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We need a high priest

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"For we don't have a high priest who can't be touched with the feeling of our infirmities." Hebrews 4:15

"We have such a high priest, who sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens." Hebrews 8:1

We need a high priest, not merely one who offered a sacrifice upon the cross—not merely one who died and rose again—but one who now lives at the right hand of God on our behalf—and one with a tender, merciful, and compassionate heart, with whom we can carry on from time to time sacred communion—whom we can view with believing eyes as suitable to our case, and compassionating our wants and woes—in whom we can hope with expecting hearts, as one who will not turn away from us—and whom we can love, not only for His intrinsic beauty and blessedness, but as full of pity towards us.

We need a friend at the right hand of God at the present moment—an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, and yet a compassionate and loving Mediator between God and us—an interceding High Priest, Surety, and Representative in our nature in the courts of heaven, who can show mercy and compassion to us now upon earth—whose heart is touched with tenderness—whose affections melt with love!

Our needs make us feel this. Our sins and sorrows give us perpetual errands to the throne. This valley of tears is ever before our eyes, and thorns and briars are perpetually springing up in it that rip and tear our flesh. We need a real friend. Have you not sometimes tossed to and fro upon your weary couch, and almost cried aloud, "O that I had a friend!"

You may have received bitter blows from one whom you regarded as a real friend—and you have been cruelly deceived. You feel now you have no one to take care of you or love you, and whom you can love in return—and your heart sighs for a friend who shall be a friend indeed. The widow, the orphan, the friendless, the deserted one, all keenly and deeply feel this.

But if grace has touched your heart, you feel that though all men forsake you, there is the friend of sinners—a brother born for adversity—a friend who loves at all times—who will never leave or forsake you. And how it cheers the troubled mind and supports the weary spirit to feel that there is a friend to whom we may go—whose eyes are ever open to see—whose ears are ever unclosed to hear—whose heart is ever touched with a feeling of pity and compassion towards us!

But we need this friend to be almighty, for no other can suit our case—he must be a divine friend. For who but God can see us wherever we are? What but a divine eye can read our thoughts? What but a divine ear can hear our petitions? And what but a divine hand can stretch itself forth and deliver?

Thus the Deity of Christ is no dry, barren speculation—no mere Bible truth—but an experience wrought powerfully into a believer's inmost soul. Happy soul! happy season! when you can say, "This is my Beloved—and this is my Friend!"

Thus the very desires of the soul instinctively teach us that a friend, to be a friend, must be a heavenly friend—that His heart and hand must be divine—or they are not the heart and hand for us. This friend, whose bitterest reproach on earth was that He was the friend of sinners—is the blessed Jesus, our great high priest in the courts above.

We find Him at times to be very merciful, full of pity, and very compassionate. And I am sure that we need all the compassion of His loving bosom; for we are continually in states of mind when nothing but His pure mercy can suit, when nothing but His rich and boundless compassion is adapted to our case.


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