Luke 13

Luke 13:10-17

CHRIST AND THE SICK WOMAN Luke 13:10-17. A FRIEND of Bob Burdett once said that, after traveling around the world again and again, the commonest thing he had found was sorrow. In no small measure this is due to the prevalence of sickness. The people who are bowed down with disease are a multitude. “The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain, until now, waiting for the adoption, to-wit, the redemption of the body”. And the woman of our text was but one in the multitude, and yet she stands out as a sample of the sick, and her healing is full of suggestions.A careful study of the text shows that she was genuinely sick; reveals the fact that she was smitten by Satan; and affirms that she was healed by the Son of God.SHE WAS SICK.“Behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years; and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself” (Luke 13:11). Mark the phraseology.It was an “infirmity”, not imagination. At that time Mrs. Eddy had not been heard of. No one knew that it was “a grave mistake to suppose that matter is any part of the reality of existence.” The Jewish people had read in the Old Testament the statement regarding Jacob, “Behold, thy father is sick”, and had supposed he really was. They also remembered that “the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife bore unto David and it was very sick”. They even read Daniel’s inspired statement, “I, Daniel, had fainted and was sick certain days”. The “illusion theory” had not yet been born. The Christian Science cult had not yet assigned every infirmity to a distempered “imagination”.Now, mark you, we do not say that imagination has no place or part in the ills of the world.

Multitudes of its ills are purely imaginary, and some of the gravest that afflict men are in truth but illusions. The power of mind over matter is a scientific certainty. Inspiration voiced this before either the scientists, or Christian scientists, ever dreamed it. Solomon wrote, “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine; but a broken spirit drieth the bones” (Proverbs 17:22). A man can endure almost any amount of pain if only his spirit remains buoyant. He can lose part of his body and laugh about it. I heard a while ago of a fellow who had lost an arm. He was dining in a restaurant and an inquisitive soul sat next to him.

After glancing for a while at his empty sleeve, he said, “I beg pardon, but I see you have lost an arm.” The man addressed picked up his empty sleeve, peered into it, and said, “Bless my soul, I do believe you are right.” Possibly the philosophy of Mr. Dooley might apply in a majority of cases. “Hennessey,” said he, “this is great, talking about Christian Science.” “Yes,” said Mr. Hennessey, “and what do you think about it?” “Well,” said Mr. Dooley, “I think if the Christian Scientists had a little more science and the doctors a little more Christianity, it would not make so much difference which you called, if you only had a good nurse.” And yet, the fact that a nurse is needed, proves that the flesh is infirm, and that sickness may be a substantial reality.This case was chronic, not acute. When I was a lad and heard physicians speak of anything as “acute”, it filled me with alarm. Keeping to the exact meaning of the word “acute”, I had an idea that to suffer intensely was the consequence.

But the longer one lives the more he appreciates that chronic sickness involves the sort of suffering most to be feared. A week ago I spoke to you on what it must have meant to a woman, who, for twelve long years, never knew what it was to be free from affliction.

In this instance, six more years must be added, for the text says, “The woman that had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years”. The dropping of the water wears away the rock, and the persistence of a disease discourages the heart and disables the body.Men and women who go to the stake and die the death of martyrs suffer nothing beside those who, long season after season, endure sickness. Theodore Cuyler once declared that the battle-field required less courage than the hospital, saying, “The onset of service, with the drums beating and bugles singing, does not so test the ability of our graces as to be thrown down wounded, or to be compelled to lie still and suffer. To shout a battle cry at the mouth of the cannon is easier than to put our hands to our mouths and be silent, while sickness does its work.” The profoundest tribute due to mortal man for brave endurance can never be justly paid to the soldier dying on the battle-field; it belongs rather to the chronic sufferer silently enduring the bed to which she has been chained for eighteen or more summers. That friend who said to a suffering neighbor, “God must love you very much to trust you with such suffering!” really understood the test of heart and spirit to which sickness subjects one.This woman was bowed down and disabled by it. The phrase is very significant, “She was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself.” I have seen her—“bowed together”.

