The Sin Sick Soul And The Great Physician

Next Part The Sin Sick Soul And The Great Physician 2

"Those who are whole need not a physician, but those who are sick." Matthew 9:12

The way in which the Lord, in the days of His flesh, dealt with cavilers and critics is very remarkable. He did not convert, but confound them. He did not appeal to anything spiritual in them; for they had no spiritual understanding in the things of God; but He silenced them by addressing Himself to their natural consciences.

We have one or two remarkable examples of this nature. On one occasion, for instance, we read, that the "Pharisees took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk. And they sent unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying Master, we know that you are true, and teach the way of God in truth, neither do you care for any man; for you regard not the person of men. Tell us, therefore, What do you think? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?" Here was a snare laid for His feet, a dilemma in which they thought they had placed Him. Now, suppose He had said, "It was not lawful to pay tribute unto Caesar," then they would have accused Him to the Roman governor as preaching high treason. And suppose He had said, "It was lawful to pay tribute to Caesar," then they would have asked, "How He, as a Jew, and professing obedience to the law, could command subservience to a foreign prince? when Moses had expressly commanded, 'One from among your brethren shall you set king over you - you may not set a stranger over you, who is not your brother.'" De 17:15.

But how did the Lord meet this cavil, and extricate Himself from this dilemma? He asked them to show Him the tribute-money; and when they had brought it unto Him, He said, "Whose is this image and superscription?" They were compelled to answer 'Caesar's.' "Then says he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." Matthew 22:16-21 The very fact of the money, bearing Caesar's image and superscription, circulating among them, was an unanswerable proof of their subjection to the Roman yoke, and that therefore it was lawful to pay tribute.

Again, on another occasion John 8:3, we read, that "the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman caught in adultery;" and they tried to entangle Him by enquiring what was to be done with her. "Master," paying Him all due respect, said they, "Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned; but what do you say?" Here was a dilemma they thought to place the Lord in. Suppose He had said, "The woman ought to be stoned;" then they would have accused Him before the Roman governor of setting up the Jewish in opposition to the Roman law; the power of life and death being in the hands of the Roman governor only. And if He had said, "She ought not to be stoned;" they would have directly asked Him, "How could this be consistent with the law given by Moses?" But how wisely He met this difficulty, and took "the wise in their own craftiness," by saying, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." John 8:7 By thus appealing to their natural consciences, He caught them in their own net, and overwhelmed them with confusion.

Our text, and the verses connected with it, afford another instance of the same nature. "And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at dinner in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why does your Master eat with publicans and sinners?" These self-righteous Pharisees were always on the watch to find, if possible, something to condemn the Lord with. And here they professed their pious astonishment, that so holy a man as He claimed to be, could associate with such vile, ungodly wretches. "For do we not judge," they would insinuate, "of a man by the company that he keeps? And must not a man love and practice sin who keeps company with sinners?" But how did the Lord disentangle Himself from this net that they were seeking to spread for his feet? He met their cavil thus, "Those who are whole need not a physician, but those who are sick." He appealed to their own sense and reason, and to their natural consciences. It was as though He had said, "Where should a physician be? Is it not with the sick in the hospital? Are not the sick wards his peculiar place and province, and are not diseased patients the very people he is called to associate with and take care of? Is the physician necessarily contaminated by the disease that he cures? How can he heal the sickness, if he does not visit the sick?" By thus appealing to their reason and conscience, He silenced and confounded them. Now, this is an example well worthy of our imitation.

We are sometimes thrown into the way of scoffers, and of people who will cavil even at the great foundation truths of divine revelation. With such people there is no use attempting to argue the question on spiritual grounds; for they have no spiritual ears to hear, no spiritual eyes to see, no spiritual heart to fall under the power of truth. To do so is to throw pearls before swine. If the Lord enables us, the best way is to appeal to their natural consciences; and, as shortly as possible, without entering into the details of truth, to silence them by putting before them something which they themselves cannot deny.

But the words of the text have a much higher sense than a mere appeal to natural conscience or human reason. They contain a gospel truth, far deeper and higher than reason can comprehend, and one that will last as long as the world endures. "Those who are whole need not a physician, but those who are sick."

We find, in the text, two characters spoken of, and these put in a distinct opposition to, and contrast with each other - the "whole," and the "sick." And as the two characters are distinct in themselves, so their case is distinct also; the case of the one being that he "needs not," and the case of the other that he needs "a physician." And thus, if the Lord enables me by His blessed Spirit experimentally to trace out this evening who are "the whole," and who are "the sick;" and show why the one "needs not," and why the other needs "a physician," it may be for our profit, and may also, if God so grants, be to His own glory.

