Alright, Matthew chapter 8. Verse 14, When Jesus was coming
to Peter's house, He saw Peter's wife's mother laid and sick of
a fever, and He touched her hand, and the fever left her. and she
arose and ministered unto them. And when the evening was come,
they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils, and
he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that
were sick, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Isaiah the
prophet, saying, himself took our infirmities and bare our
sicknesses." Sickness is a fact of life. We all experience it on a regular
basis, but then at times there's somebody that we love, we ourselves,
or somebody that we love that has a serious disease. And what's the Lord's lesson
in causing a believer or causing one of our loved ones to experience
sickness? What's the lesson in it? What's
the reason for it? Well, this passage teaches us
a few lessons about sickness and one of which is preeminently
important above all the others. First of all, God's saints are
not immune to bodily sickness. God's saints simply because their
God's saints are not immune to getting sick, nor are their loved
ones. It says, verse 14, when Jesus
was come into Peter's house, He saw Peter's wife's mother
laid and sick of a fever. Peter was an apostle of our Lord
Jesus Christ. He was an apostle of Christ.
That means like every one of God's saints, just like each
true believer right here, right now, The Apostle Peter was chosen
by God, the Father, in eternity. He was chosen to be saved. God elected him unto salvation,
blessed him with all spiritual blessings in Christ, set him
apart, made him holy for God's special use, and he did all this
before the foundation of the world. And like all God's elect,
Christ came forth and redeemed him. Even when He stood right
here in this instant, right here, before Christ had gone and poured
out His blood physically, He stood under the blood in Christ
who is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Just
like all God's elect, when Christ entered surety ship for us, we
were under Christ's blood, righteous in Christ before God from the
very beginning. He declared the end from the
beginning because He chose Christ who could not fail and Christ
in a covenant to redeem His people. And then Christ came and redeemed
us and He shed His blood and now all God's elect are redeemed. He purged our sins by Himself. He by Himself redeemed us from
the curse of the law. And then He went to glory and
sat down when the work was finished. And like everyone that God chose
and everyone that Christ redeemed, when Christ came to the apostle
Peter and called him personally to be his apostle, the Spirit
of God quickened Peter and gave him spiritual life and he irresistibly
was called to faith in Christ. Born again, given a new heart,
given faith in Christ. So here you have a man who is
an elect child of God, he's redeemed by Christ, he's born of the Holy
Spirit of God. This is an apostle of the Lord
Jesus Christ, one loved since the foundation of the world by
the Father. And yet this man, whose salvation
was entirely of the Lord, God sent sickness to his mother-in-law. This one he loved. His mother-in-law
was laid up with a debilitating fever. And that teaches us that
God's people are not immune to sickness. God's people are not
immune to sickness. Our loved ones are not immune
to disease simply because they're the loved ones of one of God's
chosen people. All men are susceptible to sickness,
disease and death and that's a result of our fall in Adam. Adam sinned and death entered. and death passed upon us all.
And the result of that sin and that death is we get sick and
we're going to all die. If anybody claims that they don't
have any sin and they think they're holy and they're righteous and
they don't have sin, they prove that they're a liar when they
get sick. All physical sickness is a consequence
of sin. Now that doesn't mean that all
physical sickness is God chastening His people for sinning. That's
not what that means. It just means that all sickness
is the result of us being sinners. God sent Job leprosy simply to
teach Job a lesson. Something else totally different. What He said before He did that,
there's none like Him that avoids evil. That's what He said about
Job. So it wasn't for something Job
had done sinfully that he sent him sickness. Simply because
God was teaching him something. There was no sin and there was
no death before Adam sinned in the garden. Can you imagine a
place where there is no sickness? There was no sickness before
Adam sinned in the garden. But the moment he sinned in the
garden, death entered and that's when sickness began. And so we're going to all die.
of sickness one day. In some form or fashion, we're
going to get old or either we're going to die of sickness. But because we're a believer,
that does not mean we're immune to sickness. It doesn't mean
our loved ones are immune to sickness. Here's the second thing
we see here. Christ alone is able to cure
sickness. It says there in verse 15, and
He touched her hand. and the fever left her, and she
arose and ministered unto them. Verse 16 says, He cast out the
spirits with His word and healed all that were sick. Now knowing
that Christ alone is able to cure bodily sickness, when He's
the only one that's able to do so, that doesn't mean that we
do not go to a physician and use earthly medicine. It doesn't
mean that at all. That's absurd to not do that.
