Chapter 23 The Other Vital Signs IV In every army there is a need for a medical corps. In the Lord's army, we find no exception. We also need a medical corps if we are to go into spiritual battle. In the preceding chapter we looked at the 'I' temperature. In our case, service in the Lord's army, requires each of us to understand the rudiments of spiritual first aid. We see the urgency of this in Luke 4:17-28, "And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias and when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son? And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them were cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things were filled with wrath.". Why were the people, who heard what Jesus had just said, filled with wrath? Because He had just fixed them with a personal responsibility. He had just shown them the true meaning of the proverb, Physician heal thyself. He 189 _______________________________________________________________________________ was talking to them always not only about physical things, but more importantly about spiritual things. They were blinded in their perceptions of the reflections of themselves. That responsibility was not just theirs but ours also, and if we read in context, you will note in verse 18, He is specifically talking of setting free the captives. That's what service in the Lord's army is all about! No, He won't leave us or forsake us, but He does expect us to watch and care for our own spiritual body. We are expected to recognize our wounds received in spiritual battle, and apply first aid. We are also expected to be our brother's keepers, in the proper light. We mustn't loose sight of the beam in our eye before we tend to the mote in our brother's eye. So what is first in first aid? I am told control bleeding. Why control bleeding first? Let's look more closely at the function of blood. Blood pumps through our veins carrying life supplies to each of our cells; nutrients and oxygen are two of the supplies. Another supply can be disease fighting drugs to heal us when we are not well. Is that all? No, our blood also serves as our body's sanitation department removing waste material that can be poisonous to us. So if we take care of respiration first and ignore the transport system, all our efforts are wasted if there is a problem in transport. In a like manner in our spiritual life, the blood of Christ that covers the saved, carries the spiritual nutrients to us that we need. When we sin we rub a thin spot in the covering of blood, and God begins to see our sinful nature again, we begin having difficulty in our fellowship with Him. We are bleeding spiritually. In order for us to regain our former fellowship position, we need to apply first aid to the weak spot in our cloak of righteousness. How do we patch the cloak? To continually ask to be saved is to put our Lord again on the cross, as we see in Hebrews 6:6, "If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.". James chapters 3, 4 and 5 gives us progressively stronger spiritual 190 ______________________________________________________________________________ |
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