Gold Nugget 278 - Wisdom-Laden Sorrow

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      There is pain of heart in visiting the house where death has come to the door, as there is in receiving the rebuke of a true friend; but what are the issues of it?  What is to be gained thereby?  What hidden blessing does it not contain?

      How true it is that it is … that the hollow laughter of folly is a very poor and sorry thing indeed compared with the wisdom-laden sorrow, when all things are weighed in the balances.  To have a chastened spirit, to have the heart which has been taught of God great spiritual realities, to have had an enlarging and elevating vision of the things which are unseen and eternal, to have been impressed with the transiency of earthly good and with the excellency of “the consolations which are in Christ Jesus,” to be lifted up, if but one degree, toward the spirit and character of the self-sacrificing Lord we serve, to have had some fellowship with the sufferings of Christ, - surely this is incomparably preferable to the most delicious feast or the most hilarious laughter.

      To go down to the home that is darkened by bereavement or saddened by some crushing disappointment, and to pour upon the troubled hearts there the oil of true and genuine sympathy, to bring such spirits up from the depths of utter hopelessness or overwhelming grief into the light of Divine truth and heavenly promise, - thus “to do good and to communicate” is not only to offer acceptable sacrifice unto God, but it is also to be truly enriched in our own soul.

The Pulpit Commentary, Ecclesiastes p. 185, Ecclesiastes 7:2-6, (W. Clarkson)

Gold Nugget 278

Wisdom-Laden Sorrow