[0:00] Her text today then is from verse 43 of that portion of scripture. We read, and there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years, and though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone.
[0:21] Now, as you all know, we had a lovely series of meetings, a series of sermons from Ian Kreech concerning encounters with the Lord Jesus Christ.
[0:36] We enjoyed that series very much, and it was a series that was very edifying, and it was a series that brought us to the cross of Calvary and enabled us to look up and see what the Lord Jesus Christ did for us.
[0:56] Today, I'm continuing that theme, The Miracles of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the midst of a throng of people that surrounded him after he came back from the land of the Gadarenes, where he had healed the demonic.
[1:15] And this miracle that I'm going to talk about today, it is marked out in the Lord's healings by two peculiarities.
[1:27] In the first place, it was a miracle that was within a miracle. It was a miracle wrought within a miracle. This miracle of the healing of the discharge of this woman's blood was wrought in a miracle where the Lord Jesus Christ went and raised Jairus's daughter, who had become very ill.
[1:51] She was the only daughter Jairus had, and she had become very ill and was nine and to death when the Lord Jesus Christ was approached. She had died when he reached that spot, yet he resurrected her.
[2:06] And these are two peculiarities that ought to be thought about in this way, that Lord Jesus Christ, in going out and doing an errant of mercy in one instance, that that doesn't prevent him from doing another errant of mercy within that same circumstance.
[2:33] And all three synoptic gospels concur in recording this event in the heart of another transaction, that last transaction of the raising of Jairus's daughter.
[2:49] So the picture that we have before us here is a very clear one. We have the Lord Jesus Christ returning from the land of the Gadarenes, as I have said, after healing that demonic.
[3:03] He was cutting himself in the graveyards, and he was seen as somebody who was not a sociologist.
[3:14] He was seen as a sociologist in that area. But we finally see him as sitting before Christ in his full senses.
[3:25] And that is what the Lord Jesus Christ does for us in, for people such as we are. Although we are found in our sins, condemned in our sins, he is able to heal us to the extent that we are sitting before him in full control of ourselves and in our total minds.
[3:51] So the picture here is that the Lord Jesus Christ is now coming from the land of the Gadarenes. There is a great trung of people awaiting him at the shores of that sea in Capernaum.
[4:10] And no sooner has he come ashore than he goes on this errant of mercy. He is asked to go on an errant of mercy by Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue.
[4:22] And no sooner does he embark on that errant of mercy than he is embarking on another errant of mercy. That is the cleansing of this woman's discharge of blood.
[4:38] And that is something that we ought to think of very carefully. The power of the Lord Jesus Christ, the way that he is able to heal somebody else when he is on an errant of mercy to heal the likes of Jairus' daughter.
[4:59] So what comes across to us here is that he was approached first of all by Jairus himself. Jairus himself was a ruler in the synagogue.
[5:11] And the remarkable thing about that is that Jairus, who was a ruler of the synagogue and representing the law that he came to the Lord Jesus Christ to save his daughter, that is the law meeting the gospel in that situation.
[5:29] And we have something of this on the Mount of Transfiguration if we consider what happened there. We see the disciples Jesus himself there on that mount.
[5:41] We see the Lord's face shining as bright as the sun. And we see Moses and Elijah emerging in that picture.
[5:53] And then there is a cloud overshadowing the whole portrait or the whole picture as we have it. And then we see the disciples lifting their eyes up and all they see is the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
[6:09] So that again is something that we ought to consider that we see in that picture the law and the prophets giving way to the New Testament and the New Covenant that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ.
[6:27] The New Covenant that we have in the mediator of the New Testament and in the New Covenant that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ.
[6:39] In this particular miracle we have a very clear illustration of irresistible grace driving a person to Christ after all other things have failed.
[6:52] After all, after they've tried all other cure, they are now driven to Christ. And that is the picture we have in this woman with the discharge of blood.
[7:04] She had this discharge for 12 years and now we see her as a final effort coming to the Lord Jesus Christ to be healed.
