The Universal Remedy
A Sermon
(No. 834)
Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, October 4, 1868, by
C. H. SPURGEON,
at the [43]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
"With His stripes we are healed."
Isaiah 53:5.
I RECEIVED, one day this week, a short communication worded on this
wise: "Wanted, a cure for a weak and doubting faith, especially when
Satan disinclines to pray." Anxiously desirous to prescribe cures for
such maladies, and for any others which may vex the Lord's people, I
began to turn over in my mind what were the sacred remedies for such a
case, and I could only remember one, "The leaves of the tree were for
the healing of the nations." Our Lord Jesus is to us a Tree of Life,
and by the leaves, I suppose, the Holy Spirit means the acts, words,
promises, and lesser griefs of Jesus– all of which are for the healing
of His people. Then my mind reverted to this kindred text: "With His
stripes we are healed." Not merely His bleeding wounds, but even those
blue bruises of His flesh help to heal us. Not alone the work of the
nails and the spear, but the cruel handiwork of the rod and the
scourge.
Out of all this throng of Believers, there are none quite free from
spiritual diseases–one may be saying, "Mine is a weak faith." Another
may confess, "Mine is distracted thoughts." Another may exclaim, "Mine
is coldness of love!" And a fourth may have to lament his powerlessness
in prayer. One remedy in natural things will not suffice for all
diseases, and the moment that the quack begins to cry up his medicine
as healing all, you shrewdly surmise that it heals none. But in
spiritual things it is not so–there is a catholicon, a universal
remedy provided in the Word of God for all spiritual sicknesses to
which man can be subject to–and that remedy is contained in the few
words of my text–"With His stripes we are healed."
I. I shall invite you, then, first of all, this morning, to consider
THE MEDICINE ITSELF WHICH IS HERE PRESCRIBED–the stripes of our
Savior. Not stripes laid upon our own backs, nor tortures inflicted
upon our own minds–but the grief which Jesus has endured for those who
trust in Him. By the term "stripes," no doubt the Prophet understood
here, first, literally, those actual stripes which fell upon our Lord's
shoulders when He was beaten by the Jews, and afterwards scourged by
the Roman soldiers.
But the words intend far more than this. No doubt with his prophetic
eye Isaiah saw the stripes from that unseen scourge held in the
Father's hand which fell not upon the flesh of Jesus, but upon His
nobler inner nature when His soul was scourged for sin–when eternal
justice was the plower and made deep furrows upon His Soul–when the
lash fell with awful force again and again, and again upon the blessed
Soul of Him who was made a curse for us that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him.
I take the term, "stripes," to comprehend all the physical and
spiritual sufferings of our Lord, with special reference to those
chastisements of our peace which preceded, rather than actually caused,
His sin-atoning death. It is by these that our souls are healed. "But
why?" you ask. First, then, because our Lord, as a Sufferer, was not a
private person, but suffered as a public individual, and an appointed
Representative. Your sins, in a certain sense, end with yourself. But
the sins of Adam could not do so, for Adam stood before God as the
representative of the human race–and everything that he did brought
its dire effects upon all his descendants.
Now, our Savior is the second Adam, the second federal Head and
Representative of men. And all that He did, and all that He suffered
goes to the benefit of all those whom He represented. His holy life is
the inheritance of His people, and His suffering death, with all its
pangs and griefs, belongs to those whom He represented. They did, in
effect, suffer in Him and offer in Him a vindication to Divine Justice.
Our Lord was appointed of God to stand in the place of His people. A
Divine decree had gone forth sanctioning His substitution so that when
He stood forward as the Representative of guilty men, God accepted Him,
having foreordained Him to that very end.
So then, Beloved, let us never forget that all which Jesus endured came
upon Him not at all as a private individual, but fell upon Him as the
great public Representative of those who believe in Him. Hence the
effects of His griefs are applied to us, and with His stripes we are
healed. His blood, His passions and His death make atonement for us,
and deliver us from the curse. And His bruises, smarts, and stripes,
make up a matchless medicine to allay our sicknesses–
"Behold how every wound of His
A precious balm distils,
Which heals the scars that sin had made,
And cures all mortal ills.'"
