Spurgeon: Sermons on Proverbs (47 page)

I. Let me therefore first of all try to answer the question --what is that sound spirit which will sustain a man's infirmities?

Such a spirit may be found, in a minor degree, in merely natural men. Among the Stoics there were men who bore pain and poverty and reproach without evincing the slightest feeling. Among the Romans, in their heroic days, there was one named Scoevola who thrust his right hand into the fire and suffered it to be burnt off, in order to let the
foreign tyrant know that there were Romans who did not care for pain. We have read wonderful stories of the patience and endurance of even natural men, for our text is true in that sense, "the spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity." Whatever it was that was placed upon some men, they seemed as if they carried it without a care or without a thought, so brave was their heart within them; yet if we knew more of these people, we should find that there were some points in which their natural strength failed them; for it must be so, the creature at its best estate is altogether vanity. David truly said, "God has spoken once; twice have I heard this: that power belongeth unto God;" and the strength of mind by which Christian men are able to bear their infirmities is of a higher kind than that which comes from either stoicism, or from natural sternness, or from obedience to any of the precepts of human philosophy.

The spirit which will best bear infirmities is first of all, a gracious spirit wrought in us by the Spirit of God. If thou wouldst bear thy trouble without complaining, if thou wouldst sustain thy burden without fainting, if thou wouldst mount on wings as eagles, if thou wouldst run without weariness and walk without fainting, thou must have the life of God within thee, thou must be born again, thou must be in living union with him who is the Strong One, and who, by the life which he implants within thee, can give thee of his own strength. I do not believe that anything but that which is divine will stand the wear and tear of this world's temptations, and of this world's trials and troubles.

"Mere mortal power shall fade and die,

 

And youthful vigor cease;"

but they that trust in the Lord and derive their power from him shall press forward even to victory. So then, first, if you would sustain your infirmity you must have a gracious spirit, that is, a spirit renewed by grace divine. Further, I think that a sound spirit which can sustain infirmity will be a spirit cleansed in the precious blood of Christ. "Conscience does make cowards of us all;" and it is only when conscience is pacified by the application of the blood of sprinkling that we are able to sustain our infirmities. The restful child of God will say, "What matters it if I am consumptive? What matters it if I have a broken leg? My sin is forgiven me and I am on my way to heaven; what matters anything else? Have you not sometimes felt that if you had to spend the rest of your life in a dungeon, and to live on bread and water, or to lie there as John Bunyan would have said, till the moss grew on your eyelids, yet as long as you were sure that you were cleansed from sin by the precious blood of Christ you could bear it all. For after all, what are any pains and sufferings that the whips and scourges of this mortal life can lay upon us compared with the terrors that have to be endured when sin is discerned by an awakened conscience, and the wrath of God lies heavily upon us? Believe me when I say that I would rather suffer such physical pangs as may belong to hell itself than I would endure the wrath of God in my spirit; for there is nothing that can touch the very marrow of our being like a sense of divine anger when it comes upon the soul, when God seems to dip his arrows in the lake of fire and then shoot them at us till they wound the very apple of our eye, and our whole being seems to be a mass of pain and misery. Oh, this is dreadful! But once delivered from all fear of the righteous vengeance of God, and I can sing with Dr. Watts-

"If sin be pardon'd, I'm secure;

 

Death hath no sting beside;

 

The law gives sin its damning power;

 

But Christ, my ransom, died."

Take sin away and give me a spirit washed in the fountain filled with blood, and I can patiently go through anything and everything, the Lord being my Helper.

The kind of spirit then that a man needs to sustain his infirmity is one which has been renewed by the Holy Ghost, and washed in the precious blood of Jesus.

Next it is a spirit which exercises itself daily unto a growing confidence in God. The spirit that is to sustain infirmity is not a spirit of doubt and fear and mistrust. There is no power about such a spirit as that; it is like a body without bone or sinew or muscle. Strength lieth in believing. He who can trust can work, he who can trust can suffer. The spirit that can sustain a man in his infirmity is the spirit that can say, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him; come what may, I will not doubt my God, for his word is strong and steadfast. Although my house be not so with God, yet hath he made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure." O dear sir, I am sure that if God calls you to do business in great waters, you will want the great bow or anchor with you, you will not feel safe without it. When the Lord calls you to battle with your spiritual foes you will feel the necessity of having upon you the whole armor of God, and above all you will need to take the shield of faith wherewith you shall be able to quench the fiery darts of the enemy.

