Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2494
“The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit, who can bear?” Proverbs 18:14.
EVERY man, sooner or later, has some kind of infirmity to bear. It may be that his constitution from the very first will be inclined to certain disease and pains, or possibly he may, in passing through life, suffer from accident or decline of health. He may not, however, have any infirmity of the body—he may enjoy the great blessing of health, but he may have what is even worse—an infirmity of mind. There will be something about each man’s infirmity which he would alter if he could, or, if he should not have anyinfirmity of body or of mind, he will have a cross to carry of some kind—in his relatives, in his business, or in certain of his circumstances. His world is not the Garden of Eden and you cannot make it to be so! It is like that garden in this respect—that the serpent is in it—and the trail of the serpent is over everything here. It is said that there is a skeleton in some closet or other of everybody’s house. I will not say so much as that, but I am persuaded that there is no man in this world but has trial in some form or other, unless God permits them to have their portion in this life because they will have no portion of bliss in the life that is to come! There are some such people who appear be have no afflictions and trials, but as the Apostle reminds us, “If you are without chastisement, of which all (the true seed of the Lord) are partakers, then are you bastards and not sons.” And none of us would wish to have that terrible name truthfully applied to us! I should greatly prefer to come into the condition of the Apostle when he said, “Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may great upon me.”
I say again that every man will have to bear an infirmity of some sort or other. To bear that infirmity is not difficult when the spirit is sound and strong—“The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity.”
I. Let me, therefore, first of all, try to answer the question—WHAT IS THAT SOUND SPIRIT WHICH WILL SUSTAIN A MAN’S INFIRMITIES?
Such a spirit may be found, in a minor degree, in merely natural men. Among the Stoics there were men who bore pain and poverty and reproach without evincing the slightest feeling. Among the Romans, in their heroic days, there was one named Scoevola who thrust his right hand into a fire and suffered it to be burned off in order to let the foreign tyrant know that there were Romans who did not care about pain. We have read amazing stories of the patience and stern endurance of even natural men, for our text is true in that sense, “the spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity.” Whatever it was that was placed upon some men, they seemed as if they carried it without a care or without a thought, so brave was their heart within them. Yet, if we knew more of these people, we would find that there were some points in which their natural strength failed them, for it must be so—the creature at its best estate is altogether vanity! David truly said, “God has spoken once; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God.” And the strength of mind by which Christian men are able to bear their infirmities is of a higher kind than that which comes from either stoicism, from natural sternness or from obedience to any of the precepts of human philosophy.
The spirit which will best bear infirmities is, first of all, a gracious spirit worked in us by the Spirit of God. If you would bear your trouble without complaining. If you would sustain your burden without fainting. If you would mount on wings as eagles. If you would run without weariness and walk without fainting, you must have the Life of God within you—you must be born again! You must be in living union with Him who is the Strong One and who, by the life which He implants within you, can give you of His own strength. I do not believe that anything but that which is Divine will stand the wear and tear of this world’s temptations and of this world’s trials and troubles—
“Mere mortal power shall fade and die, And youthful vigor cease,”
but they that trust in the Lord and derive their power from Him shall press forward even to victory! So then, first, if you would sustain your infirmity, you must have a gracious spirit, that is, a spirit renewed by Divine Grace.
Further, I think that a sound spirit which can sustain infirmity will be a spirit cleansed in the precious blood of Christ. “Conscience does make cowards of us all” and it is only when conscience is pacified by the application of the blood of sprinkling that we are able to sustain our infirmities. The restful child of God will say, “What does it matter if I am consumptive? What does it matter if I have a broken leg? My sin is forgiven me and I am on my way to Heaven—what does anythingelse’matter? Have you not sometimes felt that if you had to spend the rest of your life in a dungeon and to live on bread and water, or to lie there, as John Bunyan would have said, till the moss grew on your eyelids, yet, as long as you were sure that you were cleansed from sin by the precious blood of Christ, you could bear it all? For, after all, what are any pains and sufferings that the whips and scourges of this mortal life can lay upon us—compared with the terrors that have to be endured when sin is discerned by an awakened conscience and the wrath of God lies heavily upon us?