"Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said"--
"I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you."--John xiv.
18.
The Befriended Orphans.
Does the Christian's path lie all the way through Beulah? Nay, he is
forewarned it is to be one of "much tribulation." He has his Marahs as
well as his Elims--his valleys of Baca as well as his grapes of Eschol.
Often is he left unbefriended to bear the brunt of the storm--his gourds
fading when most needed--his sun going down while it is yet day--his
happy home and happy heart darkened in a moment with sorrows with which
a stranger (with which often a _brother_) cannot intermeddle. There is
_One_ Brother "born for adversity," who _can_. How often has that voice
broken with its silvery accents the muffled stillness of the
sick-chamber or death-chamber! "'_I_ will not leave you comfortless:'
the world _may_, friends _may_, the desolations of bereavement and death
_may_; but _I will not_; you will be alone, yet _not_ alone, for I your
Saviour and your God will be with you!"
Jesus seems to have an especial love and affection for His orphaned and
comfortless people. A father loves his sick and sorrowing child most; of
all his household, he occupies most of his thoughts. Christ seems to
delight to lavish His deepest sympathy on "him that hath no helper." It
is in the hour of sorrow His people have found Him most precious; it is
in "the wilderness" He speaks most "comfortably unto them;" He gives
them "their vineyards from thence:" in the places they least expected,
wells of heavenly consolation break forth at their feet. As Jonathan of
old, when faint and weary, had his strength revived by the honey he
found dropping in the tangled thicket: so the faint and woe-worn
children of God find "honey in the wood"--everlasting consolation
dropping from the tree of life, in the midst of the thorniest thickets
of affliction.
Comfortless ones, be comforted! Jesus often makes you _portionless_
here, to drive you to Himself, the _everlasting portion_. He often dries
every rill and fountain of earthly bliss, that He may lead you to say,
"All my springs are in Thee." "He seems intent," says one who could
speak from experience, "to fill up every gap love has been forced to
make; one of his errands from heaven was to bind up the broken-hearted."
How beautifully in one amazing verse does he conjoin the depth and
tenderness of his comfort with the certainty of it--"As one whom his
mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, and ye SHALL be comforted!"
Ah, how many would not have their wilderness-state altered, with all
its trials, and gloom, and sorrow, just that they might enjoy the
unutterable sympathy and love of this Comforter of the comfortless, one
ray of whose approving smile can dispel the deepest earthly gloom? As
the clustering constellations shine with intensest lustre in the
midnight sky, so these "words of Jesus" come out like ministering angels
in the deep dark night of earthly sorrow. We may see no beauty in them
when the world is sunny and bright; but He has laid them up in store for
us for the dark and cloudy day.
"THESE THINGS HAVE I TOLD YOU, THAT WHEN THE TIME COMETH, YE MAY
REMEMBER THAT I TOLD YOU OF THEM."