Sickness by J.C. Ryle

Sickness

“Lord, he whom you love is ill” John 11:3

By J.C. Ryle (1816-1900)

The chapter from which this text is taken is well known to all Bible readers.  In lifelike description, in touching interest, in sublime simplicity, there is no writing in existence that will bear comparison with that chapter. A narrative like this is to my own mind one of the great proofs of the inspiration of Scripture. When I read the story of Bethany, I feel "There is something here which the infidel can never account for." -- "This is nothing else but the finger of God."

The words which I specially dwell upon in this chapter are singularly affecting and instructive. They record the message which Martha and Mary sent to Jesus when their brother Lazarus was sick: "Lord, he whom Thou love is ill," That message was short and simple. Yet almost every word is deeply suggestive.

Mark the simple humility of their language about Lazarus. They call Him "He whom you love." They do not say, "He who loves you, believes in you, serves you," but "He whom you love." Martha and Mary were deeply taught of God.  They had learned that Christ’s love towards us, and not our love towards Christ, is the true ground of expectation, and true foundation of hope.  To look inward to our love towards Christ is painfully unsatisfying: to look outward to Christ’s love towards us is peace.

Mark the touching circumstance which the message of Martha and Mary reveals: "He whom you love is ill." Lazarus was a good man, converted, believing, renewed, sanctified, a friend of Christ, and an heir of glory. And yet Lazarus was sick!  Then sickness is no sign that God is displeased.  Sickness is intended to be a blessing to us, and not a curse. "All things work together for good to them that love God, and are called according to His purpose." "All things are yours,--life, death, things present, or things to come: for ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s." (Rom. 8:28; 1 Cor. 3:22-23). Blessed, I say again, are they that have learned this!  Happy are they who can say, when they are ill, "This is my Father’s doing. It must be well."

I invite the attention of my readers to the subject of sickness. The subject is one which we ought frequently to look in the face. We cannot avoid it. It needs no prophet’s eye to see sickness coming to each of us in turn one day. "In the midst of life we are in death." Let us turn aside for a few moments, and consider sickness as Christians. The consideration will not hasten its coming, and by God’s blessing may teach us wisdom.

In considering the subject of sickness, three points appear to me to demand attention. On each I shall say a few words.

I. The universal prevalence of sickness and disease.

II. The general benefits which sickness confers on mankind.

III. The special duties to which sickness calls us.

I. The Universal Prevalence Of Sickness.

I need not dwell long on this point. To elaborate the proof of it would only be multiplying truisms, and heaping up common-places which all allow.

Sickness is everywhere. In Europe, in Asia, in Africa, in America; in hot countries and in cold, in civilized nations and in savage tribes,–men, women, and children sicken and die.

Sickness is among all classes. Grace does not lift a believer above the reach of it. Riches will not buy exemption from it. Rank cannot prevent its assaults. Kings and their subjects, masters and servants, rich men and poor, learned and unlearned, teachers and scholars, doctors and patients, ministers and hearers, all alike go down before this great foe. "The rich man’s wealth is his strong city." (Prov. 18:11.) The Englishman’s house is called his castle; but there are no doors and bars which can keep out disease and death.

Sickness is not preventable by anything that man can do. The average duration of life may doubtless be somewhat lengthened. The skill of doctors may continually discover new remedies, and effect surprising cures. The enforcement of wise sanitary regulations may greatly lower the death rate in a land.  But, after all, whether in healthy or unhealthy localities,--whether in mild climates or in cold,--whether treated by native medicine or mainstream medicine, men will sicken and die.  The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.(Psalm 90:10.) That witness is indeed true. It was true 3300 years ago. It is true still.

The universal prevalence of sickness is one of the indirect evidences that the Bible is true. The Bible explains it. The Bible answers the questions about it which will arise in every inquiring mind. No other systems of religion can do this. They all fail here. They are silent. They are confounded. The Bible alone looks the subject in the face. It boldly proclaims the fact that man is a fallen creature, and with equal boldness proclaims a vast remedial system to meet his wants. I feel shut up to the conclusion that the Bible is from God. Christianity is a revelation from heaven. "your word is truth." (John 17:17.)

II.  The General Benefits Which Sickness Confers On Mankind.

I use that word "benefits" advisedly. I feel it of deep importance to see this part of our subject clearly. I know well that sickness is one of the supposed weak points in God’s government of the world, on which skeptical minds love to dwell. "Can God be a God of love, when He allows pain? Can God be a God of mercy, when He permits disease? He might prevent pain and disease; but He does not. How can these things be?" Such is the reasoning which often comes across the heart of man.