Be it never forgotten, too, that our Lord was not merely Man, or else
His sufferings could not have availed for the multitude who now are
healed by them. He was God as well as Man and it is the most mysterious
and marvelous of all facts that God should be manifest in the flesh,
and seen of angels, and that in the flesh the Son of God should most
really and certainly die, and be buried, and lie for three days in the
tomb.
The Incarnation, with its after train of humiliation, is to be believed
and accepted as an ever memorable display of condescension! From the
highest Throne of Glory to the Cross of deepest woe the Savior
stoops–neither cherubim nor seraphim can measure the mighty distance!
Imagination wearies its wing in attempting the tremendous flight! In
every stripe that falls upon our Emanuel you are to consider that it
falls not merely upon a Man, but upon One who is co-equal and
co-eternal with the Father! Though the Deity suffered not, yet was it
in so intimate a connection with the Humanity that it infused
supernatural power into the human frame and no doubt added wondrous
merit to all His bitter human foes.
Oh, what a Rock have we to rest upon–a Substitute covered with
stripes–a Substitute appointed and accepted of God–and that
Substitute Himself God, over all blessed forever, and therefore able to
bear for us what we could never have borne except by lying forever in
the lowest pit of Hell! Brethren, we all believe that our Savior's
sufferings heal us of the curse by being presented before God as a
Substitute for what we owe to His Divine Law. But healing is a work
that is carried on within, and the text rather leads me to speak of the
effect of the stripes of Christ upon our characters and natures than
upon the result produced in our position before God.
We know that the Lord has pardoned and justified us through the
precious blood of Jesus. But the question this morning is how these
griefs and pangs help to deliver us from the disease of sin which
before reigned within us. It was necessary that I should mention,
first, the justifying power of Jesus' blood, because apart from our
belief in Jesus as a Substitute, and as Divine, there is no power in
His example to heal us of sin. Men have studied that example and
admired it, but have remained as vile as before! They have criticized
His beauty, but have not been enamored of His Person. It is only when
they have rested in Him as Divine that they have afterwards come to
feel the potency of those wondrous cords of love which His example
always casts around forgiven spirits.
They have learned to love Jesus, and then their admiration has become a
practical thing–but mere admiration, apart from love to Him and faith
in Him–is a cold barren moonlight which ripens no fruit of holiness.
Beloved, the stripes of Jesus operate upon our character, principally
because we see in Him a perfect Man suffering for offenses that were
not His own. We see in Him a glorious Lord, who, though He was rich,
yet for our sakes became poor. We behold in Him the paragon of perfect
disinterested affection. We see in Him a fidelity never to be excelled,
when, through the pangs of death, He followed on to work out the
purpose of His heart–the salvation of His people.
And as we look at Him and study His Character as it is revealed by His
griefs, we become moved, and the spiritual evils which had rule over us
are dethroned–and through the power of the Spirit the image of Jesus
Christ is stamped upon our natures. Jesus dying justifies us! Jesus
smitten sanctifies us! His cruel flagellations are our refining! His
buffetings are blows at our sins! His bruises mortify our lusts!
Thus much, then, upon the medicine that heals us–it is the
substitutionary sacrifice of Christ as understood in our intellects and
beloved in our hearts–and especially those incidents of ignominy and
cruelty which surrounded that death with deeper gloom and revealed the
patience and love of the Substitute.
II. I shall ask you, now, for a briefmoment, to behold THE MATCHLESS
CURES WROUGHT BY THIS REMARKABLE MEDICINE. Look at two pictures. Look
at man without the stricken Savior. And then behold man with the
Savior, healed by His stripes. I say, look at man originally and apart
from the Savior! Naked, he is driven out of Eden's garden, the
inheritor of the curse. Within him lies concealed the deadly cancer of
sin.
