Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 827
Delivered on Lord’s Day Morning, August 23, 1868, by C. H. SPURGEON at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington..
“And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood 12 years, and had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse, when she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched His garment. For she said, If I may touch but His clothes, I shall be whole.” Mark 5:25-28.
BRIEFLY consider this poor woman’s case. She was afflicted with a disease of exceedingly long standing which not only wasted her strength and threatened to bring her speedily to the grave, but rendered her, according to the Jewish ceremonial Law, unclean, and therefore unable to mix in company. Thus she was doomed to be a poor, suffering, desponding, desolate woman. The physicians of those days were bold enough to attempt impossible cures, but their skill was not at all commensurate with their courage. They tormented their patients, but seldom relieved them of anything but their money.
Even a few hundred years ago many of the articles which were given to patients as medicines, and cried up as drugs of sovereign efficacy, were so unutterably disgusting that I should not like to repeat their names. And the processes of surgery, then common among practitioners, would have been exceedingly satisfactory if they had been intended to kill, but were both absurd and inhuman if proposed as salutary operations. The science of medicine, indeed, did not then exist. And in the age of our Lord, surgery and medicine were just a mass of quackery and daring pretension, without anything of skill or knowledge to support their claims.
This poor woman had, however, in her anxious desire to be restored to society and to health, gone first to one and then to another, and yet another—although all caused her suffering by acrid medicines or by severe operations. And after the end of 12 years she found herself penniless as well as worse in health. Just then, her physical state being still the highest thought in her mind, she heard that there was a Prophet who healed diseases. Having listened to one or two of the stories of the cures worked by Him, and having, perhaps, seen some of those who had been happy enough to be the subjects of His miracles, she said to herself, “That Man is doubtless sent of God. He professes to be the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of God—I believe He is so—and if He is such an One, then He is so full of sacred force that if I may but get near enough to touch the hem of His robe I shall be restored.”
Happy day it was for her when she imbibed that idea! Happier, still, when she put it into practice—when tremblingly she put forth her finger, touched the hem of the Savior’s garment and was that moment restored! I shall not need to say more concerning the narrative itself. It commends the Savior to you—shows you His great power in the physical world—and so proves His Deity and endears Him to you for His mercy and compassion.
But this woman has many parallels in the spiritual world. Multitudes like she are diseased with a wasting despondency, an unceasing tendency to despair—and they have been trying all the miserable comforters with which this world abounds. And after wasting their substance and their strength, they are now brought to utter spiritual destitution—they feel they can do nothing—they are ready to perish. I hope this morning, if never before, they will hear of Jesus who is able to heal the most desperate cases, and that they will be resolved to apply to Him, that by a sincere, even if a feeble faith, they may be brought into contact with His healing energy and may today be delivered from all evil by the great Restorer’s touch! God grant it, for the Redeemer’s sake, by the power of the Holy Spirit and He shall have all the praise!
I intend, this morning, first of all, to expose the physicians upon whom poor sin-sick souls often trust. When I have done so, I will show you why all these physicians, without exception, fail. Thirdly, I shall describe the plight of the patient after the failure of these trusted physicians. And lastly, show how a cure can be worked even in those.
I. Let me EXPOSE THE PHYSICIANS WHO DELUDE SO MANY BY THEIR VAIN PRETENSIONS. Among the herd of deceivers I single out one of the vilest, first—an old, established doctor who has had a wide practice among sin-sick souls—a wicked old poisoner he is, but for all that exceedingly popular, named Dr. Sadducee. He adopts usually the homoeopathic principle, namely, to cure like by its like. He gives one form of sin as a cure for another.
For instance, as soon as he sees one melancholy with unbelief, he prescribes licentiousness. He says, “You are getting dull. You must cheer up! You need to mix with society. A young person like you ought not to be disturbed with these serious thoughts. Those are mere fanatics who alarm you. Be calm. I would recommend you to attend the theater or the music hall, these will drive dull cares away.”