[7:17] And isn't that representative of the Lord's people when they come to Christ? Invariably they have tried all other cure.
[7:29] Maybe they see themselves as filthy rocks in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. They see themselves as a people who are needful of being cleansed, who are needful of being cleansed of their sins.
[7:45] But this is usually true of them that they have tried many other cure before they come to the Lord Jesus Christ for a cure.
[7:57] And I know a person not so very far away from us who tried absolutely everything so that he would be cured of his sins before he finally came to the Lord Jesus Christ.
[8:12] In the same way as this woman came to the Lord Jesus Christ at this time. He told me that he had spent thousands of pounds on drink to get himself out of that situation where he was convicted of sin righteousness and judgment.
[8:30] And he didn't want to come to Christ until the bitter end he had to come to the salvation that was available in the Lord Jesus Christ.
[8:43] But we see this woman and what does she say as we have in verse 43. And there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years and though she had spent all her living on physicians she could not be healed by anyone.
[9:01] The actions of this woman bring starkly before us the fact that she had reached that stage that Peter seems to have reached when he said to Christ himself.
[9:12] To whom else can we go? You are the one with the words of eternal life. And that may be in this congregation even today people who have reached this stage when they ask the same question as Peter asks.
[9:29] To whom else can we go? You are the one with the words of eternal life. If you are today in this congregation and in the Lord Jesus Christ I am sure you can relate to the situation this poor woman had.
[9:49] She was an unclean woman according to the law. Under the law she was considered basically a social outcast in the same way as the Ethiopian hyno was considered a social outcast.
[10:06] He couldn't enter the temple and neither could she. And what hope did she have then of meeting the Lord Jesus Christ if she wasn't going to meet him in the temple?
[10:17] What hope was she going to have? She couldn't enter the temple and neither could this woman as people were scared that they would be defiled by her infirmity.
[10:30] And that is what was through her under the law that was the life of Jairus represented. Jairus who was a ruler in the synagogue.
[10:44] But what is through this miracle is this that the Lord certainly becomes aware of an outgoing of his power in response to an act of fear.
[10:57] And wouldn't it be good if we as a congregation felt that this spirit was in our midst? The Lord responding by the fact that responding in this way that he felt a power going out to him as an act of faith in this congregation even today.
[11:17] One person coming to the Lord Jesus Christ in an act of fear and feeling this power that is available from the Lord Jesus Christ if we come in a through spirit of conviction and if we come in a through spirit of repentance.
[11:37] Through conversion is always a secret transaction very close and personal between a person and the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
[11:48] There is no doubt about that. This takes place in secret. The conversion of a poor soul such as we are, poor soul such as we are, the conversion takes place in secret.
[12:02] The Holy Spirit does a work in your heart and in your soul and then you are prompted to come to the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior.
[12:15] But in this case we must remember that we see something else emerging from this miracle. A real conversion is always seen.
[12:27] So if a conversion takes place in our midst we expect the woman or the person who is converted to have the walk and the talk that is appropriate to that conversion in this world.
[12:45] And I think it was Augustine who said that salvation was neither comforting nor complete until it is openly acknowledged in the same way as it was openly acknowledged by this woman who touched the hem of Christ's garment and was healed.
[13:06] Well I wanted today to say a word about three things. First of all the one who was touched that is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And I wanted to say a word about the one who touched who was the woman who was healed of this issue of blood.
[13:26] And then in the third place the acknowledgement that had to be made by the one who touched that is the woman. The acknowledgement that she had to make after she had touched the hem of Christ's garment.
[13:44] First of all then a word about the one who was touched. This is the Christ who is fully God and fully man and that is brought clearly before us in the Gospel of John and in the very first verse.
[14:00] In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. Here we have an acknowledgement in that Gospel that this Christ was fully God and fully man because he came and dwelt with us here on earth full of grace, full of peace, full of wisdom and full of great power that was able to heal all these sinners that thronged his walk in this world.