If you would see that evil which dwells in every one of us from our
very birth developing itself upon the surface, you might soon behold it
in all its horror near at home. A street or two would conduct you to
sin's carnival, but perhaps it were better that you should not gaze
upon a scene so polluting, in the gambling halls. In the haunts where
drunkards congregate–where thieves assemble amidst oaths and
blasphemies, and lewd language, and lascivious acts–it is there that
sin stalks forth as a full-grown monster.
In the moral and educated natural man, sin apparently sleeps like a
coiled up viper. It is a thing, in appearance, little to be
dreaded–quiet and powerless as a poor worm. But when man is allowed to
have his own way, before long he feels the viper's tooth–the poisoned
fang envenoms all his blood and you see the proof of its deadly poison
in overt and abundant sin. Men become covered with the visible blotches
of iniquity, so that the spiritual eye can see in their character the
leprosy upon them, and all manner of abominations, worse than the
rottenness of the deadliest of fleshly diseases, constantly exuding
from their souls.
If we could see sin as it appears to the all-discerning eye of the
Eternal, we should be more shocked at the sight of sin than by a vision
of Hell–for there is in Hell something which purity approves–the
vindication of righteousness. It is Justice triumphant–but in sin,
itself, there is abomination, and only abomination! It is a something
out of joint with the whole system of the universe! It is a mist
dangerous to all spiritual life–a plague–dangerous to everything that
breathes. Sin is a monster, a hideous thing, a thing which God will not
look upon–and which pure eyes cannot behold but with the utmost
detestation.
A flood of tears is the proper medium through which a Christian should
look at sin. If you would see what sin can do, you have but to look
into your own heart with an illuminated eye. Ah, what mischief lurks
there! You hate sin, my Brothers and Sisters, I know you do, since
Christ has visited you with the day spring from on high. But with all
your hatred of sin you must acknowledge that it still lurks within you!
You find yourself envious, you who hate envy! You find yourself
thinking hard thoughts of God, you who yet love Him and would lay down
your lives for Him! You find yourself provoked to anger on a sudden
against the very Friend to whose call you would cheerfully yield your
all!
Yes, we do the thing we would not through the power of sin. And sin
degrades and debases us–we cannot look within without being shocked at
the meanness to which our mind, in secret, descends. If you anxiously
desire to see sin at the full, come here and gaze down the fathomless
abyss. Listen to those blasphemous curses! If you have the courage,
hearken to those mingled cries of misery and passion which come up from
Tophet, from the abodes of lost spirits! Sin is ripe there–here it is
green. Here we see its darkness as the shades of evening, but there it
is tenfold night! Here it scatters firebrands, but there its quenchless
conflagrations flame on forever and ever!
Oh, if we have but Divine Grace to be rid of sin, now, the riddance
will save us from the wrath to come! Sin, indeed, is Hell–Hell in
embryo, Hell in essence, Hell kindling, Hell emerging from the
shell–Hell is but sin when it has manifested and developed itself to
the fullest. Stand at the gates of Tophet and understand how full the
disease for which Heaven's remedy is provided in the stripes of the
Only-Begotten!
Now, Beloved, I said I would show you the cure, and I have but feebly
talked of the disease, itself, to let you see the greatness of the
change by contrast. Observe, Beloved, you who have believed in Jesus,
observe already what a change the stripes of Christ have made in you!
Since the dear hour that brought you to His feet, what different men
have you been! Indeed, in your case, instead of the thorn, the fir tree
has come up! And instead of the brier, the myrtle tree has come up. You
who were once the blind slaves of Satan are now the rejoicing children
of God. The things which you once loved, though God abhorred them, you,
now, also detest right heartily.
God's mind and yours are now agreed as to darkness and light. You no
longer put the one for the other. How changed you are! You are a new
creature alive from the dead. And what has done it? What, indeed, but
faith in the Crucified and contemplation of His wounds? Yet in you,
dear Friend, the healing is very far from being perfect. If you would
behold perfect spiritual health, look yonder to those white-robed hosts
who jubilantly stand without fault before the Throne of God! Search
them through and through, and they are undefiled. Let even the
all-seeing eyes of God rest upon them, and they are without spot or
wrinkle or any such thing!
