The Faculty Baffled, The Great Physician Successful
A Sermon
(No. 827)
Delivered on Lord's Day Morning, August 23, 1868, by
C. H. SPURGEON
at the [37]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
"And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood 12 years, and had
suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she
had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse, when she had
heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched His garment.
For she said, If I may touch but His clothes, I shall be whole."
Mark 5:25-28.
BRIEFLY consider this poor woman's case. She was afflicted with a
disease of exceedingly long standing which not only wasted her strength
and threatened to bring her speedily to the grave, but rendered her,
according to the Jewish ceremonial Law, unclean, and therefore unable
to mix in company. Thus she was doomed to be a poor, suffering,
desponding, desolate woman. The physicians of those days were bold
enough to attempt impossible cures, but their skill was not at all
commensurate with their courage. They tormented their patients, but
seldom relieved them of anything but their money.
Even a few hundred years ago many of the articles which were given to
patients as medicines, and cried up as drugs of sovereign efficacy,
were so unutterably disgusting that I should not like to repeat their
names. And the processes of surgery, then common among practitioners,
would have been exceedingly satisfactory if they had been intended to
kill, but were both absurd and inhuman if proposed as salutary
operations. The science of medicine, indeed, did not then exist. And in
the age of our Lord, surgery and medicine were just a mass of quackery
and daring pretension, without anything of skill or knowledge to
support their claims.
This poor woman had, however, in her anxious desire to be restored to
society and to health, gone first to one and then to another, and yet
another–although all caused her suffering by acrid medicines or by
severe operations. And after the end of 12 years she found herself
penniless as well as worse in health. Just then, her physical state
being still the highest thought in her mind, she heard that there was a
Prophet who healed diseases. Having listened to one or two of the
stories of the cures worked by Him, and having, perhaps, seen some of
those who had been happy enough to be the subjects of His miracles, she
said to herself, "That Man is doubtless sent of God. He professes to be
the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of God–I believe He is so–and
if He is such an One, then He is so full of sacred force that if I may
but get near enough to touch the hem of His robe I shall be restored."
Happy day it was for her when she imbibed that idea! Happier, still,
when she put it into practice–when tremblingly she put forth her
finger, touched the hem of the Savior's garment and was that moment
restored! I shall not need to say more concerning the narrative itself.
It commends the Savior to you–shows you His great power in the
physical world–and so proves His Deity and endears Him to you for His
mercy and compassion.
But this woman has many parallels in the spiritual world. Multitudes
like she are diseased with a wasting despondency, an unceasing tendency
to despair–and they have been trying all the miserable comforters with
which this world abounds. And after wasting their substance and their
strength, they are now brought to utter spiritual destitution–they
feel they can do nothing–they are ready to perish. I hope this
morning, if never before, they will hear of Jesus who is able to heal
the most desperate cases, and that they will be resolved to apply to
Him, that by a sincere, even if a feeble faith, they may be brought
into contact with His healing energy and may today be delivered from
all evil by the great Restorer's touch! God grant it, for the
Redeemer's sake, by the power of the Holy Spirit and He shall have all
the praise!
I intend, this morning, first of all, to expose the physicians upon
whom poor sin-sick souls often trust. When I have done so, I will show
you why all these physicians, without exception, fail. Thirdly, I shall
describe the plight of the patient after the failure of these trusted
physicians. And lastly, show how a cure can be worked even in those.
I. Let me EXPOSE THE PHYSICIANS WHO DELUDE SO MANY BY THEIR VAIN
PRETENSIONS. Among the herd of deceivers I single out one of the
vilest, first–an old, established doctor who has had a wide practice
among sin-sick souls–a wicked old poisoner he is, but for all that
exceedingly popular, named Dr. Sadducee. He adopts usually the
homoeopathic principle, namely, to cure like by its like. He gives one
form of sin as a cure for another.
For instance, as soon as he sees one melancholy with unbelief, he
prescribes licentiousness. He says, "You are getting dull. You must
cheer up! You need to mix with society. A young person like you ought
not to be disturbed with these serious thoughts. Those are mere
fanatics who alarm you. Be calm. I would recommend you to attend the
theater or the music hall, these will drive dull cares away."
