Let's open God's Word this evening to Matthew chapter 14. The Gospel according to Matthew, the 14th chapter. We will read the first 21 verses, and the text for this evening's sermon is verse 14. This is the inspired and therefore infallible word of our God. At that time Herod the Tetrarch heard of the fame of Jesus and said unto his servants, this is John the Baptist. He is risen from the dead and therefore mighty works do show forth themselves in him. For Herod had laid hold on John and bound him and put him in prison for Herodias' sake, his brother Philip's wife. For John said unto him, It is not lawful for thee to have her. And when he would have put him to death, he feared the multitude because they counted him as a prophet. But when Herod's birthday was kept, the daughter of Herodias danced before them and pleased Herod, whereupon he promised with an oath to give her whatsoever she would ask. And she, being before instructed of her mother, said, give me here John Baptist's head in a charger. And the king was sorry. Nevertheless, for the oath's sake, and them which sat with him at meat, he commanded it to be given her. And he sent and beheaded John in the prison. And his head was brought in a charger and given to the damsel, and she brought it to her mother. And his disciples came and took up the body and buried it and went and told Jesus. When Jesus heard of it, he departed thence by ship into a desert place apart. And when the people had heard thereof, they followed him on foot out of the cities. And Jesus went forth and saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick. And when it was evening, his disciples came to him, saying, this is a desert place, And the time is now past, send the multitude away that they may go into the villages and buy themselves vittles. But Jesus said unto them, they need not depart, give ye them to eat. And they say unto him, we have here but five loaves and two fishes. He said, bring them hither to me. And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass and took the five loaves and the two fishes and looked up to heaven. He blessed and break and gave the loaves to his disciples and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat and were filled. And they took up of the fragments that remained 12 baskets full. And they that had eaten were about 5,000 men beside women and children. We end our scripture reading at that point. The text for this evening's sermon is verse 14. And Jesus went forth and saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion toward them and he healed their sick. The purpose of tonight's sermon is to address our spiritual sickness and disease. That is, tonight's sermon is for all those whose hearts are infected with a disease of sin. It's for those who experience that spiritual sickness on a day-to-day basis. And more specifically, tonight's sermon is for those who know themselves to be sick. And to put it plainly, are sick and tired of being sick. Tonight's sermon is for those who groan on account of the sin that still clings to them who long to be delivered. Tonight's sermon is for those who know their sin. Is that you? If so, then know that there is hope. Because that's the main message, the main application that flows from this Word of God that we consider tonight. And specifically, the hope comes from knowing that there is healing to be found in Jesus Christ. For this Word of God brings us to the one that the Scriptures reveal as the Great Physician. And thus this sermon is meant to be an encouragement to take our spiritual sickness, our spiritual disease, and bring it to our Savior to stand at His feet, trusting He is both willing and able to heal us, because He is the compassionate physician. And that's our focus tonight as we consider Matthew 14, verse 14. We will use as our theme our compassionate physician. The first thing we want to see tonight is his heart. Second, we will look at the healing. And then third, the hope that this gives to us. Our compassionate physician, his heart, the healing, and the hope. What makes this Word of God so beautiful is that it gives us a glimpse into the heart of our Savior. Verse 14 says, and Jesus went forth and saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion toward them. Literally, His bowels moved within him. We would say that his heart ached for them. That is, he felt sympathy upon these people. He took pity upon them. He felt for them. And specifically, He had compassion upon them in their misery. It's really embedded into the idea of compassion. It's pity upon those who are suffering in some way. It's a sympathy for those who are hurting on some level. Implied in the idea of compassion is that there's someone who's in misery. And that's indeed what we see here when we observe from the passage the objects of Christ's compassion. Specifically, He had compassion upon the sick. It's evident from the end of the verse. We read, He was moved with compassion toward them and He healed their sick. So that it's apparent that a part of this great multitude that came to Jesus Christ was made up of those who were sick. And that becomes even more evident when we look at the other gospel accounts that record this same narrative. For example, in John's account, chapter 6, verse 2, we read, And a great multitude followed him, because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased. So that what's being communicated is that many in this