Matthew 8:14-17

Chapter 31

Prayer

Almighty God, we are all sick: do thou heal our sicknesses and take our infirmities, and make us well with the health of heaven. We are sick in body, or we are sick in heart: the whole life is crooked and in pain, our very breathing is a cry of distress, and every pulse of our heart is a confession of weakness. Behold our life is a poverty, and our existence is a sigh. The whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint, and there is in us no health. We come to the great Healer, to the Physician that is in Gilead, and to the balm that is there. Others have healed our hurt slightly: they have said, "Peace, peace," where there is no peace now do we come to God our Father, that we may be healed in our heart and made clean in our whole being. Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make us clean. Yet why should we challenge thee thus when thy whole ministry is a welcome to thy love and an utterance of thine infinite gospel? Thou dost shut the door on none, thou hast said, "Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you." The grace is upon thy side more than the pleading is upon ours. Thine answer is greater than our prayer; the healing of God is greater than the distress of man. Thou dost pardon with pardons; thy forgiveness is as the waves of the sea, not to be numbered; great and mighty are they, and they come with all the force of thy tender heart. We confess our sins before thee with an open mouth, and with a heart that has no reservation; we cry, "Unclean, unclean, unprofitable, unprofitable, lepers are we all, and cankered in the very heart God be merciful unto us sinners." The blood of Jesus Christ thy Son cleanseth from all sin; we would now feel its gracious power and answer its cleansing ministry. It is at the cross we find the laver of regeneration, it is on Calvary we are forgiven; the pardons of thine heart are signed with the blood of Christ.

Thou hast given unto us a few days, and we spend them as the fool spends his small heritage. We know not when our breath may be taken from us, yet behold we tell lies and do many deceitful things, and work before God as if we could claim the residue of our time. Show us that our breath is in our nostrils, that our grave is already dug, and that we are hastening with every breath we draw to the great judgment; and whilst this reflection makes us solemn, may all thy promises be as singing angels in our hearts, making them glad with the encouragements which come of thy grace and approbation. Help us to work with both hands diligently; may there be no half-heartedness in our industry; may our life be the toil of a slave, because having in it the love which constrains the heart, and we shall call no time or power our own. We would be the slaves of the Lord Jesus; we would be bound to him by every energy and every passion; would call nothing our own; to him would we give ourselves and all we have. Let this be a time of consecration, individual and universal; may every heart call nothing it has its own, but give itself and its possessions to the great Saviour of the race.

Upon the old and the young let thy sunlight fall; upon the venerable trees that have grown many years, and upon the little flowers that gleam at their roots, a few days old, and soon to be cut down and withered. The Lord look upon us in all the relations of our life; let our houses be homes, let our homes be Churches, and let the Church at home be the sweetest place on earth.

Give guidance to those who are in perplexity; put the right key into the hand of the man who is opening the gate that bars his honourable way; speak comfortably unto Jerusalem, and say with thine own voice that her welfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned. Upon all Churches, upon all Christian institutions, upon all schools and universities, upon all men who are in any wise endeavouring to do good, let the blessing of God be poured out today in an impartial and refreshing rain. Amen.

Mat 8:14-17

Working All Day

"And when Jesus was come into Peter's house." The centurion would not hear of the Lord Jesus Christ going to his house: it was beneath so great a worker and teacher: it was a humiliation not to be permitted by the sense which the centurion had of Roman dignity and Roman majesty. Said he, "Speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed." Jesus Christ appeared to the centurion to be in his right place when he was upon the mountain, when he was upon the sea, when the great blue sky was the only roof over his head. It did not enter into his mind that Jesus Christ could enter a little human habitation. Do not let us make the Lord Jesus Christ too dignified in our social and conventional sense: there is more in Christ than what we should limit by the word dignity. I am afraid that some of us keep a long way from God, because his dignity, as we falsely and vainly interpret it, keeps us at a cold distance. We must get to an appreciation of his mind by such words as love, grace, sympathy, condescension, pity. It is in that region that our imagination and our love must move if they would realise all the higher blessings and all the tenderer benedictions which are associated with the Divine name.

"When Jesus was come into the house." We have been with him at the river there he was baptized; we have been with him in the wilderness there he was tempted: we have been with him as he walked by the seaside there he called disciples to become fishers of men: we have been with him on the mountain there in soft and musical thunder he addressed the ages. He came into Capernaum, the city; he is getting nearer. To-day he enters the house, and thus completes his relation to all points of human life and human need. He would come into your house if you would let him: he would come nearer still, he would come into your heart if you were willing. "Behold I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and will open the door I will come in." He cannot force his way into your heart-house he could take the slates off your roof, pour down his rain upon your little fire until it was quenched, but he cannot force a child's love: the feeblest life can mock him with bitter taunting and keep him outside. Know thy power: it is a mischievous strength, but know, O man, that it lies within thy power to smite God in the face and to mock him with every throb of thine heart. Know thy power, realise thy strange weird majesty that thou art almost God!