He feels the patient's pulse, tells him it is much too low–he must
really take a little stimulant and try what gaiety will do. Alas, this
old, but damning prescription, is frequently written out and pressed
upon awakened souls as if it were wisdom itself, whereas it is a piece
of Satanic craft and falsehood! It never did work a cure, and never
can! It bids the man escape from drowning by plunging deeper beneath
the waves! It tells him to quench the flame which is burning in his
heart by adding fuel to it! It pretends to heal the leper by thrusting
him into the inner recesses of the morgue where disease runs amok! By
making bad worse, the lover of pleasure hopes to recover from the
qualms of conscience.
As a notable instance of Dr. Sadducee's practice in its mildest form, I
would quote the case of George Fox, the celebrated founder of the
Quakers. When perplexed about his salvation, he went to several friends
and ministers for advice. One said he thought it would do him much good
to smoke tobacco. Another recommended him to get married as speedily as
possible. Another thought if he joined the volunteers, that would
certainly take his thoughts off of his melancholy. "Alas," he said, " I
found them as empty as a hollow drum." Such physicians minister no
medicine to a diseased mind.
A story is told of Carlini, the Italian actor, who, being the subject
of heavy depression of spirit, applied to a French physician and it was
recommended he attend the Italian theater, and, said the physician, "If
Carlini does not dispel your gloomy complaint, your case must be
desperate, indeed." The physician was not a little surprised when his
patient replied, "Alas, Sir, I am Carlini. And while I divert all Paris
with mirth and make them almost die with laughter, I myself am dying
with melancholy." How empty and insufficient are the amusements of the
world! Even in their laughter their heart rejoices not. Miserable
comforters are all those who would drown seriousness in wine and
merriment.
When the heart is breaking it is vain to offer music and the dance, or
to fill high the flowing bowl. When the arrows of God stick fast in a
man's soul, the world's vain songs suit not with the hour–they jar on
the ear and increase the misery which they would remove. When God
awakens a sinner, he cannot be so readily deceived as when he was in
his dreams. The Holy Spirit has made him feel the bitterness of sin and
bruised him with the rod of conviction–and now his broken bones demand
a real and true Physician–and he cannot endure the simpering deceiver
who tells him that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit!
It is too late to say to such a man, "Let us eat and drink, for
tomorrow we die." He dreads the thought of dying and trembles lest
death should come upon him unawares.
A much more respectable firm of physicians has been established from
time immemorial in the region of Mount Sinai, near the abode of one
Hagar, known as the bondwoman. The business is now carried on by Dr.
Legality and his pupil, Mr. Civility. You will remember, that in John
Bunyan's time they were in large practice. Mr. Worldly Wiseman was
their patron and sent the pilgrim round that way, telling him that the
old doctor had much skill in delivering men of their burdens, and that
if the old gentleman himself was not at home, his young man, Mr.
Civility, would do almost as well. This firm was trading, in our
Savior's day, under the name of Scribe and Pharisee. It was the same
deceptive system, but under different names, and it will always be the
same piece of imposture until the crack of doom.
The theory of practice is this, "Be careful in diet and regimen. Be
very observant of certain laws and regulations, and then your issue of
blood, or whatever it may be, shall be healed." Go all over England,
and the great doctor for men's souls, the most popular of physicians
now living, is this Dr. Legality! The one great prescription is, "Do
this and do that. Abstain from this, and give up the other. Keep the
commandments and pray at certain hours, and these things will save
you." Dressed out in different fashions, but always the same thing,
this great falsehood of salvation by the works of the Law is still
holding men under its iron sway and deluding them to their destruction.
There may be some now present who are unhappy enough not to know the
Truth of God which Paul tells us so plainly, "By the deeds of the Law
there shall no flesh be justified in His sight: for by the Law is the
knowledge of sin." I was myself for many a day treated by this Dr.
Legality, and many a black draught have I swallowed under his orders. I
tried to keep the Law of God, and thought that my repentance and tears
would be an atonement for the past. But who can keep the Law? What man
can keep whole what he has broken? We have, each of us, already sinned,
and therefore the hope of salvation by our own goodness is a vain one!
