THE LORD'S SPIRITUAL HEALINGS
"Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee come out of him, and enter no more into him." -Mark 9:25 [KJV]
Oh! that the Lord Jesus, in a spiritual healing, would frame my powers anew in Himself, that neither dumbness nor deafness might ever more stop my voice of praise for the cure of my soul, as the Lord healed the poor man's son in his body! One should suppose that after the song of salvation had been once chanted in the renewed heart, that heart would never more be out of tune, nor feel a dumbness or deafness in the Lord's praise. But, alas! So much of unbelief lies lurking within, and so much of exercises come from without, that the harp is often hanging on the willow, and we seldom sing to the Lord's praise, or proclaim abroad His glory.
Whereas the promise of Jehovah, in allusion to gospel-days, was, that His Israel should, even from the valley of Achor, find a door of hope; and the Lord added, that He would cause His church to sing there, "as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt," Hosea 2:15. Surely God is glorified when, from the depth of exercises, songs of redemption still go on, and even in the fire the believer sings his morning and evening hymn to the praise of Jesus.
Say, my soul, hath Jesus cured thee of this dumb and deaf spirit? Art thou daily shewing forth His praises, Who hath called thee out of darkness into His marvellous light? Dost thou delight thyself in the Lord, and delight to sing in the ways of the Lord; that "great is the glory of the Lord?" See to it, that this be among the evidences of a spiritual healing; for the Lord promised, in allusion to Israel's recovery, that the ears of the deaf should be unstopped, and the tongue of the dumb should sing. Hence all the way through the pilgrimage state, the song of salvation should be heard from the mouth of Zion's travellers, until they arrive in glory, where "songs of everlasting joy shall be upon their heads, and sorrow and sighing be done away for ever."
-Robert Hawker (1753-1827 A.D.)
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