Heart Disease Curable

DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 19, 1881,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted." Isaiah 61:1.

THIS text receives great luster from the fact that it was one of the
passages which the Savior read when He entered into the synagogue at
Nazareth and preached on the Sabbath. It is as fresh as ever and we may
still say of it, "This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears."
It is no small privilege that we poor under-shepherds should be
permitted to take the same text as "that great Shepherd of the sheep."
Our care must be to point to Him in it. I intended to have preached
from these words in Luke 4:18, but when I looked at the Revised Version
and found that the words were not there at all I was somewhat startled.
I began to ask whether the emission was a correct one or not and,
without making pretense to scholarship, I feel convinced that the
revisers are acting honestly in leaving it out.

It was not in the original manuscript of Luke, but probably some pious
person added it with the intention of making the quotation more
complete. Whatever the intention may have been and however natural the
added words may appear, it is a pity that the unknown Brother ventured
to improve that which was perfect from the beginning. After resolving
in my mind the fact, which I accept, that the passage was not written
by Luke in his record, I have, I think, discovered the reason. When our
Savior unrolled the Book of Isaiah, He read from it, but we are not
certain that He read any one passage through. According to the Jewish
Law it was allowed in the Prophets for the reader in the synagogue to
skip, as we call it, to make selections and read here a passage and
there a passage, as he aimed at bringing out his subject. As the words
are given in our Authorized Version you will notice that the portion of
Scripture is not exactly like the prophetic words in Isaiah 61 and that
one sentence, at least, must have been taken from another part of the
prophetic Book.

The Savior did read from Isaiah 61, but He also quoted other portions
of Isaiah, probably taking a verse here and a verse there and blending
them in one, just as sometimes, when I wish to give you a connected
narrative, I read on in a chapter, say to verse eight, and then miss a
piece to verse 16 and again run on to verse 24 and miss a few verses
again. The Savior gave a resume of texts which stood near each other
upon the roll and Luke records those upon which our Lord dwelt in His
sermon. "But," you say, "why, then, if it is so, did He omit the words
which describe Him as sent to bind up the brokenhearted?" It may
possibly have been His intention to leave out all allusion to healing.
They were all looking for Him to work miracles of healing that day and,
therefore, He either omitted the sentence for the moment or else He did
not dwell upon it, for I take it that Luke is not giving us exactly the
Scripture, but the sense of it, and those points in the Scripture upon
which the Savior enlarged.

He probably gives us notes of those sentences which were both read and
expounded and the Lord may have purposely refused to expound even if He
read the sentence before us–"He has sent Me to bind up the
brokenhearted." I say they were looking to Him to work miracles of
healing and He did not mean to gratify them. We are told that, "He
could not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief." He did
not intend to exhibit Himself as a mere wonderworker and, therefore,
but lightly touched upon the sentence about healing till further on,
when He saw, as He read their hearts, that they noticed the omission
and He, therefore, said to them, "You will surely say, Physician, heal
Yourself–which, being paraphrased, may run thus–"You either did not
read that passage, or else you lightly treated it and yet a part of the
Messiah's business is to heal the sick."

He perceived that by His own silence He had called their attention to
the Scripture and that they were ready to quote it against Him by the
challenge, "Physician, heal Yourself. Do for Your own family and city
what You are said to have done at Capernaum." Our Lord paid no
attention to claims based upon His dwelling in the place, for He knows
no claim but that of mercy. He intended to exercise His Sovereignty
and, therefore, He reminded them that healing was not sent to the
lepers that were in Israel, but was sent only to Naaman who had nothing
to do with Israel, but was one of that Syrian

nation which opposed and oppressed Israel! Possibly He gave them
nothing about healing that day because He knew that they were not
brokenhearted.

He who reads men's hearts knew that they were captives to their
unbelief, blinded by prejudice and fettered by sin and, therefore, He
said, "He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and
recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are
bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." But the most
tender part of the Gospel being inapplicable to their case, He would
not mention it in their hearing at that time. He would not cast it like
a pearl before swine, but reserved it until they should lament their
sin and adopt another mood. This, it strikes me, is the reason why the
passage is not mentioned in the original Gospel of Luke and, if so, the
omission is most instructive. Take heed lest you, also, should miss the
sweetest Word of the Gospel through being in an unfit state to receive
it!