The Law pronounces a curse upon the man that sins but once! How can a
man, then, having already sinned 10,000 times, hope, by any future
obedience, to escape from the curse which hangs thick and heavy over
his head, soon to burst in eternal storm? Yet this is the fond delusion
of humanity! Sinai is still the chosen route to Heaven for the crippled
sons of a father who found the task too much for him. Some of you
imagine that if you do your best–if you are kind to everybody, if you
are generous to the poor, if you owe no man anything, if you conduct
yourselves respectably–this is enough to save you. But it is not so!
He that believes not on Jesus Christ shall be damned as well in his
morality as in his debauchery! He that casts not himself upon the mercy
of God, as revealed in the crucified Savior, has shut against himself
the one portal to Heaven and shall never be able to enter into life
eternal!
There is another physician whom I greatly despise, but am compelled to
mention him because he has entrapped many, one Dr. Ceremonial. He is
the vilest of quacks, a very mountebank, a transparent deceiver! His
drugs are worthless trash and his modes of operation are rather the
tricks of a Merry Andrew, or the antics of a dancing master than the
sober teachings of thought and judgment. This Dr. Ceremonial has
patented a lotion for producing regeneration in little children by the
application of a few drops to their foreheads! He puts his hands on the
heads of boys and girls, and by what he calls occult influence,
confirms them in Divine Grace!
He professes to be able to make a piece of loaf and a cup of wine to be
actually Divine, and in themselves a channel of Grace to the souls of
men! The substances are material–a mouse may nibble at the one, a
bottle will hold the other! You can touch them, taste them, smell
them–and yet fools adore them as Divine and imagine that material
substances can be food for souls! Surely this Dr. Ceremonial flourishes
all the more because of the monstrous absurdity of his teachings! His
pills are huge, but men have wide throats and can swallow anything!
Why, think, for a minute, and then wonder for an hour–men are to be
sanctified by gazing at genuflections, millinery, and candles!
The East is said to be a more gracious quarter of the heavens than the
West, and creeds repeated with the head in that direction possess a
peculiar efficacy! It appears that in spiritual operation certain
colors are peculiarly efficacious– prayers said or sung in white are
far more prevalent than in black–and according to the age of the year
and the condition of the moon, violet, scarlet and blue, are more
acceptable to God! I have no patience with these things. It is hardly
good enough sport for laughter–but so long as fools abound, knaves
will flourish–and this Dr. Ceremonial will get men to spend their
substance in abundance, and laugh in his sleeve to think that rational
beings should be his silly dupes!
I trust there are none such here. I hope none of you are so fooled.
What is there in crossings, bowings and uttering over and over the same
words? What is any worship unless the reason and heart enter into it?
What can there be in one material substance to give it sanctity? Is it
not as absurd as the fetishism of the Bushman, to believe that bricks
and mortar, and slates and boards can make a holy place–that, indeed,
any one place can be a jot holier than another–that any plot of ground
can be holier than common ground? Or that any man, because certain
words have been said over his godless, graceless head, can be made a
dispenser of the Divine Grace of God, and a pardoner of sins?! We are
not so befooled, but still this quack drives a good trade, and is held
in very high repute.
Here I may name one Dr. Ascetic, who has taken a house hard by the
abode of Dr. Ceremonial. His business, however, does not flourish quite
so much now as formerly, for his methods are a little too rigorous for
the times. Under his treatment men are taught that pain and virtue are
much alike–that starvation is a means of grace, dirt is devotion– and
horsehair next to the skin a sanctifying irritant. Few persons like
this heroic treatment, but certain brotherhoods and sisterhoods amuse
themselves with the treatment in a modified form. The more heroic doses
of wormwood and gall are out of fashion, but still, men like a bitter
in moderate quantities.
In the olden times this Dr. Ascetic flourished! Then men wore hair
shirts, flogged their poor shoulders, went on mad pilgrimages and in
other ways afflicted themselves–believing that great self-denials were
patent medicines by which deliverance could be obtained from spiritual
diseases. This system of soul-cure had such victims us hermits in caves
and the followers of Simon Stylites elevated upon columns with other
imbeciles which time would fail us to mention. Even in these days we
read of the nuns of St. Ann who always sleep in their coffins upright,
and become unable to sleep in any other posture. The Fakeers in
Hindustan do but carry out to perfection the regulations which some in
this Christian land would impose upon our respect. But all this is the
mere invention of man, and he who follows it shall find that he
torments himself in vain.
