The Great Physician and His patients!
(George Everard, "The Great Physician and His Patients" 1874)
"Those who are well have no need of a Physician, but those who are sick." Luke 5:31
Our Great Physician possesses the most perfect skill to discern the peculiar needs of each case. He sees the working of all this sin and corruption and hardness of heart-and He can counteract it all by His all-sufficient grace. Before you have spoken a word, when you kneel down and cast yourself upon His mercy-He is prepared to forgive and save. Christ knows beforehand all that you are, and cannot fail to support His tempted or afflicted child.
In Christ there is not only Divine wisdom to discern every case of spiritual disease-but He also has Divine power completely to effect a cure. When He was upon earth, none were sent away unhealed. The blind and the lame, the deaf and the dumb, the palsied and the lepers, those possessed with demons and the dead-all alike were healed immediately by the touch of Jesus. "The whole multitude sought to touch Him-for virtue went out of Him, and healed them ALL."
Thus completely and surely does Jesus restore all who come to Him. He can . . .
open the eyes long closed in the night of ignorance,
strengthen those who have yet had no power to walk in God's ways,
unstop the ear long deaf to the sweet voice of the Gospel,
teach the prayerless lips to plead with God,
remove the paralysis of a careless indifference,
cleanse souls from the leprosy of debasing lusts,
cast out the evil spirits of envy, and hatred and unbelief,
save men from the fever of covetousness, and every evil temper.
His power, when on earth, reached to the very worst cases of disease! The man full of leprosy, and the woman whom other physicians had tried in vain to cure-both came, and others just as hopeless, and all were alike healed. Yes, and I see Jesus day by day saving such as man might reckon beyond the reach of His saving arm.
"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." Matthew 11:28-30