Concerning the fact of difference between the Revised and the
Authorized Versions, I would say that no Baptist should ever fear any
honest attempt to produce the correct text and an accurate
interpretation of the Old and New Testaments. For many years Baptists
have insisted upon it that we ought to have the Word of God translated
in the best possible manner, whether it would confirm certain religious
opinions and practices, or work against them. All we want is the exact
mind of the Spirit as far as we can get it. Beyond all other Christians
we are concerned in this, seeing we have no other sacred Book. We have
no Prayer Book or binding creed, or authoritative minutes of
conferences. We have nothing but the Bible and we would have that as
pure as ever we can get it.

By the best and most honest scholarship that can be found, we desire
that the common version may be purged of every blunder of transcribers,
addition of human ignorance or human knowledge so that the Word of God
may come to us as it came from His own hand. I confess that it looks a
grievous thing to part with words which we thought were part and parcel
of Luke, but as they are not in the oldest copies and must be given up,
we will make capital out of their omission by seeing in that fact the
wisdom of the great Preacher who did not speak upon cheering Truths of
God when they were not needed and might have overlaid His seasonable
rebuke. Although we have not the sentence in Luke, we do have it in
Isaiah, and that is quite enough for me.

Indeed, if it were not in Isaiah, it is yet in other parts of the Word
of God. Its meaning pervades the Bible–it is the very genius and
spirit of the Old and New Testaments that the Messiah is sent to heal
the brokenhearted. The Gospel comes that the miseries of men may be
relieved, that the despair of the troubled may be cheered and that joy
may glitter on all sides like the dew of the morning when the sun
rises. I pray that the commission of Jesus Christ may be fulfilled this
day to all the brokenhearted ones to whom the word of this message
shall come. I hope there are none here who claim a right to healing,
for, if so, the Lord will not listen to them. He will do as He wills
with His own, for it is written, "He will have mercy on whom He will
have mercy."

The men of Nazareth claimed it in the synagogue that day because He had
lived among them and so Jesus did not speak of healing them. Jesus
gives freely, but if any man demands anything of Him as his due, He is
jealous for His crown rights and will pay no regard to such insulting
demands! His healing work is not of debt, but of Grace! It is not
granted to presumptuous demands, but frankly bestowed as a free gift.
Now turn to the text. "He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted."
Here are three matters for consideration–heart wounds, heavenly
healing and an honored Healer.

I. First, let us think upon HEART WOUNDS. Many in this world live with
broken hearts. Bad is a broken limb of any kind–bruised and wounded
flesh is hard enough to bear–but when the fracture is in the heart, it
is a sad business. Of all cases of distress, these are the most
pitiable and yet they are very frequently despised. When a man's spirit
is cowed and his heart is crushed and he is despairing and utterly
wretched, others get away from him, for he is dreary company. As the
herd leaves the wounded stag to bleed and die alone, so do men
instinctively avoid the society of those who are habitually gloomy.
Their own desire after happiness leads men to escape from the
miserable.

Be joyful and you shall attract; be sorrowful and you will scatter. Job
truly says, "He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp
despised in the thought of him that is at ease." The careless, the
giddy, the superficial look with horror upon those whose thoughtfulness
rebukes them, while the prosperous and happy view them with reluctance
because they remind them of sorrows which otherwise they might forget.
God has smitten some men and their hearts are sorely broken beneath His
rod and, therefore, their fellows hide their faces from them and
despise them. Many blame them and say they ought to shake off their
gloom and make an effort to be brave. I know not all they say, but
certain it is that among the despised and rejected of men we find a
company who carry with them heartbreaks day and night.

What wonder, then, that they are frequently avoided–common humanity
calls us to help those who are injured in limb and if there is an
accident in the street, a crowd will soon be gathered and human
kindness will exhibit itself. But if there is breakage of the heart,
sympathy is soon exhausted and love, itself, grows weary of her
hopeless efforts to console! Those who are taught of God will help the
brokenhearted, but human sympathy is soon worn out because it is
conscious of its inability to succor. You can set a limb and the bones
will grow–but what can we do in the resetting of a fractured heart?

