Note how the Psalmist begins. He begins with iniquity. Where else could a sinful man begin ? The most needful of all things for a sinful man is to get rid of his sirf."! So the Psalmist begins here. This beginning is not peculiar to him, it is the common note of the Bible. In fact, we here come across one of the distinctive peculiarities of the Bible. We may read other literatures and never come across the notion of sin in them. Crimes, blunders, mistakes, miseries enough one may find, but sin as estrangement from a holy personal God who loves man and would serve him one never finds. But in the Bible we are face to face with sin from first to last. One chapter and a bit of another are given to the story of the making of the world and the making of man, and then the story of the entrance of sin is told, and the reader is kept face to face with sin in every part of it. In the gospel story we read at the outset : " Thou shalt call his name Jesus : for he shall save his people from their sins " ; and in John almost the first word about Him is, " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." It is characteristic of the Bible to keep its reader face to face with sin and its consequences, till he is stirred up to the effort to get rid of it.
^ Sometimes in business a man will say : " There is a limit to everything. I have trusted such an one, and he has deceived me. I have forgiven him much, but now he has crossed the score, and I will ha\"e no more dealings with him." But it is only when men, in their own estimation, have got over that score that the heavenly business begins. Some minister comes from somewhere, to preach some day, and preaches the forgiveness of sins, and that is the becrinning of the business; and at length the man finds Heaven for himself, and can say: "He forgiveth all mine iniquities." ^
» James Ivcia<:h, The Other Side of Gfreatness, 121. ' A. Whyto.
PSALM cm. 1-5 293
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Healing-.
"Who healeth all thy diseases."
Once a prophet said, " From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it ; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores." When we read these words, we are inclined to say they are Oriental figures of speech, exaggerated metaphors. If our spiritual vision were as keen as that of the prophet, we should find that he was speaking what he knew. Sin then makes disease, and God's relation to disease is described as that of healing. In the Scriptures this relation is described so fully that it gives a distinctive name for God — Jehovah the Healer. He not only forgives sin, He also so deals with the results of sin that He removes every trace of sin. He heals all our diseases.
^ The nineteenth century produced three famous persons in this country who contributed more than any of their contem- poraries to the relief of human suffering in disease : Simpson, the introducer of chloroform ; Lister, the • inventor of antiseptic surgery ; and Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing. The second of the gi^eat discoveries completed the beneficent work of the first. The third development — the creation of nursing as a trained profession — has co-operated powerfully with the other two, and would have been beneficent even if the use of ansesthetics and antiseptics had not been discovered. The contribution of Florence Xightingale to the healing art was less than that of either Simpson or Lister ; but perhaps, from its wider range, it has saved as many lives, and relieved as much, if not so acute, suffering as either of the other two.^
iii
Redemption.
"Who redeemeth thy life from destruction."
That is, God preserves the life that He saves. Here is first a life forfeited. That life is then saved by forgiveness. Then there is a life imperilled by disease, and saved by God's healing. But that Ufe is in a thousand dangers. Many seek after the
^ Sir Edward Cook, The Life of Florence Nigfdingule, i. 439.
294 ALL HIS BENEFITS
young child — the Christ within us — to destroy it. But God "redeemeth thy life from destruction." How often God has saved some of us from impending ruin, He alone knows.
^^ In my native town of Stirling workmen were blasting the castle rock near where it abuts upon a wall that lies open to the street. The train was laid and lit, and an explosion was momentarily expected. Suddenly, trotting round the great wall of cliff, came a little child going straight to where the match burned. The men shouted. That was mercy. But by their very shouting they alarmed and bewildered the poor little thing. By this time the mother also had come round. In a moment she saw the danger, opened wide her arms, and cried from her very heart, " Come to me, my darling." That was tender mercy ; and instantly, with eager, pattering feet, the little thing ran back and away, and stopped not until she was clasped in her mother's bosom. Not a moment too soon, as the roar of the shattered