The Treatment of the Troubled

Large part of every Christian minister’s work must be given to those who are in trouble. The careless are to be awakened by faithful, pungent proclamation of the sinfulness of sin and the certainty of its endless retribution; the inquirers are to be directed, and God’s people to be fed with their rations of solid food. But every week brings before his pulpit, or under his eye in pastoral visitation, some of that numerous class who need a lift or a helping hand. Bruised hearts are to be bound up; feeble knees to be strengthened; a word in season to be spoken to the weary or the weak or the woebegone. Tonic sermons are always in order, the stronger the better; some of our flock get terribly run down by Saturday night and need fresh infusion of iron in the blood. There are two sorts of trouble that demand kind, careful and wise treatment.

(1.) The first sort belongs to those who are in the fold of Christ. All true Christians are not happy Christians. While “Great Heart” and “Hopeful” go striding and singing on their way to the celestial city, poor Mr. Despondency and Mr. Little-faith and Sister Much-afraid hobble along painfully and need a helping hand pretty often. It takes all sorts of Christians to make an average church. Some are constitutionally despondent about everything. It is not easy to change natural temperament; let such travel the straight road conscientiously, even if their heads often droop like the bulrush; they will find heaven’s sunshine and song all the more welcome when they get there. Uneasy as this kind of Christians often are about themselves, they seldom give much uneasiness to their pastor. It is the self-confident, dash-ahead professor that we are oftener anxious about. Another class owe their despondency to ill health. The flesh and the spirit lie mighty close together, and they act and react upon each other. That ripe old saint, Dr. Archibald Alexander, suffered from such a peculiar nervous disorder that he was always gloomy when an east wind blew. Dyspepsia puts some of Christ’s choice ones into the dumps; a dose of medicine or a bottle of Saratoga water will bring more relief than a prayer or a Bible text. The saddest case of religious despair I ever encountered came from physical disease, and the lady was shocked when I told her so. Yet as soon as the torpid liver was set right, her soul was filled with light and gladness.

But the most frequent cases that the pastor has to deal with are those who are suffering under some trying dispensation of Providence. Disappointment has shattered

k their schemes, or pecuniary adversities have crippled them, or death has smitten’ the four corners of their house, and their hearts are breaking. To try to stanch the tears of persons who are in deep grief is a folly, even if it were possible. Tears are the safety-valve of grief, and often keep an agonized heart from bursting; let them flow. When nature has had her way, grace may begin to work. In dealing with the afflicted — from whatever cause it come — we must treat them always as scholars in God’s school of suffering. The temptation of the devil to such sufferers is to get them into a quarrel with God; if he cannot do that he tries to break their lanterns and leave them in the dark. As long as a Christian’s anchor holds he can ride out any hurricane of trouble; but if his cable that fastens him to Christ is cut he goes helplessly on the rocks.

The true way to look at affliction is as a prime part of a Christian’s education. The only relief I have ever found myself when under sharp bereavement was in the Heavenordered certainty that this world is only a preparatory school for the better and, the endless life beyond. Terribly hard lessons in “division” and “subtraction” are often assigned us; we are put on the back benches and the lowest, when we fancy ourselves entitled to the highest. Our text-books are often stained with tears, and our loving Teacher often uses the rod. The strongest Christians are made by a costly education. The very word “disciple” signifies a little learner, and the chief object of all discipline is to develop character. The core of Christianity is obedience to our Divine Master, and the highest attainment is to let him have his own way. Often when the hard lesson starts the tears and makes the heart ache, the blessed Teacher comes close and whispers in our ears, “As many as I love I chasten; no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness.” It is the “afterward” that vindicates God’s dealings. Noble old Richard Baxter exclaimed after a life of severe toil and suffering, “O God, I thank thee for a bodily discipline of eight and fifty years!” Out of the school of trial the Master brings his ripest, holiest pupils. The best pruned vines yield the richest clusters; the brightest gold comes out of the hottest furnace. A glorious promotion will it be — when the life-school is over — that they whose hearts have ached and whose eyes have so often wept, will be graduated into the magnificent inheritance of the Father’s house!

Two things are chiefly to be aimed -at in the treatment of desponding or bereaved Christians. The first is to get them out of themselves, and the other is to get them into active service for their Master. The tides of inward feeling are in danger of stagnating into a fen of bitter waters. Sluice them off, and turn them into streams of beneficence to others. A sorely bereaved lady once said to me,” If I could not keep

THE TREA TMENT OF THE TROUBLED. 5 I

my mind occupied in Christian labor for the poor and elsewhere, I should go crazy with grief.” Useful occupation is both a tonic to faith and a sedative to sorrow. If troubles drive us to toils for our Master, then the useful toils will in turn, drive away many of the troubles.

(2.) There is a second sort of troubles to be dealt with which belong to those who are outside of Christ’s fold, and who find obstacles in the way of their getting in. They are plagued with doubts and unbelief. A careful discrimination must be made between the wilful skeptics who will not believe, and the involuntary ones who find it hard to believe. This latter class merit the kindest and most gentle treatment, such as Jesus showed to the father of the demoniac-child, and to doubting Thomas. We should aim to discover just what it is that they find it difficult to believe. Are they puzzled and perplexed with such mysteries as the nature of the

Trinity, or the doctrine of election, or the existence of sin in the world, or any other hard nut that human ingenuity cannot crack? Let all such mysteries alone; they are an overmatch for the mightiest brains ever created; the secret things belong unto God. Happily our salvation does not depend on unlocking mysteries.

“I find it hard to believe in Christ,” says the troubled inquirer, when he is pushed to the sticking point. “Have you ever honestly tried to do it in the way that Christ commands?” That is the query which we should press on such a person. Saving faith in Christ is not an abstract opinion, it is an act; it is putting yourself into connection with the Saviour. Have you with empty hand grasped hold on him in honest prayer? Have you tried sincerely to follow him by taking a single step to please him? Have you endeavored to keep a solitary commandment? Have you, in short, ever obeyed him? If not, then you must die a doubter; for the only way to be saved by the Lord Jesus is to do what he commands.

To get a troubled sinner out of the region of theory into the region of practice, out of doctrines into duties, is a prime point gained. No one is ever troubled about believing in Christ as soon as he begins to obey Christ. Knowing comes by doing. The loving Saviour’s hand is immediately stretched out to save every one who leaps overboard from the boat of sin and struggles towards HIM. Unbelief stays in the boat and goes down; faith leaps out and trusts. As Spurgeon pithily says, “The way to do a thing is — to do it.”