I know the suffering and pain which sickness entails. I admit the misery and wretchedness which it often brings in its train. But I cannot regard it as an unmixed evil. I see in it a wise permission of God. I see in it a useful provision to check the ravages of sin and the devil among men’s souls. If man had never sinned I should have been at a loss to discern the benefit of sickness. But since sin is in the world, I can see that sickness is a good. It is a blessing quite as much as a curse. It is a rough schoolmaster, I grant. But it is a real friend to man’s soul.

(a) Sickness helps to remind men of death. The most live as if they were never going to die. They follow business, or pleasure, or politics, or science, as if earth was their eternal home. They plan and scheme for the future, like the rich fool in the parable, as if they had a long lease of life, and were not tenants at will. A heavy illness sometimes goes far to dispel these delusions. It awakens men from their day –dreams, and reminds them that they have to die as well as to live. Now this I say emphatically is a mighty good.

(b) Sickness helps to make men think seriously of God, and their souls, and the world to come. The most in their days of health can find no time for such thoughts. They dislike them. They put them away. They count them troublesome and disagreeable. Now a severe disease has sometimes a wonderful power of mustering and rallying these thoughts, and bringing them up before the eyes of a man’s soul. Even a wicked king like Ben Hadad, when sick, could think of Elisha (2 Kings 8:8.) Even heathen sailors, when death was in sight, were afraid, and "cried every man to his god." (Jonah 1:5.) Surely anything that helps to make men think is a good.

(C) Sickness helps to soften men's hearts, and teach them wisdom. The natural heart is as hard as a stone. It can see no good in anything which is not of this life, and no happiness excepting in this world. A long illness sometimes goes far to correct these ideas. It exposes the emptiness and hollowness of what the world calls "good" things, and teaches us to hold them with a loose hand. The man of business finds that money alone is not everything the heart requires. The woman of the world finds that costly apparel, and novel-reading, and the reports of balls and operas, are miserable comforters in a sick room. Surely anything that obliges us to alter our weights and measures of earthly things is a real good.

(d) Sickness helps to level and humble us. We are all naturally proud and high–minded. Few, even of the poorest, are free from the infection. Few are to be found who do not look down on somebody else, and secretly flatter themselves that they are "not like other people." A sick bed is a mighty tamer of such thoughts as these. It forces on us the mighty truth that we are all poor worms, that we "dwell in houses of clay," and are "crushed more readily than a moth." (Job 4:19), and that kings and subjects, masters and servants, rich and poor, are all dying creatures, and will soon stand side by side at the bar of God.  In the sight of the coffin and the grave it is not easy to be proud. Surely anything that teaches that lesson is good.

(e) Finally, sickness helps to test men’s religion, of what kind it is. There are not many on earth who have no religion at all. Yet few have a religion that will bear inspection. Most are content with traditions received from their fathers, and can render no reason of the hope that is in them. Now disease is sometimes most useful to a man in exposing the utter worthlessness of his soul’s foundation. It often shows him that he has nothing solid under his feet, and nothing firm under his hand. It makes him find out that, although he may have had a form of religion, he has been all his life worshipping "an unknown God." Many a creed looks well on the smooth waters of health, which turns out utterly unsound and useless on the rough waves of the sick bed. The storms of winter often bring out the defects in a man’s dwelling, and sickness often exposes the gracelessness of a man’s soul. Surely anything that makes us find out the real character of our faith is a good.

I believe that in our own land sickness is one of the greatest aids to the minister of the Gospel, and that sermons and counsels are often brought home in the day of disease which we have neglected in the day of health. I believe that sickness is one of God’s most important subordinate instruments in the saving of men, and that though the feelings it calls forth are often temporary, it is also often a means whereby the Spirit works effectually on the heart. In short, I believe firmly that the sickness of men’s bodies has often led, in God’s wonderful providence, to the salvation of men’s souls.

We have no right to murmur at sickness, and repine at its presence in the world. We ought rather to thank God for it. It is God’s witness. It is the soul’s adviser. It is an awakener to the conscience. It is a purifier to the heart. Surely I have a right to tell you that sickness is a blessing and not a curse, –a help and not an injury, –a gain and not a loss,–a friend and not a foe to mankind. So long as we have a world wherein there is sin, it is a mercy that it is a world wherein there is sickness.

