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42 Sacred Sorrow
When the Lord went into the garden of Gethsemane to weep and
suffer anguish and battle with the hosts of darkness in His fight for
a lost world, He left some of His disciples behind. "Tarry ye here." ,
The Inner Circle
"While the Master was there, agonizing for the sin of the world, one
of the twelve was with the enemies, playing the traitor and eight of
the twelve the Master did not consider—shall I say worthy, or shall
I make it milder and say, He did not consider them able to have
fellowship with Him in that great hour. Only three of the twelve
could go with Him.
How many of us will the Master have to leave on the outskirts when
He enters that inner circle of agonizing for the sin of the world? How
often do we pray for the holy privilege of entering with Him, into that
inner circle, where we may share with Him the burden of agonizing
for the world?
Master, thou art going back there to carry the awful load, to put
Thy shoulder under the tremendous burden of the world’s sin, to
carry it up on the cross, grant me the immeasurable privilege of going
with Thee! If I am not in the proper spirit, Master, for such fellow-
ship, oh, create within me the mind that is in Thee! Invite me to
that inner circle. Lord.
Sorrows Reveal Character
When you study the sorrows of a man, you will learn a great deal
about his character. What does he weep over? Are his sorrows over
small things? Then his life also is narrow and trivial. You have
seen people who called themselves Christians weep over temporal
losses, inconsequential matters, and have no tears for the great things
of life. That is a sad testimony of the poverty of their lives.
I remember a certain man whom we never could get to pray aloud
in meeting. We called him "The Captain," because he had followed
the sea for years. He always excused himself by saying "he was not
gifted for public speech or prayer." Then for months and months no
rain came and the crops dried up. The old captain was a farmer now
and felt very bad about his crops drying up. With many others he
attended a prayer-meeting when we were praying the Lord for rain.
And for the first time in his life, as far as I know, he got the gift of
praying aloud! You see it touched something that was precious to
him! As long as it concerned only sinners, he could keep quiet, but
when his corn and cotton were being destroyed, then it was dif-
ferent. And still he was supposed to be a very good Christian.
When the Lord forced Jonah to go to Nineveh he went all right and
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