The Spurgeon Series 1859 & 1860. Charles H. Spurgeon

and do you think that you shall remain unwounded? Not if you are his, at any rate. Men sometimes escape on earth; but the true born child of God must not, and would not, if he might; for if he did, he would then give himself reason to say, “I am no part of the body; if I were a part of the body, my Head suffered, and so I must suffer, for I am part of his living body.” That is the first lesson he teaches us, the necessity of suffering.

      16. But next he teaches us his sympathy with us in our suffering. “There,” he says, “see this hand! I am not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of your infirmities. I have suffered, too. I was tempted in all ways like you are. Look here! there are the marks — there are the marks. They are not only tokens of my love, they are not only sweet forget-me-nots that bind me to love you for ever. But besides that they are the evidence of my sympathy. I can feel for you. Look — look — I have suffered. Have you the heartache? Ah, look over here, what a heartache I had when this heart was pierced. Do you suffer, even to blood wrestling against sin? So did I. I have sympathy with you.” It was this that sustained the early martyrs. One of them declared that while he was suffering he fixed his eyes on Christ; and when they were pinching his flesh, dragging it off with the hot harrows, when they were putting him to agonies so extraordinary, that I could not dare to mention them here, lest some of you should faint even under the very narrative, he said, “My soul is not unfeeling but it loves.” What a glorious speech was that! It loves — it loves Christ. It was not unfeeling, but love gave it power to overcome suffering, a power as potent as being insensible to pain. “For,” he said, “my eyes are fixed on the one who suffered for me, and I can suffer for him; for my soul is in his body; I have sent my heart up to him. He is my brother, and there my heart is. Plough my flesh, and break my bones; smash them with your irons, I can bear it all, for Jesus suffered, and he suffers in me now; but he sympathises with me, and this makes me strong.” Yes, beloved, lay hold on this in all times of your agony. When you are sweating, think of his bloody sweat. When you are bruised, think of the whips that tore his flesh. And when you are dying, think of his death. And when God hides his face for a little while from you, think of “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!” This is why he wears his wounds in his hands, that he may show that he sympathises with you.

      17. Another thing. Christ wears these wounds to show that suffering is an honourable thing. To suffer for Christ is glory. Men will say, “It is glorious to make others suffer.” When Alexander rides over the necks of princes, and treads nations beneath his feet, that is glorious. The Christian religion teaches us that it is glorious to be trodden on, glorious to be crushed, glorious to suffer. This is hard to learn. There we see it in our glorified Master. He makes his wounds his glory, and his sufferings are part of the drapery of his regal attire in Paradise. Now, then, it is an honourable thing to suffer. Oh, Christian, when you are overtaken by strange troubles, do not be afraid. God is near you. It was Christ’s honour to suffer, and it is yours too. The only degree that God gives to his people is the degree of “Masters in tribulation.” If you wish to be one of God’s nobles you must be knighted. Men are knighted with a blow of the sword. The Lord knights us with the sword of affliction; and when we fight hard in many a battle, he makes us barons in the kingdom of heaven, he makes us dukes and lords in the kingdom of sorrowful honour, not through honour of man, but through dishonour of man; not through joy, but through suffering, and grief, and agony, and death. The highest honour that God can confer upon his children is the blood-red crown of martyrdom. When I read, as I have been reading recently, the story of the catacombs of Rome, and those short but very pithy inscriptions that are written over the graves of the martyrs, I felt sometimes as if I could envy them. I do not envy them their racks, their hot irons, their being dragged at the heels of horses; but I do envy them when I see them arrayed in the blood-red robe of martyrdom. Who are those who stand nearest to the eternal throne, foremost of the saints in light? Why, the noble army of martyrs. And just as God shall give us grace to suffer for Christ, to suffer with Christ, and to suffer as Christ, just so much does he honour us. The jewels of a Christian are his afflictions. The regalia of the kings that God has made, are their troubles, their sorrows, and their griefs. Let us not, therefore, shun being honoured. Let us not turn aside from being exalted. Griefs exalt us, and troubles lift us.

      18. Lastly, there is one sweet thought connected with the wounds of Christ that has charmed my soul, and made my heart run over with delight. It is this: I have sometimes thought that if I am a part of Christ’s body, I am a poor wounded part; if I do belong to that all glorious whole, the church, which is his fulness, the fulness of him who fills all in all, yet I have said within myself, “I am a poor maimed part, wounded, full of putrefying sores.” But Christ did not leave even his wounds behind him; he took even those to heaven. “Not a bone of him shall be broken,” and the flesh when wounded shall not be discarded, — shall not be left. He shall carry that with him to heaven, and he shall glorify even the wounded member. Is not this sweet, is not this precious to the troubled child of God? This, indeed, is a thought from which one may suck honey. Poor, weak, and wounded though I am, he will not discard me. His wounds are healed wounds, note! they are not running sores; and so, though we are the wounded parts of Christ, we shall be healed; though we shall seem to ourselves in looking back upon what we were upon earth only as wounds, only parts of a wounded body, still we shall rejoice that he has healed those wounds, and that he has not cast us away. Precious, precious truth! He will present the whole body before his Father’s face, and wounded though he is, he shall not cast his own wounds away. Let us take comfort, then, in this; let us rejoice in it. We shall be presented at last, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing. Note, Christ’s wounds are not spots to him, not wrinkles, they are ornaments; and even those parts of his church on earth that despair about themselves, thinking themselves to be as wounds shall not be spots, nor wrinkles in the complete church above, but even they shall be the ornaments and the glory of Christ. Let us now look up by faith and see Jesus, the wounded Jesus, sitting on his throne. Will not this help us to gird up our loins to “run with patience the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

      19. I cannot send you away without this last remark. Poor sinner, you are troubled on account of sin. There is a sweet thought for you. Men are afraid to go to Christ, or else they say, “My sins are so many I cannot go to him; he will be angry with me.” Do you see his hands outstretched to you tonight? He is in heaven, and he still says, “Come to me all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Are you afraid to come? Then, look at his hand — look at his hand, will not that induce you? “Oh,” but you say, “I cannot think that Christ can have it in his heart to remember such a worm as I.” Look at his side, there is easy access to his heart. His side is open, and even your poor prayers may be thrust into that side, and they shall reach his heart, holy though it is. Only look at his wounds, and you shall certainly find peace through the blood of Jesus. There were two monks of recent years in different cells in their monastery. They were reading the Bible. One of them found Christ while reading the Scriptures, and he believed with a true evangelical faith. The other one was timid, and could scarcely think it to be true; the scheme of salvation seemed so great to him he could scarcely lay hold upon it. But, at last, when he was about to die, and he sent for the other to come and sit by him, and to shut the door; because if the superior had heard of that of which they were about to speak, he might have condemned them both. When the monk had sat down, the sick man began to tell how his sins lay heavy on him; the other reminded him of Jesus. “If you wish to be saved, brother, you must look to Jesus who hung upon the cross. His wounds must save.” The poor man heard and he believed. Almost immediately afterwards the superior came in, with the brethren and the priests; and they began to prepare him for extreme unction. This poor man tried to push them away; he could not bear the ceremony, and as well as he could he expressed his dissent. At last his lips were opened, and he said in Latin, “Tu vulnera Iesu!” — your wounds, oh Jesus! your wounds, oh Jesus! — clasped his hands, lifted them to heaven, fell back and died. Oh, I wish that many a Protestant would die with these words on his lips. There was the fulness of the gospel in them. Your wounds, oh Jesus! your wounds; these are my refuge in my trouble. Oh sinner, may you be helped to believe in his wounds! They cannot fail; Christ’s wounds must heal those