That is only too plain. All the sick in the crowd round Christ were
sent away well, but the gifts He bestowed so broadcast had no
relation to their spiritual natures, and gifts that have relation to
our spiritual nature cannot be thus given in entire disregard of our
actions in the matter.
Christ cannot heal you unless you take His healing power. He did on
earth sometimes, though not often, cure physical disease without the
requirement of faith on the part of the healed person or his
friends, but He cannot (He would if He could) do so in regard to the
disease of sin. There, unless a man goes to Him, and trusts Him, and
submits his spirit to the operation of Christ's pardoning and
hallowing grace, there cannot be any remedy applied, nor any cure
effected. That is no limitation of the universal power of the
Gospel. It is only saying that if you do not take the medicine you
cannot expect that it will do you any good, and surely that is plain
common-sense. There are plenty of people who fancy that Christ's
healing and saving power will, somehow or other, reach every man,
apart from the man's act. It is all a delusion, brethren. If it
could it would. But if salvation could be thus given, independent of
the man, it would come down to a mere mechanical thing, and would
not be worth the having. So I say, first, if you will not take the
medicine you cannot get the cure.
I say, second, if you do not feel that you are ill you will not take
the medicine. A man crippled with lameness, or tortured with fever,
or groping in the daylight and blind, or deaf to all the sounds of
this sweet world, could not but know that he was a subject for the
healing. But the awful thing about our disease is that the worse you
are the less you know it; and that when conscience ought to be
speaking loudest it is quieted altogether, and leaves a man often
perfectly at peace, so that after he has done evil things he wipes
his mouth and says, 'I have done no harm.'
So, dear brethren, let me plead with you not to put away these poor
words that I have been saying to you, and not to be contented until
you have recognised what is true, that you--_you_, stand a
sinful man before God.
There is surely no madness comparable to the madness of the man that
prefers to keep his sin and die, rather than go to Christ and live.
We all neglect to take up many good things that we might have if we
would, but no other neglect is a thousandth part so insane as that
of the man who clings to his evil and spurns the Lord. Will you look
into your own hearts? Will you recognise that awful solemn law of
God which ought to regulate all our doings, and, alas! has been so
often neglected, and so often transgressed by each of us? Oh! if
once you saw yourselves as you are, you would turn to Him and say,
'Heal me'; and you would be healed, and He would lay His hand upon
you. If only you will go, sick and broken, to Him, and trust in His
great sacrifice, and open your hearts to the influx of His healing
power, He will give you 'perfect soundness'; and your song will be,
'Bless the Lord, O my soul.... Who forgiveth all thine iniquities;
who healeth thy diseases.'
May it be so with each of us!