John 11:1

THE DISCIPLINE OF SICKNESS

‘Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.’

John 11:1

Lazarus, ‘whom Jesus loved,’ was allowed to be sick, and in pain, and weary, and to languish, and suffer, like any other man.

I. Sickness can never be anything but trying to flesh and blood.—Our bodies and souls are strangely linked together, and that which vexes and weakens the body can hardly fail to vex the mind and soul.

II. But sickness is no sign that God is displeased with us.

III. It is generally sent for the good of our souls.

(a) It tends to draw our affections away from this world, and to direct them to things above.

(b) It sends us to our Bibles, and teaches us to pray better.

(c) It helps to prove our faith and patience, and shows us the real value of our hope in Christ.

(d) It reminds us betimes that we are not to live always, and tunes and trains our hearts for our great change.

Then let us be patient and cheerful when we are laid aside by illness. Let us believe that the Lord Jesus loves us when we are sick no less than when we are well.

Illustration

‘How often have we seen a man enter into sickness, a giant in the strength of nature, but a babe in grace, and how often has the same man come out of it prostrated indeed, shattered for the world and its uses, but mighty in spiritual achievement—victor of himself, victor of the world. For wonderful are the remindings at such a time of things lost; past words whose sound has long gone out of mind; the bringing up out of the depths of the memory of hidden knowledge; the life with which dead formalities suddenly become clothed; the divinity which begins to stir amongst the long laid up texts; the real conflict with self-deceit and pride in one who has been only talking about such a conflict all his life; the dropping away of exaggerated phrases of self-loathing; and of confidence in God, and the coming, like the flesh of a little child, of real utterances of self-abasement and the first genuine whisperings of Abba Father.’