The same way that Christ works through His preacher, through
His Word that's being preached and heals His people inwardly
when He quickens us and creates a new man within us, the same
way He uses those means, Christ uses an earthly physician and
the medicine that has been given and Christ heals through those
means. God uses means. It's not unfaithfulness
for a believer to see a doctor. That's not unfaithfulness. It
would be absurdity not to. God is so absolutely sovereign
over all things that He's able to use all things. Everything He's created, He's
able to use it as means to save His people. He's called the Lord
of hosts. That means Everything He's created
is the host that is at His disposal to use as He sees fit to bring
His will to pass. He's able to use means and He
uses means. So when a person is healed physically,
if you look beyond all the second causes, look beyond the physician,
look beyond the medicine, look beyond all of that, it's this
real right here, verse 15, Christ touched her hand and the fever
left her and she arose and ministered unto them. It's just that real.
Ignore all the second causes that were used. Ignore all the
means that was used. When a sinner hears the gospel
for the first time and he finds himself believing on Christ in
his heart, he's casting all his care on Christ in his heart.
What's happened? Christ has touched him and the
fever has left him. His sickness has left him. He's
brought to believe on the Lord. And physically speaking, when
a person's fever leaves them and they begin to get better,
what's happened? Christ has healed them. That's the case whenever somebody
gets better from a sickness. I want you to go with me and
look here just before this text. Christ was not even present when
He healed somebody. Look back up at verse 5. When
Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto Him a centurion
beseeching Him and saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick
of the palsy, grievously tormented. And Jesus said unto him, I will
come and heal him. The centurion answered and said,
Lord, I'm not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof,
but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For
I'm a man under authority, having soldiers under me, and I say
to this man, go, and he goeth, and to another man, come, and
he cometh, and to my servant, do this, and he doeth it. When
Jesus heard it, He marveled, and He said to them that followed,
Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no,
not in Israel. And I say unto you, that many
shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. He said,
many who are not of Israel. But the children of the kingdom
shall be cast out into outer darkness. There shall be weeping
and gnashing of teeth. Why? Because they had no faith
in Christ. And look at what he said, And
Jesus said unto the Styrian, Go thy way, and as thou hast
believed, so be it done unto thee. He believed God that Christ
could heal him without even being there, just by saying a word.
And he said, And as you have believed. That's how it is. I've
saved Him with the Word. I'm not even there. And I've
saved Him with the Word. And His servant was healed in
the selfsame hour. So Christ from His throne in
glory, He doesn't have to be physically present to heal like
He did here in our text. He doesn't have to be present.
He doesn't have to touch. He can speak the Word. And when
He speaks the Word, there's power in that living Word to heal. That's how He heals us through
the Gospel. The Word is going forth out of the preacher's mouth,
and the brethren are praying for the lost, and everybody wants
to see God's elect brought to faith in Christ. And nothing
avails until Christ speaks that Word from His throne in glory. He's not physically present.
He speaks it from His throne in glory, and He speaks that
Word and that lost child is given life and is healed. Here's the
word, it's effectual in his heart. God our Savior has appointed
an hour that every one of us shall die. And it will not be
one second before that and it will not be one second after
that. It will be that very second that He's appointed for our life
to end that we will die. Christ is sovereign. That means
He's sovereign over every microscopic thing that's in your body and
mind. And He's sovereign over, just
like He's sovereign over every great thing. He rules everything. He's the God of the microbes
and He's the God of the sun. He's that sovereign. He's ruling
that real and all His people. He sends the sickness, He controls
the sickness, and He removes the sickness. And He's the first
cause behind all the secondary causes who's able to speak and
to make us be cured of whatever disease. That's our sovereign
Savior. Now here's the third thing. God
sometimes uses sickness to draw His elect to Christ. He sometimes
uses sickness to draw His elect to Christ. Verse 16, When the
evening was come, they brought unto Him many that were possessed
with devils. And He cast out the spirits with
His word, and He healed all that were sick. Now physical sickness
was the reason that many here came to Christ. Word had spread
of what Christ had done that day. You realize all these miracles
right here were done in one day. He healed the leper that came
to Him. That's the beginning of chapter 8. He comes down out
of the mount, from preaching that sermon on the mount, and
the leper comes to Him and He heals that leper. And the centurion
comes to Him and He heals his servant. Then he goes to Peter's
house and heals Peter's mother-in-law. And word got out. Word began
to spread about Christ. He is able to heal physical sickness.
