Christ's Sympathy To Weary Pilgrims # 1

Christ's Sympathy To Weary Pilgrims # 1

What A Boundless, Fathomless Ocean!

Eternal love moved the heart of Jesus to relinquish heaven for earth; a diadem for a Cross; the robe of divine majesty for the garment of our nature; by taking upon Himself the leprosy of our sin. Oh, the infinite love of Christ! What a boundless, fathomless ocean!

Ask the ransomed of the Lord, whose chains He has dissolved, whose dungeon He has opened, whose liberty He has conferred - if there ever was love like His!

What shall we say of the ransom price? It was the richest, the costliest, the heaven could give! He gave Himself for us! What more could He do? He gave Himself; body, soul and spirit. He gave His time, His labor, His blood, His life, His ALL - as the price for our ransom, the cost of our redemption. He carried the wood and reared the altar. Then, bearing His bosom to the stroke of the uplifted and descending arm of the Father - He paid the price of our salvation in the warm lifeblood of His heart!

What a boundless, fathomless ocean!

How is it that we feel the force and exemplify the practical influence of this amazing, all commanding truth so faintly? Oh, the desperate depravity of our nature! Oh, the deep iniquity of our iniquitous hearts! Will not the blood drops of Jesus move us? Will not the agonies of the Cross influence us? Will not His dying love constrain us to a more heavenly life?

Lean Hard!

"Cast your burden upon the Lord - and He shall sustain you" (Psalm 55:22)

It is by an act of simple, prayerful faith that we transfer our cares and anxieties, our sorrows and needs, to the Lord. Jesus invites you come and lean upon Him, and to lean with all your might upon that arm that balances the universe, and upon that bosom that bled for you upon the soldier's spear!

But you doubtingly ask, "Is the Lord able to do this thing for me?" And thus, while you are debating a matter about which there is not the shadow of a shade of doubt, the burden is crushing your gentle spirit to the dust. And all the while Jesus stands at your side and lovingly says, "Cast your burden upon Me - and I will sustain you. I am God Almighty! I bore the load of your sin and condemnation up the steep of Calvary; and the same power of omnipotence, and the same strength of love that bore it all for you then - is prepared to bear your need and sorrow now. Roll it all upon Me! Child of My love! Lean hard! Let me feel the pressure of your care. I know your burden,child! I shaped it - I poised it in My own hand and made no proportion of its weight to your unaided strength. For even as I laid it on, I said I shall be near, and while she leans on Me, this burden shall be Mine, not hers. So shall I keep My child within the encircling arms of My own love. Here lay it down! Do not fear to impose it on a shoulder which upholds the government of worlds! Yet closer come! You are not near enough! I would embrace your burden, so I might feel My child reposing on My bosom. You love Me! I know it. Doubt not, then. But, loving me, lean hard!"

The Flaming Sword of Justice Quenched In the Holy, Loving Bosom of Jesus!

"He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree" (1 Peter 2:24)

The most significant and appalling demonstration of God's holiness that the universe ever beheld, infinitely distancing and transcending every other - is the sufferings and death of His only and beloved Son! The Cross of Calvary exhibits God's hatred and punishment of sin in a way and to an extent which the annihilation of millions of worlds, swept from the face of the universe by the broom of His wrath,could never have done!

Behold the most solemn display of God's hatred of sin! Finding the sins of the Church upon Christ as its Surety, Substitute, and Saviour- the wrath of God was poured out upon Him without measure! Finding the sins of His people laid upon His Son - God emptied upon His holy soul, all the vials of His wrath due to their transgressions! Go, my soul, to Calvary, and learn how holy God is, and what a monstrous thing sin is, and how imperiously, solemnly, and holily bound, Jehovah is to punish it, either in the person of the sinner, or in the person of a Surety. Never was the Son of God dearer to the Father than at the very moment that the sword of divine justice, flaming and flashing, pierced to its hilt His holy heart!

But it was the wrath of God, not against His beloved Son - but against the sins which met on Him when presenting Himself on the Cross as the substitutionary sacrifice and offering for His Church. He gave Himself for us!

What a new conception must angels have formed of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, when they beheld the flaming sword of justice quenched in the holy, loving bosom of Jesus! And in what a dazzling light does this fact place the marvelous love of God to sinners! Man's sin - and God's love; the indescribable enormity of the one - and the immeasurable greatness of the other; are exhibited in the Cross of Christ as nowhere else.

Oh, to learn experimentally these two great facts: sin's infinite hatefulness - and love's infinite holiness! The love of God in giving His Son to die; the love of Christ in dying; the essential turpitude and unmitigated enormity of sin, which demanded a sacrifice so divine, so holy, and so precious!

~Octavius Winslow~