NOT every sickness is unto death. It even happens frequently in very serious illness, that the fear of death took hold of us and the thread of our life was almost cut, and prayer and supplication were heard and life was given back again.
But, alas, it is then that so often the spiritual fruit, which was hoped for both on behalf of the sick himself and of his family, remains wanting.
You would say: That will be just the other way. When God the Lord takes from us one of our most beloved treasures, there will be murmuring in the heart, and for awhile at least there will be an estrangement in the love, wherewith we have loved our God. But when the blow does not fall, and in the hour of gravest danger God comes to your help, so that your sick revives again, O, then it will all be one song of praise and jubilation. Love and praise as offerings laid on the altar of the Lord.
And yet, experience teaches otherwise.
When it goes into death, yea, then the heart is deeply moved; then it is as though for a moment the world loses all charm for us; and as though we sensed more truly than ever, where our real native land is. Not here, but up yonder.
Almost at no time more than in days of fresh mourning is there remembrance of the Lord our God in our heart, upon our bed, in our conversation; and rarely does our prayer obtain a tenderer tone, than in just such a state of anguish of soul.
At the grave one can still say, that the high God receives something of His honor.
But when God did not slay, but lifted up again, and with our sick it went not unto death, but the Lord raised him up again from the sick-bed, how is it then?
And, alas, the answer to this question cannot be otherwise, than painful.
Ever and always yet in the tone of what Jesus said to the saved leper: “Were there not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? And are there none found that return, to give glory to God save this stranger?” (S. Luke 17, 17).
Was it better in bygone times?
Undoubtedly.
A sacred outpouring of heart as in Psalm 30 was interpreted on David’s harp; a song of worship full of praise and thanksgiving as Hezekiah sang before his God; and so many other utterances, preserved for us in Scripture, bear abundant evidence of this.
And also in the ages, when in our country the church of God was flourishing, pious usages introduced the fixed rule, that in God’s house not merely prayers were asked for the sick, but also thanksgivings were made for those whom God had raised up again.
Also thankofferings were almost a fixed rule, and that without there being any serious reason of complaint about a tendency toward workholiness.
And though we grant, that these outward signs seemed for a good part to float upon these usages, yet it is quite clear that such usage rather weakens the moment it ceases to be carried by a spirit of reality.
When no woman recovered from childbed goes out, except as her first going out is to go to church, openly to praise her God, by that church service, and by that thanksgiving, she experiences a feeling of thankfulness and an impulse to praise in the soul, which is honoring to God.
And that all this so largely fell away and passed into desuetude, is an evil omen.
O, we well know that there still remains something, and here and there even a great deal. In the country more than in the cities. Among the “common people” more than among gentlemen and ladies. After childbed more than after recovery from sickness. Very frequently there are thankofferings recorded for recoveries from illness, which bear witness to the generosity of many.
But all this does not silence our complaint.
There is retrogression in this public exhibition of thankfulness. And this retrogression in public expression of our gratitude betrays all too unmistakably that there is a slackening also in our heart; a slackening also in family life.
NOW there is one circumstance, which bears mention if not by way of excuse with respect to this, yet at least by way of softening of judgment; we mean the sometimes so slow convalescence.
With death this is so altogether different. Then there is suddenly a fact that violently takes hold of one. Immediately after this follows mourning, care for the corpse, presently sad burial. So the ordinary course of life is broken. Everything works together to center your attention upon one point. You can almost think of nothing else. And so it takes no effort, with your heart and with your lips to be engaged in things eternal. Your dead himself beckons you.
But with convalescence all this is so different.
Yea, with some diseases there is what doctors call a crisis, so that there is a day of crisis, and on the evening of that day you feel, that now the balance was restored, and that God had brought deliverance.
But such is by no means the case with all convalescents.
With not a few it is a going up and down. Some better one day, and then less well the next. Especially in nervous cases, little can be said. Finally there is slow progress. But so slow and evasive, that from week to week, and from evening to morning, there is really nowhere a milepost by the way, of which you can say: “Up to this point death threatened, and from this point on I regained life.”
Not seldom recovery itself, which comes at last, is even then so slow, that it takes days, weeks, months, before you come back to the former, ordinary life. Even then one feels so weak and so tired. The legs once so strong scarcely carry you. The head is still very sensitive. You can almost stand nothing, but it hurts you. You feel as though you have become a touch-me-not.
And as unobservedly as grass grows, so unobservedly you gain in strength, till at length you attempt to take up your work again. And so gradually you come back to the old life.
And, of course, at no point on the long way is there then one striking event, one single occurrence that makes an impression; nothing that snatches you away from your ordinary doings; and this is then so frequently the cause, that thanks do not rise in the heart, seek no utterance, and go out neither in praise nor in thankoffering.
THERE is need therefore of deep workings of faith, to have the honor of His Name come to God from a sick-bed that ends in recovery, more even than from a sick-bed that ends in death.
You would think that this would be otherwise; but yet this is not so.
When your God is gracious, and hears the supplications from your sick-bed, and lifts you up again, there is less probability that the honor of His Name is given Him, than when He remains deaf to your cry and lets you down into the pit.
But for this very reason among God’s children sanctified attention must far more strongly than thus far be directed to this point.
They, who in earlier years had come to the gate of death, and called upon God, and were healed, and then made, O, so sacred a promise, only later on altogether to forget it, should turn in upon their inmost self and enter accusation against themselves about the lie in their heart. They should, as it were, in thought live over again anew their anxiety and their supplications, and so come to renewal of promise and renewal of vow, for the favor they enjoyed at God’s hand.
That much for the past; but also for the present and the future, the seriousness of thanksgiving must waken again.
If you once know that slow recovery from sickness tends strongly to have you forget God’s mercy, and withhold from Him your praise—and your thankoffering, when sickness comes, you will watch, pray, strive also against this. You will set yourself against it. And by intentional remembrance avert from you this sin of unthankfulness.
One will also assist the other in this matter. Father and mother will encourage in this, the child that recovered. Brother will wake up his friend. And he who prayed with him for deliverance, will afterward thank with him the God of his life.
FOR it must all end in the honor of God’s Name, also our sickness and also our deliverance. The Lord has created all things and ever yet doeth all things, for His own Self’s sake.
And therefore you sink in, and sink away from yourself, when from your life also that honor of His Name does not come to your God.
And if you say that it is almost impossible to remember just when you felt yourself altogether restored; well, then, come back to the ancient custom and see how wisely the church introduced that good custom, and appoint a day, on which with all your family you go to the house of God, in the midst of the congregation to sing praises and to offer your thanksgiving unto Him.
Just because convalescence takes so slow a course, appointing of such a day is so good.
Then there is a fixed point. Then there is a day on which all your thoughts can go back to what was suffered, to what love did to sustain you, to what was prayed and supplicated that your life might be spared, and how finally insinking was arrested, and you revived again.
So you enrich your own life. Then all your loved ones discover, of course, that you are filled with the higher life. And they also become filled with it along with you. And so of itself that fine state of heart is produced, which makes thanksgiving on the lips real. Impressions deepen themselves. A turning point has come into your life. And, when presently that day of thanksgiving is long again past, it will hold itself in your remembrance, it will continue to work its aftermath in you, and bring you a blessing for your own heart.
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