BLESSED PROMISES FOR DYING OUTCASTS – Charles Spurgeon
BLESSED PROMISES FOR DYING OUTCASTS
“For I will restore health unto you, and I will heal you of your wounds, says the Lord; because they called you an outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no man seeks after.” Jeremiah 30:17.
The promises of this verse will be exceedingly sweet to those who feel their personal need of them. But those who boast that they are neither sick nor wounded will take no interest in this comfortable promise. Those who are charmed with themselves will see no charm in the beloved Physician. I have heard of certain hungry travelers, who were lost in the wilderness, and came upon a bag which they longingly hoped might yield them a seasonable supply of food. They were near to death’s door by starvation, and eagerly opened the bag, but, alas, it contained nothing but pearls, which they poured out contemptuously upon the desert sand as things of no use to them. Even so, when a man is hungering and thirsting after the things of this life, and all his thoughts are taken up with carnal appetites, carnal sorrows, and carnal joys, he will reject as worthless the priceless promises of God, for he considers that they are of no immediate use to him. Let his hunger be of another sort, let his heart hanker after unsearchable riches, let his soul pine for eternal love, then are his views of things entirely changed, and to buy the pearl of great price he would gladly sell all that he has. Oh, you that are sick at heart, here is a word for you from the God of all grace. Jehovah Rophi Himself says, “I will restore health unto you.” Oh, you that have felt the shafts of God pierce your inmost souls, here is a word from Him who heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds, “I will heal you of your wounds, says the Lord.” Here is music for your ear, honey for your mouth, and comfort for your heart. But if you feel you have no sickness and no wound, no weakness and no spiritual need, then the words of sacred consolation will pass over your ears as a meaningless sound, having no voice for you. Neither shall we wonder at this, for the whole have not need of a physician, but they that are sick. Healthy men care not to hear of medicines and remedies, for they feel no need of them. This thins my audience, but improves it, for while it drives away the conceited, it draws the needy to a more careful listening.
Our text describes a serious plight, mentions a special interference, and records a singular reason for that interference. When we have spoken upon each of these, we shall close by giving you suitable advice. May the Spirit of God bless the discourse.
I. A SERIOUS PLIGHT
First, then, taken in connection with the verses which precede it, our text describes a class of men and women who are in a serious plight. These people suffer under two evils. First, they are sick through sin, for they need to have their health restored. And secondly, they are wounded for their sin by the chastisements of the Lord, so that there is necessity for their wound to be healed. They are afflicted with the distemper of evil, and also by dismal disquietude of conscience. They have broken God’s commandments, and now their own bones are broken. They have grieved their God, and their God is grieving them.
Let us carefully look at the first part of their sad condition. They are sick with sin, and that disease is one which, according to the fifth and sixth verses, brings great pain and trouble into men’s minds when they come to their senses, and know their condition before God. At first, iniquity numbs the conscience, and its tendency is to sear it as with a hot iron. It may be compared to a stroke of paralysis, which, when it falls upon a man’s body, takes away from him all pain, and makes him as one dead in the parts which it affects. Sin paralyzes the consciences of the ungodly. At first, they do not know it to be an exceedingly great evil; they trifle with it, it is a serpent whose very look is poisonous, and yet they sport with it as though it were a bird. It is a deadly disease, causing the soul to be full of leprosy, and yet men will exhibit the marks of it as though they were the spots of God’s children.
But after a while, when the conscience is awakened by judgments, or awakened by God’s word, then this disease ceases to stupefy, and becomes the source of intolerable pain. Read these words, “For thus says the Lord; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear and not of peace. Ask you, now, and see whether a man does travail with child? Why do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness?” The fiercest form of bodily pain is here selected as the type of the anguish caused by strong conviction of sin.
Believe me, there can be nothing in the world as terrible as to feel sin without feeling pardon, to know yourself to be guilty, and not to know how to get the guilt removed. Conviction without faith is an earthly hell. Brethren, you have many of you felt it, and you know that death itself, if there were no hereafter, would be preferable to life under the pressure of guilt. “The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?” Sin is a disease of the spirit, which embitters the central fountain and wellspring of our life, till gall and wormwood flavor all things. Sin felt and known is a terrible killjoy, as the simoom of the desert smites the caravan with death, and as the sirocco withers every herb of the field, so does a sense of sin dry up peace, blast hope, and utterly kill delight. If those who hear me are oppressed with the disorder of sin, they will rejoice greatly as they dwell upon the words of our text, “I will restore health unto you, and I will heal you of your wounds.”
