We see how the Holy Spirit wants us to pray. You have blessed company; your path is marked with footprints of your Lord. Remember how Paul said, "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. " And He bowed His head, and gave up His spirit. He did not spare his Son the stripes. He saw its streets flowing like bloody rivers; he saw the temple naming up to heaven; he marked the walls loaded with Jewish captives crucified by command of Titus; he saw the city razed to the ground and sown with salt, and he said, "Weep not for me, but for yourselves and for your children, for the day shall come when ye shall say to the rocks, Hide us, and to the mountains, Fall upon us." For his sake we may rejoice in self-denials, and accept Christ and a crust as all we desire between here and heaven. Ah, that I cannot tell, except his own great love. What joy, what satisfaotion this will give if we can sing, "My soul looks back to see The burden thou didst bear, When hastening to the accursed tree, And knows her guilt was there!". How they led him forth we do not know. souls, I do beseech you, by the agonies of Christ, by his wounds and by his blood, do not bring upon yourselves the curse; do not bear in your own persons the awful wrath to come! That is very possible; Christ may have carried the heavier end, against the transverse beam, and Simon may have borne the lighter end. Shake off the thought, any of you who suppose that God will have pity on you because you have endured affliction. No longer sink below the brim; But overflow, and pour me down A living and life-giving stream.". He had been all night in agony, he had spent the early morning at the hall of Caiaphas, he had been hurried, as I described to you last Sunday, from Caiaphas to Pilate, from Pilate to Herod, and from Herod back again to Pilate; he had, therefore, but little strength left, and you will not wonder that by-and-bye we find him staggering beneath his load, and that another is called to bear it with him. points to the anguish of his soul; "I thirst" expresses in part the torture of his body; and they were both needful, because it is written of the God of justice that he is "able to destroy both soul and body in hell," and the pangs that are due to law are of both kinds, touching both heart and flesh. 29. Romanists pretend to know; in fact they know the very spot where Veronica wiped the blessed face with her handkerchief, and found his likeness impressed upon it; we also know very well where that was not done; in fact they know the very spot where Jesus fainted, and if you go to Jerusalem you can see all these different places if you only carry enough credulity with you; but the fact is the city has been so razed, and burned, and ploughed, that there is little chance of distinguishing any of these positions, with the exception, it may be, of Mount Calvary, which being outside the walls may possibly still remain. I suppose that the "I thirst" was uttered softly, so that perhaps only one and another who stood near the cross heard it at all; in contrast with the louder cry of "Lama sabachthani" and the triumphant shout of "It is finished": but that soft, expiring sigh, "I thirst," has ended for us the thirst which else, insatiably fierce, had preyed upon us throughout eternity. I will not say it is because we are unfaithful to our Master that the world is more kind to us, but I half suspect it is, and it is very possible that if we were more thoroughly Christians the world would more heartily detest us, and if we would cleave more closely to Christ we might expect to receive more slander, more abuse, less tolerance, and less favor from men. Oh, wondrous substitution of the just for the unjust, of God for man, of the perfect Christ for us guilty, hell-deserving rebels. I have touched that point very lightly because I want a little more time to dwell upon a fourth view of this scene. Save your tears for them; Christ asks them not in sympathy for himself. The arrow which has lately pierced thee, my brother, was first stained with his blood. Beloved, there is now upon our Master, and there always has been, a thirst after the love of his people. He thirsted to pluck us from between the jaws of hell, to pay our redemption price, and set us free from the eternal condemnation which hung over us; and when on the cross the work was almost done his thirst was not assuaged, and could not be till he could say, "It is finished." good God! There is the complete justification of the believer, since the work by which he is accepted is fully accomplished. Remember, dear friends, that what Christ suffered for us, these unregenerate ones must suffer for themselves, except they put their trust in Christ. Are you so frozen at heart that not a cup of cold water can be melted for Jesus? Nor dost thou set a time for waiting, but instantly thou dost set wide the gate of pearl; thou hast all power in heaven as well as upon earth. You have, then, no true sympathy for Christ if you have not an earnest sympathy with those who would win souls for Christ. Will your thoroughfares be thronged? What a cataract of immortal souls dashes downwards to the pit every hour! It is not sorrow over Rome, but Jerusalem. What whips of steel for you, what knots of burning wire for you, when conscience shall smite you, when the law shall scourge you with its ten-thonged whip! The sufferings of Christ should make us weep over those who have brought that