The Great Physician

(Matthew 15:29-31)

            After Jesus had begun His public ministry, after He had been baptized by John in the Jordan River, after John had been imprisoned (Lk. 3:20), Luke 4:14-15 says,

And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and a fame went out concerning him through all the region round about. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all.

Then He returned to His hometown of Nazareth, the place where He had been raised from the time He returned from Egypt with Joseph and Mary until He was 30 years old (Lk. 3:23), the place where He had been known for many years as a carpenter and the son of a carpenter (Mk. 6:3; Mt. 13:55). They knew who the half-brothers and half-sisters of Jesus were, the children of Joseph and Mary after the miraculous virgin birth of Jesus. He went back to that town and those people and made an open declaration of who He was—He was the Messiah, the anointed One, He was the Christ. They didn’t believe Him, though, because of their familiarity with Him and His humanity. He went on to say, “no prophet is acceptable in his own country” (Lk. 4:24). What I really want us to look at about all of this, though, is the prophetic passage that He used from the Old Testament book of Isaiah to identify Himself as the prophesied Messiah to those people. Luke 4:15-21 says,

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and he entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And he opened the book, and found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor: He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovering of sight to the blind, To set at liberty them that are bruised, To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down: and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, To-day hath this scripture been fulfilled in your ears.

He had been anointed by the Holy Spirit for the purpose of preaching “good tidings [or good news] to the poor”, the poor in spirit, the down trodden; to set the captive free; and to give sight to the blind. Just as the priests of the Mosaic dispensation went out blowing on their trumpets and proclaiming the year of Jubilee, Christ went out proclaiming the spiritual freedom and healing that was to be had in Him! Were any under the bondage of sin, He could set him free! Were any spiritually lost and unable to find their way, He could give him sight! Those things are still true today. Jesus can help if we will accept His invitation to come to Him in humble obedience. If we will turn from a life of sin and follow Him, confessing our faith in Him and being baptized for the remission of our sins, we will “find rest unto our souls” (Mt. 11:29). Not only was Jesus the Christ, but with that passage from Isaiah, He had described the ministry for which He alone had been anointed, and one which He alone could fulfill.

            In this lesson, we are going to be focusing on one part of that ministry. I want to look at Jesus Christ as the Great Physician. Will you turn in your Bibles with me to Matthew 15:29-31? It says there,

And Jesus departed thence, and came nigh unto the Sea of Galilee; and he went up into the mountain, and sat there. And there came unto him great multitudes, having with them the lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and they cast them down at this feet; and he healed them: insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb speaking, the maimed whole, and lame walking, and the blind seeing: and they glorified the God of Israel.

            The first thing I would like to point out from this passage is…

(I) The Position of the Healer

It says that He went up on a mountain and sat down there, where “great multitudes” came to Him and “he healed them.” Now, I am not saying that there is anything symbolic about that at all. All it is saying is that this is what happened, it is simply telling us what He did, but what a comparison we could make between Jesus going up on that mountain on the shores of the Sea of Galilee and the multitudes coming to Him for healing, and where He now sits on the right hand of God in heaven! After He had completed all that He had come to this earth to do, God

Raised him from the dead, and made him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and he put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all. (Eph. 1:23)

He has gone up into to top of mount Zion and sat down where the multitudes from every nation come to Him for spiritual healing (cf. Heb. 12:22-24).

            Just as He once sat on that mountain in Galilee, He now sits at the right hand of God, waiting to be gracious. There He sits before God as the only hope and health for a perishing world. There sits the great physician waiting and willing, wanting to make us whole again. Whosoever will may come, all are welcome; and no one who will be obedient to Him, will be turned away! He will be our Savior, Redeemer, spiritual Older Brother, friend, King, and He can take a life that has become a spiritual train wreck and piece it back together again, but, it is not without any cost on our part. “For which of you, desiring to build a tower, doth not first sit down and count the cost, whether he have wherewith to complete it?” (Lk. 14:28). There is a cost of discipleship. “So therefore whosoever he be of you that renounceth not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple” (Lk. 14:33).

“Whosoever” may require a whole lot of “whatsoever it takes” to get to the top of that mountain! Jesus has paid the dept that no man could pay when He died on that cross. Jesus has already paid the price for our sin and He pleads with mankind, He has gone up and sat down on the right hand of God wanting us to come to Him so that we might be healed through the cleansing power of His blood, but it is up to each one of us to accept the price of following Him.