This disease, moreover, is not only exceedingly painful when the conscience is smarting, but it is altogether incurable, so far as any human ill is concerned. We are told in the 12th verse, “Thus says the Lord, Your bruise is incurable, and your wound is grievous.” It would be much easier to heal a man’s body of leprosy than to heal a man’s soul of sin. It is a disease which takes such fast hold upon the nature, and so entirely impregnates the mind with a deadly virus, that it abides in the very essence of manhood, and can only be removed by a miracle.
It is far more possible for the Ethiopian to change his skin, or the leopard his spots, than for a man who is accustomed to do evil to learn to do well, especially to love to do well, and find pleasure in it. If this were a matter of custom, or practice only, it might be fought with and overcome, but inasmuch as it is a matter of nature, and the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint with it, no human power can possibly bring about a cure. Some have wept over sin, but tears are a poor lotion for a disease which penetrates to the core of the heart. Others have shut themselves up alone, and retired as hermits to escape from evil by solitude, but they have found no secret place which evil could not enter.
Where shall we flee from the presence of sin? When it has once laid hold upon our nature, if we take the wings of the morning, and fly to the uttermost parts of the sea, our depravity will still be with us. If we cover ourselves with multiplied midnights, sin will only be the more completely in its element. Where can we fly, and what can we do, to escape from this terrible force, this ever-present mischief? This poison has penetrated all our nature, so that we must confess— “It lies not in a single part, But throughout my frame is spread! A burning fever in my heart, A palsy in my head.” Neither body, nor soul, nor spirit is free from its taint. At all hours it is our curse and plague, over all places it casts its defiling influence, in all duties it injures and hinders us.
To those who know this, there is music sweeter than wedding bells in these words—“I will restore health unto you, and I will heal you of your wounds.” The incurable shall be cured. The insatiable malady shall be stopped.
II. A SPECIAL INTERFERENCE
Further on we are told that this disease is one for which there is neither surgeon nor medicine— “There is none to plead your cause that you may be bound up: you have no healing medicines. Why do you cry for your affliction? Your sorrow is incurable for the multitude of your iniquity: because your sins were increased, I have done these things unto you.”
What a disease this must be for which there is no physician, since the direst forms of human disease have found each one its specialist, who has at least attempted to perform a cure, but here is a sickness for which there is no physician. Bad men do not pretend to heal the disease of sin; they do not consider it to be a disease and they care not to make men holy. Good men are very far from thinking that they can conquer sin in others, for they cannot even overcome it in themselves, and therefore they never set up to be physicians in such a case as this. No human hand can bind up this wound. No earthly skill can touch this deeply seated complaint. It is past all mortal surgery, yes, and the prophet adds, “There is no healing medicine,” none has ever been known.
The question is often asked, “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?” The answer to that question is, No, there is no balm in Gilead; there never was. Balms for soul-mischiefs do not grow in the fields of Gilead, no, nor on Carmel and Sharon. Physicians of sin-sick souls are not to be found beneath the skies. The other question proves it—“Why, then, is not the health of the daughter of My people recovered?” If there were balms and physicians for her disease she would have been healed long ago. But neither salve nor surgeon can be found among the sons of men.
Search through all the lore of the ancients, and you shall discover no remedy for sin. Examine all the inventions of the moderns, and you shall light upon no medicine for the love of evil. Nothing can touch it but one thing, and that is not of earth. The Lord from heaven, upon the cross, bled a balm that can cure this wound, and by His death He was the death of this disease. But apart from Him no one can bind up our wounds, or mollify them with ointment. He is the one and only Good Samaritan for the spiritually bruised. He alone has wine and oil suitable for our wounds.
Are my hearers brought to feel this? Are there any here who have not yet discovered God’s way of salvation, but still are well aware that they have none of their own? I am thankful you are brought so far. May it not be long before you go much further, and find the Lord Jesus able to heal you of every disease. You are forever lost unless you go to Him, for your sickness is unto death, your wound is breeding corruption, and none can give you health for your sickness, or healing for your wound, but the Lord Jesus, who is able to save unto the uttermost— “When wounded sore the stricken soul Lies bleeding and unbound. One only hand, a pierced hand, Can salve the sinner’s wound.”
III. A SINGULAR REASON
This disease is exceedingly dangerous because it positions itself into the heart, and takes up its abode there. If apparently it is for a time driven out, it returns when we least expect it. Like the tree which is cut down, it will sprout again, at the scent of water it will bud. It annoys us in every way, it hinders our aspirations, for how to perform that which we would, we find not. It robs us of comfort, and makes us groan, being burdened, it enters into our holiest things, chills our prayers, freezes our praise, and hampers our usefulness. It is evil, only evil, and that continually. How gracious is it on God’s part, to pity a creature infected with this vile distemper! How good of Him to regard our iniquity rather as a sickness to be healed than as a crime to be punished!