And there you got all these people that have these loved ones that
are physically sick. And they found a cure now. Let's get them to Christ. Let's
get them to Christ. I know when our loved ones are
sick, and when my father was sick recently, and I know when
our loved ones are sick, we want to get them to a physician. It's an emergency, we want to
get them to a physician. But if we just could realize
they're that sick in sin before they're ever physically sick,
and we had that urgency to get them to Christ, to teach them
Christ, to get them to Christ, when there's no physical sickness
involved. It's just that urgent all the
time, just as urgent as it is when you hear the word cancer. Just that urgent to physically
get to an earthly physician. It's that urgent all the time
to get our children to Christ. They have something far worse.
They have something that caused the cancer. Sin. Only Christ
can cure. But that word spread that day,
and they heard about it, and they brought their loved ones
to Christ. And there's a beautiful picture of the preaching of the
gospel in that. The Lord right now, the Lord,
He went up into the mountain, He preached that sermon, and
then He came down out of that mountain, and He started healing
people. And you think about it, the Lord
Jesus Christ has gone up into His mountain in glory, Mount
Jerusalem, heavenly Mount Jerusalem, and He is seated right now in
His holy place. And He sends forth the gospel
and He preaches the gospel through His preacher. And then He begins
to heal His people through that gospel, just like He did right
here. It's a beautiful picture of the gospel going forth. And
when He does so, when He heals His people, He makes us willing
to minister to the needs of others just like Peter's mother-in-law.
As soon as she was healed, she got up and went to waiting on
people. That's what He does to His people. He takes us from
being self-serving, looking out for number one, and He makes
us ministers to minister to His people. Christ said, ìAll that
the Father giveth Me shall come to Me, and him that cometh to
Me I will in no wise cast out.î He said, ìNo man can come to
Me except the Father which has sent Me. Draw him, and I will
raise him up at the last day.î Now we know God is pleased to
use only the foolishness of preaching to save His people. Heís pleased
to use only the foolishness of preaching to save His people.
Thatís clearly declared in the Scriptures. 1 Corinthians 1,
Romans 10, it's clearly declared and it's clearly shown. And everybody
God saved, He sent the Gospel to them. Abraham is the father
of believers. Galatians tells us God preached
the Gospel to Abraham. We don't know how, we don't know
who He sent. He didn't record that, but it tells us there Abraham
was made to hear the Gospel. And everybody in this world that
heard it was made to hear the gospel. Just like that Ethiopian
eunuch, a man out there in the middle of nowhere, God made his
path to be crossed with the gospel. Because he's that sovereign to
do so. Why would he not do it the way he determined to do it?
He's sovereign. He can do what he will. But to bring his lost child under
the gospel and prepare them to listen to the word preached,
God sometimes uses means like physical sickness. Sometimes
he'll use something like that to get his elect child under
the sound of the gospel. Who before would have had no
interest. It might be a poor motive to come to hear the word
preached because you're sick. That might be a poor motive.
But God can use a poor motive too. But he could use something
like that to bring him under the gospel. Or if there's one
he's already got under the gospel, he may use physical sickness
to make him experience that the doctrine of total depravity is
not just a doctrine, it's real. And thus bring him to Christ.