great multitude came for the very purpose of being healed on account of their sickness. And understand, this was not the first time that Jesus was met by such a crowd, a multitude, that was made up largely of those who were sick and diseased. For example, in chapter 4, verses 23 and 24, we read of something very similar. Matthew 4, verse 23. And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And his fame went throughout all Syria. And they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with diverse diseases and torments and those which were possessed with devils and those which were lunatic and those that had the palsy. And he healed them. There were multiple times that Jesus had such a crowd gather before Him. And so, once again, that's what we have here in the passage that we're considering, so that the people who are coming to Jesus are those who have all manner of different diseases, whether it was those who are lepers, perhaps some had an especially bad case of fever, paralytics being carried, those who were possessed with the devil, the blind who could not see, the deaf who could not hear, the mute who could not speak. That's the great multitude standing in front of Jesus. And what makes this passage so beautiful is that it tells us about the heart of our Savior toward this multitude. He had compassion upon them. That is, his response was not that he was repulsed by what he saw. When he sees this crowd that has gathered, he doesn't cringe at the thought of these people drawing near to him. He does not proudly turn up his nose at them, nor does he rudely plug his nose on account of the stench of their diseases. He does not turn them away. He does nothing to indicate that He disapproves of this crowd coming toward Him. But instead, He was moved with compassion. He felt for them. He took pity upon them. He had sympathy for them in their misery of being physically sick and diseased. So that rather than turning them away, He receives them. And we will come to see in the second point that He not only receives them, He actually helps them. But before we get to the help that He provides in healing them, we do well to spend more time on this compassion and see the beauty and the wonder of it. And the beauty of it comes out from the fact that this is the last thing you would expect from someone in Christ's specific situation, in His specific circumstances. Because the context makes clear that Jesus and His disciples were trying to get away from the crowds for a sort of private retreat We say that in light of this passage in front of us, Matthew 14, verse 14. In the context, verse 13, we read, And that becomes even more clear in Mark's account, chapter 6, verse 32, and they, Jesus and his disciples, departed into a desert place by ship privately. Jesus and his disciples had gotten into a ship to sail to a different part of the region for the express purpose of being alone. They wanted some time to themselves. They wanted to get away from the crowds and they wanted this sort of private retreat for two reasons. Jesus and his disciples were both mourning and weary. They were mourning, first of all, on account of the death of John the Baptist. That's evident from the context here in the book of Matthew, verse 13, which we just read a moment ago, began when Jesus heard of it. And we ask, well, what did he hear of? The context is the death of John the Baptist. Verse 10 says, and he, Herod, sent and beheaded John in the prison. And then verse 12 says to us, and his disciples, that is John's disciples, came and took up the body and buried it and went and told Jesus so that Jesus has just been informed of the death of John the Baptist. And do not think for a moment that this had no effect on him. Because this is the very same Savior who would weep outside of the tomb of Lazarus. If He would weep there, surely He wept here. When He heard of the merciless beheading, of one who was his blood relative, the forerunner who had prepared the way for him, and most importantly of all, one of his own blood-bought sheep. This was a time of grief, of sadness. Jesus and his disciples were mourning. And they were weary too. That's evident from one of the parallel accounts, the context in Mark's account, chapter 6. Mark chapter 6, verses 30 through 32, and the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus. And this is just after they had been sent out on their first preaching tour, their first preaching assignment. They've come back, they're telling Jesus everything that's happened. And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told Him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught. And He said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while. For there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. And that brings us to the verse we've already read. And they departed into a desert place by ship privately. Jesus and his disciples had been busy teaching, performing miracles, and now they're tired, they're burnt out, they're weary, they're exhausted, so that the purpose of this getaway was a sort of vacation. This was intended to be a minister's retreat for Jesus and his disciples. They were weary. But when they get to this desert place, Instead of arriving at this private oasis, they're confronted by this great crowd. Matthew 14, verse 13, When Jesus heard of it, he departed thence by ship into a desert place. And when the people had heard thereof, they