I. Let us look, then, at the character pointed out in the text by the expression, "the whole." I need scarcely say, that the word naturally means a person healthy, strong, and vigorous; one untainted by sickness or disease; one in all the enjoyment of robust health, without any constitutional ailment or bodily affliction. Now it is a truth, naturally, that such people "need not a physician." They are not in circumstances to require such aid; their vigorous health, their robust constitution, their freedom from all disease, give them perfect liberty to dispense with the services of medical skill. From this comparison we may easily gather who are "the whole," in a spiritual sense. Those who have never received any wound in their conscience, who have never felt sick unto death, who have never groaned and suffered under the disease of sin.

But who are these hearty and healthy people? All men in a state of unregeneracy; all in whose hearts the Spirit of God has not begun His quickening work. These are called "whole," - not as really and actually free from taint or infection - for in the sight of God they are one mass of disease; but they are called "whole" in the text, because they feel and know nothing, spiritually and experimentally, of sickness. They are not healthy in the sight of God, but in their own sight - for "their eyes stand out with fatness," and they are not "plagued with sickness like other men." Psalm 73:5,7

If we look a little more closely at these characters, we shall find them divided into two grand classes - those dead in sin, and those dead in a profession. As never plagued with the sickness of sin, both of these characters may be said to be "whole."

Look, for instance, at men generally - say, those you have daily to associate with, whose conscience God has not touched with His finger. Is there any sigh, any cry, any groan, any sorrow for sin ever manifested by them? Are they not light, trifling, and frivolous; or, if settled and sober, altogether buried in the things of time and sense? Do you ever witness anything in them, that shows they have the least concern for their immortal souls? Are they not evidently dead in sin - so dead as not to have one thought for the future, one solemn feeling of eternity?

And is there not a large class of professors, who are as dead in formality as the others in transgression, though they may have a name to live? But what is the grand distinguishing mark of both? Is it not that they are "whole?" They have never felt any inward sickness or running sore; they have never been wounded by the arrows of God shot into their conscience; they have never had the ill-conditioned ulcers and deep abscesses of human nature laid open by the keen dissecting knife of the great Anatomist; nor have they ever been brought down to sigh and groan under a body of sin and death. "Their strength is firm." Their "face is covered with fatness, and the bundles of fat are on their flanks;" their "breasts are full of milk, and their bones are moistened with marrow." Psalm 73:4 Job 15:27 Job 21:24

Now, however heady, high-minded, presumptuous people may despise the groans and sighs of God's sin-sick people, and the feeling acquaintance that each rightly-taught man has with his own sore, and his own grief; or whatever ridicule may be poured out upon the trials which God's children experience when the internal plague of corruption is felt, it is a solemn truth, in spite of all contempt or ridicule, that "the whole need not a physician." And it is equally true, let them speak of Christ as much as they may, that there can be no spiritual communion with the great Physician, Jehovah-rophi (the Lord, the Healer), unless there be some inward wound or sickness of soul felt, so as to make them desire healing from His blessed hands.

"The whole need not a physician;" they need no visits from Jesus, no smile from His loving countenance, no balm from His tender hands, no cure from His gracious lips. They may know from the Bible that there is such a Person as Christ, just as a healthy man may know that some celebrated physician lives in such a street; but as to any personal application to Him, any sighing at His gracious footstool, any showing before Him their sickness, any laying down their broken bones or bruised consciences at His door, they can know nothing of it, because they are "whole." Still less can they know the efficacy of His balmy blood sprinkled on their conscience; still less the spiritual experience contained in those words, "He makes sore, and binds up; he wounds, and his hands make whole" Job 5:18; "Who heals all your diseases." Psalm 103:3 And how can those who despise or ridicule all experience, know anything spiritually of Jesus? For they are "whole;" and being "whole" they "need not a physician."

Now you who make a profession, do look at this matter; it concerns your immortal souls. Did you ever feel sickness of heart and wounds in your conscience? Did you ever groan under the felt malady of sin? Did you ever apply to, and tell out your needs before the great Physician? Did you ever look to and hang upon His balmy blood as cleansing from all sin? And have you ever felt His hands dealing gently with you, binding up your wounds, and pouring into them the healing wine and oil of gospel grace?

Now, I am sure of this, if you have walked in this path, you will never ridicule the experience of God's people, stigmatize it as "corruption," and heap upon it all the contempt which enmity can devise. You will never despise the groans of God's people, if you were ever in the same situation, or if your soul ever passed through a similar experience.