So, not liking to attempt the impossible, not caring to be continually
baffled, it seems to be natural, even to good men, to be little anxious
for the company of the desolate. Thus these unhappy ones are doomed to
sigh out, "Lover and friend have You put far from me and my
acquaintance into darkness." I am afraid the story of Job is more often
repeated than we think. When men come to comfort the forlorn, they
often become embittered by their conscious failure and begin to upbraid
till the poor tortured creature cries out in agony, "Miserable
comforters are you all!" Therefore is the case of the brokenhearted a
very hard one because they are often despised and avoided.

Happy is it for them that the Lord Jesus was sent to heal the
brokenhearted! Apart from this, it is exceedingly painful to have a
broken heart. The heart is the center of sensation and, therefore, its
being broken involves the acutest of pangs. Sorrow bangs over the
spirit in clouds which cannot be dispelled. Not only is their cup
filled with sadness, but they sit by wells of sorrow. They have long
forgotten the palm trees of Elim and they are filled with the bitter
waters of Marah. They rest not day nor night–how can they? No pain of
the flesh can equal heaviness of heart! Give me all the aches and pains
which my body can endure, but spare me heartache! Break me alive on the
wheel, but let me not live to be brokenhearted unless it is from the
grand cause of penitence.

"A wounded spirit who can bear?" When the arrows penetrate the soul,
then the lifeblood becomes as liquid fire and the man is a mass of
misery. Besides, it weakens us, for when the heart is wounded the
source of strength is impaired. A man who has a strong heart can do
anything! However weak, feeble, crippled, or diseased he may be in
body, yet if he keeps up his spirits, he can laugh at all his pains.
But if the heart is crushed, what can he do? What can he hope? What can
he endure? When fear is in the heart, the grasshopper becomes a burden,
they that look out of the windows are darkened and the keepers of the
house tremble. Far worse than the infirmities of old age are the
miseries of a broken heart!

Ordinarily a broken heart is utterly incurable. How many times have I
had to learn this lesson to my own deep humiliation. It has been my
happy, happy lot to speak to brokenhearted ones and see them gradually
rise to be of good cheer when my Lord has spoken through me. But apart
from His Presence, I have argued, pleaded, explained and
per-suaded–and all in vain! I have been almost dragged down into the
wretchedness from which I hoped to rescue my fellow man, for the
sympathy I have felt for the desponding has well-near made me
despondent, myself!

What a variety of advice physicians give and what is the good of it
all? "Take a journey," they say, "into foreign lands. See new cities,
or amuse yourself among the Alps." Yes, but if the man carries with him
a heart weary of life, he is apt enough to bring it back with him–and
what good has he gained? "Attend the baths. Resort to the best
physicians. Use electricity. Try strong exercise." This is all very
well, for the body may need strengthening or purifying or awakening or
resting, but if the secret of the disease is a broken heart and the
hammer of God has smitten it–all the physicians in the world can be of
no service–it shall end as with her of old who spent all her
livelihood upon physicians and was no better, but rather grew worse.

There is a cure for this grievous malady of which we shall speak full
soon, but there is none in Gilead, or in the whole of Nature's fields.
Earthly pleasures and precepts are physicians of no value. Their
ointments and their liniments, their outward oils and inward medicines
are all of no use to reach the core of our being and restore the heart.
Magicians may charm ever so wisely, but they cannot charm the hemlock
from the furrows of the soul. When the heart is broken, who can rivet
the shattered fragment? If there had been a remedy anywhere else, the
Lord Jesus would not have left Heaven to heal! But inasmuch as He came
on this errand, depend upon it–nobody else could have performed it.