So beloved, our spirit must be a renewed spirit, a blood-washed spirit, and a believing spirit, if we are to sustain our infirmity.

I must also add my belief that no spirit can so well endure sickness, loss, trial, sorrow, as a perfectly-consecrated spirit. The man who is free from all secondary motives, who lives only for God's glory, says if he is sick, "How can I glorify God upon my bed?" If he is in health he cries, "How can I glorify God in my vigor?" If he is rich he asks, "How can I glorify God with the possessions which he has put under my stewardship?" If he is poor he says, "There must be some advantage about my poverty; how can I best use it to the glory of God?" He looks to see not how he can comfort himself, but how he can most successfully fight his Master's battles. A soldier who is in the fight must not enter into business on his own account. Paul wrote to Timothy, "No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier;" and the true soldier of the cross just says, "Up hill and down dale, wet or dry, in honor or dishonor, all I have to do is to lift on high the banner of my Lord and strike down the foe; and if needful, even lay down my own life for his sake." The perfectly consecrated spirit will enable a man to sustain his infirmity; but a selfish spirit will weaken him so that he will begin to complain of this and to lament that, and will not be made "strong in the Lord and in the power of his might."

So much then about the sound spirit that can sustain infirmity; may the Lord give it to every one of us! How many of us have it? "Oh!" says one, "I think I am all right; I have a sane mind in a sane body." Ah! yes, but there is another part of you that needs sanity: you need spiritual health, and there are times that will come to you who have nothing to depend upon but your bodily and mental vigor, and then you will find you want something more. There will come a trial that will touch you in a very tender spot, and you will cry out, "Oh! what is it that I want?" You will find that there was an unguarded place in your harness, and the arrow of the adversary has pierced you to the soul. You must be born again even for the bearing of your present infirmity; even for struggling through this life you must have a new heart and a right spirit or else sometime or other you will find yourself
overthrown. "If thou hast run with the footmen and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?" What wilt thou do then if thou hast not that divinely-given spirit which will sustain thine infirmity? When the deathsweat is on thy brow thou wilt need a better handkerchief than was ever made by human hands; and if the Lord thy God be not at thy side then to wipe the scalding tears from thine eyes, what wilt thou do? What wilt thou do?

II. But now I have to answer a second question, what is a wounded spirit? "A wounded spirit who can bear?" It cannot bear its own infirmity so it becomes a load to itself, and the question is not, "What can it bear?" but "Who can bear it?" "A wounded spirit, who can bear?" What then is a wounded spirit? Well, I have known some who have talked about having a wounded spirit, but the wound has been after all a very slight affair compared with the wounds that I mean. One has been disappointed in love. That is very sad, but still it is a trial that can be endured. We have no right to love the creature so much as to make it our god or our idol. I have known some who have been disappointed in the object of their ambition, and in consequence they have had a wounded spirit. But who are you that you should not be disappointed, and what are you that you should have everything according to your mind? Surely if the Lord were to deal with you according to your sins you would have something to bear far worse than your present disappointment. As to those trials of which a person says, "Nobody ever suffered as I have done, nobody was ever treated I have been," such statements are altogether wrong. There are many others who have passed through equal or even greater trials. Do not therefore allow these things to fret you and to destroy your peace. Be not like the Spartan boy who put the fox into his bosom and carried it there, though it was gnawing at his flesh, and eating right into his heart. There are some people who are so unwise as to make earthly objects their supreme delight, and those objects become like foxes that gnaw to their soul's destruction. I will only say this about such wounded hearts as these; there is a good deal of sin mingled with the sorrow, and a great deal of pride, a great deal of creature-worship and of idolatry there. Depend upon it, if you make an idol and God loves you, he will break it. A Quaker lady once stood up to speak in a little meeting, and all that she said was "Verily, I perceive that children are idols." She did not know why she said it; but there was a mother there who had been wearing black for years after her child had been taken away; she had never forgiven her God for what he had done. Now this is an evil that is to be rebuked. I dare not comfort those whose spirits are wounded in this fashion. If they carry even their mourning too far, we must say to them, "Dear friend, is not this rebellion against God? May not this be petulance instead of patience? May there not be very much here which is not at all according to the mind of Christ?" We may sorrow and be grieved when we lose our loved ones, for we are men, but we must moderate our sorrow and bow our will to the will of the Lord, for are we not also men of God?