How is this? Where washed they these snow-white garments once so much
defiled? They answer, with joyful music, "We have washed our robes and
made them white in the blood of the Lamb." Ask them from where their
victory came over indwelling sin–
"They with united breath
Ascribe their victories to the Lamb
Their conquests to His death."
They will all tell you that the perfect healing which they have
received, and which today they enjoy before the Throne of God, is the
result of the Savior's passion. "With His stripes," say the 10,000s
times 10,000s, with a voice that is loud as thunder and as sweet as
harpers harping with their harps–"With His stripes we are healed."
III. I want now for you to note, dear Brothers and Sisters, in detail,
and yet so briefly as not to weary you, THE MALADIES WHICH THIS
WONDROUS MEDICINE REMOVES. I shall not attempt to read you a full list,
for they are more than I can count, but they are never so many there is
not one which the stripes of Jesus cannot heal!
I would remind you, first, that the great root of all this
mischief–the curse which fell on man through Adam's sin–is already
effectually removed. Jesus took it upon Himself, and was made a curse
for us, and now there can fall no curse upon any of those for whom
Jesus died as a Substitute. They are the blessed of the Lord, yes, and
they shall be blessed–let Hell curse them as it may. The curse has
spent its fury. Like a thunderstorm which once threatened to sweep all
before it, but is now lulled to calm, Divine wrath has passed away and
showers of mercy are now following it, making glad the thirsty heart!
Brothers and Sisters, Christ has cured us already, most effectually, of
the curse of God upon us!
But I am now to speak of diseases which we have felt and bemoaned, and
which still trouble the family of God. One of the first which was
healed by the stripes of Christ was the mania of despair. Ah, well do I
remember when I thought there was no hope for me! How was it possible,
my heart asked, that my sins could be forgiven consistently with the
justice of God? That question I propounded to my soul again, and again,
and again, but no answer could I find from within. And even when I read
the Word I perceived not–though it is most clearly there–the answer
to that great question.
But, Beloved, when I first understood that Jesus Christ stood in the
place of all those that believe in Him, and that, if I trusted Him, my
sins were all forgiven because they had been already punished in the
Person of my blessed Substitute, then I had no longer occasion for
despair! Then I listened to the Word of the Gospel, feeling, "There is
hope for me, even for me!" When I understood that there was nothing
expected from me in order to salvation, but that all must come from
Jesus–that I was not to be wounded, nor to be made to smart–but that
He had been struck and had been made to bleed on my behalf. When I
understood that my life must be found in His death, and my healing in
His wounds–then hope sprang up–bright-eyed hope, and my soul turned
unto her Father and her God with loving expectations!
Was it not so with you? Beloved, did you ever have a comfortable
confidence in God until you had seen the stripes of Jesus? If you are
wrapped up in a peace that did not come from Christ's stripes, I
implore you get rid of it, for it is a presumption which will surely
destroy you! The only sure, solid, everlasting peace that can ever come
to a palpitating human bosom heaving painfully under the pressure of
sin is that which springs from looking at that blessed Son of God who
on the Cross poured out His life-floods that we might be saved by Him!
For the mania of despair the stripes of Christ are the true remedy.
Then if we suffer afterwards from any hardness of heart, and there is a
complaint of the soul well-known as the stony heart, there is no
obtaining tenderness except by standing long, yes, remaining always at
the foot of the Cross. When I feel myself insensible to spiritual
things (and I blush to say that it is no unusual feeling). When I
would, but cannot pray. When I would, but cannot repent. When, "If
anything is felt 'tis only pain to find I cannot feel," I have always
found that I cannot flog myself into feeling by the threats of God, nor
by the terrors of the Law. But when I can come to the Cross, just as I
did years ago, a poor guilty one, and believe that the Redeemer has put
all my sins away, black as I am–and that God neither can, nor will,
condemn me, hardened as I feel myself to be–ah, then the sense of
blood-bought pardon soon dissolves a heart of stone!