followed him on foot out of the cities. And Jesus went forth, that is, when he went forth out of the ship, and saw a great multitude. This is what he sees first when he gets off the boat. A massive crowd that has gathered together. And they have not come to minister unto Jesus and His disciples, but they have come to be ministered unto. This is a needy bunch. And when we take that context into account, When we read of Jesus' response, there's a small part of us that's half expecting His response to be the same as when He went into the temple of Jerusalem and saw the buying and the selling that took place. We're half expecting Him to gather together some cords and to make a whip and start driving away the people. Leave us alone! Cannot we just rest for a little while? But that's not what we read. Instead, the Scriptures tell us He was moved with compassion. Congregation, is there anything more beautiful than that? This glimpse into the very heart of our Savior. Rather than being angry and driving them away, He took pity upon them and He received them. And that then is encouragement for us to go to Him, to bring to Him our own sickness and disease. For we are indeed sick. Now the application for us tonight is to our spiritual sickness, which to state it negatively means the primary application of you tonight is not our physical sickness. There are times we do become sick physically. We live in the fallen, sin-cursed world, which means we live in a world that endures all the consequences of sin, namely death and everything that leads to death. So that our lot in life includes the fact that, at times, we get ill. At times, there's some injury that we experience that hampers us. And for some, these can be chronic. For some, these can be life-altering, such as the disease of cancer. And now to be sure, for us, in our physical afflictions, A part of the passage does very well apply in that our Savior is filled with compassion for us. If that is our affliction tonight, if that's what's on the forefront of our hearts and minds, some physical trial, well, you may be sure, child of God, that He takes pity upon you. He's sympathetic to you in your need. He knows the impact, the effects that it has upon your life, and He will help you, granting His all-sufficient grace to help you bear up under that affliction. But that does not mean that he will necessarily take away that physical affliction. And that's where we say that's not the primary application of the text. And we need to state that negatively because there are many in the church world who would take a passage such as this and make that the application. There are many in the church world who come to a passage like Matthew 14, verse 14, and would apply it by saying, well, if only you believe in Jesus Christ, then you can expect that He will take away whatever physical affliction, whatever disease you may have. This is called the health and wealth prosperity gospel. Believe, they say, and He will give you health. He will give you wealth. That's not the message of Scripture. The New Testament makes no such promise that if we believe Jesus Christ is going to make our lives easy from a physical point of view, that He's going to take away all suffering that we would otherwise experience. And the proof is found in the context and the beheading of John the Baptist. John the Baptist believed. But that did not mean he had an easy life. It did not mean that Jesus would deliver him from every form of physical difficulty. So when we come to a passage like this that speaks of sickness, disease, the application is not first and foremost to the physical, although, as we've mentioned, the compassion of our Savior toward us, that certainly applies But what we want to especially see is that the application is spiritual. That is, these sicknesses, these diseases are really pictures of our spiritual sickness, of our spiritual disease. And Scripture itself makes that plain. Scripture itself points us in the direction of taking these passages that speak of some physical ailment and making the application spiritual. That comes out, for example, from the Old Testament Levitical laws. In those laws you have the laws concerning whether a man is clean or unclean. And one of the reasons someone would be unclean is on account of leprosy. And what's so striking is that the remedy is not go to a doctor or go take a bath, but bring a sacrifice. to your priest so that we're pointed in the direction that there's a spiritual application, a spiritual significance for us. We see this same thing in the language found in the book of Psalms. This evening we have sung different Psalms that use language that you would normally understand in terms of referring to some physical disease, like the language of healing, but yet the application that's in view is clearly spiritual. So that in Psalm 41, verse 4, we read, for example, I said, Lord, be merciful unto me, heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee. And to give one more example of Scriptural evidence that these diseases in Scripture are meant to point us to the reality of sin, there's the miracle recorded for us in Matthew 9. The healing of the paralytic who is lowered down into a room where Jesus is. And the first thing that Jesus says to this man is what? Your sins are forgiven. That is, he starts with the main thing, the spiritual sickness, and then only after that does he perform the miracle that