[14:34] And so it is with us today. He is fully God, he is fully man and he has that power. All power in heaven and in earth has been given to him and he is able to save us as personers to take our foot out of the fearful pit and the mighty clay, set our foot upon a rock and establish it away and indeed put a new song in our mouth.
[15:01] That is the Savior we have. We have a Christ who had a victory over death and the grave and that version in Revelation chapter one comes to me very readily when I consider the victory of Savior had over death and the grave.
[15:20] I am he who was dead but no livid. This is the one who has the keys of death and hell in his hand. He was dead but no livid. And if we look at Luke 24, I think this is confirmed for us very clearly.
[15:41] If we can read together a few verses at the beginning of that chapter, chapter 24, but on the first day of the week at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared and they found the stone rolled away from the tomb.
[15:59] But when they went in, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling a barrel and as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.
[16:39] Isn't that sufficient proof for us that here we have a Savior that is no living, was dead but no living. This is the Savior from whom that power was felt to go out.
[17:01] Then we have the Christ, not only who had a victory over death and the grave, but we had a Christ who ascended to the right hand of God the Father.
[17:13] And he gave these two statements that I used in my prayer. He first of all told the disciples that all power in heaven and in earth had been given unto him. And then he gave that great promise, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.
[17:34] This is the Christ who ascended and in that ascension, very importantly, he received gifts for a rebellious people. This is the Christ who met this woman after he had come from the land of the Gadariness, had healed the demonic there.
[17:56] This is the Christ who ascended to the right hand of God the Father and received gifts for a rebellious people such as we are. And what are these gifts? Well, the Holy Spirit was rained down on the church in that famous day of Pentecost.
[18:14] And we are told in scripture that something like 3000 people were saved on that day. And that brings me to the point that even in this small church here in Calaway, we had a great revival with the Holy Spirit being rained down upon this church and the people of this community in the 1930s.
[18:38] A host of young people, middle aged people and even elderly people came and filled these pews here in front of us. They came and filled these pews to the extent that every blessing accompanied them coming into the church.
[18:58] And that was clearly felt by the minister of the time, John McKeeved, who was the minister in Calaway at that time. It may be the case that we would see such revival again in our own day and age.
[19:17] But this is the Lord who ascended to the right hand of God the Father and received gifts for a rebellious people. And where is he now? He is at the right hand of God the Father, that's the mediator of the new covenant.
[19:33] He is the one who cleanses those prayers and presents them to the Father. Well, this is again the Christ who said to the Church of Old that he wanted Holy Communion with them.
[19:49] My dove that art in the clefts of the rock and in the secret places of the stair. Let me hear thy voice, let me see thy face, for thy coat not as cuddly and thy voice is sweet.
[20:04] He wanted Holy Communion with his church of the day and he still wants that Holy Communion with the church of our day. We should come with boldness to the throne of grace because he has given, the Lord himself has given us his only begotten sin so that if we come to him in faith he will give us everlasting life and we will in no way perish.
[20:36] Well, again this is the Christ who was able to heal, not only the demonic in the land of the garrisons, but he was able to heal the thief on the cross even at the last hour.
[20:53] The thief on the cross reeled against him first of all and then the Holy Spirit wrote, I work in his heart and he came round to the situation where he said, remember me when thou comest into thine own kingdom.
[21:09] And he got this very, very compassionate response, a living response. Yes, you will be with me today in paradise.
[21:22] That is what the Lord Jesus Christ is able to make for us even in the last hour. Not only the healing of this woman with a discharge of blood in an ordinary life, but he is able to heal you to the uttermost and save you to the uttermost even in the last hour, in the last minutes of your stay here on earth.
[21:49] Well, isn't this a wonderful saviour then? This is the Christ from the woman with the issue of blood was compelled by the Holy Spirit to touch the hem of his garment.
[22:03] And then going on to the second point, the one who touched. This is the woman who was a desirous of healing the discharge of blood that she had for twelve years.
[22:18] This woman's case was peculiar. She was a Jewish woman and by Jewish law she was in clean as we have said. She could not go to the synagogue. She could not hope to meet Christ in the synagogue because people were scared that her infirmity might defile them.
