These are some of the words which King Hezekiah wrote when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness. This is surely a good prayer for a sick man, and it is a good prayer for a healthy man too; for if we understand what sickness is, we shall find it is sent that we may learn what is good for us when we are well. A man is broken down then that he may learn his true condition at all times. He feels the burden of death then that he may know he is carrying it about with him continually. The Church today gives us a prayer which is a little longer and fuller than this sentence of Hezekiah's, but which has the same sense in it, and will perhaps help you to see more clearly what it means. The prayer is: "Almighty God, who seest that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves; Keep us both outwardly in our bodies, and inwardly in our souls; that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord."
I. The thought concerning God which is set before us in this collect is contained in the words, "Almighty God, who seest." The recollection that God knoweth the very want which we are going to tell Him of is at the bottom of all prayer. It is in God's light that we see light. It is when we believe He is looking into our hearts that we begin to know something of what is passing there. We begin to know ourselves because God knows us; and then this feeling, that He knew us before we knew ourselves, and that our knowledge comes from His knowledge, helps us to pray.
II. The collect supposes a man who has suffered trials without and temptations within, who has found that he has a poor suffering body of death with him continually; and what is worse than a body of death a weak heart, an inconstant will, unequal to all the ten thousand dark and evil thoughts which are assailing it. It supposes him, after long striving with himself, to know how he may overcome this evil and weakness, suddenly struck with the thought, "But God knows that I have no power of myself to help myself." He does not intend us to help ourselves; He did not send us into the world that we might learn to help ourselves, but to depend on Him. Is not this experience of our weakness and evil mercifully given us that we may throw away the vain confidence which has caused it, that we may see our own weakness even as God sees it, and that we may learn wholly to give up the keeping of ourselves to Him?
III. Our wants are (1) to be kept outwardly in our bodies; (2) to be kept inwardly in our souls. The life of the body perishes unless God preserves it; but the life of the soul perishes unless it is trusting Him to preserve it, unless it is understanding His care and love and resting in Him.
F. D. Maurice, Christmas Day and Other Sermons,p. 114.
There is such a vast disproportion between a man and some of his own feelings between the inner and the outer life of a man that the wonder is, not that we should sometimes feel the burden of existence, but that there should be any man who should not be always saying, "I am oppressed."
I. There are few minds who do not look out for sympathy. It is an instinct of our nature, that we must lean somewhere. Almost all error, all superstition, all worldliness, resolves at last into the feeling that a man must lean; but he is leaning on a wrong base. It is upon this great principle in the man's breast that the Gospel lays hold and points it to Christ. It sets Him forth as the one great Undertaker for all His people's wants; it bids all of us come to Him with the feeling, "Undertake for me, Lord."
II. What are Christ's undertakings for us? (1) He has undertaken to pay all our debts: they are very great. (2) He has undertaken that we shall never be alone: "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." (3) He has undertaken that you shall never be really overcome: "My strength is made perfect in weakness." (4) He has undertaken to place you on the sunny side of everything all life through: for "He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." (5) He has undertaken that you shall always have a place of refuge: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." (6) He has undertaken that death shall be to you only a name, not a reality: "He that believeth on Me shall never die."
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,4th series, p. 274.
References: Isaiah 38:14. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. xiii., p. 346; A. Watson, Sermons for Sundays, Festivals, and Fasts,2nd series, vol. i., p. 125.