pointed to the spiritual reality that had already taken place. So that what we see from Scripture is that sickness, disease in Scripture, is meant to be a picture of our sin and the effects of it and the consequences of it. So that really, Each ailment that we read of on the pages of scripture points us to a unique aspect of our sin. And we could give many, many different examples of this. So that the disease of leprosy, for example, points to the fact that our sin makes us spiritually dirty in the eyes of our God. It isolates us. It leads to death. Being paralyzed. That physical ailment is a picture of our inability by nature to walk in the paths of righteousness which God has laid out before us. Our inability to do anything good apart from God's grace. There's the fever that we read about in Scripture, pointing us to the burning desires, the lustful desires that we often have in our own hearts. There's blindness pointing to our inability to see the truth concerning God, the truth concerning ourselves, and thus our need for Jesus Christ. And we could give a long list of other examples of diseases that we read about in Scripture, and what they teach us about our sin. And the point then, is that when we come to a passage like this, and seek to apply it to ourselves, We need to identify with this crowd. So that we say in our hearts and minds this evening, that's me. I am the spiritual leper. The spiritual paralytic. The one who has that spiritual fever and all the other diseases combined into one. And certainly this was true of me apart from God's grace, before I was rescued by His grace, but in many ways it's still true even now because I still have that old man of sin. There's a part of me that's corrupt, that's defiled, that hates God, that hates my neighbor. But now go back to the good news. the attitude of our Savior toward such a needy bunch. When we come to Him by faith, with our spiritual sickness, our spiritual disease, His response is not that He's repulsed by us. He does not cringe when we see us coming to Him. He does not drive us away in His anger, but He's moved with compassion. And that's so astounding when you stop to think about it. Because we're talking about the sinless one. As those who live in this fallen world, as those who are sinners, when we see something that's defiled, something that's corrupt, whether physically or spiritually. We're repulsed by it. We want to turn the opposite direction. We want nothing to do with it. We're uncomfortable when we see it. And thus, when we think about our Savior, the one who's spotlessly righteous, perfectly holy, we're tempted to think that His response when He sees us in our defilement is going to be the same, one of disgust, so that He's repulsed by it. But that's not what this text teaches us. This text teaches us that when we come to Him as needy sinners, He takes pity upon us. He's sympathetic toward us. And He will receive us. No matter what He has going on, He's never too busy. He never says to us when we come to Him, I'm the king of heaven and earth and I have a lot going on over here in this part of the world and I'm really too busy right now to deal with your disease. He does not say that. He is a compassionate physician. And in his compassion, he heals. That's what he did. Here in Matthew chapter 14, verse 14. And Jesus went forth and saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion toward them, and He healed their sick. He healed them. That is, He cured their diseases. He restored health to these people who came to Him with their diseases. And in this, we see the great power of Christ's mercy. So that for this physician, it is never the case that he is moved with compassion upon us, he wants to help us, but he is unable to do anything about it. That is true of us at times. By God's grace, when we see others suffering, we often are moved with compassion. Our heart goes out toward them. There's a part of us that wants to help them, that wants to bring relief. But often we're unable to do that. There's the desire in our heart but we lack the means to help. We are incapable, we lack the ability to restore those, to lift up those who are in a state of misery. But that's not the case with our Savior. Never is His heart moved with compassion toward someone wishing He could help, but then He finds Himself unable to do anything about it. That's not the case because we're talking about the Son of God here. This is the second person of the Trinity, the Almighty One, the omnipotent God of heaven and earth, for whom there is nothing too hard. So that in Jesus, there is this beautiful combination of both compassion and the ability to help. His pity is always coupled to His power. His compassion always leads to some action so that He's not only willing on account of His compassion to help us, but He is able on account of His power. And I can assure you, there is no sickness too hard for him to address. And I say that in light of the broader context here in the book of Matthew. If we back up even further into the book of Matthew, we see Jesus performing many different miracles of all manner of diseases, so that if we survey just two chapters, Matthew 8 and 9, we see all these miracles of healing. Let's back up to Matthew 8, verse 2, for example, we read, And behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And the response in verse 3, Jesus put forth his hand and touched him, saying, I will