Messages of Hope Audiobook By George Matheson cover art

Messages of Hope

 Virtual Voice Sample

$0.00 for first 30 days

Try for $0.00
Access a growing selection of included Audible Originals, audiobooks, and podcasts.
You will get an email reminder before your trial ends.
Audible Plus auto-renews for $7.95/mo after 30 days. Upgrade or cancel anytime.

Messages of Hope

By: George Matheson
Narrated by: Virtual Voice
Try for $0.00

$7.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $5.99

Buy for $5.99

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel
Background images

This title uses virtual voice narration

Virtual voice is computer-generated narration for audiobooks.

About this listen

The Grief that implies Glory


“He began to teach them, that the Son of Man must suffer many things.”—Mark viii. 31.


“HE began to teach them.” It was indeed the beginning of a new lesson for humanity. The old lesson for humanity had been that a “Son of Man” must suffer nothing—that the higher the life the more exempt should it be from pain. That belief was embedded deep in the heart both of Gentile and Jew. The Gentile deified massive strength—strength on which the woes of the world could make no impression and which was incapable of tears. The Jew exalted the sons of the morning—the men who basked in fortune’s radiant smile; he deemed that the most dowered must be to God the dearest. Christianity began to paint a fresh ideal of humanity—an opposite ideal. It said that the test of a man’s height was not his inability, but his capacity, to feel. “The Son of Man must suffer many things.” It is not merely that He may, but that He must. Suffering is involved in the fact that He is the Son of Man—that He is at the top of the hill. If He were lower down, He would be protected. The very elevation of His person has put Him in collision with the full sweep of the blast and the full coldness of the air. Remember, that was the very source of Christ’s temptation in the wilderness. The tempter said: “If you are the Son of Man, you ought to enjoy yourself. You should have no want of bread, no fear of precipices, no dread of the kingdoms of the world and their glory; you should live sumptuously, walk recklessly, reign despotically.” Christ reverses all this. He says it is just because He is Son of Man that He is bound to suffer—to feel as a personal hunger the world’s want of bread, to experience as a personal fear the world’s danger of falling, to share as a personal burden the world’s subjection to human tyrannies. And though He stands at the top, the principle is in measure true for those who are climbing. There is a suffering which the good alone can know. There is a furnace which is only heated for the man of God, a den of lions which only awaits the holy. Not every eye can weep over Jerusalem—that is a Divine gift of tears. Men said of Jesus, “Let God deliver him if he delighted in him! ”—if he is good, why is he so burdened! Had He been less good He would have been less burdened. His purity made His pain; His tenderness made His tears; His selflessness made His sorrow; His righteousness made Him restless; His lustre made Him lonely; His kindness made Him kinless; His crown made His cross. It was because He was the Son of Man He had not where to lay His head.

Lord, Thy pain can cure all other pain; let me enter into its secret! There is no homoeopathy in all the world like this by which Thy sorrow conquers mine. Nothing but unselfish grief can banish my selfish care. Joy cannot; care would corrupt it in an hour. Beauty cannot; life’s dust would dim it in a day. Fame cannot; the weary heart would wither it in a night. Wealth cannot; the strength of conscious toil would steal it from my soul. But, if I could get the Divine homoeopathy, I should be cured. Thou canst bestow it, O my God. Give me a new care, and the old will die. Send me Thy weight, and I shall have wings. Give me Thy cross, and I shall be crowned. Let me hear the sigh of the weary, and mine will be silent. Let me lift the load of the poor, and mine will be lightened. Let me carry the burden of the weak, and mine will be banished. Let me listen to the murmurs of the sick, and mine will be mute. Let me aid the task of the toiling, and mine will be tearless. Let me touch the hand of the leper, and mine will be healed. Let me help the feet of the lame, and mine will be flying. Let me arrest the falls of the tempted, and mine will be few. May the pain of the Son of Man be my panacea for pain!
 Bible Study Bibles & Bible Study Christian Living Christianity Devotionals Meditations
No reviews yet