Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2835
“And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.” Luke 5:31.
IF you had never heard that passage before, you would be almost certain to know where to look for it. It must be in the Gospel according to Luke, for Luke was the beloved physician and, therefore, while taking notes of our Savior’s discourses, he would be able to record anything that would be likely to strike upon a physician’s ear and to be stamped upon his memory. Matthew and Mark also record this saying of our Lord, but Luke would have special reasons for mentioning it.
What a noble answer this was to the insinuations of Christ’s enemies! He was sitting down with publicans and sinners—they had been invited to a feast by Levi, that is, Matthew. The scribes and Pharisees shrugged their shoulders and said they could very readily guess what kind of character Jesus of Nazareth was, for a man is known by the company he keeps. What an overwhelming reply Christ gave them! “Where should I be,” the Physician of Souls seems to say, “but with those who most need My services? I need not come into yourcompany, for you consider yourselves to be whole. But these publicans and sinners are, according to your way of speaking, to be regarded as sick—where should I be but with those who need to be healed?” Christ, in associating with sinners, did not at all condone their sin. When He proved Himself to be the Friend of publicans and sinners, it was not that He would lessen the infinite distance between Divine Perfection and human guilt, but only that, coming down to man’s fallen estate, He might lift him up. Touching his leprosy, He might heal him—and coming into the hospital of sick souls, He might there work His great miracles of mercy!
But, turning from the immediate occasion when these words were uttered and coming to the words, themselves, it appears, from our text, that Jesus Christ is the Great Physician and, just as we see our doctors hurrying through the streets, going from one house to another on their errands of mercy, so let us go with Christ, in the chariot of His Love, and let us visit some of the sick souls He has come to heal.
I. This will be our first business—TO VISIT THE SICK MAN AND ASK HIM A FEW QUESTIONS.
First, we will ask the man who is sick, but whom Christ comes to heal, what kind of disease it is from which he is suffering. If he is rightly instructed, if he understands the Truth of God, he will tell us that it is the worst disease there is. Other diseases may possibly be cured by men, but this one can never be cured except by Divine interposition. Some diseases, like fire, expire when they have burned out their fuel, but this one is of such a character that unless it is cured by Sovereign Grace, it will destroy both body and soul in Hell. This is the worst of diseases because it does not merely affect us in one point, but it affects the entire system—from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot. It is so foul a disease that even the all-merciful God is so disgusted with it that He found it imperatively necessary that Hell should be made that He might shut sin up there, as in a morgue, when it came to the worst state. We might better bear to have the plague and the black pest let loose upon us than unbridled sin! It is the foulest disease in the sight of God and it is the most dreadful in its consequences to man.
Our patient, if he is further asked as to the nature of his disease, will tell you that it is internal, but that it works itself out externally—
“The leprosy lies deep within.”
The sin which Christ came to heal is not something on the skin, or a mere matter of custom, or habit. No, my Brothers and Sisters, the venom of sin is in the very fountain of our being! It has poisoned our heart. It is in the very marrow of our bones and is as natural to us as anything that belongs to us. You might even tear the man in pieces, but you could not tear his sin from him. The Mohammed legend tells us that Mohammed was so pure because an angel had taken out his heart and wrung two black drops of evil out of it. Those who believe that lie, little understand the great Truth that what is needed is to get out of a man every drop of evil, yes, that he must be made a newmanbefore it is possible to destroy the disease that is in him! Two drops of evil, my Brothers and Sisters? It is far worse than that, for it is the whole man who is evil—all his heart, all his nature—the venom is everywhere! There is not, in unrenewed human nature, a place where you could put the point of a pin where it is not defiled with sin! It is in our entire system—we have been lying in it until we are steeped through and through with it. Sin, in human nature, is like those colors that are ingrained—the more you wash the material, the more clearly they are discovered! You can never wash them out—only the precious blood of Jesus can wash out man’s sin.