And he said unto all, If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever would save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it” (Lk. 9:23-24).

As I prayed in a prayer I learned as a small child, “God is great, and God is good…” He has provided a way of redemption for mankind, but He has never freed man from his obligation to faithfully serve Him. He has gone up and sat down and says “come.”

(II) The Multitudes Went Up to Him

            There is no other place that man can go to be made spiritually whole, but to Christ. In John 6:66-69 it says,

Upon this many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Jesus said therefore unto the twelve, Would ye also go away? Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed and know that thou art the Holy One of God. (Jn. 6:66-69)

The answer to Peter’s question should be obvious to us, there’s no other place to go. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by me” (Jn. 14:6). “And in none other is there salvation: for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). If we want to be free of sin and its effects upon mankind, spiritually, then there is only one place were we can go; we must go to Jesus Christ.

            Not only did those people know to whom they needed to go there in Matthew 15, but also they combined that knowledge with action. It is one thing to know what we need to do, but it is another thing altogether to do what we know is right. Those people knew that the One who had the power to heal them was up on that mountain. If they could just get the lame and injured up to Him, He could heal them.

            How difficult must that have been for them, I wonder? In verse 32, it says that they “continued with Him” for three days without food. That alone would have been a great difficulty for me! It wouldn’t matter if I had and R.V. out there at the foot of the mountain, 3 days is a long time without food. In fact, if we were to read a little bit further, we would see that Jesus was afraid to send them away without feeding them for fear that they might pass out on the way back.

            Add to that the fact that they didn’t have any R.V.s, no cars, no buses, just their own two feet and maybe, maybe, if they were fortunate, a donkey to ride on. So they’ve followed Jesus out into the wilderness to this mountain, they’ve been there three days, and there are with them the lame, maimed, and many others. How much more difficult would it have been for those people? But, I wonder, in spite of the difficulties, if we were to ask one of those people that were healed there by Jesus if it was all worth it, what do you think they would say? “Absolutely!” There would be no question about it. What would you think if you were unable to walk, unable to speak, or something else equally as debilitating and all at once Jesus made you completely well again? You couldn’t put a price tag on that. Sure, I’ll go hungry for a few days. Yes, I’ll follow Him out into the wilderness, and I’ll find some way to get up the mountain to where Jesus is so that I can walk again. Well, if that’s true of physical illnesses, then what about spiritual ones?

            It is going to take some effort to get up that mountain, but I guarantee you, when that last day comes, if we could ask one of those who had received that crown of life if it was worth it, every single one that we asked would all at once and without the slightest hesitation say, “you’d better believe it!” By all means, walk, run, crawl, limp, do whatever it takes to get up that mountain, there is not effort that is too great to finally make it there to the feet of Christ so that He can make you whole again!

(III) The Character of the Healed

            Who was it that was healed by Jesus, those who were well? No! The “lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others” it says there in Matthew 15:30. Those who are sick need to be made well again, not those who are already well.

But their scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners? And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. (Lk. 5:30-32)

Who are the spiritually sick? Sinners! Sinners are in need of Christ and it is them that Jesus has called to repentance. We all need Christ because we have all “sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” but, not everyone realizes that they are sick. Jesus wasn’t saying that those Pharisees didn’t need Him, they did. The difference was in their thinking. Those Pharisees weren’t looking for a Physician because as far as their thinking was concerned, they were already well. Before a person can repent, he has to first realize that he is sick. Before a person today will go looking for the solution for the sin in his life, he must first realize what sin is and what it is doing to him and his relationship with God and be seeking a solution.

            There are so many that are spiritually crippled in one way or another and they are in need of being made whole again, but they don’t realize what kind of shape they are in and as a result, they are not looking for a solution. “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” (2 Cor. 13:5). Who was he talking to there? He was talking to Christians. Those who are out in the world are not the only ones who need to be made well. Many Christians have become maimed and marred by sin, even though at one time they may have been perfectly whole and spiritually healthy. Christians need to examine and prove themselves over and over again to make sure that Christ is indeed still in them or if perhaps He needs to be formed in them again by their being obedient to His gospel.