Or for a believer, he may use physical sickness to turn us
from some distraction and bring us back to Christ's feet. just as He will one day when
He is going to use sickness to bring each of His elect to Christ's
feet in glory forever. If we made well, if Christ pleased
to heal us of whatever sickness we have, you go read Genesis. This one got this one, this one
got this one, they live, they live and they die. We are going
to die. We are going to die. But if He cures us of our sin
sickness, That'll be alright. That'll be just fine. Sometimes
the Lord used sickness to teach the one who was himself sick,
like He did with the leper. The leper was the one who was
sick. The Lord drew him and He taught him. There's a saying,
you know, that... I don't remember exactly the
saying, but if you build a refuge in a time of a storm, men usually
abandon it when there's calm. But that's not always the case.
It wasn't the case with the leper. That leopard was sick and the
Lord used that to bring him to Christ. And Christ healed him
physically and spiritually. But often the Lord uses sickness
of a loved one to teach the one who came to Him on their behalf. Sometimes He gave sickness to
a loved one but the sickness wasn't to teach the loved one.
It was to teach those who came to Christ on behalf of the loved
one. Go with me to John 4. I'll show you an example of this.
John chapter 4. It says here, verse 46, Jesus
came into Cana of Galilee where he made the water wine and there
was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum. It
was the nobleman and his son was sick. And when he heard that
Jesus was come out of Judea into Galilee, he went unto him and
besought him that he would come down and heal his son, for he
was at the point of death. Then said Jesus unto him, Except
you see signs and wonders, you will not believe. And the nobleman said unto him,
Sir, come down, ere my child die. You see, he wasn't like
the centurion. A centurion was given faith to
understand that Christ didn't have to be present. But this
man didn't know that. He didn't understand that. And
it says, verse 50, Jesus said unto him, Go thy way, thy son
liveth. And the man believed the word
that Jesus had spoken unto him and he went his way. He believed
him in the fact that he thought, okay, well, you know, maybe he's
alive. I'm going to go. I'm going to
go see. And it says, And as he was now
going down, his servants met him and told him, saying, Thy
son liveth. Then inquired he of them the
hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday
at the seventh hour the fever left him. So the father knew
that it was at the same hour into which Jesus said unto him,
Thy son liveth, and himself believed, and his whole house. You see,
it wasn't for the sick child that Christ was teaching. It
was for His Father and a lot more elect children that God
had in His house. That's who He was teaching. Sometimes
the sickness is for the person who has it. Sometimes it's for
those in the house. When we have a sick loved one,
we ourselves ought to pay attention. When it's somebody else that's
sick, a brother or sister in Christ, when it's a daughter
or son in the house, when it's a husband or a wife or somebody
in our family, we ourselves who don't have the sickness ought
to pay close attention. See what Christ is teaching me.
It may be Christ has given a loved one sickness to teach us ourselves.
It may be the Lord is strengthening love between fellow members of
His church. through causing one other member
in the church to be sick. He can use that, increase the
love of members in a church, maybe their love had gone cold
toward one another and he can... something that looks as... as...
it's terrible to us that he's sending a sickness and it's going
to just be a tragic thing and yet what the Lord's doing is
He's increasing the love of all the members in that congregation
for one another. Sometimes the Lord can strengthen
love between a believing husband and a wife through the sickness
of their child. None of us want to see a child
sick, especially our own child. But sometimes the Lord could
be sending that to strengthen love between a husband and a
wife, between brothers and sisters. Sometimes the Lord may be softening
our hearts through a sick loved one. We get so caught up in the
world and so busy with the things we're doing and sometimes the
Lord does something like that to soften us a little bit. One
preacher I was reading said this, he said, I would not be half
the man I am, but for God giving me a sick child. My tendency
is towards aggressiveness, sternness, harshness. But that little sick
child has softened me and been like a benediction upon my life."
And so here was his lesson. He said, afflictions do not spring
out of the dust. Do not be impatient with them.
We need something to soften this hard life. And that's true. Sometimes that may be the reason
the Lord has done it. But in all of those who came,
here's the main point. No matter what the Lord's working,
here is where it is all hinges, right here. They all came to
Christ. Look here in verse 16. When the
evening was come, they brought unto Him many that were sick. They came to Him. They brought
them to Him. Every trial, every sickness is
given to the believer for one reason. It's to bring us to Christ's
feet. What's the first trial you can
remember as a believer? Or really before you even knew
you were a believer? The first real serious trial. was when the Lord began to teach
you, you are a sinner and can do nothing to save yourself.