I shall now mention a physician who practices among Dissenters as well
as elsewhere, and I am persuaded has some of you for his patients. His
name is Dr. Orthodoxy. His treatment consists in this, that you are to
believe certain doctrines most firmly and bigotedly and then you shall
be saved. Have I not some in this place, this morning, whose great
difficulty about salvation is that they cannot quite comprehend the
mystery of predestination? If you talk to them about the precious blood
of Jesus, and speak of the soul-saving efficacy of a simple trust in
Him, they reply, "But I cannot quite understand the doctrine of
election!"
And then they mention some passage of Scripture upon that
subject–their notion being that if they could understand mysteries
they would then be saved–if they could hold the orthodox faith in
every point they would be delivered from their sins. But it is not so.
I have known scores of persons who have been held in horrible bondage
by exclusively thinking upon one part of orthodoxy to the exclusion of
the rest. They have grown more wretched, more distracted, more hopeless
than they were before, because, having heard the doctrine of election
and predestination propounded, they must forever be harping upon it.
It is a blessed doctrine, and I believe it and hold it firmly, that God
has a chosen people, but for all that, before men have come to Christ
they often make that doctrine to be a stone of stumbling and a rock of
offense. Even if you would be infallible and believe every Truth of God
as it is taught in Scripture in the most correct manner, your belief
would not save you! True religion is something more than correct
opinions. A man may as well descend to Hell being orthodox as
heterodox. There is a correct road to destruction as well as an
incorrect one–I mean a way in which a man may carry truth in his right
hand, as well as another road in which the pilgrim hides a lie in his
left.
One more physician I will mention, and that is Dr. Preparation. He
holds and teaches that the way to be saved is to prepare yourselves for
Christ, and if you prepare and make yourselves fit for Jesus Christ,
then you will obtain peace. The modes of preparation are very much
these, "You must deeply wound yourself. You must doubt God's power to
save you, and dishonor Jesus by your fears. You must endure terrors of
conscience and be the subject of alarms.'' It is not said so in the
Bible, but still, this is the current teaching of many and is so munch
believed that men will not trust in Jesus Christ because they have not
felt this nor experienced the other!
Do I not, every week, meet with persons who tell me, "You invite those
to come to Christ who feel their need. I do not feel any need as I
ought, and therefore I may not come"? I cannot understand why such
people do not open their ears, for times out of mind I say that Jesus
Christ did not come into this world to save sensible sinners only, but
to save sinners from their insensibility! That Jesus Christ bids
sinners, as sinners, believe in Him and does not limit the command to
those who repent! Men are not only to come with broken hearts, but if
they cannot feel their need, they should come to Jesus to be helped to
feel their need–for this He gives them–" 'Tis His Spirit's rising
beam."
My Lord and Master wants nothing of you, O lost and bankrupt Sinners!
He bids you come simply trusting in Him, being nothing at all in
yourself, and having all in Him. I believe those who think they do not
feel their need, often feel their need the most. If anyone should say,
"I have a sense of need," then he claims to have something good. But
those who confess that they have no good feelings or emotions–that
they are poor bankrupts, broken down, so that their last penny is
gone–to them is the Gospel sent!
Trust Jesus, believe that He can do what you cannot do, and in the
absence of any good in yourselves, believe that all the good you need
is treasured up in Him! Cast yourselves–empty, naked, soul-diseased as
you are–flat upon the perfect work of Jesus and you shall be saved!
I have just gone through a list of those physicians with which I
believe many of you have long been acquainted.
II. WHAT IS THE REASON FOR THEIR FAILURE? Why is it that none of the
prescriptions of these learned and popular gentlemen have ever been
able to work a single cure? Is it not, first of all, because they, none
of them, understand the disease? If the disease of human nature were
only a matter of outward iniquity, or only skin-deep through
intellectual error–ceremonies, perhaps, might have some effect and
legal exhortations might be of some use. But since the inmost heart of
man is depraved, and the sin of our nature lies in the very core of our
humanity–and is inherited from our birth–of what use is consecrated
water, or sacraments, or good works, or anything external which cannot
change the nature and turn the bias of the mind?
