Foundation Truths # 4

 Foundation Truths # 4

A believing view of Christ dying for our sins is God's appointed remedy for man's spiritual need. It is the Divine remedy for that deadly plague which infects the whole family of Adam, and once seen and felt makes men and women miserable. If Paul had not proclaimed this grand remedy at Corinth, he would have shown great ignorance of human nature, and been a physician of no value. And if we ministers do not proclaim it, it is because our eyes are dim, and there is little light in us.

(b) Let us consider, in the next place, the universal Hability of man to SORROW. The testimony of Scripture, "that man is born to trouble," is continually echoed by thousands who know nothing of the Scriptures, but simply speak the language of their own experience. The world, nearly all men agree, is full of trouble. It is a true saying, that we come into life crying, pass through it  complaining, and leave it disappointed.

For what shall best help man to meet and bear sorrow? That is the question! If our condition is such, since the Fall, that we cannot escape sorrow - than what is the surest remedy for making it tolerable? The cold lessons of Stoicism have no power in them. Resignation and submission to the will of God are excellent things to talk about in fine weather. But when the storm strikes us, and hearts ache, and tears flow, and gaps are made in our family circle, and friends fail us, and money makes itself wings, and sickness lays us low - then we need something more than abstract principles and general lessons. We need a living, personal Friend - a Friend to whom we can turn with firm confidence that He can help and sympathize with us.

Now it is just here, I maintain, that Paul's doctrine of a risen Christ comes in with a marvelous power, and exactly meets our necessities. We have One sitting at the right hand of God, as our sympathizing Friend, who has all power to help us, and can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, even Jesus the Son of God. He knows the heart of a man and all his condition, for He Himself was born of a woman, and took part of flesh and blood. He knows what sorrow is, for He Himself in the days of His flesh wept, and groaned, and grieved. He has proved His love towards us for thirty-three years in this world, by a thousand acts of kindness, and ten thousand words of consolation, and by finally dying for us on the Cross.

I can imagine no truth more suited to man's needs than this. Rules, and principles, and prescriptions, and instructions in times of sorrow are all very well in their way - but what the human heart craves is a personal friend to go to, to talk to, to lean upon, and commune with. the risen Christ, living and interceding for us at God's right hand, is precisely the Person that we need.

No religion will ever satisfy man which does not meet the legitimate needs of his nature.

(c) Let us consider, lastly, the certainty of DEATH and it's consequence, which every child of Adam must make up his mind to face one day. The end of each individual is still a very momentous circumstance in his history, and most men honestly confess it. To leave the world and shut our eyes on all among whom we have played our part - to surrender our bodies, whether we like it or not, to the humiliation of disease, decay, and the grave into be obliged to drop all our schemes and plans and intentions - all this is serious enough. But when to this you add the overwhelming thought that there is something beyond the grave, an undiscovered and unknown world, and an account of some sort to to rendered of our life on earth - the death of any man or woman becomes a tremendously serious event.

The dread of something after death, is a dread which many feel far more than they would like to confess. Few are ever satisfied with Mohammedan fatalism. Not one in a thousand will ever be found to believe the doctrine of annihilation.

But just at the point where all man-made systems are weakest, and fail to satisfy the needs of human nature - there the gospel which Paul proclaimed at Corinth is strongest. For it shows us an Almighty Saviour who not only died for our sins, and went down to the grave - but also rose again from the grave with His body, and proved that He had gained a victory over death. Christ has abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light.

~J. C. Ryle~

(continued with # 5)