service

We should notice … in this passage, the almighty power of our Lord Jesus Christ. We see sicknesses and devils alike yielding to His command. He rebukes unclean spirits, and they come forth from the unhappy people whom they had possessed. He rebukes a fever, and lays his hands on sick people, and at once their diseases depart, and the sick are healed. We cannot fail to observe many like cases in the four Gospels. They occur so frequently that we are apt to read them with a thoughtless eye, and forget the mighty lesson which each one is meant to convey. They are all intended to fasten in our minds the great truth that Christ is the appointed Healer of every evil which sin has brought into the world. Christ is the true antidote and remedy for all the soul-ruining mischief which Satan has wrought on mankind. Christ is the universal physician to whom all the children of Adam must repair, if they would be made whole. In Him is life, and health, and liberty. This is the grand doctrine which every miracle of mercy in the Gospel is ordained and appointed to teach. Each is a plain witness to that mighty fact, which lies at the very foundation of the Gospel. The ability of Christ to supply to the uttermost every want of human nature, is the very corner-stone of Christianity. Christ, in one word, is “all” (Colossians 3:11). Let the study of every miracle help to engrave this truth deeply on our hearts.

There is comfort here for all who are really serving Christ, and are yet cast down by a sense of their own infirmity. There are many in such case. They are oppressed by doubts and anxieties. They sometimes think they shall never reach heaven after all, but be cast away in the wilderness. Let them fear no longer. Their strength shall be according to their day. The difficulties they now fear shall vanish out of their path. The lion in the way which they now dread, shall prove to be chained. The same gracious hand which first touched and healed, shall uphold, strengthen, and lead them to the last. The Lord Jesus will never lose one of His sheep. Those whom He loves and pardons, He loves unto the end. Though sometimes cast down, they shall never be cast away. The healed soul shall always go on “ministering to the Lord.” Grace shall always lead to glory.

There is no fence around Him to keep us off; no guard to forbid or warn us away. Any one, every one may come at once to be healed. It is the sick, not the whole, that he invites. It is the leper, the palsied, the fevered, the blind, the lame, the deaf, the devil-possessed, that he bids welcome to. On every side we may approach Him. At any time, and in any way, we may come. Whatever be the length or the deadliness of our disease, we may come. The physician is divinely skillful; the medicine is free; the cure is certain. Health for sick humanity! Medicine for a diseased world! A Physician for a dying race! Such are the messages which we bring. All of them overflowing with God’s great love to sinners; to sinners simply as such. The depths of divine compassion are infinite. So are its heights. God’s pitying love takes in the worst sinner that ever breathed the air of earth. Wide as earth; wide as the bounds of sin; wide as the evil of human hearts; wide as heaven; wide as His own infinite heart; such is the pitying love of God.

He is the great healer; the sinner’s one physician. His words are health. His touch is health. His look is health. Nay, his very garments are health ; for as many as touch either Him or them are made perfectly whole. Leprosy, lunacy, fever, blindness, death, possession by Satan, are nothing to Him. In Him all fulness dwells; and that fulness is dispensed by love. There was much here to quench that love, much to repel Him, but He will not be repelled, and his love cannot be quenched, even by the waters of unbelief. He is “mighty to save”—“able to save to the uttermost.” Omnipotence is in his touch, his look, his word. Let us do justice to his fulness and his grace, lest He have to say of us, O faithless and perverse generation.

There is comfort in this thought for all who feel a desire to serve Christ, but at present are afraid to begin. There are many in this state of mind. They fear that if they come forward boldly, and take up the cross, they shall by and bye fall away. They fear that they shall not be able to persevere, and shall bring discredit on their profession. Let them fear no longer. Let them know that Jesus is an Almighty Saviour, who never forsakes those who once commit themselves to Him. Once raised by His mighty hand from the death of sin, and washed in His precious blood, they shall go on “ministering to Him” to their life’s end. They shall have power to overcome the world, and crucify the flesh, and resist the devil. Only let them begin, and they shall go on. Jesus knows nothing of half-cured cases and half-finished work. Let them trust in Jesus and go forward. The pardoned soul shall always be enabled to serve Christ.

To give a woman, prostrate with a fever, not merely relief, but strength to do work in an instant, would baffle the skill of all the physicians on earth. Yet Jesus “touched” Peter’s wife’s mother, and “she arose, and ministered unto them.”—These are the doings of one that is Almighty. There is no escape from the conclusion. This was “the finger of God.”

What a complete and perfect cure the Lord Jesus makes, when He heals. He takes the sick woman by the hand, and lifts her up, and “immediately the fever left her.” But this was not all. A greater miracle remained behind. At once we are told “she ministered unto them.” That weakness and prostration of strength which, as a general rule, a fever leaves behind it, in her case was entirely removed. The fevered woman was not only made well in a moment, but in the same moment made strong and able to work. We may see in this case a lively emblem of Christ’s dealing with sin-sick souls. That blessed Saviour not only gives mercy and forgiveness;—He gives renewing grace besides. To as many as receive Him as their Physician, He gives power to become the sons of God. He cleanses them by His Spirit, when He washes them in His precious blood. Those whom He justifies, He also sanctifies. When He bestows an absolution, He also bestows a new heart. When He grants free forgiveness for the past, He also grants strength to “minister” to Him for the time to come. The sin-sick soul is not merely cured, and then left to itself. It is also supplied with a new heart and a right spirit, and enabled so to live as to please God.

We beseech Thee to receive our acknowledgments; we pray that they may become more adequate and more operative in our lives, so that to us all the service shall be an honour, and all that the Lord lays upon us shall be a joy to accept and to do. Forgive our many sins, cleanse our hearts from their manifold evils, deliver us from all our errors, lead us into the full truth. May we live by the truth that we know, and be ever growing in the grace and in the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour. Hear us in our prayer, and in Thy great mercy forgive and accept us, through Christ our Lord.

Set us free, O Lord, we beseech Thee, from the fetters of sin and earth, that we may indeed joyfully serve Thee, and labour on at Thy command. We would say, ‘O Lord! truly I am Thy servant; Thou hast loosed my bonds.’ Thou dost set us free that in Thy service we may find liberty. Thou dost honour us by letting us do Thy will. Thou dost incline our hearts, when we wait before Thee, to the joy of obedience and the blessedness of action for Thee. Thou dost draw us by mighty motives. Thou dost inspire us with power not our own. Grant, O Lord, that we, enriched by so many gifts of Thine hand, and enabled by so many inspirations of Thy grace, may indeed joyously wait upon God, in all holy obedience; and as the eyes of a servant are towards his master, so may ours be to Thee, O our God.

The hope of benefiting immortal souls is most delightful to a benevolent mind; and a successful issue to our labours is replete with joy. The disciple who was honoured with his Master’s love beyond all others, even he knew “no greater joy than to see his children walk in truth.” This accounts for the extreme earnestness with which St. Paul laboured for the salvation of men, and for their sake. He knew, that, even in the eternal world, it would augment his happiness to see that he had been instrumental in saving others; and that “he should rejoice in the day of Christ, when he found that he had not laboured in vain, or run in vain.” Indeed, so entirely was he swallowed up in the prosperity of his converts, that he was ready even to die for them, if need were; yea, and to welcome the most cruel death as a blessing, rather than to deprecate it as an evil, if only it might be subservient to the welfare of their souls.