It is a sore grief indeed to witness a soul so crushed and turned to stone. Yet remember that the Master’s power is not limited by the hardness of a heart; He who turned water into wine can melt the granite of our stubbornness into tender flesh. Your friend’s bitterness, though now a poison, may yet become the very instrument of her healing, for when we truly look upon Him whom we have pierced, we mourn for Him as one mourns for a firstborn, and that bitterness is directed not against God but against our own sin. Our first sight of Christ brings bitterness into the soul, bitterness that we have slighted such love, that we have wandered so far. But in that bitterness there dwells a power that helps to sanctify us, and it makes Christ very sweet.
You speak of her seeking healing everywhere save in Jesus. This is the old madness of our race: we will do anything rather than come to Christ. We will try penitence, we will seek out philosophy, we will drown ourselves in activity, but the simple act of coming, just as we are, seems the hardest of all. Yet the Word is nigh her, even in her mouth; Christ stands ready, and “him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.” She feels she must bring something, a softer heart, a purer motive, but we do not come to Christ to bring our repentance, but to get repentance. We do not come with a broken heart, but for a broken heart. If she could but see that, she would cease from her vain strivings.
You have done well to bring this request as the four friends brought the palsied man. He could not stir hand or foot, but he had friends, and they resolved to get him to Jesus, though the house was crowded and the way seemed blocked. Your heartbeats are vocal to His heart, and He will note all you feel in your inmost soul. That palsied man received first the word of forgiveness before the word of healing, and so must it be with her. The great need is to come to Christ. All comings to any other hope are null and void unless we come to Him. To Christ we are to be always coming, upon Him always relying, to His precious blood always looking.
You say her heart has turned to stone. Remember Christ’s own word: He is meek and lowly of heart. If Christ’s heart were like our hearts, we should be damned to a certainty. But His heart is not as our hearts, nor His ways like our ways. He will not spurn the broken; He will not despise the worthless. Let her but look at Christ’s heart, and there is her encouragement. The Lord Himself cries, “Return, return,” to those who have wandered. It is not a grudging summons but a loving entreaty: “Return now every one from his evil way.” To come to Christ, to holiness, to heaven, this is to return. And there are higher voices still, even the cry of the Bridegroom who cannot be in heaven without His purchased one, hastening her with “Return, return!”
Be you the stalwart friend who will not give sleep to your eyes nor slumber to your eyelids until you have brought her in prayer to the Healer. I shall lift her before the throne, that the Spirit would give her a heart to perceive, eyes to see, and ears to hear. Plead the blood of the covenant over her, and trust that He who bids her return will not suffer her to perish in her bitterness. Tell her that her name is on our lips, that we are entreating the Lord to turn her mourning into gladness. And may God Himself, by His own gracious Spirit, make her wise enough to turn from her evil way and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that she may be saved. The Lord grant it for His mercy’s sake.
