Some years ago, a lady who tells the story herself, went to consult a famous physician about her health. She was a woman of nervous temperament, whose troubles-and she had many-had worried and excited her to such a pitch, that the strain threatened her physical strength, and even her reason. She gave the doctor a list of her symptoms, and answered the questions, only to be astonished at this brief prescription at the end: "Madam, what you need is to read your Bible more."
"But doctor!" began the bewildered patient,
"Go home and read your Bible an hour a day," the great man reiterated with kindly authority. "Then come back to me a month from today." And he bowed her out, without a possibility of further protest.
At first his patient was inclined to be angry. Then she reflected that, at least, the prescription was not an expensive one. Besides, it certainly had been a long time since she had read the Bible regularly, she reflected, with a pang of conscience. Worldly cares had crowded out prayer and Bible study for years; and, though she would have resented being called an irreligious woman, she had undoubtedly become a most careless Christian. She went home and set herself conscientiously to try the physician's remedy.
In one month she went back to his office. "Well," he said, smiling as he looked at her face, "I see you are an obedient patient, and have taken my prescription faithfully. Do you feel as if you need any other medicine now?"
"No, doctor, I don't," she said honestly. "I feel like a different person. But how did you know that was just what I needed?"
For answer, the famous physician turned to his desk. There, worn and marked, lay an open Bible.
"Madam," he said, with deep earnestness, "if I were to omit my daily reading of this Book, I should lose my greatest source of strength and skill. I never go to an operation without reading my Bible. I never attend a distressing case without finding help in its pages. Your case called not for medicine, but for sources of peace, and strength, and comfort outside your own mind; and I showed you my own prescription, and I knew it would cure."
"Yet I confess, doctor," said his patient, "that I came very near not taking it."
"Very few are willing to try it, I find," said the physician, smiling again. "But there are many, many cases in my practice, where it would work wonders if they only would take it.
The doctor died some years ago, but his prescription still remains.
It is true that "earth hath no sorrow that heaven cannot heal." Only, we have to get in touch with heaven for the healing. That "touch" is not infrequently gotten through the pages of God's Word. There we find both comfort and cure. "Attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings,... for they are life unto those that find them, and health [medicine, margin] to all their flesh." Prov. 4:20-2220My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. 21Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. 22For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh. (Proverbs 4:20‑22).
It comforts us to know that He always has some high and holy PURPOSE in all our pressure and our pain. Into all the details of His plans and purposes concerning us, we are not permitted to enter. We are, however, privileged to know that the path by which He leads us, ever is for our perfection and His praise.
"The thought that comforts more than all,
And keeps my heart at rest,
Is this: that nothing comes to me,
But what My Lord sees best."
What a blessed consummation! Is it not worth any cost? Surely it comforts us to know that, though the furnace fires through which we pass are fierce, they are refining us. When the divine work is done, when the "dross" and "tin" (Isa. 1:2525And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin: (Isaiah 1:25)) have been purged away, we shall be "like Him." In that day we shall have "beauty for ashes" (Isa. 61:33To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified. (Isaiah 61:3)).
Nor is that all. For even here and now He has in view for us "some better thing," through all our trials and our tears. "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation [distress], that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." 2 Cor. 1:3, 43Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; 4Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. (2 Corinthians 1:3‑4).
This is His purpose. This is our privilege. How could it possibly be ours but by the process which He takes?
So, we are comforted! And so He fits us, and finds in us His channels to convey to the disconsolate, the distressed, and the "cast down" hearts of men, "The God of all comfort" Himself (2 Cor. 1:33Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; (2 Corinthians 1:3)), and the Christ who "comfort[s] all that mourn" (Isa. 61:22To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; (Isaiah 61:2)).
Surely we shall welcome-at least we shall not shrink from-"the cross," or trial, that brings to ourselves this real experience of the Comforter and His blessings, and makes Him real to others through us.
"I will not, I dare not to falter;
And He who is wise and true
Has promised Himself to be with me,
Until I am safely through.
"Passed through to the light and the gladness,
Passed through to a radiance rare;
Passed through all my own selfish sadness,
The sadness of others to share."
house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." John 14:1313And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. (John 14:13). This is the consoling prospect-the "blessed hope"-of every blood-bought child of God, and it may be realized today.
Think what it means! More certain than the coming of another day, for us, is the coming of "the bridegroom" of our souls. "If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent [go before] them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." 1 Thess. 4:14-1814For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. 15For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. 16For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 18Wherefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:14‑18).
Then earth for us, with all its troubles and its tears, its sin and sorrow, its sickness and its pain, will be forever past. Then "We shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" (1 Cor. 15:51, 5251Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. (1 Corinthians 15:51‑52)).
Then -
"No toiling yonder, and no weariness,
No disappointments and no more distress;
The future bright, the past all understood,
We'll see that all the way He led was good.
"No parting yonder, and no sad goodbyes,
No pain, no sickness, and no weeping eyes;
But, best of all, my Savior I shall see,
No cloud will come between my Lord and me."
Surely then, with such wealth of comfort from and about the past-in the present, and for the future-freely, fully, and for all who need-we cannot but say:
"This hath He done, and shall we not adore Him? This shall He do, and can we still despair? Come, let us quickly fling ourselves before Him, Cast at His feet the burden of our care."
"There is a balm for every pain,
A medicine for all sorrow,
The eye turned backward to the cross,
And forward to the morrow.
The morrow of the glory and the psalm
When He shall come;
The morrow of the reaping and the palm,
The welcome home.
Meantime, in His beloved hands our ways,
And on His heart the wandering heart at rest,
AND COMFORT for the weary one who lays
His head upon His breast."