great voice out of the sky, to astonish them with His power; He told
them peremptorily that He would give them no such thing: and yet He
said that His mighty works did prove Him to be Christ; He pronounced
woe against Chorazin and Bethsaida for not believing Him on account
of His mighty works: He told the Scribes and Pharisees that they
ought to believe on Him merely for His works' sake. And why would
they not believe on Him? Just because they could not see that God's
power was shown more in healing and delivering sufferers, than in
astonishing and destroying. They could not see that God's perfect
likeness shone out in Christ--that He was the express image of the
Father, just because He went about doing good, and healing all manner
of sicknesses and all manner of infirmities among the people. But so
it is, my friends! Jesus is the Saviour, the deliverer, the great
physician, the healer of soul and body. Not a pang is felt or a tear
shed on earth, but He sorrows over it. Not a human being on earth
dies young, but He, as I believe, sorrows over it. What it is which
prevents Him healing every sickness, soothing every sorrow, wiping
away every tear NOW, we cannot tell. But this we can tell, that it
is His will that none should perish. This we CAN tell; that He is
willing as ever to heal the sick, to cleanse the leper, to cast out
devils, to teach the ignorant, to bind up the broken-hearted. This
we CAN tell; that He will go on doing so more and more, year by year,
and age by age. This we CAN tell, from Scripture, that Christ is
stronger than the devil. This we can tell; that Christ, and all good
men, the spirits of just men made perfect, the wise and the great in
God's sight, who have left us their books, their sayings, their
writings, as precious health-giving heirlooms--have been fighting,
and are fighting, and will fight to the end against the devil, and
sin, and oppression, and misery, and disease, and everything which
spoils and darkens the face of God's good earth. And this we CAN