Evening, August 17
Charles Spurgeon · Morning and Evening: Daily Readings
John 11:4
"This sickness is not unto death."
John 11:4
From our Lord's words we learn that there is a limit to sickness. Here
is an "unto" within which its ultimate end is restrained, and beyond
which it cannot go. Lazarus might pass through death, but death was not
to be the ultimatum of his sickness. In all sickness, the Lord saith to
the waves of pain, "Hitherto shall ye go, but no further." His fixed
purpose is not the destruction, but the instruction of his people.
Wisdom hangs up the thermometer at the furnace mouth, and regulates the
heat.
1. The limit is encouragingly comprehensive. The God of providence has
limited the time, manner, intensity, repetition, and effects of all our
sicknesses; each throb is decreed, each sleepless hour predestinated,
each relapse ordained, each depression of spirit foreknown, and each
sanctifying result eternally purposed. Nothing great or small escapes
the ordaining hand of him who numbers the hairs of our head.
2. This limit is wisely adjusted to our strength, to the end designed,
and to the grace apportioned. Affliction comes not at haphazard--the
weight of every stroke of the rod is accurately measured. He who made
no mistakes in balancing the clouds and meting out the heavens, commits
no errors in measuring out the ingredients which compose the medicine
of souls. We cannot suffer too much nor be relieved too late.
3. The limit is tenderly appointed. The knife of the heavenly Surgeon
never cuts deeper than is absolutely necessary. "He doth not afflict
willingly, nor grieve the children of men." A mother's heart cries,
"Spare my child;" but no mother is more compassionate than our gracious
God. When we consider how hard-mouthed we are, it is a wonder that we
are not driven with a sharper bit. The thought is full of consolation,
that he who has fixed the bounds of our habitation, has also fixed the
bounds of our tribulation.