This heartbreak in the end will be fatal if it is not healed. We are
frequently reading of men who suddenly fall dead and the death
certificate states that they died of disease of the heart. That is a
way which physicians have of saying that they do not know what ailed
the deceased. The heart is very much like Africa, a region unexplored.
Mentally and spiritually it is so and when the heart is broken, true
life is well-near gone. Existence ceases to be desirable when the
spirits fail. Such morbid minds say with Job, "My soul chooses
strangling rather than life." God grant that none may be so wicked

and foolish as to end their own lives and thus leap into the fire to
escape the heat. Doubtless many have gone down to the grave, melted
away in tears, dissolved in woe. Unhappy those who live refusing to be
comforted and die rejecting the one good and great Physician who could
heal them! May none of you be of that unhappy company.

It is a sad story, this tale of the brokenhearted one, but in many a
house it is well known. I invite you, Beloved, if you do not know the
disease, to pray that you never may! And if you have any friends
afflicted with it, be very tender and gentle with them. I remember the
impression made upon my young heart, as a child, when I was taken to a
house where there was a sad lady, always dressed in black, who said
that she had committed the unpardonable sin. I remember the horror that
I felt as I sat in the room with her and wanted, from very fear, to get
away, thinking she must be a dreadfully wicked woman. Yet she may have
been one of the most gracious of Christians and it is probable that she
came out into the Light of God, again, before she departed this life.

These crushed ones are often the best of people. The fairest of our
lilies are often broken at the stalk. Our ripest fruit is visited by
the worm. Thank God they shall yet have beauty for ashes and the oil of
joy for mourning! Sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

II. We will now, for a little while, speak upon the HEAVENLY HEALING.
The Lord Jesus Christ has come into the world to bind up the
brokenhearted and surely it means all the brokenhearted. I do not think
we have any right to restrict texts of Scripture, as we very often do,
to square them to our theological systems. In this case you will hear
the passage interpreted to mean the spiritually brokenhearted and then
people look within to see whether their pains are spiritual and thus
they are kept from going to Christ. I do not mind revised versions,
provided they really get at the original, but I do not mean to let you
revise the version by putting in such qualifying words as you may think
fit.

What a host of revised versions we have! Everybody has one of his own.
Certain texts which will not fit into our system must be planed and cut
down. Have you ever seen the hard work that some Brethren have to shape
a Scripture to their mind? One text is not Calvinistic, it looks rather
Arminian–of course it cannot be so and, therefore, they twist and tug
to get it right. As for our Arminian Brethren, it is wonderful to see
how they hammer away at the 9th Chapter of Romans–steam-hammers and
screw-jacks are nothing to their appliances for getting rid of Election
from that chapter! We have all been guilty of racking Scripture, more
or less, and it will be well to have done with the evil, forever! We
had far better be inconsistent with ourselves than with the Inspired
Word of God.

I have been called an Arminian Calvinist or a Calvinistic Arminian and
I am quite content so long as I can keep close to my Bible. I desire to
preach what I find in this Book whether I find it in anybody else's
book or not. And as I do not find "spiritual brokenhearted" in my text,
I shall take the liberty of giving a wide range to this
brokenheartedness. Many are brokenhearted from a sense of guilt. This
is the best form of brokenheartedness in the world! When the hammer of
God's Law comes down with its 10 strokes and every Commandment pounds
the heart to powder, it is well. When a man once hears the Law of God
proclaimed from burning Sinai with a voice of thunder, he ceases to
trifle and is sorely afraid. He learns that God is angry with the
wicked every day– "if he turns not He will whet His sword, He has bent
His bow and made it ready"

His heart fails him as he hears this terrible declaration. Then is a
man in bitterness as one that mourns for his only son, even for his
first-born. Oh, that I should ever have lived to make my God my enemy;
that ever I should have been so base, so ungrateful to my best Friend!
Oh, cursed heart, to have loved its idols and have hated the Most High!
Some of us knew, in the days of our conviction, what it was to hate the
light of day and to dread the darkness of night–to long for our bed
that we might sleep–and yet to toss there restlessly upon a pillow
harder than Jacob's stone. O sin! Sin! Sin! If its weight is once felt.
If the terrors of God once break loose upon an awakened conscience, the
misery reaches to agony and the agony nears to death!