When he was come into the house, he found a shadow there.

There is a shadow in every house, there is a fever in every family.

But Peter was a disciple, he was an incipient apostle, he was the senior disciple; great honours were in store for his name in the ages, and yet the shadow was in his house. You would think that God would send all the shadows upon the atheist, and would pile night on him so thickly as to make him mad with darkness. Yet it is not so in the Divine government Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons, for what son is there whom the father chasteneth not? If ye be without chastening then are ye bastards and not sons. Doubt your sonship if the chastening be little and infrequent.

Who would not have spared the senior disciple who would not have made him the focal point on which should have converged all the rays of the Divine approbation, so that he might have been like a light seen afar, blazing forth the excellence and the wondrousness of the Divine election. The thief that lived next door had less fever in his house than Peter had. Sometimes the bad man's ground brings forth plentifully, sometimes the pampered and overfed Dives has wealth upon wealth, while the praying soul is outside with dogs for his companions and crumbs as his portion. All this cannot be reconciled within the narrow limits of time. We want more field: the line that appears to be straight is only apparently straight, because of the limited points within which it is drawn. Extend the line and it partakes of the shape of the world upon whose surface it is drawn. So within these narrow points of time, the rocking cradle and the deep tomb, there is not scope enough to reconcile all the divine purposes and actions and mysteries; we need more field, an ampler horizon. We shall get it by-and-by, and then we shall know how God has been dealing with us in forcing rivers out of our eyes and in making our heads a burning pain. O child of God, much praying man, wearied almost with crying at heaven's gate, proceed, persevere, the sigh of thy weakness shall be mightier far than the thunder of thy strength. Do not despair, do not yet give up; while there is one dying ray of light in the sky, hold on.

Who would be without affliction at home, at least sometimes? Affliction unites the family. Given great prosperity and great wealth, and you may possibly find along with these great vanity and great tendency to self-assertion and to mutual contradiction and contention: but given affliction, and there is something in it that touches every heart and constrains every energy, and focalises all the resources of the house, so that the sick-chamber is often the church of the habitation. It would be a fool's hiding-place but for the sick-chamber; that sick-chamber makes the young pause, the impetuous take time, the thoughtless set down his foot quietly lest he should give needless shock and pain in the quiet place of suffering. It sets wits to work not the intellectual wits only, but the heart's wits to find out new delicacies, new tones, new music, new expressions of gentleness. It makes women of us all.

You would not be half the man you are but for your sick child; your tendency is toward bumptiousness, aggressiveness of speech, sternness, harshness. You have a magisterial cast and bearing in your life; but that little sick child has softened you, and been like a benediction upon your life. Men now take notice of your voice and say, "What new tones have subtly entered into it; how different the kind grasp, how noble the new bearing, how impressive the sacred patience, how touching and pathetic the sadness of the face!" Afflictions do not spring out of the dust: do not be impatient with them; we need something to soften this hard life. O, if it were all buying, selling, getting gain, outrunning one another in a race for wealth in which the racers take no time to recover themselves there would be no gardens on the face of the earth, no places consecrated to floral beauty, no houses built for music, no churches set up for prayer. But affliction helps to keep us right, affliction brings us to our knees. Poverty says, " Think, fool, think." Affliction opens the Bible at the right places. If you, strong man, with the radiant face and the full pocket, were to open the Bible, it would open upside down, and at nothing. But you, broken-hearted mother, you, child of sickness, you, orphan and lonely one, your Bible falls open always at the right place. Give me your family Bible, and I will tell you your history. The Bible of the strong, prosperous, rich man 'tis like himself; well kept too well. Hand me yours, man of the broken heart and the tear-stained cheek, and the reddened eye and the furrowed brow. Ah, all marks and thumbings, and turnings down and marginal notes and pencil indications twenty-third Psalm, fortieth of Isaiah, a hundred places in Jeremiah including the Lamentations why, I need no concordance to this Bible, if I want to seek out the promises. I see your guest has been Sorrow, and the hospitality you have offered him has been Patience. If you would know the value of the Bible in the house, consult those who have needed it most, and abide by their sweet reply.

"When the even was come." What even? The astronomical even. It brings its own beauty with it. Do not be sorry when the sun westers and glows with solemn pomp in his dying hour. When the even was come astronomically, the sun rose redeemingly. Jesus came with the sunset, and when he comes the sun rises. It was a wondrous conjunction, the old, old sun of the heavens, faithful servant of God, lamp too high to be blown out by man's breath when the sun had done all he could for the earth, he was going away, and then arose the other Sun, the Sun of Righteousness, with healing under his wings. See what a busy sunset was this. They brought unto him many that were possessed with devils, and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick. Mark, this work of Jesus Christ was twofold: it had to do with devils that held the dominion of the mind, and it had to do with diseases that held the dominion of the body. What wondrous ease is in these words "He cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick," and it is written as if he had merely looked up or breathed, so consummate, so infinite, so deific the ease. It is always so that God must work; he can do nothing by an effort; if it were an effort it would not be divine. Power is in the ease: the ease is the signature of deity.

