IN the last chapter of St. Mark, it is recorded that Jesus appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat. It was the last time that the personal Jesus spoke to those whom he so dearly loved, and whom he expected would carry on his great work, teaching others as he had taught them. He knew what their work must be, and from his perfect understanding he gave them a last command. No one can imagine for one moment that these words were not of the utmost importance for all time and all mankind. In speaking of his own words Jesus said, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away;" also, "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." Thus we have his authority for maintaining that his words are living words, for they are eternal.
At this last meeting with his disciples Jesus closed his earthly instruction with the following, "They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover." This sentence can be of no ordinary importance, for in the verse following St. Mark relates, "So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven." Can it be that the very last words Jesus spoke on earth, were intended for only eleven men who knew him in his earthly career? Was not his mission for all the world, equally as much as for those of his time?
In the seventeenth verse of the same chapter, Jesus said, "these signs shall follow them that believe," and in another place, he says, "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth." Can we not conclude from this, that if these signs do not follow, the would-be believer has failed to comprehend the great mission of Jesus? He came to destroy the works of the devil, and surely sin, disease, and death cannot be the works of God, our loving Father, hence they must be the works of the devil, which Jesus came to destroy. He recognized sin and sickness as the same thing, or, to state it more accurately, sickness as the result of sin: for he said to the man whom he healed at the pool of Bethesda, "Behold, thou art made whole; sin no more lest a worse thing come upon thee;" and of the woman whom he healed on the Sabbath, he said, "Satan hath bound her, lo, these eighteen years." These were some of the works which he came to destroy, and he teaches his followers, of every age how to do the same. Jesus repeatedly urged that we should follow him, and do the works that he did. "I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me." Is it not plain, that in order to reach the Father, we must do the works that Jesus did? St. James said, "Even so faith, if it hath not works is dead, being alone;" he also wrote, "I will shew thee my faith by my works." Is not this, in substance, what Jesus meant when he said, "These signs shall follow them that believe"? And he plainly states what these signs shall be: "Casting out devils, (evils) and healing the sick."
