(For Little Ones.)
IF the young reader will turn to the Gospel of Luke, and read from verse twenty-two to the end of the eighth chapter, he will see in how many different ways the Lord Jesus showed his power and his compassion. First, we are told how he said to his disciples, “Let us go over unto the other side of the lake.” Now why do you suppose the blessed Lord wished to cross
“The blue waves of deep Galilee?”
Read on, and you will soon see what led him there. In the desolate places of Gadara there dwelt a wretched demoniac, that is, a person possessed by devils. Wicked spirits had taken up their abode in this man. A more fearful state it is perhaps impossible to be in in this world. It is Satan, you know, who tempts all, and leads men to commit all manner of crimes and wicked nesses. What, then, must it have been to be so completely in his power, and under his control, as this most wretched man? “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” If this is true of wicked men, how much more of wicked spirits? But when wicked spirits took entire possession of the man, what horror must have filled his mind, what misery his heart, what madness his reeling brain! Who shall understand the midnight gloom, the awful dread of God, the terrible sense of evil, the deep, deep despair which must have filled his soul? Ah, little reader, this is a terrible picture; yet is it as nothing when compared with what awaits the sinner who dies in his sins, and therefore under the wrath of God. O fearful doom! who shall describe all that it involves? And how should the thought — a thought enough to make the most hardened shudder — stir us up to “beseech” the sinner, “to be reconciled to God,” the God of all grace, who, in his wondrous compassion, “spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all,” that so sinners might be saved from misery, far worse than that of the demoniac of Gadara and everlasting!
Well, the Lord Jesus knew that this most wretched man was there. He knew all his misery, and he wanted to deliver him; therefore he said, “Let us go.” Then we read how, as they went over the sea, a great storm arose, and that his disciples came to him while he slept, crying, “Master, master, we perish!” They did not understand that to perish with Christ in the ship was impossible. Could Christ perish? It seems shocking even to ask such a question. Well, but Christ was with them, and they with him: how then could they perish? No, they that have Christ, a risen Christ, now, can never perish. Blessed Jesus! thou art everlasting life to him that receives thee, life through death, our sin and sins forever put away by thy precious blood.
But the disciples thought they could perish, and Jesus pitied their agony of fear, and in a moment rose and hushed the storm by a word from his gracious lips. Should not the young believer learn from this that Jesus feels even for the fears of those who love him, even though he knows that those fears are vain? Nay, more than this. Those fears were really the effect of unbelief. Yet mere unbelief itself could not make the gracious heart of Jesus indifferent to their pain, nor cause him to turn a deaf ear to their cry. He arose, and rebuked the winds and the waves, first, and then he gently rebuked them. But how gently! and how kind it was not to rebuke them until after he had stilled the storm! These things are written to teach believers to confide in Jesus. Confidence in our gracious Lord has so much to do with communion as well as with all service, that it is of the last importance to us. And what a precious thought it is, that if in HIM we have ALMIGHTY GOD, we have also a man indeed, more tender-hearted than any man or woman that ever lived, more ready to sympathies, to pity, and to help, than the most affectionate of friends; loving with an everlasting love, whose breadth, length, depth, and height, surpasses knowledge.
(To be continued.)