But, Beloved, our Lord Jesus has come to heal the anguish of the
conscience by declaring that there is forgiveness with God, that He may
be feared and He can be just and yet the Justifier of sinners who
believe. Thus is it written, "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleans
us from all sin." "He that believes in Him is not condemned." Whenever
the Lord Jesus is believingly received, the heartbreak of remorse is
ended and the sinner rests at the foot of the Cross. When the Holy
Spirit applies the blood of Atonement, the blood of the heart's wound
ceases to flow. The griefs of Jesus end our grief–His death is the
death of our despair! Substitution is the charming word which opens the
gate of hope!

This form of heartbreak, if it is present here this morning, is my
Lord's own specialty. In dealing with this He is altogether at home,
for He delights in mercy! I have seen Him apply the liniments to the
wounds with tender, downy-fingered hands, swathing the limb with hands
so soft and yet so strong, that the gash has closed, never to open
again! So speedy and so sure is His surgery that the broken heart has
begun to sing as soon as He has touched it! Do it again, great Master!
Do it at this very hour! Say, poor Sinner, "Lord, do it to me." He can
heal when all others have failed. He can heal you now!–

"When wounded sore, the stricken soul Lies bleeding and unbound, One
only hand, a pierced hand, Can salve the sinner's wound."

Another brokenness of heart is felt by those who regard themselves as
outcasts. Few of you have ever felt that dreadful weight upon the soul.
It is as a dreadful millstone about the neck. The woman whose sin may
not be in God's sight more gross than that of others is yet regarded by
society as utterly fallen and defiled–a thing to be flung from hand to
hand and cast on the dunghill as a faded flower! Words cannot describe
the shudder which passes over the mind of one betrayed and deceived
when she perceives that she is, from now on, numbered with castaways. A
like thing happens to the man who has been guilty of embezzlement, or
some other form of dishonesty. He is found out, prosecuted by his
employer, set before the court and sent to prison to be, from then on,
a branded criminal.

Ah me, how dreadful must be the waking up on the first morning in a
prison cell! He who was once courted will, from now on, be shunned–he
is a broken man without a character–marked by all as an outcast. Ah,
poor man, poor woman, Jesus receives sinners such as you! Some of us
have known what it is to feel as if we were shut out from hope and from
the mercy of God. We thought that He would not hear our cries. It was
of no use for us to pray, so our fears told us–God could not have
mercy upon such gross transgressors–He must leave us to ourselves and
to our sins. We thought that He had set us up to be the targets of His
arrows and to stand, like Pharaoh, the monuments of His wrath against
the proud! Yet were our fears all false, for our Lord Jesus, who came
to bind up the brokenhearted, has bound up all our wounds and we are
happy in Him.

Fallen ones, He will restore you and give you rest! It is the glory of
the Christian Church that it receives into its brotherhood the fallen
and the outcasts as soon as they repent. The world offers no room for
repentance, but in the Church, all are penitents! When Jesus forms the
center of a Church, there will be a ring of sinners attracted. Do we
not read, "Then drew near unto Him, all the publicans and sinners for
to hear Him"? Never did He drive them back, but He welcomed them–"This
Man receives sinners and eats with them." Listen poor crushed one!
However low you may have fallen, come to Jesus, for He will not cast
you out! Come to His true servants, for it will be their joy to restore
you. When the gates of respectability are shut, the gates of mercy and
Christian love are still open! Return, O wanderer! A welcome awaits
you! Jesus will make you whiter than snow. Though you may well believe
that He asks Himself concerning you, "How shall I put you among the
children?" yet He will do it, for He lifts the beggar from the
dunghill–

"That Christ will receive Him no sinner need fear, The poorer the
wretch, the welcomer here! Though you may be outcast and banished afar,
Your welcome is certain, come just as you are."

Another brokenness of heart is that of utter helplessness in which a
man feels that he is too feeble to fight the battle of life. He is not
only given up by others, but he has given up on himself. He floats like
a deserted vessel, derelict, waterlogged, abandoned. Sin has beset him.
He has given way to temptations and now Satan binds him fast. Perhaps
he has backslidden from the profession of religion and brought great
dishonor upon the name of Christ and now he cries, "My last end will be
worse than the first! I have crucified the Lord afresh and shall die in
my sins! I neglected the means of Grace, I became slack in prayer, I
turned my face away from God and now He has left me and I cannot get
back again."

