Many persons think a great deal about the adorning of the body, but do not think anything about the ornaments of the soul. The feeding of the physical frame engrosses much care, but the supply of spiritual food is often neglected. Yet, O Man, you yourself are better than your body! Have you not found out yet, I have, that the very anxiety which arises through your being in a difficulty, unfits you to meet that difficulty?
Now the point of the text is this, that the very leaves are healing, from which I gather that the least thing about Christ is healing. These healing leaves change the life blood, affect the spirits and make the nature other than it was before. Oftentimes when, by some sin of impurity, a sinner weakens his body and injures his health, his cure is much helped by his repenting and forsaking his uncleanness. They have no need to say it when the Lord comes and dwells with them, for the Sun of Righteousness has risen upon them with healing in His wings. When Jesus healed the sick of the palsy, He said to him, "Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you." Pardon and healing were one!
Deliverance from the power of sin is as much the work of God as deliverance from the guilt of sin! Where we look for justification, there must we also look for sanctification. He feels that if he ever rises from his despondency, he can never dare to take an atom of the honor of deliverance to himself, it must be of Free Grace only. He can do nothing and he knows it! I stayed at the brook Jabbok, and I said, ‘Lord, give deliverance from him whom I think bloodthirsty.’ I crossed the brook full of fear and trembling, but tell it, O let it be known for the comfort of others in like trouble with me, I met my brother Esau, and he fell upon my neck and kissed me.
Art thou not a member of his body, of his flesh and his bones? Has the Head forgotten a finger? Has he, who did hang upon the tree and who wrote thy name in wounds upon his hand and on his side, has he forgotten? What! Jesus thy own brother, thy husband, thy head, thy all, what! he forget? The clock of mercy struck in Heaven the hour and moment of my deliverance, for the time had come! Thus had the eternal purpose of Jehovah decreed it!
And now the last inference is a hopeful inference. Pain of body is usually looked upon as a great evil and, doubtless, it is so in some respects, but it wraps up within itself great mercy. There are some who can scarcely be taught at all except through physical pain. So I finish with just two or three words on the believer's conduct after trouble and deliverance. "I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord." Here is declaration. If we had no troubles, we would all have less to declare. A person who has no experience of tribulation, what great deliverance has he to speak of?