Most people are very concerned about physical health - especially when they develop strange pains which could indicate some serious problem. But one major part of us which escapes attention in this concern for health is the soul.
By Dr. Peter Masters

This is certainly rather illogical, because the body is only temporary, while the soul goes on for ever.

As you read this,imagine you have entered a kind of soul clinic where the organs and limbs of the soul will be checked out, and where you will get a full report on its condition.

The trouble is that any examination is bound to reveal serious problems. No ordinary human being has ever been found free from major defects and diseases in the soul.

At the time of the Korean war, American doctors carried out numerous post-mortem examinations on soldiers killed in action. As time went by they drew up statistics which startled the medical world. They found that a majority of young men under 25 years of age already showed marked signs of heart disease which would have resulted in heart attacks within 20 years.

If our souls could be laid open to inspection in the same way it would be found that everyone of us has a very advanced, fatal condition. The malady which affects us all is the disease of sin. Its symptoms are easy to recognise, not by our pallor or blood pressure, but by far more disfiguring signs.

The great spoiler
The symptoms of this disease of the soul show up in the personality. It makes us vain, cold, haughty and even arrogant. It makes us deceitful, shifty and boastful. It is the disease which creates dirty-mindedness, jealousy and back-stabbing. It also gives rise to greed and selfishness - the list of symptoms is endless.

Sin is the vilest, and yet the most underestimated disease in the world. It infects every part of the soul and character, steadily spoiling and corrupting everything. But even worse - it totally disables us for the greatest experiences of life.

Paralysis will usually prevent a young man from ever engaging in athletics or any other active sport. Such pursuits are far beyond his hopes and dreams. Similarly, the disease of sin ruins all possibility of interaction with God. It completely cuts us off from God so that we can have no personal experience of Him.

Our diagnostic health check must begin with an examination of the conscience. Is it in good health? Is it a functioning conscience?

The answer must be negative, because most of the time the conscience suffers from a kind of sleeping paralysis. It hardly moves and seldom speaks. Why is this? It is because of the self-inflicted battering it has received over the years.

We quickly learn in youth how to manipulate the conscience. Whenever it protests over some sin or shoots a warning pang of shame into the mind we move quickly in self-defence. We learn to justify whatever we do, or to blame our circumstances or other people. Gradually we beat the conscience into submission.

The first time we commit serious sin the conscience hurts a good deal. The second time it hurts less. But once the conscience is fully suppressed it scarcely hurts at all.

Somewhere down in a dungeon of the soul, a starved, bruised, weakened conscience eventually becomes limp and silent, and then we are free to behave and speak as we like. We are at liberty to be as selfish, greedy and even sensual as we want, with little trouble.

Take another aspect of the soul. In what state of health is the faculty or power of self-control? What happens when bad temper begins to build up, or envy, or greed - does it all have to come out? Can we control ourselves? Or is this portion of the soul flabby and weak and hopeless?

What about the great faculty of integrity or honesty - is it healthy? Sadly, this part of the soul is generally riddled with disease. Everyone is shoddy and shabby here. Everyone is full of white lies, excuses, exaggerations, invented boasts, direct lies, deceits, and every other form of dishonesty. The faculty of integrity has become wilfully twisted beyond recognition.

Checking vital organs
What about the virtue of the soul which we call humility? Is this diseased too? Of course it is, because everyone seems to suffer from the cancer of pride. For most people the great motive for living is pride. What will people think of them? How can they create a good impression?

People boast, swagger and show off endlessly. They fight tooth and nail for promotion, power and superiority. Sickening pride has buried itself deeply into the soul so that humility has shrivelled out of all recognition.

If we examine the three main parts of the personality, what condition shall we find them in? The mind or intellect is full of selfish and impure thoughts. It is swollen and discoloured by a wide range of sinful schemes and thoughts. Prominent among them are selfishness, self-love, hatred and hostility.
The emotions are seriously deformed. These too are covered with the cancer of self-love as well as other tumours which we call lusts.

The will is so badly deformed that it works in terrible and unreasonable convulsions. It either responds with alacrity to every passing temptation, or it utterly refuses to move, becoming
obstinate and stubborn.

Truly this is a stunning and depressing report on various aspects of the soul. If we ever heard such a devastating assessment of our physical health we would realise that survival was impossible.