Alas, for men who are bound with such fetters, the iron enters into
their souls! There are some here who once ran well–what hindered them
that they should not obey the Truth of God? They have gradually slipped
back, back, back, till now it is a question with them whether they ever
knew the Grace of God in truth at all. They are grieved to have it so
and long to be restored–but despair holds them. My gracious Lord Jesus
Christ comes to you, backsliders, who are

filled with your own ways, who labor and are heavy laden with the fear
that you are cast away forever, and He says, "Return, you backsliding
children."

He will help you to return. He will draw you and you shall run to Him.
The love of Jesus has not changed! He loves even to the end. He will
not cast away a soul that looks to Him. O taste and see that the Lord
is good! Return to Him this morning. He will receive you graciously and
love you freely–and you shall render to Him, again, the calves of your
lips as once you used to do, for Jesus heals the broken in heart and
binds up their wounds! Many are broken in heart because they are
afflicted so heavily. When sickness first comes to our door and we are
new to it, it is a very unwelcome guest. New pains are sharp, fresh
griefs appear intolerable, for as yet the bullock is unaccustomed to
the yoke. By-and-by we bear our woes more patiently, but at first, the
man afflicted with a disease which he knows will bring him to his grave
is sadly cast down.

The man who sees business ebbing away and foresees bankruptcy and
perhaps destitution, is crushed. Brother, if you receive Jesus Christ
into your heart, He will ease you by teaching you a sweet submission to
the Divine will. He will tell you that "all things work together for
good to them that love God." He will explain to you the doctrine of
Providence. He will make you to consider the end of the Lord, for He is
very pitiful even in His sharpest dispensations and He will supply you
with such strength of Grace that you will be able to endure pain or
poverty. Thus will He support you till your heart shall become strong
and you shall bravely face the afflictions and conflicts of life.

Some are brokenhearted through bereavement. One laments, "I have lost
my wife." Another bemoans herself, "I have lost my husband." Or a third
cries, "My mother is gone." Or a fourth, with motherly tenderness,
mourns the dearest child that ever nestled in a woman's bosom. "Alas,"
cries each one, "I can never survive the stroke!" We have all endured
sorrow, but bereavements are a sharp sword. Friends can do little to
fill up the great gap which death has made. Ah, it is, indeed, an
aching void which is left in an affectionate heart when the dear object
of love is torn away. The best of people in this respect suffer most.
Herein is comfort from Jesus! The blessed doctrine of the Resurrection
cheers the darkness of the sepulcher!

Jesus says, "Your brother shall rise again." The blessed thought of the
eternal felicity of those that we gladly would have detained below is a
sweet recompense for their loss. We remember our Lord's prayer–"I will
that they, also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, that
they may behold My Glory." Sometimes, in prospect of losing our beloved
ones, we pull very hard earthward and cry, "Father, I will that they be
with me where I am." Did you ever feel a pull the other way and start,
and look to see who pulls Heavenward? You watch and see that it is
Jesus praying, "Father, I will that they be with Me where I am."
Whenever Christ and you come to cross purposes I know you will yield,
for you will gladly acknowledge that the dear ones are more Christ's
than yours! Let them go. Jesus, we can part with all for You! It is no
parting, when we know that our beloved is with You! Thus does Jesus,
who Himself wept for Lazarus, heal broken hearts whose joy is buried
with those they loved so well.

There are many other forms of this disease. I have known hearts to be
thoroughly broken by desertion. One whom you loved and trusted proves
false and the early love of a true heart is broken like a potter's
vessel. What desolation fills many a soul that once was happy as the
birds–for treachery wastes like the scourge of war! When a choice
friend betrays you, or a professed Brother in Christian work, who ought
to have held up your hands, weakens and opposes you, it is a blow upon
the heart as when a bone is broken by the hammer. Yet there is
consolation, for He who had His Judas and bitterly cried, "He that eats
bread with Me has lifted up his heel against Me," knows how to bind up
such a broken heart, for He becomes a Friend that sticks closer than a
brother and He makes us feel, in the sweet tenderness and faithfulness
of His Divine companionship, that we are not alone, for the Lord is
with us.