A more pitiful sight seldom smites the vision. To be broken in body, to be bowed to the very earth, is to meet a fate the exact opposite of that for which we were intended.

God made us upright; and, as I believe, meant that we should remain so. It is our mark of distinction above the brute beast. It is our mark of resemblance to God Himself. The upright position suggests man’s superiority and really makes him the monarch of the world.To look upon one broken and bowed, as was this woman, what could surpass it for sorrow? Years since, I was touched to pity at the reading of the statement of General Kruger, the Commander of the Boer forces. He said, “I went as a man and faced the foe, striving to destroy the liberties of my people. After many battles I was defeated and captured and sent to St. Helena.

My wife was wounded as she also fought in the trenches. That sent the blood from my heart. I thought I had felt the sorest pain, Alas, as I saw my country and looked into my dear old wife’s scarred face, I could not help it. I cried! I was old and weak. My children had all died in defense of my country. There we sat, my wife and I, supporting each other in our misery. I was too old to strike another blow for liberty, or even to walk behind the plow.” And then comes the saddest sentence in the whole statement, “Since that time, I have not been able to stand straight.” But Kruger had this to comfort him—he had suffered for conscience’ sake; he had fought for country.

He had been broken and bent beneath the weight of war, while the poor woman of the text had no proud memories of splendid battles, no keen pulsing of a brave spirit, and no prospect of an immortal name in history. The dreadful thing about disease is that it imposes suffering which knows no inspiration, and creates a sore void of compensation. A darker picture could not be penned than this, “She was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself”.To look upon her prepares us for the second statement:SHE WAS SMITTEN BY SATAN. There are those who attribute every affliction to the Heavenly Father. We cannot agree with them. A broken body, bent form, does not look to us like God’s work. Disease has upon it every mark of the devil’s authorship. We do not care to attribute to the devil more than belongs to him, and yet we confess our conviction that he has interjected into the Divine creation his own agents and agencies. We once had “the black plague” and millions were swept from the face of the earth. We now have that which men call “the white plague”, and on every side there is suffering and dying. Their moral qualities considered, both plagues are black and suggest the breath of him who made hell a necessity.

A cancer never suggests to me the work of the Christ. Oh, I know that there are a good many people who are bringing disease upon themselves; I know that intemperance in eating and drinking, and excesses of immorality are smiting the race. I am in sympathy with Bishop Miener who once said to the lady coming to him for religious counsel, and relating to him the remarkable visions with which she had been favored, to conclude the conversation by the exclamation, “Aren’t they lovely, Bishop? Aren’t they heavenly? Isn’t it a privilege to be so blessed when one sleeps?” “Yes, very lovely, and very heavenly”, replied the old man, “but don’t you think you had better take a little blue pill?” And yet, after all that is said and may be said about that which men visit upon themselves, there remains a residue of suffering that can find no solution if one deny that Satan is. And what to me, at least, has the weightier argument still, stands the plain Word of God.

It commonly attributes sickness to Satan. “Christ went about healing all that were sick and oppressed of the devil”.Satan may smite God’s very own. Listen to the language of the Lord Himself, “Ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan had bound, lo, these eighteen years, to have been loosed from this bond on the day of the Sabbath”?

There is an impression abroad in the Church of God to the effect that whatever suffering may smite the sinful, saints should escape. Human experience does not give promise of it, nor does the Word of God suggest the likelihood of the same. Listen to Jehovah as He addresses Satan, saying, “Hast thou considered My servant Job, for there is none like him in the earth; a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and turneth away from evil”. And yet, it was upon that man Satan did his devilish work, for, going forth from the presence of Jehovah, Satan smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.When Christ was upon the earth, one of His most intimate friends and ardent followers was Lazarus of Bethany, and yet sickness befell him and even death ensued. I heard a Christian man say once, “I do not like to believe that the devil has so much to do with me and my family as I would be compelled to believe did I accept the view that he was the author of our afflictions.” But to me there is neither an intellectual nor a moral difficulty in connecting sickness and death with Satan; but there is both if I dare to say such is the work of God. A while ago, in the midst of many Christian Scientists and on a funeral occasion, I reminded the auditors of the multitude of passages in the Scriptures assigning sickness and death to Satan, not to God.