be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. So Jesus healed the leper. And then immediately after that, we read of him healing someone who was sick with palsy. Verse 6. There came one, a centurion, to him, beseeching him, saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home, sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. That is, this man was suffering from paralysis, coupled with these involuntary tremors. And Jesus is able to heal him, even from a great distance. Verse 13, Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way, and as thou hast to leave, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the self same hour. And then immediately after that, we read of Jesus going into the home of Peter, where his wife's, verse 14, and he saw his wife's mother laid and sick with a fever. But then verse 15 tells us, and he touched her hand and the fever left her. He's healed another one. And then what follows in the rest of chapter 8 is that whole history of Jesus casting out that legion of devils from the two men who were possessed by devils. He healed those men too. And then at the beginning of chapter 9, v. 2, we read, And behold, they brought to Him a man sick of the palsy, lying on the bed. So another man who was unable to walk, and Jesus heals this man too. And then chapter 9, v. 18, And while he spake these things unto them, behold, there came a certain ruler and worshipped him, saying, My daughter is even now dead, but come and lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live." So not just someone who's sick, but someone who's dead. And Jesus raises her back to life. Chapter 9, verse 27. And when Jesus departed fence, two blind men followed Him, crying, saying, Thou Son of David, have mercy on us. And we read later of Jesus restoring their sight, verse 30. And their eyes were opened, and Jesus straightly charged them, saying, See that no man know it. And then chapter 9, verse 32. And they went out. Behold, they brought to Him a dumb man possessed with the devil. And Jesus heals him too. so that there's one miracle of healing after another to the point that these two chapters almost feel redundant. If you were reading these chapters in your devotions, there'd be the temptation to become bored with it. It's just one miracle after another, after another. But the key is to step back and to ask, what is the Spirit trying to teach us? He's shouting loudly, there is no sickness. Too hard for this physician. There's nothing you can bring to him that he's unable to address. So that this physician is not like an earthly physician. We have earthly doctors to whom we go when we have some physical ailment. And in many cases they can help us, but there are still other cases where they are unable to do anything about it. So that if you bring a certain sickness, a certain disease to your physical physician, he'll say to you, I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do about this. In spite of all the advances of modern medicine, We have no way of treating this. That happens at times. It's painful. It's a sad experience. So it can be that we're experiencing these symptoms from a physical point of view. We bring those symptoms to a doctor and they say to us, not only there's nothing we can do about this, but we're not even sure what's going on here. We see your symptoms, but we have no way of diagnosing you. That never happens with our physician, Jesus Christ. He never says to us when we come to Him by faith, bringing our diseases, well, if you had come earlier, I could have helped you then, but it's progressed too far, it's too far advanced, I can't help you anymore. He does not say that. He's never overwhelmed by the diseases. He never says, I can't figure this out, I'm not sure how to diagnose this. But instead, whatever disease we bring, He is both willing and able to heal. Even as He healed those who came to Him by the seashore that day. So that the good news of the gospel tonight is that our Savior is able to deliver us from that spiritual disease we call sin. All of its effects. All of its consequences. And He will heal all those who come to Him in true faith. Not that he will heal all men who ever lived. That's not the teaching of scripture, that Jesus Christ is going to heal every last person of their spiritual disease, but he will heal all those who in true faith trust in him. That is, all those who by faith recognize there is no other cure. There's no other remedy for my soul. There is no other physician who can help me with my spiritual sickness. It's only Jesus Christ. He's the only one. When by faith we come to Him believing that, we can be confident that He will deliver us from our spiritual sickness. because He has a heart for it. Go back to what we talked about in the first point. There's a direct connection between the healing that we're talking about now and the heart of our Savior, His compassion. This physician is not like an earthly physician. who does his work simply because he has to. He'd rather be out enjoying his hobbies, but because he has to earn a living, well, he's going to go about his work. That's not our Savior. But this physician delights in his work. This is the whole reason he came down from heaven into this world, to seek and to save the lost, to have compassion, to heal those who brought their needs to him. And is that not reason? Nope, not yet. It's going to go right to the third point. One more