I will not dwell further upon that point, but there are some forms of a wounded spirit which are serious, and yet they are not quite what I am going afterwards to speak about. Some have a wounded spirit through the cruelty of men, the unkindness of children, the ingratitude of those whom they have helped, and for whom they have had such affection that they would almost have been willing to sacrifice their own lives. It is a terrible wounding when he who should have been your friend becomes your foe, and when, like your Lord, you also have your Judas Iscariot. It is not easy to bear misrepresentation and falsehood, to have your purest motives misjudged, and to be thought to be only seeking something for yourself when you have a pure desire for the good of others. This is a very painful kind of wounded spirit, but it must not be allowed to be carried too far. We should cry to God to help us bear this trial; for after all, who are we that we should not be despised? Who are we that we should not be belied? He is the wise man who expects this kind of trial, and expecting it, is not disappointed when it comes. "How"--asked one, of a person who had lived through the terrible French Revolution when almost all notable men were put to death--"how was it that you escaped?" He answered, "I made myself of no reputation, and nobody ever spoke of me, so I escaped." And I believe that, in this world, the happiest lot does not belong to those of us who are always being talked about, but to those who do not know anybody, and whom nobody knows; they can steal through the world very quietly. So do not be brokenhearted if men try to wound your spirit. When thirty years ago they abused me to the utmost, I felt that I need not care what they said, for I could hardly do anything worse than they said I had done. When you once get used to this kind of treatment--and you may as well do so for you will have plenty of it if you follow Christ--it will not trouble you, and you will be able to bear your infirmity without being much wounded by the unkindness of men.

There are others who have been very grievously wounded by sorrow. They have had affliction upon affliction, loss after loss, bereavement after bereavement. And we ought to feel those things; indeed, it is by feeling them that we get the good out of them. Still, every Christian man should cry to God for strength to bear repeated losses and bereavements if they are his portion, and he should endeavor in the strength of God not to succumb whatever his trials may be. If we do yield to temptation and begin to complain of God for permitting such things to come upon us, we shall only be kicking against the pricks and so wound ourselves all the more. Let us be submissive to the hand that wields the rod of correction, and then very soon that rod will be taken from off our backs.

There are some who have been greatly wounded no doubt, through sickness. A wounded spirit may be the result of diseases which seriously shake the nervous system. Let us be very tender with brethren and sisters who get into that condition. I have heard some say, rather unkindly, "Sister So-and-so is so nervous, we can hardly speak in her presence." Yes, but talking like that will not help her; there are many persons who have had this trying kind of nervousness greatly aggravated by the unkindness or thoughtlessness of friends. It is a real disease, it is not imaginary. Imagination no doubt contributes to it and increases it; but still, there is a reality about it. There are some forms of physical disorder in which a person lying in bed feels great pain through another person simply walking across the room. "Oh!" you say, "that is more imagination." Well, you may think so if you like, but if you are ever in that painful condition--as I have been many a time --I will warrant that you will not talk in that fashion again. "But we cannot take notice of such fancies," says one. I suppose that you would like to run a steam-roller across the room just for the sake of strengthening their nerves! But if you had the spirit of Christ you would want to walk across the room as though your foot were flakes of snow!; you would not wish to cause the poor sufferer any additional pain. I beg you, never grieve those upon whom the hand of God is lying in the form of depression of spirit, but be very tender and gentle with them. You need not encourage them in their sadness, but at the same time, let there be no roughness in dealing with them; they have many very sore places, and the hand that touches them should be soft as down.