When the heavy tidings reach us that two among our number lie in the grip of grave illness, our first and swiftest impulse must be to fly to the throne of grace. You have borne these names upon your heart to the assembling of the saints, and we now join with you. Turn that natural concern which would so readily curdle into care and worry, and beat it into the fine gold of supplication. For care is injurious and carves deep lines of sorrow, but if you turn this care into prayer, then every worry will be a benefit, driving you again and again to the mercy seat. In everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. Mix these holy ingredients, the earnest plea and the grateful remembrance of past deliverances, and they will prove a sovereign cure for the fainting of your soul over these afflicted ones.
It is a bitter thing to watch the frame succumb to sickness, yet we must learn to accept the affliction which the Lord sends. There are seasons when heaviness through manifold trials is needful. Have we not felt, at times, that we would gladly bear the pain to give the suffering one a little rest? Yet a greater truth remains: the sickness that drives the soul to the Word of God is a sickness that leads to everlasting health. The one remedy for sin-sick souls, and the truest balm for every trial, is the Word of God applied by the Holy Spirit. And it is the Lord Jesus Christ, THE WORD OF GOD, whom God has sent for the healing of poor sin-sick souls. No hand can heal a sin-sick soul but the hand that wounded it, even the hand of God, through the Person of Jesus Christ our Lord. Seek Him diligently for these precious ones. Cry that He would speak a word in season, for by the Word of the Lord are sick souls healed.
In this great work of intercession, we must not be content with a mere general petition. The good Shepherd knows His own by name, and He prayed for Peter by name because Peter needed it. So we must particularize our prayer. Let us strive together in prayer for these specific souls, that they may be delivered from the power of the disease according to God’s will, and that this season of intensive therapy would become a sanctuary where they meet with God. Pray for the shorn lambs, that the good Shepherd would temper the wind to them. And while we plead for the body’s healing, let us pray with far greater fervor for the reviving of the inner man. Raise Your sleepy children, Lord. Make them to live at the highest point of life, even life in communion with You, if for a while they have seemed ready to die.
Look beyond the sickroom to the whole Church, which needs constant prayer, and let this trial quicken your intercession for all the saints who are under a cloud. Pray for a Church that is a dishonor to God when His presence is gone, that she might be revived again. And remember the nations, and this great city, for the leaves of the Tree of Life are for the healing of the nations. Lift up these requests for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit. Do not let the fire upon the altar of intercession go out. And having prayed, believe. Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.