The frame of this poor body gives way under the weight of disease, kidney failure, the long strife of diabetes, and now the heart itself laboring under its own infirmity. Such a trinity of troubles would make any man’s spirit sink. As you well know, heart disease is a very dangerous disease, even if a very little is wrong with the heart, it is a serious matter, for every other part of the body will be affected. The tears that attend such a bedside can wear away the strength of life itself; my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing.
Yet it is here the Eternal Father speaks into the frailty of man. He does not leave us without a word that braces the soul. Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all you that hope in the LORD. The desire for more time to set the house in order and restore the years the locust has eaten between father and son is no trivial thing. It is a mercy to see this reaching of a father’s heart toward his offspring. But let us not mistake mere earthly settlement for the deep peace that must be secured. The great business that presses is not only the arranging of papers and possessions, but the heart’s return home.
You speak of time for a son to know his father again. Oh, but there is a Father and Son in a far higher sense, whose fellowship is the fountain of all true reconciliation. Does not your heart feel intense sympathy with the eternal purpose of the Father and the gracious work of the Savior? The Eternal Father will be glad to get back His lost son, to press to His bosom a heart warm with affection for Him, which heart before had been cold and stony towards Him. This is the urgent business: for the invalid to see that the Father, for Christ’s sake, blots out transgression. He looks upon His Son, Jesus, bearing our sin. When the Father saw his only-begotten Son suffering, even to death, it made such an infinite impression upon His great soul that He forgot the sins for which His Son gave His life! It is a plain word, but it holds the weight of glory: the gate of salvation is too narrow for two persons to go through arm-in-arm. You must all singly and separately pass the portal of Eternal Life. See that the man upon that sickbed does not rely upon a vague hope, but answers the call of Wisdom: My son, give Me your heart.
Prayer must be the breath of this season. I would have you and the family form a holy siege around that bed. I should like to hear of little bands formed of Christian men and women who pledged themselves to pray, four at a time, for somebody possessed by a devil of the kind that will not go out by ordinary means, or in this case, a cluster of physical evils that mock physicians. Wrestle with the Angel of the Covenant that the man might not merely mend his earthly fences, but that he might be wholly given to the Lord before he goes hence. If He that made the heavens and the earth laid aside His splendor and veiled Himself in our inferior clay, do you think He will fail in the purpose for which He did this? Can the Incarnation of God be a failure? You have only to battle with a single vice to feel what a monster is to be overcome, but you battle now with sickness and the press of time. Yet God is not willing for that quarrel to continue. The work of reconciliation He committed to His Son, the word of reconciliation He has committed to us. Lay hold on faithful prayer, and may that household know the joy of a soul singing, not mechanically, but from the depths, as one who has been brought from the horrible pit. He who began the good work will not leave it, and the Father’s own hand shall be upon this house for good.
