Mark 2:17 When Jesus heard it, he said to them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick… I. THE SICKNESS SPOKEN OF. 1. The likeness between the sickness of the body and that of the soul. As sickness is a disordered body, so is sin a precious soul all in disorder. Sickness of body, not healed, will kill the body. Sin, not healed, not pardoned, will kill the never-dying soul. Or, take any of the particular diseases which Christ healed on the earth, and see the likeness in them. He healed madness. Sin is madness — flying in the face of God. He healed fevers. Sin is a lever — consuming, burning the soul. He healed palsies. Sin is a palsy — laying the soul prostrate. He healed leprosy. Sin is a leprosy — very foul and loathsome. He healed deafness, blindness. The sinner is deaf, blind — deaf to the voice of God and of his own conscience — blind to all it most concerns him to see — to himself, God, Christ. 2. Well, sin is like disease; but see the difference: sickness is usually one disease. Sin is all diseases in one — the madness, the fever, the deafness, all in one! Men wish to be free of sickness of body. Alas! they do not wish to be free of sin, the disease of the soul. Sickness is disease; sin is crime — sin. II. THE GLORIOUS PHYSICIAN. 1. Let me say of Him — there is no other. If you are sick in body you have a choice of physicians. But for the terrible sickness of sin none but Christ — "Neither is there salvation in any other," etc. There needs no other. 2. That He knows our whole case, our whole disease, and so is able to deal with it. Other physicians have often to work in the dark. They are uncertain what the disease is, and, if they know, may be unable to heal. 3. That He is unspeakably tender. What else but love could have brought Him into this leprous world? 4. That He is a mighty, all-skilful Physician. 5. That He is a faithful Physician. He will not skin over your wound and say that it is healed — "A new heart also will I give you." 6. He is a Physician very near at hand — "A very present help in trouble." (C. J. Brown, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. |
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