With Whom We Have to Do

“Him with whom we have to do.” — Ilcb. iv. 13.

THERE arc wonderful depths of comfort in those words. I cannot fathom them for you. I only want to guide you to look where the deep places are, asking the Holy Spirit to put a long sounding line into your hand, that you may prove for yourself how great is the depth.

These words seem to meet every sort of need of comfort. U it is perplexity, or oppressive, puzzle what to do, when we cannot see through things, — or if it is being unable to explain yourself ethers, and trials or complications arising out of this: just fall back upon “Him with whom we have to do,” to whose eyes all things arc naked and opened. He is your Guide, — why need you puzzle? He is your Shield, — why you try so hard or wish so much to explain and ate yourself?

If 11 of sin which does not let you be

comfortable, turn at “Him with whom you have to do.” Remember, it is not with Satan that you have to do, nor with your accusing conscience, but with Jesus. He will deal with all the rest; you only have to deal with Him. And He is your great High Priest. He has made full Atonement for you: for the very sins that are weighing on you now. The blood of that Atonement, His own precious blood, cleanseth us from all sin. Cleanseth whom? People that have not sinned? People that don’t want to be cleansed? Thank God for the word” cleanseth us,” us who have sinned and who want to be cleansed. And you have to do with Him who shed it for your cleansing, who His own self bare your sins in His own body on the tree.

If it is temptation that will not let you rest, come straight away out of the very thick of it; it may be with the fiery darts sticking in you. Come with all the haunting thoughts that you hate, just as you are, to “Him with whom you have to do.” You would not or could not tell the temptations to any one else; but then you have not got to do with any one else in the matter, but only with Jesus. And He “suffered, being tempted.” The very fact that you are distressed by the temptation proves that it is temptation, and that you have a singular claim on the sympathy of our tempted Lord, a claim which He most tenderly acknowledges. But use it instantly; don’t creep, but flee unto Him to hide you from the assaults which you are too weak to meet. i

If it is bodily weakness, sickness, or pain, how very sweet it is to know that we have to do with Jesus, who is “touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” (The word is the same that is elsewhere translated sickness: John xi. 2-4.) Don’t you sometimes find it very hard to make even your doctor understand what the pain is like? Words don’t seem to convey it. And after you have explained the trying and wearying sensation as best you can, you are convinced who have not felt it do not understand it.

X’ pw think of Jesus not merely entering into

the fact, but into the feeling, of what you are

through. “Touched with the feeling” —

how deep that goes! When we turn away to

Him in our wordless weariness of pain which

only He understands, we find out that we have to

ith Him in quite a different sense from how

do with any one else. We could not

do without Him, and thank God we shall never

have to do without Him.

Why enumerate other shadows which this same soft light can enter and dispel? They may be cast by any imaginable or unimaginable shape of trouble or need, but the same light rises for them all, if we will only turn towards the brightness of its rising. For Jesus is He 1 ’ with whom we have to do “in every thing, nothing can be outside of this, unless we wilfully decline to have to do with Him in it, or unbelievingly choose to have to do with” lords many.”

And we are answerable only to Him in every thing; for this is included in having to do with Him. To our own Master we stand or fall; and that latter alternative is instantly put out of the question,, the apostle adding, “Yea, he shall be holden up, for God is able to make him stand, “i e., he who is his” own Master’s” servant. To Him we have to give account, if from Him we take our orders.

We have to do with Him directly. So directly that it is difficult at first to grasp the directness. There is absolutely nothing between the soul and Jesus, if we will but have it so. We have Himself as our Mediator with God, and the very characteristic of a mediator is, as Job says, “that he might lay his hand upon us both”; so the hand of Jesus, who is Himself “the Man of Thy right hand,” is laid upon us with no intermediate link and no intervening distance. We do not need any paper and print, let alone any human voice, between us and Himself.

“To Thee, O dear, dear Saviour,
My spirit turns for rest.”

That turning is instinctive and instantaneous when we have once learnt what it is to have direct and personal dealing with the Lord Jesus Christ. Life is altogether a different thing then, whether shady or sunshiny, and a stranger intermeddleth nut with our hidden joy. Perhaps it is just this that makes such a strangely felt difference between those who equally profess and call themselves Christians. Is Jesus to us “Him with whom we have to do”? or is He only Him whom we know about, and believe about, ami with whose laws and ordinances we have to do? This makes all the difference, and every «»ne who has this personal dealing with Him ir, and cannot help knowing it. Do QOt let this discourage any one who cannot yet say “Him with whom /have to do.”’ For lie is more ready and willing thus to have to do with you, than you with Him. You may enter at once into this most sweet and solemn position. He is there already: He only waits foi you to come into it. Only bring Him your sins and your sinful self, “waiting not to rid your soul of one dark blot.” Nothing else separates between you and Him, and He will take them all away and receive you graciously; and then you too shall know the sacred and secret blessedness of having to do with Jesus.

I could not do without Thee,

0 Jesus, Saviour dear!
E’en when my eyes are holden,

1 know that Thou art near.
How dreary and how lonely

This changeful life would be,
Without the sweet communion,
The secret rest with Thee.

I could not do without Thee!

No other friend can read
The spirit’s strange deep longings,

Interpreting its need.
No human heart can enter

Each deep recess of mine,
And soothe and hush and calm it,

O blessed Lord, but Thine!