Isaiah 33:24

Isaiah 33:24

I. First, let us speak of "those ills that flesh is heir to." Wherever man exists in this world, the cry is heard, "I am sick." It is so because, wherever man exists, there is sin. Disease has been sent to reprove the sins of men, and to correct them with salutary pain. We are not competent of ourselves to decide what specific connection there is between disease and sin in the case of our fellow-men. We may know it in our own ease, but we are not to pronounce positively in regard to others. Indeed, the most cursory observation of daily facts may teach us, that while sickness is in the world, because sin is in the world, the measure of sickness which an individual suffers is no index to the measure of sin which he has committed. Endurance of sickness is more often a mark of God's good will than of his severe displeasure. (1) Pain removes us out of the way of temptation, gives us time for reflection, when we were hastily running into danger. (2) How much a formidable sickness has helped a believer in drawing out his thoughts to the heavenly country and the passage into glory!

II. But these considerations, however soothing and comforting they may be, do not remove this original and humbling fact, that sickness is a disorder in God's world, and that it is connected with that moral disorder which we call sin. Consider, secondly, the removal of both these. As sickness and sin entered together, so they shall depart together. When the former things are passed away, then come order, health, perfection, blessedness. Our Lord Jesus Christ, as Saviour of men, coped with both moral and physical evils, and bestowed the double blessing of forgiveness and healing. His skill was never baffled by any form or virulence of disease. He healed all that came unto Him: the blind received their sight, the lame man walked, the deaf heard, and to the poor the Gospel was preached. At the same time, our Lord always dealt with sin as the fundamental disease and disorder of the human race. "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." "I am come to call, not the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

D. Fraser, Penny Pulpit,No. 559.

Reference: Isaiah 33:24. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxxii., No. 1905.