I do not believe there is anything that can so effectually make the ice
within us melt and so speedily thaw the great glaciers of our inner
nature as the love of Jesus Christ. Oh, but that will touch you! It
will create a soul within the ribs of death! There is a secret spring
within the heart upon which the finger of the crucified hand is placed,
and the soul arises from its deadly slumbers. Christ has the key of the
house of David and He can open the door so that neither man nor devil
can shut it. And out of that opened heart shall proceed godly thoughts,
heavenly aspirations, sacred passions and Heaven-born resolves. The
best cure for indifference will be found in the stripes of Jesus!
See the bloody sweat drops, O Believer, and will you not melt? See
Jesus kissed of the traitor, led away with a rabble guard, slandered by
deceitful witnesses, tried by cruel adversaries, buffeted by soldiers,
defiled with spit–see Him afterwards hounded along the streets of
Jerusalem, and then fastened to the transverse beam. Behold Him
bleeding out His blessed life for love of us who were His enemies, and
if this tragedy does not melt you, what will? O God of Heaven, if we
feel no tenderness in the Presence of Your dying Son, of what
Hell-hardened steel must our souls be made?
At times Believers are subject to the paralysis of doubt, and as my
friend has said just now in his request for a remedy, that paralysis
may be attended, also, with a stiffness of the knees of prayer. And
when these two complaints go together we suffer under a complicated
disease for which it is not easy to prescribe. And yet it is easy for
the Lord to do so! See here the remedy–"With His stripes we are
healed." The blood of Christ is a deadly thing to unbelief. A sight of
the Crucified strikes Unbelief dumb, so that it cannot mutter a single
questioning word, while Faith begins to sing and to rejoice as she sees
what Jesus did, and how Jesus died!
Who could not pray as he sees Jesus' blood upon the Mercy Seat? Who
could not pray when considering the new and living way which Christ has
opened by His blood? A view of the veil of the Savior's body torn by
His death, will, if anything, induce men to pray. I think I could use
arguments which might be blessed to drive men to their knees, such as
the danger of a prayerless spirit. Such as the enriching influence of
the Mercy Seat. Such as the delights of communion with God and many
other things, but after all, if the Cross does not draw a man to his
knees, nothing will. And if a contemplation of the sufferings of Jesus
does not constrain us to draw very near to God in prayer, surely the
chief remedy, itself, has failed. There are some saints who have
numbness of soul–the stripes of Christ can best quicken them–deadness
dies in the Presence of His death and rocks break when the Rock of Ages
is seen as split for us–
"Who can think, without admiring?
Who can hear, and nothing feel?
See the Lord of Life expiring,
Yet retain a heart of steel?"
Many are subject to the fever of pride, but a sight of Jesus in His
humiliation, contradicted of sinners, will tend to make them humble.
Pride drops her plumes when she hears the cry, "Behold the Man!" In the
society of One so great, enduring so much scorn, there is no room for
vanity. Some are covered with the leprosy of selfishness, but if
anything can forbid a man to lead a selfish life it is the life of
Jesus, who saved others–Himself He could not save. Misers, and
gluttons, and self-seekers love not the Savior, for His whole conduct
upbraids them. Upon some the fit of anger often comes. But what can
give gentleness of spirit like the sight of Him who was as a lamb dumb
before her shearers, and who opened not His mouth under blasphemy and
rebuke?
If any of you feel the fretting consumption of worldliness, or the
cancer of covetousness–for such rank diseases as these are common in
Zion–still the groans and griefs of the Man of Sorrows, the
Acquaintance of Grief, will prove a cure. All evils fly before the Lord
Jesus, even as the shadows vanish before the sun. Lash us, Master, to
Your Cross! No fatal shipwreck shall we fear if fastened there! Bind us
with cords to the horns of the Altar! No disease can come there– the
Sacrifice purifies the air. Through Hell itself might we go, Savior,
all unharmed with its pestilent vapor, if we could but have Your Cross
before our eyes!