That was a trial for me. And it was painful and there
was nothing fun about it. But where did it bring me? It
brought me to Christ's feet. And ever since then, every single
trial, every single sickness, every single thing that He's
ever sent that caused me pain and caused me trouble and caused
me sorrow, every single time, He's been to bring me to Christ's
feet every time. And that's the purpose of it.
Whatever the trial, whether it's you or it's another, whatever
Christ is working through it, here's the one thing that's important.
Go directly to Christ and camp out at His feet and pour out
all your need to Christ. We as a church have a need right
now. Chloe is sick. So, where do you
go? It will do no good to call one
another. It will do no good to try to bend each other's ear. Though, you know, we want to
help each other and that's fine, but where does our real help
come from? What's the purpose of it? Go
to Christ. Go to Him and pour out your heart
for that little girl. Pour out your heart for her mama
and her daddy. That's the purpose. That's the
purpose. And lastly now, here's the preeminent
lesson. This is the preeminent lesson.
Verse 16, And He cast out the spirit with His word, and He
healed all that were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was
spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities
and bear our sicknesses. Now notice it says Himself. This is Jesus Christ personally. He did this. Jesus the Lord did
this. It's the person of Christ, the
God-man that we're beholding here that notice Himself took
our infirmities and bear our sicknesses. That word took, according
to the Greek lexicon, means this, to take upon oneself, to take
to oneself, to make one's own, in order to carry away, to remove,
to take away. Himself took our infirmity. And then the word bear means
to put upon oneself, to bear what is burdensome, to carry
on one's person, to bear away, himself bear our sicknesses. Our Lord Jesus came to these,
well these folks came to Him and our Lord took their sins,
I mean their iniquities, I'm sorry, their infirmities and
their sicknesses and He took them to Himself, upon Himself,
and bare them Himself like a man takes a heavy load and takes
it up on his shoulder and takes it away. That's what Christ did.
That's what He did. But how now, let me ask you this,
how was this fulfilling Isaiah's prophecy? Turn with me over to
Isaiah 53. How was this fulfilling? Isaiah's
prophecy, Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53 verse 4, Surely, this
is where that came from, Surely He hath borne our griefs, and
carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem Him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted. And indeed He was on the cross. But what that means is we esteemed
it was His own fault. That's why God was smiting Him.
That's why God was afflicting Him. But He was wounded for our
transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. Isaiah spoke of
Christ taking to Himself and bearing our transgressions and
our iniquities. He's talking about Him bearing
our sin. He spoke of Christ being smitten of God and bruised because
He bore the sin of His elect. As Peter said, who his own self
bear our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead
to sins should live unto righteousness by whose stripes you were healed. So how was this fulfilling Isaiah's
prophecy by him taking infirmities and sicknesses and bearing them
Himself. How was that fulfilling a prophecy
that had to do with Him taking sin and bearing sin and being
wounded for that? Well, one, it fulfilled that
prophecy in that it foreshadowed Christ taking and bearing the
sin of His people. What He did there in taking their
sickness, their physical sickness, was a picture. It foreshadowed
Him doing that with our sin. And in that sense, it was a fulfilling
of Isaiah's prophecy. And secondly, it was a proof
of His power and His ability to take and bear our sins in
His own body on the tree. It was proof that He had the
ability to do it. Natural men think it's harder
to take away and bear away sicknesses than it is to bear away our sins. And you and I, sadly, still feel
that way a great deal. that it's easier for Him to take
away our sins and harder for Him to take away sickness. Go
with me to Matthew 9 real quick. And look at verse 5 right here.
