From J. C. Philpot's Daily Portions
October 4 "I will bind up the injured and strengthen the sick."
Ezekiel 34:16 Peculiar maladies require peculiar remedies; but here is
a general remedy, a family medicine. The Lord not only has strong remedies
for desperate diseases; but in the divine medicine chest he has his
restoratives and cordials. "Strengthen me with raisins, refresh me with
apples," cries the Bride, "for I am faint with love." She was in a swoon,
and needed a reviving cordial to restore her. So a poor fainting soul may
come to hear the preached gospel, or may open his Bible, and say, "What is
here for me? When I hear any deep experience described, that seems to cut me
off as too deep; and when I hear great manifestations entered into, that
cuts me off as too high. So I seem to be a strange being, a peculiar
out-of-the-way creature, that can neither dive nor fly, sink nor rise." Well, you are sick; you are like one in a hospital, ill
of a malady that puzzles all the doctors. At last, one more skillful than
his brethren, says, "There is no peculiar disease. But the man, like many of
our London patients, is suffering from lack of nourishment, dying from sheer
exhaustion. He needs better blood put into him. He must have some good food
and wine, and a nourishing diet to recruit his strength and put new life
into his body." Thus acts the great Physician--Jehovah-rophi. "I will
strengthen the sick." The blood and righteousness of Jesus--that flesh which
is food indeed, and that blood which is drink indeed, is given to the
hunger-bitten wretch to revive him as with a heavenly cordial. There is balm in Gilead; there is a Physician there; to
that balm and to that physician sin-sick souls seek. If you have a real
case, you may depend upon it, there is a remedy in the family medicine
chest. It is not found out yet, at least you may not have found it, but
there is a drawer, and in that drawer there is a draught devised by infinite
wisdom and compounded by everlasting love. It is indeed a remedy such as no
learned physician of the school of the pharisees ever prescribed, or an
apothecary wise in his own conceit ever compounded; but yet the very thing,
the very thing. And when that drawer is opened and the draught brought out,
and you take it, you will be able to say with David in the joy of your
heart, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy
name."