Years ago we used to see mass X-ray caravans in the cities. The idea was to detect T.B. early enough to gain the best chance of treating it. The trouble was that the public had to be persuaded to enter the X-ray caravans on the off-chance of hearing bad news. Many people would rather not know the worst.

This is exactly the case with the message of the Bible. If we cannot get people to realise that the soul is in a desperately diseased condition then they will never seek the healing power of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Great Physician of Souls.

Let me describe some of the worst features of sin as it gets free course in our lives. It is the most infectious disease imaginable. If, for example, we bring children into the world, our weaknesses and corruptions will be transmitted to them through our example and the atmosphere of home life. They will inevitably absorb some of our worst traits.

Another thing about sin is that it is a very weakening and highly progressive disease. Somehow we always imagine that in ten or fifteen years time we will be much the same people as we are today in basic personality, outlook and character. But this is never the case. There is bound to be a great and inescapable deterioration in us because the disease of sin will take its toll.

Anyone who is past thirty can prove this easily. Just try to recall what you(and your old friends) were like in teenage or in early twenties. Note how much everyone has changed. Note particularly how all have hardened and come to accept more compromise in life. Even the most idealistic members of that once youthful circle have lost their rare, unselfish trait.

Observe how each one has become so much more materialistic, cynical, and sadly, more selfish also. You will be compelled to agree that any attractive aspects which once drew you together are fast slipping away. Sin is always progressive.

Living with pain
A further feature of sin is the fact that it is a very painful disease. Sinful thoughts, words or deeds may not necessarily hurt at the time, but the consequences are always painful. A life lived at the mercy of every temptation, whim and passion costs youth and years, not to mention money.

It leads to heartbreak, disappointment, remorse, bitterness and even neurosis. Half the pills swallowed daily in this sin-sick world are really palliatives for the deeper disease of the soul.

In addition to all this, sin is a terribly isolating disease. It separates us from each other, but most of all it separates us from God. It is solely because of the selfishness, rottenness and pride in the human heart that we fall out with each other and become enemies.

What can be done about this disease? Is a doctor any use, or a psychologist? Is there any drug or therapy? No, says the Bible, as far as man is concerned it is utterly untreatable. There is nothing we can do to halt or to heal this disease. We have no remedies at all.

All man can do is administer painkillers. He can only dull the effects of the disease by seeking pleasure and entertainment, or by turning to drink to deaden the discomfort. Alternatively he can bury his heart in his business, or in possessions or anything else which may help to subdue the aching void within.

The only hope for curing the soul's disease is to realise that we cannot cure it and to turn to God to be forgiven and healed. He alone can wash away the rebellion and the proud independence which brought this disease into the world in the first place. He alone can wash away the guilt and the deep perversion of years of sin.

Because God is perfect and holy, if He is to forgive and heal any member of the human race, He must first purge away the guilt which renders us unfit for fellowship or contact with Him.

In order to forgive us God had to come into this world Himself to suffer the punishment of our sin in our place. That is what Christ was doing when he suffered and died on the Cross of Calvary
2000 years ago. There He made a personal atonement for the sin of all who turn to Him for help.

Before anyone can be saved from the disease of sin, there must be an urgent approach to the Great Physician. We must be deeply anxious about the disease in the soul, and we must really want to be healed. Then Christ must be approached along these lines: you must pray to Him telling Him about your condition, and you must acknowledge that you deserve to be condemned and discarded for ever.

You must sincerely repent of your sin and long to have your life completely changed by His power. Tell Him that you truly want to come to know Him and to live for Him from now on.

If you sincerely ask Christ to forgive you and convert you in this way, He will not turn you away. He will perform radical divine surgery in your life, accomplishing results which you could not even begin to achieve yourself.

The only cure
The Lord can destroy the potency of the disease and give a completely new life; a transformed personality.

The side effects of the disease of sin will also be removed, such as the numbness of soul which made it impossible for you to pray or to feel God. You will come to love Him and know Him. All these things He will do for you and you will know that you have been changed. You will know that He has blessed you and healed your disease.

How many people will spend the rest of their lives with sin capturing more and more of the soul, until it finally overwhelms them in death and all hope is gone?

There is no physician on earth like Christ. There is no doctor in human medicine who cures his patients by taking the force and consequences of the disease himself. That is the exclusive glory of Christ Himself - the Physician of Souls.