blood upon their heads. This is a kind of sweet whereof if a man hath much he must have more, and when he hath more he is under a still greater necessity to receive more, and so on, his appetite for ever growing by that which it feeds upon, till he is filled with all the fulness of God. 1. You and I have nothing else to preach. You carry the cross after him. He was innocent, and yet he thirsted; shall we marvel if guilty ones are now and then chastened? You may die so, you may die now. He believed, as a Roman in gods many. You have been ill, and you have been parched with fever as he was, and then you too have gasped out "I thirst." London shall see the glory of the one: Jerusalem beheld the shame of the other. He saith, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." Then came, "Women, behold thy son!" Your Prince is surrounded by a multitude of friends; hark how they joyously welcome him! ", When a brother makes confession of his transgressions, when on his knees before God he humbles himself with many tears, I am sure the Lord thinks far more of the tears of repentance than he would do of the mere drops of human sympathy. Dear friend, if you think that you suffer all that a Christian can suffer; if all God's billows roll over you, yet, remember, there is not one drop of wrath in all your sea of sorrow. In the multitude there was a sparse sprinkling of tender-hearted women, probably those who had been healed, or whose children had been blessed by him. The spear broke up the very fountains of life; no human body could survive such a wound. I tell you, sirs, that yonder malefactor carried his cross and died on it; and you will carry your sorrows, and be damned with them, except you repent. Mine is adorned with garments crimsoned with his own blood. While thus we admire his condescension let our thoughts also turn with delight to his sure sympathy: for if Jesus said, "I thirst," then he knows all our frailties and woes. See, brethren, here is a picture of what we may expect from men if we are faithful to our Master. Did I not describe last Sabbath the knotted scourges which fell upon the Saviours back? I wonder he has ever received them, as one marvels why he received this vinegar; and yet he has received them, and smiled upon us for presenting them. Perhaps they are your children, the objects of your fondest love, with no interest in Christ, without God and without hope in the world! Let the sympathy of Christ, then, be fully believed in and deeply appreciated, since he said, "I thirst." Always was he in harmony with himself, and his own body was always expressive of his soul's cravings as well as of its own longings. And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou ? A refined and heavenly appetite, a craving for our Lord. Dear friends, we must remember that, although no one died on the cross with Christ, for atonement must be executed by a solitary Savior, yet another person did carry the cross for Christ; for this world, while redeemed by price by Christ, and by Christ alone, is to be redeemed by divine power manifested in the sufferings and labors of the saints as well as those of Christ. Hunger and thirst after righteousness, for you shall be filled. The lictors executed their cruel office upon his shoulders with their rods and scourges, until the stripes had reached the full number. I have already told you that such was our Lord's mystical desire; let it be ours also. We can never forget the painful scenes of which we have been witness, when we have watched the dissolving of the human frame. _Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him. Commentators like Thomas Manton and John Calvin are represented in this series. Then I will thirst with him and not complain, I will suffer with him and not murmur." The more manifestly there shall be a great gulf between the Church and the world, the better shall it be for both; the better for the world, for it shall be thereby warned; the better for the Church, for it shall be thereby preserved. What learn we here as we see Christ led forth? But how vast was the disparity! Even if I may not come at him, yet shall I be full of consolation, for it is heaven to thirst after him, and surely he will never deny a poor soul liberty to admire him, and adore him, and thirst after him." Behold, my King is not without his crown alas, a crown of thorns set with ruby drops of blood! One word: transformation. Now recollect, if Jesus had not thirsted, every one of us would have thirsted for ever afar off from God, with an impassable gulf between us and heaven. Universal manhood, left to itself, rejects, crucifies, and mocks the Christ of God. Today! He poureth out the streams that run among the hills, the torrents which rush adown the mountains, and the flowing rivers which enrich the plains. I have heard sermons, and studied works by Romish writers upon the passion and agony, which have moved me to copious tears, but I am not clear that all the emotion was profitable. Borrowed from his lips it well suiteth my mouth. He thirsted for water doubtless, but his soul was thirsty in a higher sense; indeed, he seems only to have spoken that the Scriptures might be fulfilled as to the offering him vinegar. I will give you one of his thirsty prayers "Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory." (1-4) Pilate hopes to satisfy the mob by having Jesus whipped and mocked. In the Lord of Hosts, who shows his