When He was healing that man that they brought to Him that
had palsy, He turned and looked at him and He said, verse 5,
Whether it is easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee, or
to say, Arise and walk. but that you may know that the
Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins. Then saith He
to the sick of the palsy, Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto
thine house. You see, men naturally would
say, well, it's easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee, because
we can't see if that's really been done or not. But it's harder
to say, take up thy bed and walk, because we can see if you did
that or not. if you really healed Him or not. And so by doing what
man deems to be the greater, it proved that Christ can do
that which man deems to be easier. Although, what man deems to be
easier is really the greater. Christ was able to take and bear
sicknesses because He coveted to go to the cross and bear the
sin of His elect that caused that sickness. so He could take
our sickness. You think about it. You and I,
none of us have power. Kristen, you'd be out of work
if we had power to just go up to somebody and say, take up
your bed and walk. Christ had power to do that. He had power
to go to somebody and say, and speak and wicked spirit come
out of them. You go and read another account
of our text and you'll find out those spirits came out saying,
Thou art the Christ, the Son of God, and he made them shut
up because he didn't want them telling everybody he was the
Christ. And he did all that with a word. And men want to argue and wrangle
and say, well, unless you can explain to me how He made him
sin, I can't believe it. Well, explain to me how He spoke
and took away men's sins, or took away men's sicknesses. And
that was the easy thing. But if He could do that, He could
do the other. And He did. He did. He can say, Thy sins
be forgiven thee, and they be forgiven thee because He took
the sin, made it His own, bore the crime itself, and bore the
punishment for it so that the crime, the sin, and everything
is erased off the record books. So it's not just as if I'd never
sinned before God. There's no record I ever have
or ever will. And He did that by being made
sin for us. And you think about this. When
you get sickness, your child is sick or somebody is sick in
your family, this is something I kept trying to think about.
I missed a plane, I missed a flight when they called and told me
my dad was sick. I was sitting there just shook up about it.
I'd sit there and I didn't even see that. I mean I'm sitting
right by the place to go down the You get on the plane and
everybody just went on, got on it. I walked up there a little
while and asked the lady when the flight took off. She said,
they've been gone. It shakes you up, you know. But when you
do that, you think about, look to Christ. He said, is there
any suffering like my suffering? Any sorrow like unto my sorrow
that's done unto me? All you that pass by. There's nothing we've ever borne
or will ever bear as painful as these things are, as painful
and as hurtful as they are. Christ knew what it was to lose
children. He saw Judas betray Him and walk away. He saw Peter
say, I don't know the man and leave. He had to suffer, tread
the winepress alone and suffer it all alone. Even His Father
withdrawing His Spirit from Him and leaving Him in the darkness.
We can't even fathom what that was like. We can't even imagine
what He suffered. So if you want to just help ease
your suffering, there's nothing to ease your suffering like seeing
that Christ really and truly bore my sin. And He knows what that's like.
He bore it. And He bore the punishment because
of it. Eternal wrath of God. And He
knows what it is to die. One day we're going to have to
face that and we don't know what that's like. He's the forerunner. He's already been there. And
this is the third thing. In healing their sickness, He
teaches us that Christ has sympathy toward His elect and whatever
sickness he sins because he knows the feeling of infirmities and
the temptations that's caused by our sin. He knows the feeling
of those infirmities and he knows the temptation that comes. Now
many say that he was touched with the feeling of our infirmities
in that when they brought those people sick to him, he only felt
sorry for them and so he healed them. And they say it was that
kind of sympathy, just the kind of sympathy like you have for
somebody that you love that you hear is sick. Well, he had that
kind of sympathy for him. He loves his own, those that
are his elect. He had sympathy for him that
way. But far greater than that, he was touched with the feeling
of our infirmities and tempted in all points like as we are,
when in his own body he actually bore our sin that causes our
infirmities. though he himself never sinned.
You get what that is saying. When he was made sin, he knows
intimately with first-hand knowledge all the infirmities we have,
all our weakness and all the troubles that we have is all
the cause of sin. Brother Kevin rode with me. We
flew to Alabama and we drove 16 hours back Tuesday and Wednesday. He heard me wake up Wednesday
morning. I was grunting and groaning moaning in every move I made
when I got up. I told him that's what David
meant when he said, I've spent my life in sighing. It's just,
you just feel it now when you get up. Walking around, everything I
did I was grunting and groaning. All those feelings that you get,
then when you get sick, then when you have trouble, hard trouble
and hurtful trouble, all those feelings of our infirmities,
He experienced all of them in His own body when He was made
sin for us. And then there's temptations
that come with them. There's temptations. The first
thing the devil wants to do when you or your loved one gets sick
is tell you, well, you just don't have time for the gospel now.
