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I FEVER AND ITS CURE.
[A SERMON BY C. H. SPURGEON'.
" And He stood over her, and rebuked the
fever, and it left her. And immediately she
arose and ministered unto them." Luke iv.
38, 39.
Spiritual fevers are very common. A fever
begins with a kind of restlessness. The
patient cannot be quiet, not be at ease in any
position. He is not pleased with anything
for more than a moment. He cannot help
it he is tossed to and fro, and is like the
doubled sea. He suspect everybody, and
has confidence in nothing. Are there not
many who are in that condition with regard
to spiritual things ? Their religion is a question,
rather than a doctrine ; an experiment,
and not an experience Their own interest
in Christ is a grave anxiety, rather than an,
assured delight. They believe the promise,
but cannot grasp it for themselves, so as
to feel sure and happy. A sermon full of
good cheer does not afford them a cup of
comfort. They are so feverish that they
settle to nothing. No promise, no truth, no
heavenly gift can yield them repose ; they
are tossed up and down like the locust. Some
I kiss military with the scarlet fever of ambition.
They must be everybody Home would be
great, greater, greatest, and then greater
still always sighing for the pre- romance like
Diotrephes Ambition, kept in due check,
may be right enough , but when it rises to
fever heat it is a great sin The man does
not enjoy what he has because he is lasting
formers and meanwhile he treads down his
brethren and becomes high minded and in
kind While anyone is still a little higher
than himself, he is envious and malicious
May the Lord cure us of these fevers, if we
have even the smallest trace of them 1 I
have to mention one other fever, which
is a kind of gastric fever, a fever of the
stomach ! It comes to men who have degraded
themselves below the brutes by intoxication
I When they seek to abstain and quit the cup,
a drink fever hinders them. Some imagine
that it is an easy thing to escape from drunkenness
; but it is not so. Those who are now
true children of God have given us an awful
description of the hankering which came
upon them months after they had given up
the drink. Often it seemed to them nothing
but a miracle that they kept clear of the
temptation : they felt as if they must drink
or die. O dear friends have great pity upon
the drunkard in his struggle to escape. Help
him all you can by words of encouragement,
and especially by the grand encouragement of
your own example; for, believe me, it is a
horrible fever, and happy is he who has never
felt it. If any of you have it upon you, look
to Almighty grace for deliverance for if you
look to anything short of this, I fear you will
go back to your sin. Fever is often born of
faith. I suppose that even excessive heat
would not produce it If it were not for decay-
ing matter which, in rotting, gives out evil
vapours and deadly gases. There is nothing
more putrid in the natural world than she is
in the moral world. Free from sin as you
would from a reeking dunghill of rottenness.
I charge you, children of God, be clean in
yourselves and your surroundings. " Be ye
clean that bear the vessels of the Lord." It
is hard to avoid contact with evil in these
days : but yet we must aim at it. Our public
walls disgust us with indecencies of the most
staring kind ; they make us blush for the
times. We can, however, keep ourselves from
the resorts of the frivolous, the vicious, and
the drunken and I beseech you, as you love
the Lord, and as you desire to be healthy in
His sight, stand not in the way of sinners,
or sit in the seat of the corners. Run not
with the multitude to do evil. Come ye out
from among them ; be ye separate ; touch not
the unclean thing, for then God will be a
Father unto you, and ye shall be His sons
and daughters. Fevers are of tion caused by poor
diet. Persons have not enough to eat, and
the fever germs fructify in their weakness.
With many Christians the rule seems to be
one spiritual meal a week. Your very respectable
Christian person goes out to worship
on Sunday morning, but at no other
time. What does he do on Sunday afternoon ?
This deponent sayeth not. What does he do
on Sunday evening? He is at home taking
his ease. As to prayer meetings and week
night lectures, these are regarded rather as
tasks than privileges by many professors.
They live on -me rest a week. Would any
of you who are doing this oblige me with a
trial of this regiment in reference to your
bodies? Will you only eat on a Sunday
morning t You shall take what
you please at that one meal, and consume
as much as you can of it but you must
have only that one meal till next week. Do
you decline the experiment ? I think you are
wise. I should not expect to see you here
often to report your experience. I feel sure
you would break through the regulation before
it had reached its full result. Therefore, I
pray you, do not carry out the experiment of
spiritual starvation, lost you die in the operation.
This neglect of heavenly food brings
many Christians into so low a state that
spiritual fever readily fastens upon them.
Alas 1 many have poor spiritual diet. Spiritual
meals nowadays, when they are taken, do
not amount to much. In many a place
where Christ was preached by the good old
man who is now in Heaven you will find that
anything else is held forth except the Lord
Jesus. Your cultured gentleman sickens at
the idea of preaching about the precious
blood. He calls the cardinal doctrine of the
atonement " the theology of the shambles."