He is better unto us than 10 friends! So long as He smiles, sunshine is
on our way! Ahithophel may join our enemies and Judas may sell us for
silver, but we are secure, for He will make the wrath of man to praise
Him and neutralize its gall by the sweetness of His company. I am
certain that there is no form of broken heart present but what there is
medicine for it in the Word of God and in Jesus who is the Word of God.
The leaves of this tree are for the healing of nations. Christ Jesus
brings a cure-all for those who are otherwise incurable. In His
dispensary there are remedies compounded by Divine art which will touch
the heart and act upon it like a charm till it shall throb with
pleasure as much as it now palpitates with anguish.

This is no quackery. His is a scientific system of surgery which has
borne the test of ages and has been proven by the experience of
countless sufferers to be Infallible. Here we stand, ourselves, living
witnesses of His skill! He has bound us up and we are now saved from
heartache and made to praise Him with our whole heart!

III. Our third theme is THE HONORED PHYSICIAN and this is the central
point of the text. Jesus says, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek;
He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted." Observe, first, that this
honored Physician gives personal attention to the brokenhearted. He
says, "He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted." Daniel said, "My
God has sent His angel and shut the lions' mouths," but as for you
brokenhearted ones, you receive personal attention from your Lord! The
Lord has sent Jesus Christ Himself because the task needs a Divine
hand.

The Lord's servants, without their Lord, can do no more than the staff
of Elisha did when Gehazi laid upon the dead child and there was
neither voice nor hearing. The great Prophet Himself is coming and
wonders will be seen among us! He is here at this moment in His own
proper Person and He will not fail in any case that is brought to Him.
Many a great physician has so much practice that he is compelled to
take a partner or an assistant, but my Lord is able to do all His work
and none can interfere in it. Jesus Himself, personally, with His own
pierced hands, continues to bind up the brokenhearted! Does not this
fact tend to already comfort you? If Jesus undertakes to lift you up,
it will be done! He is the consolation of Israel, appointed to comfort
all that mourn.

Come, old Simeon, take Him up in your arms and forget the infirmities
of age! Come, widowed Anna, and give thanks to God for Him who is the
Husband of the lonely heart! He will, Himself, wipe all tears from the
eyes of His people and He will do it now! O you who in your youth are
bearing the yoke of grief and declare that your life is blighted, say
so no more–for Jesus comes to help you, even He, Himself! Remember the
record, "Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord"–the same
sight shall gladden you!

This Physician is fully qualified. He is called Christos, or Christ,
which signifies Anointed–"The Lord has anointed Me." I am sure that
Jesus can cure broken hearts because God has given Him the Spirit, even
the Comforter, to rest upon Him without measure that His words may drop
with the oil of comfort. O, trust Him now! He has all the fitness for
His work that God can give Him. He is complete and we are complete in
Him. A broken heart needs oil to be poured into its wounds and,
"Christ," is an oily name–He is christened a Savior, anointed a
Healer! The good Samaritan poured in oil and wine, but here is heavenly
oil in the hands of One who is, Himself, the health of our countenance

As if this were not enough, notice that our Lord is commissioned. "He
has sent Me," He says. First, "anointed Me," then, "sent Me." Our Lord
said to the blind man, "Go and wash in the Pool of Siloam, which is,
being interpreted, sent." How I wish that you who are brokenhearted
would go and wash in this pool and find comfort in the blessed fact
that the Anointed is sent of God to you! The Great Father thought so
much of you that He sent a special Messenger to heal you! Yes, sent the
best one there was in Heaven to be a Missionary to you! No other was
fit to be second to Him, but God emptied Heaven of its superlative
Glory and sent His own Son down below that He might bind up broken
hearts–I cannot imagine a failure of this Messiah–the Sent One.