It were not possible that all the blasphemy of devils and of the vilest
of men could pollute our spirits for so much as a moment if Your blood
were always sprinkled on the tablets of our hearts, and Your deep
humiliation always present in our minds. Forgetfulness of the stripes
lands us in disease–but the sweet remembrance of the passion and a
blessed absorption in the mystery of the Master's death will surely
cast out all evils from us–and keep us from returning to them.
IV. I must now pass on to yet a fourth point. Observe carefully THE
CURATIVE PROPERTIES OF THE MEDICINE OF WHICH WE HAVE BEEN SPEAKING. You
have heard of some of the diseases in detail as well as the cure on a
large scale. Now observe the curative properties of the medicine–for
all manner of good this Divine remedy works in our spiritual
constitution. The stripes of Jesus, when well considered, arrest
spiritual disorder. The man is brought to view his Lord as suffering
for him, and a voice says to his rising lusts, "This far shall you
come, but no farther. Here at Calvary shall your proud waves be
stayed."
My feet had almost gone, my steps had well-near slipped had not my
Master's Cross stood before me as a most effectual barrier to stay me
in my fall. Many a man has gone post haste onward unchecked by any
power until a vision of the Man, the crucified Man, has appeared before
his eyes–then he has been brought to a blessed halt. Read the
memorable life of Colonel Gardiner, for what happened to him literally
has happened to tens of thousands spiritually– they have been enlisted
to sin and sold to Satan–but a sight of the Savior slain for sinners
has made them pause–and from then on they have no longer dared to
offend.
Now, it is a great thing for a physician to find a remedy which will
hold the disease within bounds so that it reaches not the direst stage
of malignity. And this the Cross of Christ does! It binds in chains the
fury of unhallowed passion. What a miraculous power the griefs of Jesus
have upon the Believer! Though his corruption is still within him, yet
it cannot have dominion over him because he is not under the Law but
under Grace. It is a happier fact, still, that sin shall, before long,
be utterly abolished. But to stay it, meanwhile, until it is eradicated
is no small thing.
This medicine, in the next place, quickens all the powers of the
spiritual man to resist the disease. "With His stripes we are healed,"
because a sight of Jesus Christ quickens our newborn nature. It forbids
us to live at the poor, dying rate so natural to our sluggishness. We
cannot have Christ before our eyes and yet go slumbering on to Heaven
as though spiritual work were but a dream, or mere child's play. He
that has really gone into the hall where Christ was scourged and seen
the streams of blood as they poured down His furrowed shoulders, and
felt that they were all for him, has had his spiritual pulse quickened
and his whole spiritual life stirred! This fire has helped to burn sin
out of its nest. This power within the soul has set up a counter-action
and pushed back the advancing powers of iniquity.
The stripes of Jesus Christ also have another curative effect–they
restore to the man that which he lost in strength by sin. There is a
recuperative power in this sacred medicine. He brings my wandering feet
back to the ways which I forsook, and the way back is by the Cross. He
restores my soul, and the food He gives me to feed upon is His own
flesh and blood. After sin has brought us into sickness, and sickness
into weakness, there is no restorative under Heaven that is equal to
living in a constant daily sense of the vicarious sufferings of Jesus
Christ. His sweet love so clearly shown in His torments at Golgotha
encourages us! We feel that with such a Savior always caring for us, we
have no need to be alarmed.
This medicine also soothes the agony of conviction. Anguish of heart
vanishes when Jesus is seen as bearing the chastisement of our peace.
He who gets to Christ's Cross and trusts in Him feels that sin is still
present in him, and mourns over it, but yet he rejoices because he
understands that Christ has overcome his enemies and led them captive
at His chariot wheels. "I shall overcome," he says, and the sharpness
of the present struggle is not felt. "My sin is forever put away," he
says, for Jesus died, and there is no room for remorse, or terror, or
despair. Drink of the spiced wine of atoning love, and remember your
misery no more, O you sin-burdened heir of immortality!