Conclusion

Do you know that sin is not just spiritually destructive?  If it were, that would be a terrible thing by itself, but every heartache, every sorrow, every tear that falls from the eyes of a grieving heart can be traced back to sin. I don’t think that it would be possible to put into words, just how terrible and destructive sin is. We don’t have to look forward to judgment to see the harm in sin, we are all experiencing that right now upon the earth. The moment that Adam and Eve chose to do what was not right according to the commandment of God, sin came into this world, and what was the result of that? Death, both spiritual and physical, and while we are all appointed once to die (Heb. 9:27), many of the consequences of sin that people are suffering with today are consequences of their own sinful disobedience against God!

I am not saying that God judges anyone today before the judgment day or that if we sin God is going to afflict us with something. That is not what I am saying at all. You may remember in Acts 5 that the Bible tells us about a man named Ananias who, with his wife, Sapphira, sold a field and laid part of the price at the apostles’ feet while lying about the rest of it. They both died right there on the spot for their sin. That is not going to happen to us today and I am not saying that it will. In John 9 we read about a man that was born blind. Jesus’ disciples asked him whose sin was responsible for his blindness. Jesus answered that neither was the case. Friends, it doesn’t work like that. That is not what I am telling you will happen to us. What I am saying, is that with a sinful way of life, comes negative consequences that occur naturally. The Bible says, “don’t be a drunkard.” If someone goes down to a bar and gets drunk, and then crashes his car on the way home and kills himself, I can’t help but to think to myself, if he didn’t sin by going down there and getting drunk, he would not have killed himself by drinking and driving. The Bible says, “don’t commit fornication.” If someone chooses to live a certain lifestyle that results in him getting some type of STD, I can’t help but think to myself, if he had followed God’s law about that, he very likely would not have gotten that disease. God tells us not to be lovers of money, but people do it anyways and the love of money destroys so many lives of so many people all over the place. God tells us not to go around lying to each other, but people do it anyways, and it destroys all types of relationships and the trust that should exist between those involved all over the place. For every sin, there is some sort of negative consequence for it. There are people all over the place that are physically dead, suffering, or dieing as a natural consequence of some sin committed by someone, whether it be murder, adultery, theft, you name it; sin destroys lives as well as causing people to be lost spiritually. Does this mean that bad things won’t happen to people who do their best all the time not to sin? No. Even if a person were never to sin at all, he would still likely suffer, and will surely die because of the sin all the way back there in the garden, but can you just imagine how different life would be here upon the earth if everyone would live their lives according to God’s laws? There would be no war, no murder, no theft, no lying, no cheating, everyone helping one another and seeking good for each other? It would be a paradise on earth! But that isn’t the way that it is, is it? Why not? The world isn’t that way because of sin.

When God tells us what to do or what not to do, it is in our best interest to do as He has said. He didn’t just make some list of dos and don’ts that He pulled out of the sky without any reason for them, and He doesn’t need anything from us, as if our doing what He says is going to do something for Him, He is like a loving father directing his child away from those things that are going to harm him and toward those things that are going to help him. God made man and He knows what is best for him, He also wants what is best for him, and he has told man what is best for him, if he will only listen to God.

Even though it is not as easy to see the spiritual devastation that is caused by sin as it is to see the physical, it is still there, and far worse. There are so many that are spiritually sick and dieing all around us and among us because of sin. There are the spiritually blind, the spiritually maimed, and the spiritually crippled. We must examine ourselves. Just as a physician might examine us physically, we need to do a self-examination of ourselves spiritually and make sure that we are not deceiving ourselves into thinking that we are healthy when we aren’t. We need to realize that without the spiritually healing found only in Christ, we are not well. We must count the cost of discipleship and make up our minds that we will do whatever it takes to inherit eternal life. We must answer the call of the Great Physician and go to Him. If we will repent, confess our faith in Christ, and be baptized, He will add us to His Church and His blood will cleanse us of all our sin, so long as we continue to “walk in the light as He is in the light.”

            Well, what about our physical ailments, our suffering and our sorrows that we go through here upon the earth? He will comfort us and give us the strength we need to make it through, but He has never promised us that He would remove us from the consequences of sin here in this life. He no longer heals us the same way that Jesus did there on that mountain on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. He has given us a way to be made spiritually whole again, though, in His Son. And, one of these days,  we will be given a new body, one that doesn’t get sick, one that won’t hurt any more; there will be no more aching or pain. All of the suffering and the sorrows of this life will all be a thing of the past.

And he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more: the first things are passed away. And he that sitteth on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he saith, Write: for these words are faithful and true. (Rev. 21:4-5).

The apostle John wrote:

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. (1 Jn. 3:2)