Faint Not

Xii. — 3. For consider him that hath endured such gainsaying of sinners against themselves, that ye wax not weary, fainting in your souls.

4. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin:

5. And ye have forgotten the exhortation, which reasoneth with you as with sons,

My son, regard not lightly the chastening of the Lcrd,
Nor faint when thou art reproved of him;
For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth,
And scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

IT is ever still the danger of discouragement and backsliding that the writer seeks to avert. In these verses we find the words, Faint not, twice used, and twice the way is pointed out to be kept from it. The first time the word is used in connection with the considering of Jesus, our Example and Leader. The second time, with the teaching, that it is God from whom all affliction comes. In affliction, look to Jesus as our Forerunner, who was Himself so tried; to God as our Father, who has appointed the trial, as the safeguard against fainting.

For consider Him that hath endured such gainsaying of sinners against Himself, that ye wax not weary, fainting in your souls. We have previously had the injunction (iii. i): Consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our profession — that pointed to the work He did for us. Here it is: Consider Him in His sufferance and patient endurance. The thought that He suffered like you, that you are suffering like Him, will

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give courage and patience. Consider Him. It will remind you how necessary suffering is. If He could not be perfected with out it, how much more we. If suffering wrought such blessing in Him, how surely in us too, for whose sake He was made perfect, to whom God has given Him as a Leader in the path that leads through suffering to glory. We may be sure of it, all that is most precious in a Christlike character — the virtues that were perfected in Him through suffering, the meekness and lowliness of heart, the gentleness and patience and submission of the Lamb of God, will come to us too if we will but consider Him. Looking to Jesus, the suffering One, will bring us the comfort of His sympathy, the courage of His victory, the blessed consciousness of conformity to Him. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin: the thought of His blood in Gethsemane and on Calvary, and the insignificance of our own suffering, will urge us to endure and resist. And we shall neither wax weary nor faint.

And ye have forgotten the exhortation, which reasoneth with you as with sons, My son, regard not lightly the chastening of the Lord. The words from Proverbs warn against a double danger. On the one hand, we may regard lightly the chastening of the Lord, and think too little of it. We may seek to bear up against it with human wisdom; looking upon it as the lot of all, counting ourselves too manly to bow before it, trusting to time and fortune to bring a change. We fail to recognise the hand of God in it; we do not accept it as indeed God’s chastening, and lose all the teaching and the blessing it was meant to bring. My son, regard not lightly the chastening of the Lord.

Neither, here is the other danger — faint when thou art reproved of Him. Be not discouraged or downcast as if the

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chastening was too heavy, more than you deserved or are able to bear. Beware above everything, in your Christian life, of casting away your boldness, of becoming impatient, of losing courage. It is trial and vexation, care and anxiety, persecution or reproach that often causes this. Learn to-day the secret of never suffer ing loss in the soul by the sufferings of life — yea, rather, of always making them your greatest gain. Link them to God and to Jesus. It is God who sends them. He sent them to Jesus and perfected Him through them. He sends them to thee in the same love, and will make them thy highest gain. “Receive every inward and outward trouble, every disappointment, pain, uneasiness, temptation, darkness, desolation, with both thy hands, as a true opportunity and blessed occasion of dying to self, and entering into a fuller fellowship with thy self-denying, suffering Saviour.”

For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth,
And scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.

Sufferings are for chastening. And chastening is from love, a token of God’s fatherly care. We live in a world full of trial and suffering. Thousands of God’s children have complained that their circumstances were too unfavourable for a life of full devotion, of close intercourse with God, of pressing on unto perfection. The duties and difficulties, the cares and troubles of life, render it impossible, they say, to live a fully consecrated life. Would God that they might learn the lesson of His word! Every trial comes from God as a call to come away from the world to Him, to trust Him, to believe in His love. In every trial He will give strength and blessing. Let but this truth be accepted, in every trial, small or great: first of all and at once recognise God’s hand in it. Say at once: My Father has allowed this to come; I welcome it from Him; my first care is

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to glorify Him in it; He will make it a blessing. We may be sure of this; let us by faith rejoice in it. The salvation God has provided for us, the blessed life in the new and living way into the Holiest, through Jesus Christ, has such power that it can enable us amid every trial to be more than conqueror through Him that loved us. “Give up yourself absolutely and entirely to God in Christ Jesus, as into the hands of infinite love; firmly believing this great and infallible truth, that God has no will towards you, but that of infinite love, and infinite desire to make you partaker of His divine nature; and that it is as absolutely impossible for the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ to refuse all that good, and life, and salvation which you want, as it is for you to take it by your own power.”

7. Consider Him. // Christians would only understand that God’s word says, that it is im possible for them to Hue the true Christian life unless they keep their eye daily, unceasingly fixed on Jesus. Not a step in the race is safe if they are not hotting to Jesus.

2. Consider Him. But is it possible — is it not too great a strain, an unnatural life — to be always looking to Jesus? With men it is impossible; with God all things are possible. And all things are possible to him that beliefoth. By faith.

3. Yes, but is such a faith possible? Bless God 1 it is indeed. This Is the open secret of the higher Christian life-Jesus revealing Himself so that the soul can as little forget Him as it forgets to breathe or to see-Jesus so taking possession of the soul by the Holy Spirit and so dwelling within it, that faith never ceases going out to Him who is above. Lord, reveal Thyself to us! The sou! that, te it amid effort and failure, begins and gives itself to consider Jesus in separate acts of faith will be led on, and in due time receive this deeper blessing — a heart in which, by the Holy Spirit, looking to Jesus is its spontaneous and most natural exercise.

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