February 28

I will heal him. - Isaiah 57:19.

GOD by the gospel heals in two ways. First, He heals the anguish of a wounded Spirit. “He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.” While some never feel their wounds, have never been disturbed in their conscience, others have their consciences bruised under a sense of guilt and a dread of wrath to come. Such an one mingles his drink with weeping. The world can no longer charm, nor old companions allure him. “The arrows of the Almighty stick fast within me,” said one of old, “the poison whereof drinketh up my Spirit.” “A wounded Spirit who can bear?” and a wounded Spirit who can heal? Men may skin over the wound, try many things, but it will break out again. Outward reformation, vows, fastings, alms’ deeds-from all these some endeavour to obtain peace of conscience, and although they may for a time obtain something like a calm, yet as the light in them increases, and as they become better acquainted with the Spirituality of God’s law, all their fears and despair revive; but nothing can relieve an awakened mind but the scheme of redemption revealed in the gospel. That alone can satisfy the sinner’s conscience which satisfied the justice of God- nothing but the blood of sprinkling, which “speaketh better things than the blood of Abel.”

Then, secondly, God by the gospel heals the moral maladies of our nature. This always accompanies the former. It would be endless to enumerate the diseases of our fallen and depraved nature. “The whole head is sick, the whole heart faint, and there is no help in us. But are we under the necessity of perishing? By no means. If there is no help in us, there is help laid upon one that is mighty. If there be no hope in us, there is hope in Israel concerning this thing. If there is no health in us, there is balm in Gilead, and there is a physician there. The same light that shows us our disease reveals to us also our remedy, and the grace that makes us feel the one enables us to apply to the other-and that is a Saviour, who is made unto us not only righteousness but sanctification, who not only justifies but renews; for if any man be in Christ he is a new creature; old things are passed away and all things become new.”

See a man under the agency of the spirit of God, delighting in the Saviour; he dedicates all he has and all he is to his service and glory, walking before him in newness of life.