Good Like a Medicine

“And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay.” — Mark 2:4

Faith is full of inventions. The house was full, a crowd blocked up the
door, but faith found a way of getting at the Lord and placing the
palsied man before him. If we cannot get sinners where Jesus is by
ordinary methods we must use extraordinary ones. It seems, according to
Luke 5:19, that a tiling had to be removed, which would make dust and
cause a measure of danger to those below, but where the case is very
urgent we must not mind running some risks and shocking some
proprieties. Jesus was there to heal, and therefore fall what might,
faith ventured all so that her poor paralysed charge might have his
sins forgiven. O that we had more daring faith among us! Cannot we,
dear reader, seek it this morning for ourselves and for our
fellow-workers, and will we not try to-day to perform some gallant act
for the love of souls and the glory of the Lord.

The world is constantly inventing; genius serves all the purposes of
human desire: cannot faith invent too, and reach by some new means the
outcasts who lie perishing around us? It was the presence of Jesus
which excited victorious courage in the four bearers of the palsied
man: is not the Lord among us now? Have we seen his face for ourselves
this morning? Have we felt his healing power in our own souls? If so,
then through door, through window, or through roof, let us, breaking
through all impediments, labour to bring poor souls to Jesus. All means
are good and decorous when faith and love are truly set on winning
souls. If hunger for bread can break through stone walls, surely hunger
for souls is not to be hindered in its efforts. O Lord, make us quick
to suggest methods of reaching thy poor sin-sick ones, and bold to
carry them out at all hazards.

(from today’s “Morning and Evening” reading by C.H. Spurgeon)