"Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said"--
"In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I
have overcome the world."--John xvi. 33.
The World Conquered.
And shall I be afraid of a world already conquered? The Almighty Victor,
within view of His Crown, turns round to His faint and weary soldiers,
and bids them take courage. They are not fighting their way through
untried enemies. The God-Man Mediator "_knows_ their sorrows." "He was
in _all points_ tempted." "Both He (_i. e._, Christ) who sanctifieth,
and they (His people) who are sanctified, are all of one (nature)." As
the great Precursor, he heads the pilgrim band, saying "I will show you
the path of life." The way to heaven is consecrated by His footprints.
Every thorn that wounds _them_, has wounded _Him_ before. Every cross
they can bear, he has borne before. Every tear they shed, He has shed
before. There is one respect, indeed, in which the identity fails,--He
was "yet without sin;" but this recoil of His Holy nature from moral
evil gives Him a deeper and intenser sensibility towards those who have
still corruption within responding to temptation without.
Reader! are you ready to faint under your tribulations? Is it a seducing
world--a wandering, wayward heart? "Consider _Him_ that endured!" Listen
to your adorable Redeemer, stooping from His Throne, and saying, "_I_
have overcome the world." He came forth unscathed from its snares. With
the same heavenly weapon He bids you wield, three times did he repel the
Tempter, saying, "It is written."--Is it some crushing trial, or
overwhelming grief? He is "_acquainted_ with _grief_." He, the mighty
Vine, knows the minutest fibres of sorrow in the branches; when the
pruning knife touches _them_, it touches _Him_. "He has gone," says a
tried sufferer, "through every class in our wilderness school." He loves
to bring His people into untried and perplexing places, that they may
seek out the guiding pillar, and prize its radiance. He puts them on the
darkening waves, that they may follow the guiding light hung out astern
from the only Bark of pure and unsullied Humanity that was ever proof
against the storm.
Be assured there is disguised love in all He does. He who knows us
infinitely better than we know ourselves, often puts a thorn in our nest
to drive us to the wing, that we may not be grovellers forever. "It is,"
says Evans, "upon the smooth ice we slip, the rough path is safest for
the feet." The tearless and undimmed eye is not to be coveted _here_;
_that_ is reserved for heaven!
Who can tell what muffled and disguised "needs be" there may lurk under
these world-tribulations? His true spiritual seed are often planted deep
in the soil; they have to make their way through a load of sorrow before
they reach the surface; but their roots are thereby the firmer and
deeper struck. Had it not been for these lowly and needed "depths," they
might have rushed up as feeble saplings, and succumbed to the first
blast. He often leads His people still, as he led them of old, to "a
high mountain apart;" but it is to a _high_ mountain--_above the world_;
and, better still, He who Himself hath overcome the world, leadeth them
there, and speaketh comfortably unto them.
"I HOPE IN THY _WORD_."