Christ in the Sick Room
By J. C. Ryle
Isaiah had said—"Let them take a lump of figs, and lay it
for a plaster on the boil, and he shall recover." —Isaiah 38:21
Sickness, disease, decay, and death are the common lot of
all mankind without exception. You have a striking proof of this in the
chapter from which my text is taken. The Holy Spirit shows us a king and
ruler of men, a dweller in palaces, a possessor of all that money can
obtain, a good man, a holy man, a friend of God—laid low by disease, like
the poorest man in the kingdom. Hear what the Holy Spirit says, "In those
days Hezekiah was sick unto death."
This is the old story. It is the history of every child
of Adam for the last 6,000 years—except Enoch and Elijah. It is as true of
the infant who only lives a few hours, as it is true of Methuselah
who lived 969 years. The story of every patriarch in the 5th of Genesis
concludes with the simple words "and he died."
There is no discharge in this war. Sooner or later
all die. There is no exemption for any rank or class or condition. High and
low, rich and poor, gentle and simple, learned and unlearned, kings and
their subjects, saints and sinners—all alike are liable to disease and all
must submit to the king of terrors. The admirals and generals who have left
behind a world-wide reputation, the statesmen who have swayed senates and
made indelible marks on the history of their own time—are all carried one
after another to the grave. Rich men, in spite of all their privileges,
enjoy no immunity from sickness and death.
No medical skill can prevent death. Our physicians
and surgeons are unwearied in their efforts to find new remedies and modes
of treatment. They compass sea and land in order to prevent disease, and
discover remedies, diminish pain, and lengthen life. But in spite of
vaccination and quinine and chloroform, in spite of all that medicine and
surgery can do—there is something which your ablest doctors find beyond
their reach. When the time appointed by God comes, they cannot keep men and
women alive.
After all, there is nothing amazing in this. The
tabernacle or tent in which our soul lives, the human body, is a most
frail and complicated machine. From the sole of the foot to the crown of
the head there is not a part of us which is not liable to disease. When I
think of the variety of ailments which may assail our frame, I do not wonder
so much that we die at last—as I do that we live so long.
But whence comes this liability to sickness, disease, and
death? How are we to account for it? This is a question which will arise
in many minds—and it is one which ought to be answered. Perfection is the
ordinary mark of all God's handiwork—perfection in the heaven above us and
the earth beneath us—perfection in the movements of a planet like
Jupiter—and perfection in a fly's wing or a blade of grass.
Look through a telescope or microscope at anything which
God created and you find nothing defective. How then can we account for the
power of disease, decay, and death over the body of man?
There is only one book that supplies an answer to this
question. That book is the Bible. The fall of man at the beginning has
brought sin into the world, and sin has brought with it the curse of
sickness, suffering, and pain. These are not things which God created at
the beginning. They are the consequences of man's transgression. To suppose
that a perfect God could deliberately create imperfection, is a supposition
too monstrous to be believed. It is man that is to blame—and not God. The
countless bodily sufferings that we see are the just consequence of man's
original disobedience.
Here to my mind lies one among many proofs that the Bible
is given by inspiration of God. It accounts for many things which the Deist
cannot explain. When I see a little infant, too young to know good from
evil, convulsed with bodily pain and hovering between life and death in a
weeping mother's arms, I would be utterly puzzled and confounded if I did
not believe the Bible. I would ask myself, "Where is the justice and mercy
of allowing such distress? Where is the wisdom and love of the Creator?" But
when I turn to the Bible the mysterious problem is solved. I learn that
suffering is the result of Adam's fall. That infant would not have suffered
if Adam had not sinned.
In the next place I ask you to learn from this chapter
that sickness is not an unmixed evil.
That King Hezekiah received spiritual benefit from his
illness I think there can be no doubt. The beautiful and pathetic
language of his "writing," which Isaiah was inspired to record, places that
beyond question. The good man saw things in his sickness which he had never
seen clearly and fully in the days of health. "By these things," he says,
"men live." He might have added, "By these things men learn."
I do not say that sickness always does good. Alas! We
ministers know to our sorrow that it frequently does no good at all. Too
often we see men and women, after recovering from a long and dangerous
illness, more hardened and irreligious than they were before. Too often they
return to the world, if not to Sin, with more eagerness and zest than ever;
and the impressions made on their conscience in the hour of sickness are
swept away like children's writing on the sand of the sea-shore when the
tide flows.
But I do say that sickness ought to do us good.
And I do say that God sends it in order to do us good. It is a friendly
letter from heaven. It is a knock at the door of conscience. It is the
voice of the Savior asking to be let in. Happy is he who opens the letter
and reads it, who hears the knock and opens the door, who welcomes Christ to
the sick room. Come now, and let me plead with you a little about this, and
show you a few of the lessons which He by sickness would teach us.
1. Sickness is meant to make us
think—to remind us that we have a soul as well as a body—an
immortal soul—a soul that will live forever in happiness or in misery—and
that if this soul is not saved we had better never have been born.
2. Sickness is meant to teach us
that there is a world beyond the grave—and that the world we now
live in is only a training-place for another dwelling, where there will be
no decay, no sorrow, no tears, no misery, and no sin.
3. Sickness is meant to make us
look at our past lives honestly, fairly, and conscientiously. Am
I ready for my great change if I should not get better? Do I repent truly of
my sins? Are my sins forgiven and washed away in Christ's blood? Am I
prepared to meet God?
4. Sickness is meant to make us
see the emptiness of the world and its utter inability to satisfy
the highest and deepest needs of the soul.
5. Sickness is meant to send us
to our Bibles. That blessed Book, in the days of health, is too
often left on the shelf, becomes the safest place in which to put a
bank-note, and is never opened from January to December. But sickness often
brings it down from the shelf and throws new light on its pages.
6. Sickness is meant to make us
pray. Too many, I fear, never pray at all, or they only rattle
over a few hurried words morning and evening without thinking what they do.
But prayer often becomes a reality when the valley of the shadow of death is
in sight.
7. Sickness is meant to make us
repent and break off our sins. If we will not hear the voice of
mercies, God sometimes makes us "hear the rod."
8. Sickness is meant to draw us
to Christ. Naturally we do not see the full value of that blessed
Savior. We secretly imagine that our prayers, good deeds, and
sacrament-receiving will save our souls. But when flesh begins to fail, the
absolute necessity of a Redeemer, a Mediator, and an Advocate with the
Father, stands out before men's eyes like fire, and makes them understand
those words, "Simply to Your cross I cling," as they never did before.
Sickness has done this for many—they have found Christ in the sick room.
9. Last, but not least, sickness is meant
to make us feeling and sympathizing towards others.
By nature we are all far below our blessed Master's example, who had not
only a hand to help all, but a heart to feel for all. None, I
suspect, are so unable to sympathize as those who have never had trouble
themselves—and none are so able to feel as those who have drunk most deeply
the cup of pain and sorrow.
Men and brethren, when your time comes to be ill, I
beseech you not to forget what the illness means. Beware of fretting and
murmuring and complaining, and giving way to an impatient spirit. Regard
your sickness as a blessing in disguise—a good and not an evil—a friend and
not an enemy. No doubt we should all prefer to learn spiritual lessons
in the school of ease and not under the rod. But rest assured that God knows
better than we do how to teach us. The light of the last day will show you
that there was a meaning and a "need be" in all your bodily ailments. The
lessons that we learn on a sick-bed, when we are shut out from the world,
are often lessons which we should never learn elsewhere. Settle it down in
your minds, that, however much you may dislike it, sickness is not an
unmixed evil.