Shame on his profane tongue ! He is
ashamed to speak of original sin, or the new
birth, or to tell men that if they are not
saved they will be cast into hell. He is too
refined to speak plain truth. You may eat a
thousand mats of his sort of meat before
you will know that you have had a
mouthful; for it is all light as air, and
unsubstantial as fresh. Such wind can never
satisfy a hungering soul ; but it can starve
it down so low that disease prays upon it.
Fever in any of its forms, is mischievous.
What does it do? Well, fever puts you altogether
out of order. You cannot precisely
say what n. fever begins or ends, or in what
organ it operates most powerfully for it puts
the whole system out of gear. Nothing is
right. You feel as if you could not sit, or
lie, or be quiet in any position. You cannot
do anything, and yet you must be doing.
Now, when a soul gets into the fever of un-
belief, and fear, and anxiety, it is in general
disorder. The prayer is severed the song
languishes; the patience fails; the service
drags. The mind is like a harp whose
strings are out of tune. It is a mischievous
thing, high fever - mischievous to every
faculty. Dear friends, it is to be feared
that those who give way to fever may drift
into delirium by-and-bye for fevers often
lead to that. My good friend who begins
complaining just a little does not know that
he will grow to be one of the most obstinate
grumblers in the world. My good pastor
yonder, who is only a little nervous and
pretty. does not know into what an abyss of
unbelief she will yet plunge. If you say
one word against God, there is no reason why
you should not say two and if you say two
the devil will soon teach you to say twenty,
till at last you gave at the Lord God. Oh,
that we could be silent before Him in
holy calm and peace ! iVe should then
escape that delirium of rebellious dread
into which so many are hurried. If by God's
grace we are delivered from this fever,
it may leave behind it sad remains. Any
doctor will tell you that fevers are not only
to be dreaded for what they are, but for what
they leave behind them. When a man is
cured of fever, he may yet be injured for the
rest of his life and if you and I do not keep
quiet before God, and calm and happy, but
begin to get anxious, and wilful, and
avaricious, and ambitious, we may hurt ourselves
seriously for all time, and, it may be,
even on our death-bed we shall look back
with sorrow to that day of unbelief when we
grieved the Lord and lost. His presence. The
Lord keeps us from these fevers in every degree
! Lastly, there is one who can cure the
few. - I am afraid that I have given a rather
sad description, and I am sorry that some of
.... t.... turn r.Y.V,"aA of ... Haines H
it is true of us." , But observe, dear friends,
the cure, which is not wrought by medicine,
or surgery, or any profound system of the
doctors. The cure lies here. The poor
patient lies Bat in her bed. We read, She
was laid, and sick of a fever." She could not
therefore sit up, much less rise from the bed.
When she opened her eyes, and looked up,
she saw the Lord Jesus Christ standing over
her. 0, fevered soul, open thine eyes to-night,
and see Jesus standing over thee.
With tender love and infinite compassion He
looks down upon thee. He shields thee,
thinks of thee, and watches over thee for good.
He will help thee : therefore, fear not. Over
thee to-night He broods as doth an eagle over
its young. Jehovah Jesus bows over thee
with fullness of love and power. In the present
trouble, fear, and depression of spirit
loins stands over thee, and His eye and Bia
heart are upon thee. We read that, when
our Lord had touched her, He rebuked the
fever. Your feverishness deserves His re-
buke. Oh, that He would bid it begone 1
Oh, that' He would say to-night, " Begone
unbelief ! Begone anxiety Begone fret
fitness! Begone doubt and fear!" You
most have felt, when lying very ill, as if you
were buried in the bed. 80 the Saviour
gave His hand to her, and the lifted her up.
She did not think that she could rise, but
with His aid she sat up. Then He gave her
an instant cure, and at the same time renewed
her strength. No trace of fever
remained. She was perfectly well. Her
instinct, as a matronly woman and head of
the household, was to rise at once to prepare
a meal for her Benefactor and His disciples.
Oh, that you doubting ones, you fevered ones,
might at once be cured and lifted up, so
that you would immediately set about serving
the Lord and ministering to those around
you ! Come, let us be as happy as ever we can
be, and as useful as it lies in our power to be,
and may the four never visit any one of us
again ! On the contrary, as you go home,
trip over the pavements with a sense of
spiritual health and when you get home,
say at once, " I mast minister unto Jesus
He has driven out my cares and fears, and
soothed my mind, and therefore out of love
I will spend and be spent to His praise,"
God bless you, for the Saviour's sake)
Amen.
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