thing. The manner in which He heals us. We've talked about His heart. We've said we've made plain His willingness, His ability to heal, but now we need to speak about how He does this, and it's altogether remarkable. There's two parts to it. On the one hand, first of all, He heals us by taking our spiritual sickness, our disease, whatever it may be, to Himself. That is, He does what, no doubt, every parent here has wished they could do when their own children were physically sick. Parents, when our children are physically sick, our parental love for them includes this desire to somehow take that sickness from them, even if it means I have to be sick instead. That's what Jesus Christ does. For He came into this world to be the sin bearer, to take our sicknesses upon Himself. That's what we're taught in those Old Testament sacrifices when there would be the animal that was brought forward and the priest would lay his hand upon the head of that animal. That was a symbol of the transfer of guilt, the transfer of sickness from the one who committed the sin to one that was innocent. And so it is for our Savior. Our sins were laid upon Him, and to put it in the language that we've been using throughout the sermon, that means He took upon Himself our spiritual sickness. Christ became that spiritual leper, the spiritual paralytic, and all the other ones that went along with it. And having taken our spiritual sickness, he then endured exactly what you would expect to happen to someone who had so much sickness. He died. For is that not where sickness, disease leads? Even physical sickness ultimately ends in death. You contract a certain infection. You develop a certain type of cancer. Though you may be given some time to live, the end result is going to be death. And that's all the more true for spiritual sickness. Spiritual sickness ends in death. And because Christ took upon Himself all of our sickness, that meant He had to die. And so He was led to Calvary, where He died spiritually, suffering the agonies, the torments of hell itself. He was forsaken. of the Father. He was plunged into the pit of hell. He died spiritually, and then he also died physically. For at the ninth hour, when the darkness had passed, he laid down his life. He endured the painful rending of body and soul, and then he suffered the fullness of death in that he allowed his blessed body to be laid low in the grave. Jesus died because he took upon himself our spiritual sickness. But now here's the good news. He has thereby delivered us from that death we deserve. So that for us, there is no spiritual death awaiting us on the other side of the veil when we draw our last breath. We do not have to fear the agonies, the torments of hell. And even for physical death, that's been totally changed. It's no longer a punishment against sin, but it's the passageway whereby we're brought into glory. So that on the one hand, first of all, He heals us by taking our sickness upon Himself. But His work does not stop there, because on the other hand, secondly, He heals us by giving us His own life. You see, the healing that this physician performs is not just the negative. He addresses the spiritual sickness, the disease, but there's a positive element. He gives us health. He makes us whole. He gives us soundness, life, immortality. And He does that by giving us His own life. He's able to do that because He is the resurrection and the life. He is the fountain of life. He's the source of life. And by His Spirit, He imparts that life to us, that soundness, that health. So that we who are dead, dead, not just sick, Not just ill, kind of neutral, struggling a little bit, but if we try hard enough we'll get ourselves out. No, that was not our condition. We were dead sinners. But by His Spirit, He's made us alive. He's regenerated us. And thereby given us His own life so that we have this wholeness, this soundness imparted to us. And now I can ask the question I was about to ask a moment ago. Is that not cause for hope? That's the application for us tonight. Congregation, have hope. and have hope no matter what spiritual sickness characterizes your heart and soul. What is it, child of God? What disease did you carry with you when you walked through the doors back there into this sanctuary? What sin has infected your heart Is it leprosy? Do you feel dirty on account of your sin? Overwhelmed with a sense of guilt and shame. He is willing and able to cleanse you, to wash you with his precious blood and make you clean. Is it paralysis? Are you a paralytic, unable to walk in the paths of righteousness? Struggling to live according to God's good commandments? Well, this is the physician who makes us new creatures, who restores our spiritual legs and says with an authoritative command, arise, take up your bed and walk. Is it a spiritual fever? Some burning desire? A lust? A covetousness? Well, this physician is the only one who can dispel it. He's the only one who can drive away those sinful desires. And also satisfy your soul. like the pleasures of sin cannot. Has the devil gotten a hold of you? Not in the sense that you're demon-possessed, but in the sense that you are ensnared by him. He has his grip upon you. Well, this physician is able to deliver us, to drive away the devil. and to remind us that we, as His redeemed people, now have Him as our Lord, Him as our Master. We serve Him. Have you been spiritually wounded? Has something happened