Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary / Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk

by John Kline

Stay nineteenth night with Brother Eli Dickey. We are now in Ashland County, Ohio. Heavy rains to-day, and waters very high.

Monday, May 22. Pass through Richland County, and stay twentieth night with Brother Samuel Shaffner, four miles from Bucyrus in Crawford County.

Tuesday, May 23. Night meeting at Benton. Subject: "The Miracles of Christ's Healing Power." Text.—"And he healed all that came unto him."

We hardly need being told that man is composed of body and soul; that the body is the visible, material part of man, in which the soul, man's invisible part, finds its home. Man's material part is but little superior to that of the rest of the animal creation. It is subject to the same laws. It must be fed and sheltered. It finds enjoyment in food and drink, and comfortable surroundings, very nearly akin to what we see in the life of brutes. Like them it is subject to natural decay, liable to disease; and like them, must die. But man is in possession of capacities and capabilities infinitely superior to anything the rest of God's sentient creation enjoys. He has a soul which is capable of unlimited attainments in the knowledge and love of God, and in the knowledge and love of his fellowman. The heathen philosophers supposed they had done their whole duty to themselves and the world when they could vainly believe that they had realized in their experiences what they thought a compliance with their favorite maxim: "Know thou thyself." Whilst Christians believe and feel that self-knowledge, or the knowledge of one's self, is very important, at the same time they have longing aspirations to know all they can of the Being who created this self, this thinking, reasoning, loving, restless thing within them, called a living soul. Brutes have no aspirations, no desires of this kind.

Right here we may see what God loves. It was not man's animal or bodily life that brought the Lord into our world, for this is not the man. It is the soul or spirit within the body that is the real man, and all these souls collectively make the world that God so loved that he gave his only begotten Son to save it. God never loved trifles. The fact that God loved the world of man is proof that man, as a being capable of glorifying God by reciprocating his love, was worthy of it. This key opens the way to a glimpse of man's high destiny, attainable by his taking hold of the Hand reached down in love to lift him up. God's Word is the only book that can give man a true knowledge of himself. It is the only source from which he can learn that he is a sinner by his habitual transgressions of the great, law of love that would bind all the units of God's intelligent creation into a brotherhood of ineffable and eternal happiness. It was to redeem man from this deplorable state, and deliver him from the destroying power of sin, that Jesus came into the world. But when he came he found man so low down in the darkness of ignorance, so stupid and slow to open his eyes, so benumbed by the chilling power of the love of self, so infested and possessed by evil spirits of hell, that but little impression could be made upon him, except such as could be felt and seen by means of his bodily senses.

These statements, which are true, account for the miracles wrought by the Lord. In working them, however, he had a two-fold purpose. The first was to arouse the people from their dormant state to one of consciousness that a Being of superior power was among them. This they were made to feel by his healing touch, his cleansing hand, and his life-restoring virtue. And what was the effect of all this? It had very much the same effect in one way that kindness toward children in the way of giving them little presents, and gentleness and tenderness in the way of gratifying their bodily desires and wishes, has upon them. They love the one who treats them in such ways. Now, the Lord healed the people. He healed all that came to him, of whatever bodily ill they were suffering. He fed them, too, and did it all so lovingly that they believed him to be the best and most powerful Friend they had ever known. They followed him in throngs. They felt secure, bodily secure and safe when they were with him. But we must not forget that they followed him, not on account of the words he had spoken to them, the instructions he had imparted, but "for the loaves and the fishes." We almost instinctively say, in our meditations upon these things: What a pity they could not discover in him something higher to believe in and love than the mere power and will to heal their bodily ills and minister to their bodily wants! This strong faith in his power and readiness to minister in a miraculous way to their external, worldly enjoyments and comforts is what led them to try to take him by force and make him their king. Having now given you his first object in working miracles, I turn to the second.

Here a great field for thought opens to our view, from which a volume could be written. Every miracle the Lord wrought, just like every parable he spoke, has a double line of truth, an inner and an outer sense. These are related to each other as the soul and body are related. Jesus says: "My words are spirit, and they are life." His miracles, when rightly understood, are the same. "They are spirit and they are life." Their spirit and life enter us through the light they contain. Let us look at one or two with a view to find what spirit and life we can: One Sabbath day Jesus met a man in a Jewish house of worship, called a synagogue, whose right hand was withered. Notice, the man's hand was withered. This means that it was dead, just as we mean that a plant is dead when it is withered, or so nearly dead that its life is almost gone. This man's hand must have been powerless. He could not use it to do anything; and it was his right hand. He could not move a joint of it. It was simply powerless.

But notice particularly what Jesus commanded him to do. He said to this very man: "Stretch forth thy hand." Does not that look like an unreasonable command? The man might have plausibly said: "I cannot do this. I have not been able to reach my hand to my mouth in the past year. I can not do as you tell me." But instead of urging objections he instantly obeyed, for the words, "Stretch forth thy hand," were not more than out of the Lord's mouth when we read, "And he did so: and his hand was restored whole as the other." Now I ask, Did this man have any part to act, or duty to perform in this miracle of healing? I answer, He did; and without his obedient coöperation his hand would have been left dangling powerless at his side.

Is there not a lesson here? Let us try to gather crumbs of instruction from it. If you take your Bible and concordance, and hunt up the places where the expression "right hand" is used, you will plainly see that "right hand," when spoken of as the "right hand" of God, means power, the power of God. As applying to man, it means the same, the power of man. In this sense the right hand of every unconverted man and woman is withered under the blighting curse of sin. But Jesus is present to heal. He is ever ready to heal all who have need of healing now, just as truly as when he was visibly among men. But he cannot heal you without your willing consent to obey his commands. He first of all commands you to repent, for now "God commandeth all men everywhere to repent." The moment you are willing to obey this command, that moment he will give you the power to obey. Without aid from the power of the Lord that man never could have stretched forth his withered hand; but the instant he was willing to obey, that very instant he received the power to obey.

Again he says: "Give me thy heart." But your heart is all withered too. It is so chilled and blighted by the cold, and damp, and darkness of sin, that, like the man's right hand, without help of the Lord, it is powerless. But the instant you feel a desire to give your heart to the Lord, such desire as the blind beggar had to receive his sight; such desire as the poor leper had to be cleansed; such desire as the publican had that God would be merciful to him a sinner; I say the instant you feel such desire to give your heart to God, that instant he will give you power to do so. It surely was a great relief to that man to have his withered hand restored to healthy activity. It may not have been very painful; indeed, it may have been so lifeless that there was not much feeling in it. So it may be with your heart. And let me say to you that if you really give God your heart in faith and love he will so effectually heal it that it will beat with new life, and the warm blood of love and truth from his Word will flow through it until your greatest joy will be found in doing his will.