power in the sufferings of Christ and of his Church. Yet most people today have never heard of John Gill. We shall by the assistance of the Holy Spirit try to regard these words of our Saviour in a five-fold light. and they smote him with their hands. Barrabas may go free; the thief and the murderer may be spared; but for Christ there is no word, but "Away with such a fellow from the earth! Certainly it is so with you; you do but carry the light end of the cross; Christ bore the heavier end. They place the cross upon Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country. There was a deeper meaning in his words than she dreamed of, as a verse further down fully proves, when he said to his disciples, "I have meat to eat that ye know not of." They are these Weep not because the Savior bled, but because your sins made him bleed. To-day I invite your attention to another Prince, marching in another fashion through his metropolis. ( John 19:1-4) Pilate hopes to satisfy the mob by having Jesus whipped and mocked. It does not often happen that five or six thousand people meet together twice; it never does, I suppose; the scythe of death must cut some of you down before my voice shall warn you again! One would wish to be as a spouse, who, when she had already been feasting in the banqueting-house, and had found his fruit sweet to her taste, so that she was overjoyed, yet cried out, "Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love." There is a fulness of meaning in each utterance which no man shall be able fully to bring forth, and when combined they make up a vast deep of thought, which no human line can fathom. This added to his shame; but, methinks, in this, too, he draws the nearer to us, "He was numbered with the transgressors, and bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." Conceal your religion? All nations gathered about my Lord, both great and mean men clustered around his person. Justice must fly the field lest it be severe to so deserving a being; as for punishment, it must not be whispered to his ears polite. who would stand in your place, ye richest, ye merriest, ye most self-righteous sinners who would stand in your place when God shall say, "Awake O sword against the rebel, against the man that rejected me; smite him, and let him feel the smart for ever!" These are awful words, but they are not mine; they are the very words of God in Scripture. Shall the servant be above his Master, or the disciple above his Lord? It was the common place of death. How near akin the thirsty Saviour is to us; let us love him more and more. (6) John 19:30 When Jesus therefore had received the sour wine, He said, " It is finished! III. John 19:28 . He is not allowed to worship with them. The Holy Spirit took special care that each of the sacred utterances should be fittingly recorded. Yes, he loves to be with his people; they are the garden where he walks for refreshment, and their love, their graces, are the milk and wine which he delights to drink. Will your Prince be sumptuously arrayed? Sister, thirst for the salvation of your class, thirst for the redemption of your family, thirst for the conversion of your husband. One would have said, If he were thirsty he would not tell us, for all the clouds and rains would be glad to refresh his brow, and the brooks and streams would joyously flow at his feet. I think, beloved friends, that the cry of "I thirst" was THE MYSTICAL EXPRESSION OF THE DESIRE OF HIS HEART "I thirst." It was one of Death's castles; here he stored his gloomiest trophies; he was the grim lord of that stronghold. Let this mind be in you also. The great Surety says, "I thirst," because he is placed in the sinner's stead, and he must therefore undergo the penalty of sin for the ungodly. Christ did but transfer to Simon the outward frame, the mere tree; but the curse of the tree, which was our sin and its punishment, rested on Jesus' shoulders still. Come let us pour out full flagons, until his joy is fulfilled in us. We may therefore come before him, with all the rest of our race, when God subdues them to repentance by his love, and look on him whom we have pierced, and mourn for him as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. "I reckon that these light afflictions, which are but for a moment, are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." The utterance of "I thirst" brought out A TYPE OF MAN'S TREATMENT OF HIS LORD. They force him without the walls, and are not satisfied till they have rid themselves of his obnoxious presence. "And he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes," vinegar, and not wine; sourness, and not sweetness. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid: It shows he was afraid all along the coward the vacillating coward and now a fresh superstition seizes upon him. Beloved, if our Master said, "I thirst," do we expect every day to drink of streams from Lebanon? We would fain lift thy name on high in grateful remembrance of the depths to which thou didst descend! Jesus paused, and said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me; but weep for yourselves and for your children." Our Lord in his death-cries, as in all else, was perfection itself. You see there the multitude are leading him forth from the temple. To-day I invite your attention to another Prince, marching in another fashion through his metropolis. 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