May 14
SURGERY FOR HEALING
"Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he
will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up Hosea 6:1
It is the Lord's way to tear before He heals. This is the honest
love of His heart, and the sure surgery of His hand. He also bruises
before He binds up, or else it would be uncertain work. The law comes
before the gospel; the sense of need before the supply of it. Is the
reader now under the convincing, crushing hand of the Spirit? Has he
received the spirit of bondage again to fear? This is a salutary
preliminary to real gospel healing and binding up.
Do not despair, dear heart, but come to the Lord with all thy
jagged wounds, black bruises, and running sores. He alone can heal,
and He delights to do it. It is our Lord's office to bind up the
brokenhearted, and He is gloriously at home at it. Let us not linger,
but at once return unto the Lord from whom we have gone astray. Let us
show Him our gaping wounds, and beseech Him to know His own work, and
complete it. Will a surgeon make an incision, and then leave his
patient to bleed to death? Will the Lord pull down our old house, and
then refuse to build us a better one? Dost thou ever wantonly increase
the misery of poor anxious souls? That be far from thee, O Lord.