Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1907-10-10

d
down here in this broken-hearted
sickness and death, our broken friend
ships, our wrecked homes, our wrongs
and sorrows and, thank God, He has
1t for us. He has experienced it and
He has not forgotten it and still in
His heavenly home we are told "He
is able to be touched with the feeling
of our infirmities."
He was a child and has felt every
childish sorrow. He had the hard
struggle to support His mother at
Nazareth and He knows all about
hard work and hard times. He was
despised and scorned and He under
stands the sense of wrong and sting
of insult. He was deceived, betrayed
and murdered and there is no wrong
or insult can come to us that He has
not borne and is still ready to bear
for us. Yes, He has felt the awful
weight of sin, for there was an hour
when He sank under His Fathers
wrath in punishment for the sins of
men, He knows the cloud of spfr-
itual darkness. He knows the weak
ness and agony of death and He is
with us in it ALL Blessed Friend,
how we thank God for Christ and
| what a gospel of love and sympathy
| and help speaks to us through the
| tears of Bethany.
The tears of Jesus tell us that He
| understands our danger, our destiny
| and our estate. He shed those tears
| over the grave of Lazarus. They
meant much more than sense of be-
reavement He was not weeping be-
cause He had lost Lazarus. He was
not weeping because the sisters at
Bethany had lost their brother. He
knew that Lazarus was coming forth
again in little while and that the
sorrow would be forgotten in the glad
reunion. Oh, no. He saw deeper than
that. He saw in the grave of Lazarus
every grave that had been opened
and filled through earth's forty cen
turies and thai would be filled in the
twenty centuries that have passed
since then. He saw all the horrors
and agonies of the battlefield, the
ocean wreck, the lingering deathbed
the scourge of famine and pestilence
and the ravages of the king of terrors
with the millions and billions of vic.
tins that he has smitten in the past
six thousand years; and as He saw II
all, realized it all, and the vIsior
loomed in llrid horror before His
Omniscient eye, He realized the fear
full curse of sin and His heart broke
down in agony and sorrow.
Nay more, He saw a sadder sight
He saw deeper grave. He saw the
eternal grave beyond all, that we be
: hold in death. He saw the death that
: never dies; the fire that never il
, quenched; the yawning gulf of end
less woe into which the sinful sou
must sink forever. It was the sigh
Of that horror that had brought Hin
from Heaven to earth. It was ths
, thought of man perishing in ever
lasting darkness that had made Hin
4 glad to live and suffer and die, and
as it all rose before Him as through
. q glass in the tomb Of Lazarus "Jesus
l wept.
ii Oh, that we might realize it as He
t did
4 Did Christ DER sinners weep
O And shall our tears be dry!
9 Christ never thought or spake OF
eternal punishment in cold, hard
: words. He did it with breaking
t heart. He did it with tenderness and
v tears, but none the less He did 1t;
e for none knew so well as He that
t eternal sin must bring eternal hel
g and that all we know and fear o.
O death is but paradise compared
n with that second death
: - whose pang
e Outlasts the feeting breath;
d: Oh, what eternal horrors hang
g< Around the second death.