But best of all, the stripes of Christ have an eradicating power as to
sin. They pull it up by the roots. They destroy the beasts in their
lair. They put to death the power of sin in our members. I know not how
near to perfection in this life a Believer may be brought, but God
forbid that I should set up some low degree of Divine Grace as being
all that a saint can reach this side of the grave! I dare not limit my
Master's power as to how far He may subdue sin even in this life in the
Believer, but I expect never to be perfect till I shuffle off this
mortal coil. Yet the grand result is none the less glorious! Absolute
perfection is our heritage–we shall be freed from the least tendency
to evil–there will remain in us no more possibilities of sinning than
in the Person of our Lord Himself!
We shall be as pure as the thrice holy God Himself! As immaculate as
the ever-sinless Savior! And all this will be through our Master's
stripes! Sanctification, after all, is by the blood of Christ. The Holy
Spirit works it, but the instrumentality is the blood. He is the
Physician, but the sufferings of Christ are the medicine. Sin is never
destroyed except by faith in Jesus. All your meditations upon the evil
of sin, and all your shivering at the punishment of it, and all your
soul-humbling and prostrations will never kill sin. It is at the Cross
that God has set up a mighty gallows upon which He hangs sin forever,
and puts it to death! It is there at Golgotha, and only there. The
great execution ground, the Tyburn of our iniquity, is there where
Jesus died.
Wrestling Believer, you must go to your Lord's agonies and learn to be
crucified with Him unto sin, otherwise you shall never know the art of
mastering your evil passions and being sanctified in the spirit. I have
thus tried to open up the healing force which dwells in the stripes of
Jesus.
V. Now just a moment or two in the fifth place–I am afraid you will
think my divisions are very many and very dry, but still that I cannot
help–I want you to review, for a minute, THE MODES OF THE WORKING OF
THIS MEDICINE.
How does it work? Briefly, its effect upon the mind is this. The
sinner, hearing of the death of the Incarnate God, is led by the force
of the Truth of God and the power of the Holy Spirit to believe in the
Incarnate God. The cure is already begun. The moment the sinner
believes, the axe is laid at the root of the dominion of Satan. He no
sooner learns to trust the appointed Savior than his cure has certainly
commenced and will shortly be carried on to perfection. After faith
comes gratitude. The sinner says, "I trust in the Incarnate God to save
me. I believe He has saved me." Well, what is the natural result? The
soul being grateful, thankful–how can it help exclaiming–"Blessed be
God for this unspeakable gift!" And, "Blessed be His dear Son who so
freely laid down His life for me!" It were not natural at all. It were
something less, even, than humanity, if the sense of such favor did not
beget gratitude!
The next emotion is love. Has He done all this for me? Am I under such
obligations? Then I will love His name. The very next thought to love
is obedience. What shall I do to please my Redeemer? How can I fulfill
His commandments and bring honor to His name? See you not that the
sinner is getting healed most rapidly? His disease was that he was
altogether out of unison with God, and resisted the Divine Law, but now
look at him! With tears in his eyes he is lamenting that he ever
offended! He is groaning and grieving that he could have pierced so
dear a Friend, and put Him to such sorrows! And he is asking, with love
and earnestness, "What can I do to show that I loathe myself for the
past, and that I love Jesus for the future?"
Now he goes a step farther and he burns with hatred against the sins
which slew the Lord. "Did my sins slay Christ? Was it my iniquity that
nailed Him to the Cross? Then I will have vengeance upon my sins–there
is not one that I will spare. Though it nestle in my bosom, I will tear
it out! And if it shall entrench itself so that I cannot drive it forth
except by losing an eye or an arm, it shall come forth–for not one of
this accursed crew will I harbor within my spirit!" Now the man's
sacred zeal and burning indignation are issuing a search warrant, and
he is going through and through his nature to search for sin, crying
meanwhile, "Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me, and know my
thoughts, and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the
way everlasting."