The Scientists present showed their approval, yet their own philosophy is at fault at this very point, making God the author of disease, for it is a fundamental principle with them that “God is all,” and beside Him there is not only none else, but “nothing else.” The Scriptures on the other hand present the devil, who is a rebel against His authority, whose chief end and aim is to oppose God at every point, and whose hellish delight it must be to strike the saints of God as he struck this daughter of Abraham.His stroke makes for the severest suffering. “Bowed down these eighteen years” is a significant phrase. It was as if she had had the heaviest chains clanging at her ankles, and the weightiest manacles pulling her very arms from the sockets.

Gibbon, in his “Rome”, tells us how the Christians, under the reign of Hunneric, endured the most cruel and ignoble treatment. Respectable citizens, noble matrons and consecrated maidens, were stripped and raised by the arms by pulleys, with a weight suspended at their feet. In this intolerable attitude the bodies were scourged or burned. The mutilation of ears, the nose, the tongue, the right hand was also inflicted, and although the precise number cannot be defined, it is evident that many persons, among whom a bishop and cardinal might be named, were entitled to the crown of martyr. And yet, the agony of these was soon over. They had the very comfort which the Apostle wrote into the Epistle to the Church at Smyrna, and could face the things which they were about to suffer, consoled in the circumstance that “ten days and the tribulation would be over-passed”.

But in sickness Satan’s efforts are not so soon cut short. Days stretch into weeks, and weeks to months, and months to years, though there is no moment in which the pain is great enough to end life; yet to its prolongation death is endured a hundred times.He persecutes but never pities.

At the end of the eighteen years there was no more sign of Satan’s purpose to release his hold upon this poor bent and broken woman than there was in the beginning days of her affliction. The most malignant spirit in God’s universe is not a man, nor yet a woman, nor yet a beast. Charles IX. was bad enough to murder the Huguenots, but not so bad as to escape regret. The time came when his reason reeled from its throne— such was his conviction of sin at having imposed suffering upon others. Michelet, in his “Joan of Arc”, tells of her persecutions, and describes the fagots of flames, and reports her invoking saints and angels, and the help of the Saviour, and says, “At last, as her head sank on her bosom, she shrieked ‘Jesus!’” Ten thousand strong men wept! Few of the English alone laughed or endeavored to laugh.

One of the most furious among them swore that he would throw a fagot on the pile. Just as he brought it, she breathed her last.

He was instantly taken ill. His comrades led him to a tavern to revive his spirits by drink, but he was beyond recovery. In his dying moments he said, “I saw a dove fly out of her mouth with that last sign.” The executioner repaired in the evening to the home of Brother Isenback full of consternation and confessed, but felt at the same time fully persuaded that God would never pardon him. One of the English King’s secretaries said, after returning from the scene, “We are lost! We are lost! We have burned a saint!” But no such conviction ever overcomes Satan, nor starts from his hellish lips one sentence of regret, one word of penitence, or from his blackened soul one sigh of sorrow.

Eighteen years? Yes, and eighty years he hath tormented some bodies, hoping at the end of that time to begin an eternal torment of the same in hell.

Such is the devil of God’s Word!But there is a brighter picture with which to conclude:SHE WAS HEALED BY THE SON OF GOD. His word was sufficient for her recovery. “Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity”. Oh, what a Saviour! He made the worlds—“without Him was not any thing made that was made”. He can remake broken men and bent women; and, have you ever thought of it, so far at least as the record goes, the sight of this woman was sufficient? She did not need to pray. Unlike others who cried after Him, “Lord, help”! she said not a word. Her suffering estate opened the fountains of His great sympathetic soul, and He did not wait for her to ask, but pronounced her instant relief. Who can tell either the multitude or the greatness of the blessings God is granting without even request on our part?

