A Little While
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In our Lord's last conversation with his disciples before his betrayal and crucifixion he said to them, "After a little while—you will see Me!" John 16:17. Before them was the bloody tragedy on Calvary, and forty days after that, his ascension through the spring air to heaven. They would see him no more in earthly form. But in another little while—in fifty days thereafter—he would come again by his Holy Spirit in the wondrous baptism of power at Pentecost. He was then to be glorified by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of his disciples. Jesus Christ is with his people now; for did he not promise, "Lo, I am with you always"?
Those sweet tender words, "After a little while," have deep thoughts in them, like the still ocean at the twilight—thoughts too deep for our fathoming. They breathe some precious consolations to those believers whose burdens are heavy, either with care, orpoverty, or sickness. If the prosperous can enjoy their prosperity only for a little while—neither shall the mourner weep much longer, or God's poor children carry much longer the pains or privations of poverty. The daily toil to earn the daily bread, the carking care to keep the barrel from running low and the scanty "cruse" from running out, will soon be over. Cheer up, my brother! "After a little while—you will see Me!" says your blessed Master, "for I am going to prepare a place for you!" Oh the infinite sweep of the glorious transition! A few years here in a lowly dwelling, whose rent it is hard to pay—and then infinite ages in the palace of the King of kings. Here a scanty table and coarse clothing soon outworn—and yonder a robe of resplendent light at the marriage-supper of the Lamb! Let this blissful thought put new courage into your soul, and fresh sunshine into your countenance!
I sometimes go into a sick chamber where the "prisoners of Jesus Christ" are suffering with no prospect of recovery. Perhaps the eyes of some of those chronic invalids may fall upon this article. My dear friends, put under your pillows these sweet words of Jesus—"a little while." It is only for a little while—that you are to serve your Master by patient submission to his holy will. That chronic suffering will soon be over. That disease which no earthly physician can cure, will soon be cured by your Divine Physician, who by the touch of his messenger death, will cure you in an instant, into the perfect health of heaven! You will exchange this weary bed of pain for that crystal air in which none shall ever say, "I am sick;" neither shall there be any more pain.
Not only to the sick and to the poverty-stricken children of God, do these tender words of our Redeemer bring solace. Let these words, After a little while—you will see Me!" bring a healing balm to hearts that are smarting under unkindness, or wounded by neglect, or pining under privations, or bleeding under sharp bereavements. I offer them as a sedative to sorrows, and a solace under sharp afflictions. "After a little while—you will see Me!" The sight of Him shall wipe out all the memories of the darkest hours through which you made your way through this wilderness world—to mansions of glory!
"A few more struggles here,
A few more conflicts more,
A little while of toils and tears,
Then we shall weep no more!"
These words of the Master are also a trumpet-call to duty. After a little while, my post in the pulpit shall be empty; what kind of minister ought I to be in fidelity to dying souls? Sunday-school teacher, after a little while you shall meet the young immortals in your class for the last time. Are you winning them to Christ?
The time is short! Whatever your hands find to do for the Master—do it. Do it, Aquila and Priscilla, in the Sunday-school! Do it,Lydia, in the home! Do it, Dorcas, with your needle, and Mary in the room of sickness and sorrow! Do it, Tertius, with your pen, and Apollos, with your tongue! Do it, praying Hannah, with your children, and make for them the "little coat" of Christian character which they shall wear when you have gone home to a mother's heavenly reward.
Only think, too, how much may be achieved in a little while. The atonement for a world of perishing sinners was accomplished between noon and three, on darkened Calvary. That flash of divine electricity from the Holy Spirit which struck Saul of Tarsus to the ground was the work of an instant—but the great electric burner has blazed over all the world for centuries. A half-hour's faithful preaching of Jesus by a poor itinerant Methodist exhorter at Colchester, brought the boy Spurgeon to Christ, and launched the mightiest ministry of modern times. Lady Somerset tells us that a few minutes of solemn reflection in her garden decided her to exchange a life of fashionable frivolity—for a life of consecrated piety.
Why cite any more cases, when every Christian can testify that the best decisions and deeds of his or her life, turned on the pivot of a few minutes? In the United States Mint they coin twenty dollar eagles out of the sweepings of gold dust from the floor. Brethren, we ought to be misers of our minutes! If on a dying bed they are so precious—why not in the fuller days of our healthful energies? Said General Mitchell, to an officer who apologized for being only a few minutes late, "Sir, I have been in the habit of calculating the tenth part of a second!" Our whole eternity will hinge on the "little while" of probation here. Only an inch of time to choose between an eternity of glory—or the endless woes of hell!
May God help us all to be faithful—only for a little while; and then comes the unfading crown of glory!
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