The witness of sorrow - Chambers, Oswald
Set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. Ezekiel 9:4
We can fathom our own natures by the things we sorrow over. In this ancient book of Ezekiel the man clothed in linen, with a writers in khorn by his side, was to set a mark upon the foreheads of the men who sorrowed for the city’s sin. Let us take time to wonder if such a visitant on such an errand would mark us as among the people privileged to sorrow thus. Jeremiah has been called the weeping prophet, and in his lamentations we find that the secret of his sorrow is Jerusalem, the city of his love. How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! (lamentations 1:1). Instantly our minds pass on to what is recorded in Luke 19:41, and when he drew nigh, he saw the city and wept over it (rv ), and we remember with adoring wonder that our lord is known throughout all generations as a man of sorrows.
1. Worldly sorrow .
. . The sorrow of the world worketh death. (2 Corinthians 7:10)
It is a terrible thing to say, and yet true, that there is a sorrow so selfish, so sentimental and sarcastic that it adds to the sin of the city. All sorrow that arises from being baffled in some selfish aim of our own is of the world and works death. Those who sorrow over their own weaknesses and sins and stop short at that, have a sorrow that only makes them worse, it is not a godly sorrow that works repentance. Oh that all men knew that every sentiment has its appropriate reaction, and if the nature does not embrace that reaction it degenerates into a sullen sentimentalism that kills all good action.
How certain it is that the men in Jerusalem of old upon whose foreheads the mark was set, were working out the appropriate reaction of their sorrow. It is an appalling thing to mourn and sigh over the sins and iniquities of our city and do nothing about it.
2. Working sorrow
for godly sorrow worketh repentance unto a salvation which bringeth no regret. (2 Corinthians 7:10 rv mg)
No one can be touched with sorrow for the sins of his city unless he has felt keen sorrow over his own sins. The apostle Paul never forgot his past sins (see 1 timothy 1:1216). Scriptural repentance leads to positive salvation and sanctification; the only truly repentant man is the holy man. Every forgiven soul will love the world so much that he hates to death the sin that is damning men; to love the world in any other sense is to be an enemy of god: to love the world as god loves it is to spend and be spent that men might be saved from their sins. Godly sorrow not only works a positive godliness, but grants us the mark of the cross in winning souls, an unsleeping sorrow that keeps us at it night, day and night, filling up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ.
3. Winsome sorrow
behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow. (lamentations 1:12)
The sign for the world without god is a circle, complete in and for itself; the sign for the christian is the cross. The christian knows by bitter yet blessed conviction of sin that no man is sufficient for himself, and he thereby enters into identification with the cross of Calvary, and he longs and prays and works to see the sinful, self-centred world broken up and made the occasion for the mighty cross to have its way whereby men may come to god and god come down to men.
4. Weakening sorrow
what, could ye not watch with me one hour? (Matthew 26:40) for this cause many among you are weak and sickly, and not a few sleep. (1 Corinthians 11:30 rv)
There are many to-day who are suffering from spiritual sleeping sickness, and the sorrow of the world which works death is witnessed in all directions. If personal sorrow does not work itself out along the appropriate line, it will lull us to a pessimistic sleep. For instance, when we see our brother sinning a sin not unto death (1 john 5:16 rv), do we get to prayer for him, probed by the searching sorrow of his sin? Most of us are so shallow spiritually that when our lord in answer to some outrageous request we have made, asks us are ye able to drink the cup that i drink? Or to be baptized with the baptism that i am baptized with? We say we are able (rv). Then he begins to show us what the cup and the baptism meant to him but i have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am i straitened till it be accomplished! (luke 12:50). And Jesus said unto them, ye shall indeed drink of the cup that i drink of; and with the baptism that i am baptized withal shall ye be baptized and there begins to dawn for the disciple the great solemn day of martyrdom which closes for ever the day of exuberant undisciplined service, and opens the patient pilgrimage of pain and joy, with more of the first than the last.
5. Without sorrow
Many are in the show business spiritually, and the danger of this is greater than at first appears; it is a danger as old as the book of job, and is expressed in the character of eliphaz who takes up the position of a superior person because of his own mysterious experience. Such an one could never have the mark set on his forehead as one who sighs and cries for the sin of his city; instead he would be an un-suffering dogmatist forgetting all about the sin of his city in his own personal experience. To-day there are in our midst many so-called christian movements, but they bear the characteristic of being without sorrow for sin and without sympathy for suffering.
The witness of sorrow identifies us with our lord who his own self bare our sins in his body (rv ); it binds us if one may reverently put it so into a mighty league of sin-bearers, pouring out the strenuous service of love and long-suffering akin to the love which god has shown to us. Thank god for the beauty of the cross-crowned lives; it is the mark of the highest type of christian life, the evidence of complete salvation.
And thus that far-off day in dim antiquity is linked with the great day yet to be, of which it is written, and they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads (revelation 22:4).