The will is obstinate. The affections are depraved. The understanding
is darkened. The desires are polluted. The conscience is stultified.
And legal physicians can only make clean the outside of the cup and
platter–they touch not these inward evils. They do not really know
that man is dead in sin. They treat the patient as if he had wounded
himself a little, and could be salved and bound up–and made whole
again. They know not the deep pollution of sin and imagine that man has
stained himself a little, and only a little–so a sponge of
reformation, and a little hot water of repentance–will soon remove all
unpleasant marks. But it is not so–the fountain of our being is
polluted! The foundation of our nature is rotten, and not until we come
to Christ do we find that the Physician who comes to the point and who
touches the disease at its source.
Moreover, these physicians often prescribe remedies which are
impossible to their patients. They tell the man, "You must feel so
much." "Feel!" says he, "Why my heart is like granite! If I could feel,
I could do all the rest. But I can no more make myself feel than I can
make myself an angel. You bid me do what is far beyond my power." Then
they bid him work, crying, "You must press forward, be in earnest,
agonizing, labor!" "But," says he, "I do try. I have tried for years,
but my endeavors are not such as God accepts, and I may continue trying
till I perish. I want to be told a sure way to salvation at once! I
long for immediate peace, and light, and liberty."
These physicians prescribe walking to those who have broken their legs,
and sight as a remedy for those whose eyes are gone! They bid men to do
what they cannot–and they never point them to what Jesus has done on
their behalf. The Gospel bids the sinner cease from his toiling and
trust alone in Jesus–having nothing and being nothing in himself– but
taking Jesus to be his All in All. And when it adds that even this is
the gift of God's Spirit–then it puts before him an available method
for the weakest, guiltiest, and most distressed.
Many of the medicines prescribed by these physicians do not touch the
case at all. As I have already shown you, outward ceremonies cannot, by
any possibility, affect the inward nature. And the mere performance of
good works, or the utterance of excellent prayers can have no effect in
quieting the conscience. Conscience cries, " I have offended God! How
may I be reconciled to Him? My past sins clamor for vengeance! God is
not just if He does not punish me! Oh, where shall I find peace for my
soul?" Where, but in the bosom of the Mediator?
Only at Calvary is the medicine for a wounded conscience to be found!
From those five wounds of our blessed Lord, healing fountains are still
streaming. He that looks to Him shall find peace and comfort and full
salvation! But the doing and the feeling, and the performing of this
and that, and 10,000 things besides are all a mockery, a delusion, and
a snare! The disease of fallen humanity is wholly incurable except by
the hand of Omnipotence. It is as easy for us to create a world as to
create a new heart–and a man might us well hope to abolish cold and
snow as hope to eradicate sin from his nature by his own power! He
might us well say to this round earth, "I have emancipated you from the
curse of labor," as say to himself, "I will set myself free from the
thralldom of sin."
Jehovah alone can save! It is His prerogative, and they who tell me
that they are to have a finger in it–that they and their deceivers,
the priests, can assist a little in salvation–that their tears, their
groans, their cries, their repentances and their humbling can do at
least a something–these I say, fly in the face of God! These rob Him
of His dearest prerogative! These impugn His Word! They rob Him of His
Glory and provoke Him to jealousy. God is still a Sovereign and will be
treated as such. Woe unto the man who contends with Him!
Brothers and Sisters, let me say plainly this one word and then leave
this point. Rest assured that wherever in salvation you see a trace of
the creature's power or merit, you see a work that is spoiled and
polluted. If there is in the fountain one drop of anything but Jesus'
blood, it will not cleanse! If there is in the robe one single thread
of anything but what Christ worked out for us while here below, the
whole robe is polluted and will not serve as a wedding garment! For a
needy soul the work must be Christ's from top to bottom–all of Him and
all of Divine Grace–if there is anything of human merit, or anything
else that comes of man, the work is marred upon the wheel, and God will
not accept it. These are some of the reasons why these physicians fail
to bring health and cure.
III. I shall describe THE PLIGHT OF THE PATIENT WHO HAS TRIED THESE
deceivers and now, at last, finds himself brought into distress. For
five years I was in that plight, seeking by every way that I knew of to
find peace with God. At the end of that period my condition was much
like that of this poor woman. Now there were four pieces of mischief
done in her case. First, the woman had lost all her time. Twelve years!