The late Robert McArthur of New York, said, “Prayer is the muscle which moves the arm of the Almighty.” But I want you to know that the arm of the Almighty moves sometimes altogether apart from prayer. It moves in response to the sympathies of His own great heart, and He works His wonders because He loves. One of the sweetest touches I have heard in Scripture interpretation is in the correct translation of the Prophet, “He giveth His beloved in sleep”. How many a time you have gone to bed at night weary and worn, to wake in the morning refreshed! How often you have retired with a great sorrow, to discover it was lifted in the hours of slumber! And how often have you carried with you to sleep a physical affliction, to find that before morning God’s hand had touched you and you were healed!

Yea, He works when we do not ask Him! Blessed be His Name, He works when we cannot ask Him!

In our unconsciousness, Christ is at hand and accomplishing for us.His work was both instant and perfect. “And He laid His hand upon her and immediately she was made straight”. This thought of “immediately” Mark commonly expresses by “straightway”. There is an impression in the world that God takes time for all that He does, and it is correct, for God works in eternity and there is no haste with Him. But all the time God needs to rebuke the direst disease and restore the most perfect health in an instant. I do not say that He does not sometimes employ more; I do say He does not need so to do. In one moment God can bring death to the last germ of consumption; in one second He can end the last living organism creating a cancer; with His speech the blind eyes can open; the deaf ear can become unstopped; the bone twisted for eighteen years, and the muscles and nerves dislocated and disordered for the same length of time, can straighten and return to their natural position.A few years since, we had in this country Dr.

Lorenz, known as the author of dry surgery, who by physical strength, twisted dislocated bones and muscles into place, but it took time for him to do it, and weeks and months for his patients to receive the benefit of the same. Christ works after another manner. “Immediately she was made straight”.

Oh, He is the Physician of physicians, the One upon whom to call when all else has failed; the One who can work when there is no hope in human help, and, as old Ireneus put it, “In performing such cures, our Lord uses no fantastic ceremonies, but moves in such simple, majestic manner as becomes the infinite God.” And to this moment “our God is marching on.”His object was human happiness and Divine glory. He did it that the woman herself might be relieved from suffering, but He knew that His Father would get glory, not only from the healed woman, but from “all the multitude, which rejoiced for all the glorious things which were done by Him”. There are people who seem to think that the one and only purpose Christ ever had in healing the sick was to “manifest forth His own glory”. On the contrary, we are distinctly told that He did it because He was “moved with compassion” for the people, and He himself affirmed with regard to some of the miracles that they were done that God might have glory.In the ninth chapter of the Book of John, they asked Him “Who did sin, this man, or his parents that he should be born blind”? His reply was “Neither did this man sin, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest to him”. Oh, what a work!

At this far removal, it should be ours to give glory to God in the record of it. Why is it, my auditors, that men are so slow to acknowledge what God has wrought for them?

Why is it that we pay Him such poor tribute? Why is it that day after day, knowing as we must that His blessing is upon us, we are content to be silent about it? Let the great Prof. Morse, the inventor of the telegraph, teach us. Dr. George Henry questioned him one day after this manner, “Prof.

Morse, when you were working, did you ever come to a standstill not knowing what to do next?” “Oh, yes,” answered Morse. “And at such times, what did you do?” And, he, answering in confidence, said, “Dr. Henry, it is a matter of which the public knows nothing, yet it is true that whenever I could not see my way clearly I prayed for more light.” “And the light generally came?” “Yes, and I may tell you that when honors came to me from America and Europe on account of the invention, I never felt that I deserved them.

I had made a valuable application of electricity, not because I was superior to other men, but solely because God, who meant it for mankind, must reveal it to some one and was pleased to reveal it to me.” And that wondrous scholar, when his invention was finished and he was ready to send over it the first message, flashed through the wires this sentence, “What hath God wrought!” Let us glorify God!