III.  The Special Duties Which The Prevalence Of Sickness Calls Us.

I should be remiss to leave the subject of sickness without saying something on this point. I hold it to be of utmost importance not to be content with generalities in delivering God’s message to souls. I am anxious to impress on each one into whose hands this paper may fall, his own personal responsibility in connection with the subject. In no way would I want anyone to finish this paper without being able to answer the questions, "What practical lesson have I learned?  In a world of disease and death, what ought I to do?"

(a) The prevalence of sickness calls us to always live in such a way that we are prepared to meet God. Sickness brings to the forefront of our minds the reality of death. Death is the door through which we must all pass to judgment. Judgment is the time when we must at last see God face to face. Surely the first lesson which the inhabitant of a sick and dying world should learn should be to prepare to meet his or her God.

I believe that this, and nothing less than this, is preparedness to meet God. Pardon of sin and equipped to be in God’s presence, justification by faith and sanctification of the heart, the blood of Christ sprinkled on us, and the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us, these are the grand essentials of the Christian religion. These are no mere words and names to furnish bones of contention for wrangling theologians. These are sober, solid, substantial realities. To live in the actual possession of these things, in a world full of sickness and death, is the first duty which I press home upon your soul.

(b) The prevalence of sickness calls us to live in such a way that we will always bear it patiently. Sickness is no doubt a trying thing to flesh and blood. To feel our nerves unstrung, and our natural strength declining, to be obliged to sit still and be cut off from all our usual avocations, to see our plans broken off and our purposes disappointed,–to endure long hours, and days, and nights of weariness and pain,–all this is a severe strain on sinful human nature. No wonder irritability and  impatience are brought out by disease! Surely in such a dying world as this we should study patience.

c) The prevalence of sickness calls us to always be ready to feel with and help our fellow human beings.   Sickness is never very far from us.  Few are the families who have not some sick relative. Few are the parishes where you will not find some one ill. But wherever there is sickness, there is a call to duty.  A little timely assistance in some cases, a kindly visit in others, a friendly inquiry, a mere expression of compassion, may do a vast good. These are the sort of things which soften rough edges, and bring men together, and promote good feelings. These are ways by which you may ultimately lead people to Christ and save their souls. These are good deeds to which every professing Christian should be ready to do. In a world full of sickness and disease we ought to "carry each other’s burdens,"   "and be kind and compassionate to one another." (Gal. 6:2; Eph. 4:32.)

These little acts of brotherly-kindness are one of the clearest evidences of having "the mind of Christ." They are acts in which our blessed Master Himself was abundant.  He was ever "going about doing good" to the sick and sorrowful. (Acts 10:38.) They are acts to which He attaches great importance in that most solemn passage of Scripture, the description of the last judgment. He says there: "I was sick, and you visited Me." (Matt. 25:36.)

Practical Application

And now I conclude all with four words of practical application. I want the subject of this paper to be turned to some spiritual use. My heart’s desire and prayer to God in placing it in this volume is to do good to souls.

(1) What will you do when you are ill?  

As God’s ambassador I direct a question to all who read this paper, and urge them to pay serious attention to it.   It is a question which grows naturally out of the subject on which I have been writing. It is a question which concerns all, of every rank, and class, and condition. I ask you, What will you do when you are ill?  The time must come when you, as well as others, must go down the dark valley of the shadow of death. The hour must come when you, like all your ancestors, must become sick and die. The time may be near or far off.  God only knows. But whenever the time may be, I ask again, What are you going to do? Where will you turn for comfort?  On what will you rest your soul? Where will you find your solace?

I repeat the question. I am sure it deserves an answer. "What will you do when you are ill?"  If you were going to live for ever in this world I would not address you as I do. But it cannot be.  There is no escaping the common lot of all mankind. Nobody can die in our stead. The day must come when we must each go to our long home.  Against that day I want you to be prepared.

(2) Acquaint yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ without delay. Repent, be converted, flee to Christ, and be saved.

I offer counsel to all who feel they need it and are willing to take it, to all who feel they are not yet prepared to meet God. That counsel is short and simple. Acquaint yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ without delay. Repent, be converted, flee to Christ, and be saved.

Either you have a soul or you have not. You will surely never deny that you have. Then if you have a soul, seek that soul’s salvation. Of all gambling in the world, there is none so reckless as that of the man who lives unprepared to meet God, and yet puts off repentance.  Either you have sins or you have not. If you have (and who dares to deny it?), let go of those sins, throw away your transgressions, and turn away from them without delay. –Either you need a Savior or you do not. If you do, flee to the only Savior this very day, and cry mightily to Him to save your soul.

