him forsaken of His disciples; and, what is more, we hear Him complain of being forsaken by God, too. And in the midst of all these agonies and tortures, we see Him at last giving up the ghost, among the insulting clamors of His upbraiding enemies.

O blessed Savior! what eye can refrain from weeping, what heart from bleeding! Is this the entertainment the world gives to the dearest pledge that ever God sent it? Is this Thy welcome into it? Is this Thy departure out of it? Shall we mock and buffet, and scourge, and crucify, and pierce, and murder Thee? and wilt Thou by these outrages committed against Thee, accomplish our salvation? O victorious love! that canst pardon when Thou art abused; that canst enliven when Thou art slaughtered; that canst exalt when Thou art abased; and canst bless by being Thyself accursed! Christ was “made a curse for us”! O riches of grace, and miracle of mercy! Can you bear all the torments and woes that He sustained? “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto His sorrow, wherewith the Lord afflicted Him in the day of His wrath”! and, therefore, neither should any thankfulness and gratitude be like to ours, who are delivered from so great a wrath by His bearing of it.

Let us go, then, and prostrate ourselves before our gracious Savior; admire and adore that love which we never can comprehend; and the full measure of which we can no more conceive than we can bear the wrath from which it delivers.

Now, to Him that hath thus loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood; to Him be glory and dominion, praise and thanksgiving, through all ages, world without end.

Bishop Hopkins (1632-1690)

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Bekijk de hele uitgave van zondag 1 april 2001

The Banner of Truth | 28 Pagina's

Comfort for the Oppressed

Bekijk de hele uitgave van zondag 1 april 2001

The Banner of Truth | 28 Pagina's