I told you of a double mischief in this plight, and the second mischief is that this person has been wounded for his sin. His wounds are of no common sort, for we are told in the 14th verse that God Himself has wounded him. The Lord says, “I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the multitude of your iniquity; because your sins were increased.” God in infinite mercy determines to make the sinner see and feel the evil consequences of his sin. And in doing this He makes deep wounds, such as an enemy would give who felt no pity, but only wished to cause pain.
The Lord knows that in this work slightness is of no avail, and therefore He strikes home, and cuts deep. He does not play with consciences, but His chastisement is so severe that men think Him cruel. There is such a thing as cruel kindness, and the opposite of it is a loving cruelty, a gracious severity. When the Lord brings sin to remembrance, and makes the soul see what an evil it has committed in transgressing against God, then the wound bleeds, and the heart breaks. You could not tell the blows of our greatest Friend from those of our worst enemy if you only judged by present feeling.
Under the Lord’s hands, the soul is well nigh driven to despair. Vain hopes are dashed in pieces like potsherds, false lights are quenched in gloom, and joys are ground to powder. It is in love that the Lord thus judges us, and chastens us that we should not be condemned with the world. The smart is sharp, but salutary. The Lord wounds that He may heal, He kills that He may make alive. His storms wreck us upon the rock of salvation, and His tempests drive us into the fair havens of lowly faith. Happy are the men who are thus made unhappy, but this for the present they know not, and therefore they need the promise, “I will heal you of your wounds, says the Lord.”
The blows are not only on the conscience, but when God is in earnest to make men flee from their sins, He will smite them anywhere and everywhere. He takes away the delight of their eyes with a stroke, the child, the husband, the wife, or the friend is laid low, for the Lord will fill our houses with mourning sooner than leave us in carnal security. He takes away the silver and the gold, for He will make us beggars sooner than leave us to worship the idols of the world. The oil vat is burst, and the barn is burned, for He will not permit us to bury our souls in earthly things. He brings the body into sickness, and the mind into distress. Health departs and the robust worker is stretched upon a sick bed, he groans and moans under the hand of God. God is in all this, smiting most cruelly, according to the shortsighted judgment of men, but in very truth He is tender and gracious, and is working out the eternal good of the sufferers. Like the surgeon uses a sharp knife, and cuts far down into the flesh when he would eradicate some deadly ulcer, even so does the Lord in true severity wound the heart until He gets at the root of our self-love.
Surely, a man is in a wretched plight when he is diseased with sin, and then bruised by divine chastisement, but, it may be he adds to this, wounds inflicted by himself, for falls into sin are falls that break bones. Many a man will have to go limping to his grave because of his transgressions. Doubtless David did so; he never recovered what he lost when he sinned with Bathsheba. Much pain comes of broken bones, especially when you have broken them yourself through your own folly.
When you cannot trace an affliction to second causes, nor look upon it as an affliction from God, but when you hear conscience whisper, “You have procured this unto yourself,” then the wormwood is mixed with gall, and the suffering knows no solace. If you are poor because you have squandered your substance, if you are sick because you have indulged your appetites or passions, who can give you a word of cheer? If you have lost godly friends whom you did once despise, if you are by sickness prevented from going up to the house of the Lord, which was formerly weariness to you, is there not a special sharpness in your grief?
Now, put these three things together—bones broken through your own sin, God dealing with you in the way of chastisement, and sin felt in the conscience like a grievous disease, and I think I did not say too much when I described the soul as in a serious plight. God help the man who is in such a case, for none else can. The comfort is that the Lord Jesus does help such, for so His gracious promise runs, “I will restore health unto you, and I will heal you of your wounds.” May the Holy Spirit bless this first head to many of you!
IV. SUITABLE ADVICE
Our second consideration falls under the title of a special interference. The poor creature is in desperate sorrow, but the God of pitying love comes in, and I beg you to notice the result. This interference is, first of all, divine. “I will restore health unto you, and I will heal you of your wounds.” The infinite Jehovah alone can speak with that grand Ego, and say, “I will,” and again, “I will.” No human physician who was worthy of the name would speak thus. He would humbly say, “I will attempt to give you health, I will endeavor to heal your wounds,” but the Lord speaks with the positiveness of omnipotence, for He has the power to make good His words. All others fail, but the Lord will do it. You cannot heal yourself, but the Lord will heal you. And who is this great “I” that speaks so exceedingly bold? It is none other than He that made the heavens and the earth, and sustains all things by the power of His hand, it is the “I AM,” the everlasting Jehovah, whose word has boundless power in it. He appears in the moment of man’s extremity, and when there is no helper, His own arm brings salvation. Blessed be the Lord who forgives all our iniquities, who heals all our diseases.