Now, Beloved, do you not see that all the healthy faculties of the
new-born nature are by the griefs of Jesus set strongly at work, and
even though sin may still remain within, there is a vitality about the
new-born nature which will certainly cast out those baser powers, and,
by God's Grace, make the man meet to be a partaker of the inheritance
of the saints in light?
VI. It is scarcely necessary for me to say anymore except to remark, in
the sixth place, that this medicine deserves to be commended to all of
you, this morning, because of ITS REMARKABLY EASY APPLICATION. I have
shown you how it works, and what it cures, and whom it cures.
Now, there are some material medicines which would be curative, but
they are so difficult in administration, and attended with so much risk
in their operation, that they are rarely, if ever, employed. But the
medicine prescribed in the text is very simple in itself, and very
simply received–so simple is its reception that, if there is a willing
mind here to receive it, it may be received by any of you at this very
instant, for God's Holy Spirit is present to help you. How, then, does
a man get the stripes of Christ to heal him?
Why, first he hears about them. Now, you have heard often of my Lord's
stripes. Next, faith comes by hearing. That is, the hearer believes
that Jesus is the Son of God, and he trusts in Him to save his soul.
Then, having believed, the next thing is, whenever the power of his
faith begins to relax he goes to hearing again, or else to what is even
better, after once having heard to benefit, he resorts to
contemplation. He resorts to the Lord's Table that he may be helped by
the outward signs. He reads the Bible that the letter of the Word may
refresh his memory as to its spirit. And he often seeks a season of
quiet, such as David had when he sat before the Lord, closing his eyes
and shutting up his heart to all beside the things of Heaven.
He views Christ groaning in the garden. He pictures Him upon the bloody
Cross. He sees Him suffering–and so acquires for himself all the
benefit which can be drawn from the stripes of the Crucified. All you
have to do, poor Sinner, is simply trust and you are healed! And all
you have to do, O backsliding Believer, is but to contemplate and to
believe again! Beloved, we must let the old image be stamped fresh upon
our soul! We must have the picture cleaned, as it were–it has been
turned with its front to the wall–turn it round and sit and study it
again! Renew your old acquaintance with the sweet Lover of your soul.
Return to the love of your Espousal. Repair to Calvary. Tarry in
Gethsemane. Live with Jesus wherever you may be–in retirement,
considering, meditating, reflecting upon what He has done for you. This
is the simple mode of application.
VII. All I have to say in conclusion, is, since the medicine is so
efficacious, since it is already prepared and freely presented, I do
beseech you TAKE IT! Take it, Brothers and Sisters, you who have known
its power in years gone by! Let not backslidings continue, but come to
His stripes again! Take it, you Doubters, lest you sink into
despair–come to His stripes again! Take it, you who are beginning to
be self-confident and proud! You need this to bring you on your faces,
again, in prostration before your Lord!
And, O, you who have never believed in Him! On this morning of clear
brightness after the rain, may the Lord give you, also, to come and
trust in Him, and you shall live! "Oh," wrote one to me this week, "I
have believed that Jesus died for me, but it does not keep me from
sinning in anyway whatever! Our minister says that if we believe that
Jesus died for us we shall be saved." No, no, but that is not the
Gospel, and such a belief is not faith at all! I do not wonder that a
poor creature should have tried such a Gospel and found it fail. Do not
these men say that Christ died for everybody, and then declare that if
you believe He died for you, (which He must of necessity have done if
He died for everybody), then that will save you? And yet there are
scores and hundreds who are proof to the fact that it does not save
them–because they can believe this universal redemption and live as
they did before!
This is faith, namely to trust Jesus Christ. It is the only saving
faith. You cannot rely on Him and remain unhealed! You cannot take
Jesus for your confidence and remain just as you were! There is a
potency about Christ, as applied by faith, which changes the character,
and makes the sinner a new man to the praise and glory of God! May my
Lord bless you for His own sake. Amen.
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A Cheerful Giver is Beloved of God
A Sermon