This is the Shiloh for whose salvation Jacob waited, looking for Him
who should be sent. This is the Apostle, or Sent One of our profession,
sent on purpose that He might comfort all the heirs of sorrow. Jesus is
carrying on a mission, a mission for the desolate! He is a Missionary
to the forlorn, commissioned to commiserate, appointed to relieve.
Observe, then, His qualifications and His commission. He bears a
diploma of the highest value! He is the Royal Physician– Surgeon in
Ordinary to all bleeding hearts! O that you would put your mournful
cases into His hands!

Remember, also, what He is in Person and Character and I think you will
at once say, "I will submit my broken heart to Him that He may heal
me." For Jesus, your Physician, is one who knows heartbreak by having
felt it. He said, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful even unto death." I
will tell you one of the most terrible tormentors in the world,
excelling even an Inquisitor–it is an unfeeling comforter. Save me
from a man who comes to console me wearing a face of marble and a heart
of stone! His words put grit into your wounds, or what if I say–salt?
Job knew this dreadful affliction.

Look, then, at the reverse of the picture–the surest Comforter is one
who is touched with a feeling of our infirmity, seeing He was tempted
in all points like as we are. "No," says the broken heart, "Christ
never knew my pain." Ah, but He did. What is it? That you have been
slandered? Jesus cries, "Reproach has broken My heart!" Is it that you
are forsaken by friends? Is it not written, "Then all the disciples
forsook Him and fled"? Is it that you are forsaken by God? Did

not Jesus cry, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me"? Is it that
your cup is bitter? Did He not pray three times that the cup might pass
from Him and still the cup was not removed? He leads you through no
darker rooms than He went through before–and in all He is so tenderly
sympathetic with you that He is the best Physician you can desire.

Besides, how gentle He is, as a mother with her child! He is meek and
lowly in heart, considerate, tender–there was never one like He! He
has soft fingers for sore places, sweet liniment for sharp cuts and
precious balm for bleeding wounds. The oil with which He was anointed
has both perfume and soothing about it. It is so sweet that those who
are far away may perceive it and it is so rare a salve that it works
its way and touches wounds which nothing else could reach. Jesus has
great skill in bringing light into the dreary recesses of darkened
minds. Oh that you knew my Master! If you had seen Him as my broken
heart saw Him on my first spiritual birthday, when I heard the word
that says, "Look unto Me and be you saved, all the ends of the
earth"–I say, if you had seen Him as I then saw Him you would have
rushed to His feet for healing!

I was at the ends of the earth! I thought I was ready to slip over the
edge, altogether, and sink into the abyss! But in obedience to His
command, I looked. It was the dim look of a half-blinded eye. I looked
through my tears, but hardly hoped to see Him. Still I looked. I turned
my eyes that way and I resolved that if I were lost it should be lying
at Jesus' feet. I believed He was able to save me and I left myself
with Him–and He has done great things for me, to which I cheerfully
bear witness! He keeps on blessing me and He will complete His work
before long. I know whom I have believed and I rest in Him! O dear
hearts that are breaking, I wish you would do as I did! I would to God
the same Grace would lead you, at once, to fall at my Lord's feet!
Swoon away into Christ's arms! Do not try to get stronger–be weaker,
if weaker you can be! Be nothing and let Him be your All! Die into His
life!

Come, brokenhearted ones, do not try to bind yourselves up–you will
only wound yourselves the more! Do not look for comfort into the black
and horrible abyss of your own nature, but look to Him whom God has
sent! Get right away from what you are to what He is. Have you a legion
of devils in you? He is the devils' Master and can turn them all out at
once! Does Satan, himself, seem to hold you in his grip? He who of old
has fought the fiend and vanquished him will lead your captivity
captive and take the prey from the mighty! If you must despair, despair
yourself into Christ–I mean by that self-despair which is the next of
kin to humble faith in Jesus–drop into His hands. Faint upon Christ's
bosom and lie there in happy helplessness.

May the Lord disable you for anything else and lead you to believe in
His Anointed! God has sent you Jesus! Will you not admit Him? He is
able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him. Come,
then, at once, and believe in Him whom God has sent!
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Jesus Knew What He Would Do