The Discipline of Disease

''This sickness is not unto death'' (John 11:4).

   Frail creatures of dust, we are subject to all the fears and frailties of the flesh; not least among which is disease. Abundant, brimming health we accept without a thought of its goodness or any thankfulness to its Giver. Only when illness lays its restraining hand upon our energy and exuberance, when delight gives way to dismay, when song become sighing, when days are lonely and nights are long, when strength ebbs and tears flow, do we come to the discipline of disease.

   Perhaps the depths of this discipline are not plumbed in the persistence of pain nor the weariness of weakness; rather, in the question that constantly perplexes us: Why this illness? Am I at fault, and therefore to blame for my pain? Is suffering the outcome of my sin; and have I lost all favor with God?

   Our sickness may be the result of our own sin. One remembers the words of the Lord Jesus to the man who had been healed, after lying for thirty-eight years at the Pool of Bethesda: ''Behold, thou

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art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee'' (John 5:14). There is no indication of the nature of his infirmity; but the inference seems clear from our Lord's statement that it was brought upon him by himself. And he is not alone in that category. Miriam murmured against Moses, and ''became leprous, white as snow'' (Num. 12:10). Gehazi coveted the reward from Naaman, contrary to the stated policy of his master Elisha; and he went out ''a leper as white as snow'' (II Kings 5:27). King Asa had been greatly helped by God in his youth (II Chron. 14:15); but in later life he trusted his riches and refused the rebuke of God's prophet with the result that ''Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians'' (16:12). King Jehoram ''wrought that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord'' (21:6); wherefore Elijah wrote to him, ''Behold, with a great plague will the Lord smite thy people, and thy children . . . and thou shalt have great sickness . . .'' (21:14,15). Was there some relationship between sickness and sin indicated in the reaction of our Lord to the palsied man, when He said, ''Son, thy sins be forgiven thee''? (Mark 2:5).

   Not necessarily, however, is infirmity the result of our iniquity. Too quickly we jump to the conclusion that, since some are sick because of their sin, there is, therefore, one cause for illness. How much injustice has been done, how much grief caused,

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how much sorrow created, because of wrong judgment on the part of the friends or critics of the sick. By inference or assertion they convey the concept that disease arises always from disobedience to the known will of God. The disciples were just like ourselves when they inquired about the man born blind, ''Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?'' (John 9:2).

   This unjust and unchristian judgment as to the cause of disease is especially cruel in the case of parents and children. The little ones are impaired in body or mind; and friends and neighbors of the family glance knowingly at each other, or shake their heads in the quiet of their own sheltered homes, to infer, ''Must be some reason for that child's condition. A skeleton in the family closet somewhere!''

   Such covert criticism is not only unkind, it is cruel, I repeat. The words of the Lord Jesus should have silenced it long ago, but apparently not so. We still go on believing that all sickness can be traced to some specific sin; while He said specifically, ''Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents that he should be born blind.''

   We cannot afford to be less charitable than our Lord in our compassion for those whose little ones are ill. We cannot fathom the unsearchable wisdom and mercy of God which have allowed this affliction; and we should be prayerful and have pity for the bewildered parents, that their hearts be

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strengthened and sweetened by the assurance: not because of sin is this sorrow.

   How deep, however, is this discipline of disease that faces the uncharitable and unchristian criticism of others because one of ours is ill; and by the same token, how blessed it is to believe the words of the Lord Jesus that some illness can be ''that the works of God should be made manifest in him'' (9:3). Our Lord had compassion on the blind man, not caustic questions about his parents; and healed him. What healing of heart there will be when we learn to be Christlike in our attitudes!

   Sickness can be caused by sin and carelessness on our part, but not necessarily so; it may be not only ''that the works of God should be made manifest,'' but may even be ''for the glory of God'' (John 11:4). That is a strong word: ''for the glory of God,'' and yet that is what our Lord said of Lazarus and his illness. We have no indication of the cause of Lazarus' condition; and we need not infer it was because of iniquity. Our Lord loved Lazarus (vs. 5), as He does all His own. In His dealings with us, the Lord chastens those whom He loves, even scourges His sons and daughters (Heb. 12:6). The lash of scourging is not God's last word, however; for although ''no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby'' (vs. 11). The Psalmist could say, ''Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word'' (Ps. 119:67).

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Again he could sing after prolonged testing, ''We went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place'' (66:12).

   The illness we suffer may not be because of ourselves, but can be from the Enemy. To be sure, we look into the unknown and inexplicable when we seek to trace the source of sickness; but sometimes there seems to be no other possible explanation than: ''an enemy hath done this.'' Again we trace the fears and terror that befell Job, ''a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God'' (Job 1:8); and yet to him came devastating, devouring disease. It was allowed of God, in His unsearchable providence; for the Merciful and Mighty One answered the taunt of the Tempter by saying, ''Behold, he is thine hand; but save his life'' (2:6). The result was immediate: ''So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown'' (vs. 7). So intense was Job's great grief that his friends sat speechless before him for seven years (vs. 13).

   Not all sickness is of Satan, just as it is not all because of sin; but the Scriptures say repeatedly that illness can come from the Evil One. The unhappy outcast of Gadara was mentally ill because of indwelling evil spirits; and when the latter were cast out, he sat at the feet of the Lord Jesus, ''clothed, and in his right mind'' (Luke 8:35). Of a needy one in Galilee the Lord said, ''And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan

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hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?'' (13:16). Of our Lord's ministry it is said that He went about ''healing all that were oppressed of the devil'' (Acts 10:38). Whatever may have been Paul's ''thorn in the flesh,'' it was ''a messenger of Satan to buffet'' him (II Cor. 12:7).

   It is a part of the discipline of disease to discern its cause, not in impatience or petulance, nor in unbelief; but to seek wisdom from God in the matter. If our sickness is the result of our own sin, we are to repent thereof from the heart, and to commit our ways and days unto God. Our times are in His hands (Ps. 31:15). If Satan is the source, he is to be resisted and refused, that there be deliverance in the mighty name of Jesus. Whatever may be the cause, we are to believe that the pain and weakness can be ''for the glory of God,'' by ''life or by death'' (Phil. 1:20).

   Disease is indeed a hard disciplinarian; and only those under its dominion can know the depths of its discipline. The frailty and futility of it all, the weariness and painfulness, the tears and testings, the long days and longer nights, can cast us into deep gloom, or they can cause us to know the word of the Lord, ''My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness'' (II Cor. 12:9). We can, like Paul, also learn to glory in our infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon us.

   Let us not fear this discipline, nor be defeated by

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it. Let it search our souls, to see if there be any unconfessed sin therein. Let it show us if our hindrance is from the enemy of souls, that we may be delivered from sin. Let it establish us in the glorious truths that from it we can glorify God and find His grace to be sufficient. Disciplined by disease we can be dispensers of mercy and blessing to many others.

 What a friend we have in Jesus,

All our sins and griefs to bear!

What a privilege to carry

Everything to God in prayer.

O what peace we often forfeit,

O what needless pain we bear,

All because we do not carry

Everything to God in prayer!

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Reflections

I thank God for the bitter things;

They've been a ''friend to grace'';

They've driven me from the paths of ease

To storm the secret place.

I thank Him for the friends who failed

To fill my heart's deep need;

They've driven me to the Saviour's feet,

Upon His love to feed

I'm grateful too, through all life's way

No one could satisfy,

And so I've found in God alone

                                            My rich, my full supply!                           

                                 —Florence White Willett.

Chapter Twenty-five  ||  Table of Contents