Who knows the value of a day? Who can calculate the costliness of a
year?
Twelve years, all gone! And what a pity that these poor people who are
seeking to be saved by the works of the Law should be losing all that
precious time! What a pity that you, dear Friends, who are not yet
saved, should be getting gray, and so many years should be running to
waste! They ought to be spent for the Lord! I hope they may be, what
remains of them! Think and be humbled–you have been all this time
outside the banquet door–all this time unwashed, when the fountain is
full! All this time unhealed, when the restoring hand can save you in a
minute–all this time in jeopardy, in danger of your soul–while the
gate of the City of Refuge has been open! It is a solemn loss of time
that these delusions bring on men–and yet we cannot tear them away
from them, for if we prove the folly of one, they take to another–and
if we prove the folly of all, yet still will they go back to them like
a dog to his vomit. They will have anything, sooner than go to Christ,
for Christ Himself has said, "You will not come unto Me that you might
have life." Anywhere else men will cheerfully go, but not to Him.
The second mischief in the case was that she was no better. If she had
felt a little better she would have had some encouragement. It would
have been satisfactory to have some pain mitigated, some measure of the
disease stopped. And so in your case–you are no better than you were
when you first entered this house five years ago. You have reformed,
perhaps, which is good–you have given up some evil things which were
once very dear to you–that is well. But still you are not one grain
happier! You could not die today with any greater comfort than you
could have died five years ago–you have no better hope of immortality
now than you had then. No, sometimes you have fancied the darkness
thicken, and the prospect of hope become less and less apparent. A sad
thing, is it not, that after doing so much it should come to so little?
You have put your money into a bag that is full of holes. You have
expended it for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which
satisfies not.
The third evil in the woman's case was that she rather grew worse, and
in addition to that she had suffered many things of the physicians. She
had gained a loss. The doctors had blistered here, and lanced there,
and given this acrid poison and that nauseous drug–and had been
skillful in nothing but in causing needless pain. So, while to effect
your salvation you have been looking away from Christ to someone else,
you have been needlessly troubled and tortured. Despair has hovered
around your path. Despondency has hung its pall above you and you have
much more gloom yet to endure unless you give up all that comes of
self, and cast yourself on Christ. I would make a venture of it, if I
were you, for you cannot lose by it–you are as bad as you can be.
Better, even if Jesus were angry, to run into His arms than to remain
apart from Him. Jesus Christ the appointed Savior of men is able to
save to the uttermost, but while you seek others it is not possible for
you to be saved! They will either bolster you up with
self-righteousness, which will harden your heart, or else cast you down
by putting before you impossible duties to attempt which will be to
increase your despair–
"None but Jesus, none but Jesus
Can do helpless sinners good."
Yet helpless sinners pierce themselves through with many sorrows as
they fly to earthly physicians for relief.
One more matter. The woman had now spent all that she had. Her poverty
was a new ill of which the only good was that now she had no more to
spend with the physicians! She was driven to Christ. So it is a most
blessed, though painful experience, when a man has spent all–when he
discovers that he has nothing left, no, not so much as an atom of
merit– or hope of ever having any! It is well when the man cries, "I
have always thought that perhaps there might be an escape for me, but I
have no hope left now. As for power, I am as destitute of it as I am of
merit. I feel that I would, but cannot pray. I would, but cannot
repent. I want to believe, but I can no more believe than I can fly–it
must all come from God."
At such a time it will come from God–for man's extremity is always
God's opportunity. When you are empty. When your stock is all gone,
even to the last rag and crumb, and you are left a helpless, hopeless,
undeserving, Hell-deserving sinner and can truly feel that unless God
stretches out His hand to save you, you are lost as the lost in Hell
are–it is then that Jesus Christ reveals Himself, and the soul cries,
"My Lord, the glorious Son of God, there is no hope except in You! You
can save me! I cast myself upon You, whether I sink or swim. For I am
persuaded nothing else can rescue me, and while I can but perish if I
do rely upon You, so at a venture I will rely upon You. If I am cast
into Hell, as I feel I deserve to be, yet, still, I will believe that
You can save me."