You don't have time for that now. And that would be like saying
to Chloe, you don't have time to go to the doctor now. That's what I'm saying. When you need the Lord the most,
there's all these temptations that the devil will try to take
you away from it. And he experienced all that too.
But he experienced all of that hanging on that cross by himself
without anybody to help him. I think he began experiencing
it in the garden because me and Kevin were talking about this
on the way back. The Lord didn't come and strengthen him. The
Lord sent an angel to strengthen him. I think the Lord God had
withdrawn his spirit from him. And that's when he began to see
what it's like to be made sin. That's what it was for Adam.
He took his spirit from him in the garden. And he had to suffer
that alone. And yet he never wavered in looking
to God his Father. He never wavered. He never sinned
himself. He was touched with all the feeling
of our infirmities and all the temptations that we're tempted
with. Yet he never sinned. He looked to the Father. And
he knows all those feelings better than we know them and all those
temptations better than we know them because he knows what it's
like to not have sin. and to be suffering them all
at the same time and not sinning while He's suffering them. You
and I, we don't even know what that's like. And so there's a sympathy in
our Savior who knows by experience the feeling
of what we suffer, and he alone is able to affectionately give
us exactly what we need to comfort us, exactly what we need to instruct
us and teach us. He sent the sickness, he sends
death, or he sends life and heals. But whatever he is pleased to
do, he is the only one who can send the comfort and can teach
you exactly what He's determined to teach you through it all.
He's the only one that can do it. And that's His sympathy towards
us. It's more than just this sentimental
sympathy that I feel bad for you. It's He's been there. More real than we've gone through
it. And He knows, as God, He can use everything at His disposal
to bring you just what you need. And as a man, He knows exactly
what you need. He's been there. Now what have
we learned about sickness from this? First of all, God's elect,
redeemed, regenerated people are not immune to sickness. God
nowhere promised us we would not have trouble. We can't get
upset with God. He told us you're going to have
trouble in this life. Christ told us in this life you
shall have tribulation. We're not immune to it. Number
two, Christ alone is able to heal our sickness. If He can
heal the greater, the sin sickness, He can heal the physical sickness.
He alone can do it. It's all at His sovereign disposal.
He gives it, He determines how long it will last, and He can
cure it. He's the one who can cure our sin. And Christ is able
to use physical sickness to draw us to His feet. If you or a loved
one is sick, go to Christ. They call you, listen, try to
help them, comfort them. But don't you hang that phone
up without saying, now you personally get to Christ. Go to Christ.
Tell Him everything you've told me and pour out things to Him
that you can't tell me. Isn't it good when you can just
go to Christ and tell Christ things you wouldn't even tell
your spouse? Number four, Christ took our
sickness and our sins that caused it so He knows. I don't know
if there's any truth to this, but with him taking our sickness,
I don't know what all was involved with that, but some of the old
commentaries say that when those Jews said, you're not yet 50
years old, the reason they said that was because him bearing
the sickness, taking on all the feeling that comes with it made
him age more and physically age more so that he looked like he
was 50 years old. He wasn't 30 years old. I don't
know if that's so or not, He was touched, I know that.
So He knows, brethren, we have such a great high priest seated
in heaven. Go to Hebrews 4, we'll end. He has sympathy for us, He's
ready, ready to heal, ready to help, able to comfort, and He
knows everything we suffer. Look here, Hebrews 4.14. Seeing
then, we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens,
Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not a high priest
which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. When he said, the spirit is willing,
but the flesh is weak, he was speaking from experience. He
knew exactly what he was talking about. Let us therefore come
boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy. We
need that because we sin even in the midst of our troubles
and our sorrow. We sin. We can obtain mercy and
find grace to help in time of need. You know what that tells
me? Our healing, our healing, that which is going to heal us,
is not taking away our physical sickness. Our healing is Christ. Our healing is Christ. If He
never takes the physical sickness away, and we have Christ, we're
healed. We're healed. And He can comfort
you and make you as comfortable as if He took away the sickness,
right in the middle of the sickness. Our healing is Christ. Alright,
brethren. Brother Eric, if you'll come
and lead us.