Let me illustrate this by appealing to your natural feeling. Suppose that some years back you had gone through some operation, say, the amputation of a limb; and as you pass by the hospital, in which you yourself once had been, you were to hear the piercing shriek of some poor sufferer stretched on the operating table - would you ridicule and laugh at his cries? Would you not remember that you yourself once lay there in agony? Or, suppose that the Lord had afflicted you in times past with insanity, and afterwards mercifully delivered you from the asylum. But should you pass by St. Luke's, and hear the ravings and shoutings of some unhappy resident, would you laugh and jeer, or would you pity and sympathize?

So spiritually, if a man has ever known an inward wound made in his conscience by the entrance of the two-edged sword, and afterwards enjoyed health and cure, will he pour contempt on those who are walking in the same path in which he himself once traveled? Depend upon it, when a man ridicules and despises the afflictions of God's people, it is a bad sign - a black mark against him - it strongly looks as though he had never himself passed through the same experience, and had never known similar exercises.

1. No one knows anything spiritually and experimentally of soul sickness, until God the Spirit quickens him from a death in sin. Then for the first time a wound is made in his conscience by an arrow shot from the bow of the Almighty. Now spiritually, as well as naturally, when a man is groaning and languishing under a wound, will he not anxiously desire a surgeon to bind it up? Let a man meet with what is called an accident; let him fall from a ladder, or be run over by a carriage. Will not the bystanders gather together in a moment, and take him off to a hospital? And even the poor man himself, if he retains his senses, is glad to be taken there as soon as possible. But what has made the laborer, who just before was standing careless upon the scaffold, now all pale and trembling upon a stretcher, crying to be taken to the surgeon? Is it not the broken rib or fractured limb that in a moment has produced the change?

So spiritually, there was a time when the vessel of mercy ridiculed spiritual things, cared for neither heaven nor hell, nor had one pang of concern about his immortal state; but the wound came, the bones were broken, distress of mind followed, and the soul pined and languished away, fearing the "second death." But no sooner was this felt, than a Physician was wanted, one able and willing to heal. At first, perhaps, through ignorance, he looked out and sought after "physicians of no value," running here and there for ease, and not seeking only to the Lord. But, sooner or later, being baffled in all his attempts to find relief from human help, he is brought to apply to "Jehovah, who heals you" Ex 15:26; and finds there is "balm in Gilead," and a "physician there."

2. But the Lord's people are not merely wounded by the arrows of God sticking in their conscience; they have also to be led into the deep depravity of their fallen nature, the desperate wickedness of their evil heart. We may class spiritual patients under two heads - those that are wounded and need the surgeon - and those that are sick and need the physician. And generally speaking, we need the first before the second, and have to go to the surgeon before we go to the dispensary. Thus usually, we know but little of our dreadful depravity, when the Lord first takes us in hand; the fountains of the great deep are not then broken up; the desperate unbelief, enmity, rebellion, perverseness, pride, hypocrisy, uncleanness, and all the other vile corruptions of our heart are not at first opened up and brought to light.

But as the Lord leads the soul on, He opens up by degrees the desperate corruption and depravity of our nature, and unfolds the hidden evils of our heart, which before were covered from our view. It is with us as it was with the Prophet. The Lord led him into one chamber after another; and when his astonishment increased at what he saw there, He said unto him, "Turn yet again, and you shall see greater abominations than these." Ezekiel 8:15 But as the Lord leads us into a knowledge of our depravity, He makes us to feel sick at heart, and thus we come into the state of feeling described by the prophet Isaiah - "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores." Isaiah 1:5,6 And as we are led into a knowledge of our sinfulness, and groan under it, we feel more and more a burden of shame and sorrow on account of it; and the more deeply and daily that this is felt, the more deeply and daily do we find our need of the great Physician.

All the Lord's dealings with our souls are that He may exalt His dear Son in our hearts, that we may have all the shame, and Jesus all the glory; and therefore, all this deep and daily discovery of our depravity is eventually to bring greater glory to the Son of God. The deeper we sink into shame and guilt, under the knowledge of the depravity of our nature, the more do we seek unto, feel the power, and prize the love, blood, grace, and preciousness of the Lord Jesus. Every fresh discovery of our vile nature, when the Lord is pleased to bring the savor of Jesus' name, like the ointment poured forth, into the conscience, serves only instrumentally to increase our faith and affection towards Him; and thus the deeper we sink in self, the higher the Lord Jesus rises in our soul's admiration and adoration.

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