Ah, then you cannot perish, neither shall any pluck you out of His
hands! If God gives you power to believe Christ and trust yourself to
Him, you are as surely saved as God is in Heaven, and Christ there
pleading at His right hand!
IV. Now to those who have spent their all on the false physicians, I
have A WORD TO SHOW HOW A CURE CAN BE WORKED. This woman said to
herself, "The way of cure is for me to get near to Jesus. I can see
that doctors are of no good. I cannot help myself, neither can all the
world besides assist me. I must press to get near to Him. If I cannot
put my arms around Him, yet a little of Him is enough. If I cannot
press to Him so as to lay hold of Him with my hands, yet as much as I
can touch with my fingers will be enough. I know if I cannot touch Him,
if I can but get near the hem of His garment and touch it, it will do."
It is a sweet Truth of God that the least of Christ will save. The best
of men, the whole of men, cannot benefit you an ounce–but the least
drop of Christ, the least touch of Christ–will save! If your faith is
such a poor trembling thing that it is hardly fit to be called faith,
yet if it connects you with Christ, you shall have the virtue that goes
out from Him. Remember, it was not this woman's finger that saved
her–it was Christ whom she touched. True, the healing came by the act
of faith, but the act of faith is not the healing–the healing all lies
in the Person–so that you are not to be looking to your faith, but to
Jesus the Lord!
Has your faith a good Object? Do you rest in Jesus, God's Son, God's
appointed Propitiation? If so, your faith will bring you to Heaven–it
is good enough. The strongest faith a man ever had, if it did not rest
on Christ, damned him! The weakest faith ever man or woman has, if it
does but terminate in the precious Person and all-sufficient work of
Jesus, will certainly save. The fact is, Sinner, if you would be saved,
you must, from this moment, have nothing more to do with yourself, with
your goodness or your badness. "I cannot feel," says the sinner–that
is yourself again. Away with that feeling! You are to be saved by what
Christ felt, not by what you feel!
"I cannot," you say. What care I what you cannot do? Your salvation
does not lie in what you can do, but in what Jesus can do, and He can
do everything. Will you trust Him now? Let me help your faith with two
or three words as the Holy Spirit may bless them. Christ is God–has He
not power to save you? Christ, the bleeding Son of God, has bowed His
head to the accursed death of the Cross, bearing His Father's anger
that those who trust Him may not bear it. Cannot the bloodstained
Christ pardon sin? Christ is His Father's darling, trust Him! Will not
God grant mercy when you plead for Jesus' sake? Jesus lives today–He
is no dead Christ that you are bid to trust in. He lives, and this is
His occupation–He is pleading before the Throne of God, and this is
His plea–"Father, forgive them for My sake."
Seeing He died to save, cannot He, now that He lives, save to the
uttermost? At His last dying moment He said to the thief, "Today shall
you be with Me in Paradise." Can He not say as much now, since He wears
the crown of Glory? Yes, you may have come in here this morning without
a good thought, never having spoken a holy word in your life, but He
can save you as quickly as He did the thief! Yes, and though when that
clock struck 12 you were a graceless wretch, yet at this moment you may
already be a saved soul! Yes, and before the clock ticks again, another
may be called, by Divine Grace!
Christ works not according to time. He is not limited by minutes. If
you can turn your eyes to His Cross and say, "Lord, remember me," He
can give us His reply, "You shall be with Me, before long, in
Paradise." With God Incarnate, with the God-Man who bled on the Cross,
with the Son of God ascended, clothed with majesty, reigning in
splendor– with Him whose promise we this day proclaim to you–there
can be neither difficulty nor debate! The promise runs thus–"He that
believes on Him is not condemned." "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,
and you shall be saved." "He that believes and is baptized shall be
saved; but he that believes not shall be damned."
Will you believe in Him? It is to come to Him, to trust Him, to lean
upon Him, to hang upon Him, to make Him your sole and only ground of
dependence. Will you do this? Has God enabled you, now, to do it? If
so, go in peace–your faith has made you whole, your sins are forgiven
you! Go and live to His praise, who bought you with His blood! Go,
young man, and serve him earnestly who has served you so well. Go now,
and till life's latest hour be His servant who has been so much your
Friend. The Lord bless us for His name's sake. Amen.
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Dying Daily
A Sermon