to you that has caused you tremendous pain so that your heart feels damaged? Is there a hole in your heart? Well, this physician is the only one who can fill it. He's the only one that can restore those cracks, those fissures in your heart. Have hope, congregation. Hope in the physician himself, because recognize in everything that we've just said that The underlying point is that he is the remedy. Which again distinguishes him from an earthly doctor, an earthly physician. You go to some medical doctor, and the doctor does not give himself to you, but he gives you some medicine. He prescribes some therapy for you, or at best he performs a surgery upon you, but he's not giving himself to you. But with this physician, our Savior Jesus Christ, He brings healing by giving Himself to us so that He is the cure, He is the remedy. My soul needs Him. And what's so important is that He is sufficient. He is able to heal us no matter how firmly entrenched that sin may be. And that too is an important point tonight. Because no doubt for some of us, there's this nagging thought in the back of our head. This all sounds wonderful what you're preaching, but you have no idea how long that sin has been there. If I had heard this sermon five, ten years ago before it had gotten so bad, yes, maybe then he could have helped me. But I'm not so sure now. I feel like I'm hopeless. I'm helpless. There's nothing he could do for me. That sin's been there all my life long. It's this besetting sin and it will not go away. Do not doubt his power to heal. Because it does not matter how firmly entrenched that sin is, how long it's been there, and that comes out in these miracles of healing. How many times do we not read in the gospel accounts that this person came with an ailment they had 12 years, and this person came with an ailment they had 38 years, and this person, well he's had it all of his life long from the day that he was born. Teaching us that it does not matter how long that sin has been there. That does not prohibit our Savior from healing our souls. Now to be realistic, we must not expect that when we turn to Him by faith tonight, seeking health for our souls, that that means I'm going to be done with that sin. It's not how it works. It's not that I came into the sanctuary this evening as a spiritual paralytic. I look to Christ by faith. He heals my spiritual legs and now I don't really need Him anymore. That's not how it works. And it's a good thing that's not how it works. Because if that were the case, we would never go to Him again. If He healed us in an instant, and I never needed any help anymore, I would never go back to the physician. I would never return to His clinic seeking His help again. And to prevent that from happening, our Savior heals us in such a way so that we keep coming to Him. all of our days looking to Him by faith. And all of this is to say, there is hope. And hope, not just for us, but for others too. For our loved ones, For our neighbors, He is able to heal them too. That is, He's able to heal your loved one who's ensnared in some sin. You've gone to him or her, you've admonished, you've instructed, you've maybe even brought others with you, and there's still no turning. He's able to heal. applies to the family member whose left church has turned his or her back upon Christianity. Or maybe they still attend a church, but their lives make very plain that they want nothing to do with our Savior Jesus Christ. He's able to heal them. He's able to heal that loved one who has never been brought to true faith. For He opened our spiritually blind eyes. He restored our sight. He can do the same for others. And that's encouragement for elders. As you men go about your work, you bring the Word. It's not received well. Keep bringing the Word. He is able to heal. There's hope. And let that hope lead us to do two things very briefly. First, keep talking about your physician. For is that not what so many did after they were healed? These miracles of healing, there are many in which Jesus says to the person after he has healed them, do not tell others about this. But they could not contain themselves. They could not hold it back. They could not but broadcast the message, let me tell you about Jesus of Nazareth. this physician who healed me not just physically but spiritually. Let that be what comes out of our mouths. Let there be an eagerness to tell others whether it's a loved one who's ensnared in some sin or the neighbor that God places in our path. And then let your hope also secondly lead you to pray. Pray for that neighbor. Pray for your loved one. Asking God to do for them what he has done for us in compassion, healing our souls. Amen. Father in heaven, We thank thee for the glorious news of the gospel, for this glimpse into the heart of our Savior. Strengthen our faith, and by thy spirit, lead us to cast ourselves at the feet of our Savior with whatever sickness or disease there is in our hearts tonight. Hear this prayer for Christ's sake, amen. Psalter number 277. Stands at three. He freely pardons all thy sins, and he is strong to save. He heals thy sickness, soothes thy pain, and ransoms from the grave. 1 in 3. 1 in 3 of 277. Praise him as the Lord, my soul, His wondrous love proclaim. you Praise ye the Lord, ye hosts of love, in your heavenly light. And bless the Lord, ye saints below, who in his praise ye The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all. Amen.