Note, that because this interference is divine, it is effectual. The Lord effectually heals all those on whom He lays His hands. How could it be otherwise? What can baffle the Lord? Can anything perplex infinite wisdom? Is anything difficult for almighty power? “If it is marvelous in your eyes, should it also be marvelous in My eyes? says the Lord of Hosts.” He speaks and it is done, He commands and it stands fast. When therefore God says, “I will restore health unto you,” health will visit the wretch who lies at death’s door. When He says, “I will heal you of your wounds,” the deep cuts and gashes are closed up at once. Glory be to the name of the Beloved Physician! Poor, troubled heart, where are you this morning? Do you say, “Nobody can cure me”? You say truly if you will make one exception, and that exception is your God. I tell you He can heal you now, so that the bones which He has broken shall rejoice. He can take away this disease of yours, and give you back wholeness as though your flesh were the flesh of a little child, and you shall be clean, only have faith in Him. He that made you can make you anew. Do you believe this?
Observe that this interposition performs a work which is most complete, for it meets the two-fold mischief. “I will restore health unto you”—that is a great matter. When a man grows healthy he can bear a wound or two without being too much overburdened, but God does nothing by halves, for having restored health, He then adds, “I will heal you of your wounds.” He will heal both disease and wounds. There is no condition into which the heart can sink but what the Lord is equal to the raising of it from the depths. If you are in the borders of Hades, and on the verge of hell, yet as long as you have not passed the iron gates of death, your salvation is possible with God, yes, simple and sure with God if you will but trust in His well-beloved Son. What a mercy it is, that the Redeemer does not half save us and leave us to finish the work! He does not commence and do a part of the cure, and then say, “I must leave nature to work out the rest.” No, the cure is absolutely complete, “I will restore health unto you, and I will heal you of your wounds.”
Oh, sick and wounded one, go just as you are, and throw yourself at Jesus’ feet, and say to Him, “Keep Your promise, Lord. I have come with Your word in my mouth and in my heart. Be as good as Your own declaration, and restore health to me, and heal me of my wounds.”
Notice, too, how sovereignly free this promise is. It does not say, “I will restore health unto you if— .” No, there is no “if,” and there is no mention of a fee. Here is healing for nothing. Jesus comes to give us health without money and without price, without pence or penance, without labor or merit. I admire, for my part, the splendid, unconditional character of this promise made by Jehovah to His covenant people. Its tenor is, “I will.” There is no sort of condition or demand. “Perhaps” is banished, “perhaps” is not so much as hinted at. Come, poor guilty soul, you who have no claim on God, come and plead the divine, “I will.” You cannot have a better handhold of the covenant angel in wrestling with Him. God’s promise is an unconquerable plea; to use it well will put you among the invincibles. Come then, I pray you, and just say, “Lord, it is so written in Your word, therefore, write it, I pray You, on the page of my experience.”
Notice that, although it is thus free and unconditional, yet it is now a matter of covenant certainty, for God has made the promise, and He cannot turn from it. To every guilty sinner, conscious of his guilt, who will come and confess it before God, this promise is made today, “I will restore health unto you, and I will heal you of your wounds.” To you, dear fellow sinners, as much as unto Judah and Israel of old, is this promise sent, if you will bring your sorrow and your sin before the eyes of the all-merciful Father, and plead the precious blood of Christ. No sick one shall be shut out from this hospital of love. If, like Job, the sinner is covered with sores from head to foot, and if he only feels at home when he sits on a dunghill, and begins to scrape himself with a potsherd, yet the Lord says, “I will heal you.” If your sin has made you loathsome to yourself, till you cry out with one of old, “My wounds stink and are corrupt,” still the Lord Jesus is able to save you, no, He promises to save you. Grasp the promise by the hand of faith, and you shall be made whole. All manner of sin and iniquity shall be forgiven unto men, yes, and all tendencies to sin, and all taint of iniquity, shall be removed from men if they will trust the power and promise of the faithful Lord.
Sinner, His touch can make you clean at once. Trust that touch, I say, and the miracle shall be worked.
V. A LITTLE SUITABLE ADVICE
Now that the world has cast you out, the church shall take you in, now that the devil seems tired of you, Christ shall begin with you, now that the door is shut against you by those who once delighted in you, Christ’s door is open to receive you. “Because they called you an outcast,” He calls you to approach Him.