In all great life the same thing is exemplified. The painter does not paint with difficulty, if he be heaven-born; he paints because he breathes. The poet does not struggle with a long and painful agony to write his verses: he writes because he breathes. All this, of course, has its limitations in human life; it reaches the fulness and the last touch of its infinite sacredness in Christ, who spake and it was done, who commanded and it stood fast because he planted the heavens and set the earth upon nothing.

Observe, not only was the word twofold, but it was complete it was finished. How is it with us in regard to our human helpings and healings? We speak thus, and not inaccurately or unwisely, namely, "The doctor did me much good; the physician did me some good; the medical advice was in some degree just what I wanted; the relief was palpable, and I was glad of it." Do you ever find that word recorded of Christ? Did he ever almost heal a man? It is a curious thing of those unlearned and ignorant men who wrote his life, to have set down this, so consistently, as if they had been working upon a plan of mutual and collusive deceit and fraud. Did he ever come into contact with a devil-ridden one and say, "I can almost heal thee, but not wholly"? His disciples have come into conflict with such a possessed individual, but Jesus was not there. He came down and found the crowd around the disciples and said, "What is it?" It ennobles us to see him in that hour; his face has a transfiguring effect upon our commonness. "What is it?" and a voice said, "I brought my child to thy disciples that they might cast out the devil that has seized and ruined him, and they could not." Did his face darken with fear? Did his person contract with shame? Did he postpone the controversy? He said, "Bring him unto me," and he said, "I command thee come out of him," and he came out like a scourged hound that knew the master's voice, a voice that fell upon him like a thong of scorpions, and he came out.

Did Jesus Christ ever almost heal the halt? did he ever open the eyes of the blind almost? did he ever give a little relief to the deaf? He said, "Go, tell John the things ye see and hear; the blind receive their sight, the deaf hear, the dumb speak, the lame walk, and unto the poor the gospel is preached."

Yet he who can work omnipotently in all these directions which are indicated by demon possession and direful disease, cannot work faster in your heart than you will let him. It is there that he must work partially, and incompletely. He would make us without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but we will not let him. We know our power and we use it. He can drive out the devil but how to bring the angel in? He can banish our disease and restore our bodily health but how to make the soul well? "Behold I stand at the door and knock." It hath pleased him to make us so, that we can keep him knocking. There is no force in the moral direction: God works by consent of the human heart. "Behold I stand at the door and knock." No other god dare take upon him such humility. We keep our mythological gods in courtly pomp, we keep them well up in the smoke and the cloud. It takes truth to search in the mud, to light a candle and seek for the lost man: it takes God to die that man may live. Let us give our hearts to him.

Jesus Christ's work was continual. We have been impressed with this as we have come along the story. It presents him with opportunities, and he accepts them as they come. The multitudes were gathered he opened his mouth and taught them. There came a leper he said, "I will, be thou clean." He entered into Capernaum, and there came unto him a centurion, and he healed the centurion's servant. He came into Peter's house and found a fever-stricken woman he touched her hand and the fever fled from that touch. When the even was come, they brought unto him devils, and he healed all that were sick. Jesus Christ's ministry was a great effort; it was a great life. O thou preaching man, do not spend thy time in preparing thy sermon, but in preparing thyself, and the sermon will be right, not perhaps artistically and technically, and according to the wooden standards of the self-made schools, but there will be in it subtle flame, subtle sympathy, magnetism, divine flashings and gleamings that will help men to the mountains. The Saviour never gathered himself together for a great occasion he was the great occasion. He created the opportunity, he ennobled the chance of the day, he found a wilderness and built a tabernacle in it; he found a needy humanity, and he left the blessing of heaven where he found the trace and signature of the devil.

Apply all this to ourselves. Jesus, go home with us and see what a shadow is there; go upstairs with us and see the daughter who has not been well these twenty years, and the son whose life is an almost daily weakness, and often a sharp and crying pain; come and see the child-grandmother that has been groping for heaven's gate many a day, because in her heart there is a longing to go home; come and see all of us, upstairs and down: the birds will sing the blither for thy coming in, they will find their cages enlarged in thy presence; come and look into the poor man's cupboard and turn his one loaf into five and his little dinner into a feast for a king. Come into the shop, the counting-house, the bank, the market-place, the office, and see how we have huddled things together, and straighten out these crooked things for us. Come into our hearts, and see how we have devils in them, devils of ambition, devils of falsehood, devils of vanity, all kinds of devils, and cleanse the defiled heart. We are all sick; there is not a life that has not its pain, not a hope that has not its shadow, not a prayer that has not its fierce temptation. O thou Healer, thou Father and Mother of us all, dear Jesus, a Woman thou art, a Man, a God, Son of Mary, Son of Man enter every heart and make it beautiful as heaven!