Beware, I beseech you, of a vague and indefinite Christianity. Be not content with a general hope that all is right because you belong to the old Church of England, and that all will be well at last because God is merciful. Rest not, rest not without personal union with Christ Himself. Rest not, rest not till you have the witness of the Spirit in your heart, that you are washed, and sanctified, and justified, and one with Christ, and Christ in you. Rest not till you can say with the apostle, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him against that day." (2 Tim. 1:12.)

Vague, indefinite, and indistinct religion may do very well in time of health. It will never do in the day of sickness. A mere formal, perfunctory Church membership may carry a man through the sunshine of youth and prosperity. It will break down entirely when death is in sight.  Nothing will do then but real heart union with Christ. Christ interceding for us at God’s right hand, Christ known and believed as our Priest, our Physician, our Friend, Christ alone can rob death of its sting and enable us to face sickness without fear.  He alone can deliver those who through fear of death are in bondage.  I say to every one who wants advice, Be acquainted with Christ. As ever you would have hope and comfort on the bed of sickness, be acquainted with Christ.  Seek Christ.  Draw near to Christ.

 (3)Be willing to lie quietly in God's hand when they are ill.

I exhort all true Christians who read this paper to remember how much they may glorify God in the time of sickness, and to be willing to lie quietly in God's hand when they are ill.

I feel it very important to touch on this point. I know how ready the heart of a believer is to faint, and how busy Satan is in suggesting doubts and questionings, when the body of a Christian is weak.  I have seen something of the depression and melancholy which sometimes comes upon the children of God when they are suddenly laid aside by disease.

I earnestly urge all sick believers to remember that they may honor God as much by patient suffering as they can by active work. It often shows more grace to sit still than it does to go to and fro, and perform great exploits.  I beg them to remember that Christ cares for them as much when they are sick as He does when they are well, and that the very admonishing they feel so acutely is sent in love, and not in anger.  Above all, I entreat them to recollect the sympathy of Jesus for all His weak members. They are always tenderly cared for by Him, but never so much as in their time of need.  Christ has had great experience of sickness. He knows the heart of a sick man.  He used to see "every disease and sickness" (Matthew 10:1) when He was on earth.  He was drawn especially to the sick in the days of His flesh. He feels a special bond to them today. Sickness and suffering, I often think, make believers more like their Lord in experience, than health. "He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases." (Matt. 8:17.)  The Lord Jesus was a "Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3.)  None have such an opportunity of learning the mind of a suffering Savior as suffering disciples.

(4) Keep up a habit of close communion with Christ, and never to be afraid of "going too far" in your religion.

I conclude with a word of exhortation to all believers, which I heartily pray God to impress upon their souls. I exhort you to keep up a habit of close communion with Christ, and never to be afraid of "going too far" in your religion. Remember this, if you wish to have "great peace" in your times of sickness.

If you and I want to be “greatly encouraged" in our time of need, we must not be content with a bare union with Christ. (Heb. 6:18.)  We must seek to know something of heart-felt, experimental communion with Him. Never, never let us forget, that "union" is one thing, and "communion" another.  Thousands, I fear, who know what "union" with Christ is, know nothing of "communion."

The day may come when after a long fight with disease, we shall feel that medicine can do no more, and that nothing remains but to die.  Friends will be standing by, unable to help us. Hearing, eyesight, even the power of praying, will be fast failing us. The world and its shadows will be melting beneath our feet. Eternity, with its realities, will be looming large before our minds. What shall support us in that trying hour? What shall enable us to feel, "I fear no evil"? (Psalm 23:4.) Nothing, nothing can do it but close communion with Christ. Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith, Christ putting His right arm under our heads, Christ felt to be sitting by our side, Christ can alone give us the complete victory in the last struggle.

Let us cleave to Christ more closely, love Him more heartily, live to Him more thoroughly, copy Him more exactly, confess Him more boldly, follow Him more fully. Religion like this will always bring its own reward. Worldly people may laugh at it. Weak brethren may think it extreme. But it will wear well. At evening comes it will bring us light. In sickness it will bring us peace. In the world to come it will give us a crown of glory that will never fade away.

In the meantime let us live the life of faith in the Son of God. Let us lean all our weight on Christ, and rejoice in the thought that He lives for evermore. Yes, blessed be God!  Christ lives, though we may die. Christ lives, though friends and families are carried to the grave.  He lives who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10).  He lives who said, "I will deliver this people from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death." (Hosea 13:14.)  He lives who will one day “transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body” (Philippians 3:21). In sickness and in health, in life and in death, let us lean confidently on Him.  Surely we ought to say daily with one of old, "Blessed be God for Jesus Christ!"