[22:42] But it's very peculiar that way she found this health, this salvation, this cleansing. She found this healing in the midst of a trung of people, a procession of people being trunged around the Lord Jesus Christ.
[23:03] And she stole behind him and pressed with the energy of hope to let fingers manage to grasp the hem of his garment.
[23:14] She didn't find healing in the synagogue. She couldn't go to the synagogue. She found this healing in a trung, in a trung crowd. She found this healing in a procession that was heading towards an event of grace, that is the raising of Jesus' daughter.
[23:41] Well, she must have been persuaded in her own mind and in her heart that this was the only cure for her, the touching of the Lord Jesus Christ's garment.
[23:56] And some people say that she might have come there with her forlorn hope, that this was the last thing that she was able to try.
[24:09] But I don't agree with that at all. She was propelled by the Holy Spirit. Her situation was, she was enlightened of her own situation. She was seen, she saw her own self as a filthy and inclean.
[24:26] She saw her own self as a person who could be saved only by the Lord Jesus Christ. And she was taught by the Holy Spirit in that respect.
[24:39] And that is peculiar to the people of God. Christ can save many people in many ways, but a lot of people see themselves through the work of the Holy Spirit as filthy in themselves and needing this salvation.
[24:59] The work of the Holy Spirit is to convict you of righteousness, judgment and sin, to take a potion of Christ and give it to you. That woman here, she had been given that potion of Christ. She knew that she had to rush to him.
[25:17] Go behind this running crowd, touch the hem of his garment and that she would be made whole. This woman sees herself as totally filthy and not only that, she was desperate.
[25:33] She was desperate for a cure that she knew would only come from the Lord Himself. She knew that this cure couldn't come from anybody who was in that realm of people who was a sit-down to the Lord Jesus Christ at that time, only from Himself.
[25:54] And we all have to understand that if we have a hope in this world for our salvation, it can only come from the Lord Himself.
[26:05] It is the work of God, it is the work of the Lord to bring you into this blessed fold. And not only that, it is the work of God to maintain that salvation as you embark along that course in this world that He has put you on.
[26:27] Remember in the prophecy of Isaiah, it says that there shall be a highway of holiness there. That is the road you will be put on when you are converted and brought into this blessed fold.
[26:44] So this faith was a very persuasive one. The faith of this woman was a very persuasive one. And it was prompt and immediate inaction when she saw Christ there and crowned by people.
[26:59] And I have often thought of this, that there are elements of Psalm 133 in this. It talks about the precious ointment that was used to anoint the high priest.
[27:13] That oil was poured on the head of the high priest and it perpetrated, it filtered down through his robes to the hem of his garments.
[27:25] It is a precious ointment where the Lord Jesus Christ Himself was anointed with the Holy Spirit, very fully by the Lord Himself. And that love and that anointing, it flowed down into the garments of Christ as well, to the extent that there was healing to be found by this poor woman in the hem of his garment.
[27:53] Something similar to what the high priest had in Psalm, what the high priest's anointment meant in Psalm 133.
[28:04] But it applies much more so to Christ Himself because he was really and truly anointed by God the Father with the Holy Spirit.
[28:15] This is my beloved son, he said, in whom I am well pleased. Well, as that day in the streets of Capernaum many pressed him, so it is still.
[28:28] Many people pressed the Lord Jesus Christ even in here today. There's a tron round about him, his presence is with us because he is in accordance with his promise that with the two or three are gathered in his name, that he is in that midst.
[28:46] So there's a tron in here, surround in the Lord Jesus Christ. But the question is, is there anybody here wanting and desirous of truly in spirit and in truth, wanting to touch the hem of his garment, that is healing in that Savior that is healing even in the hem of his garment as we see from this miracle that was done in Capernaum by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
[29:23] And something else that this woman learned in the context of this miracle was this, that nothing is known to the Lord as we have in verse 45 there.
[29:40] The Lord says, and Jesus said, who was it that touched me? He felt a power on you. When there is a conversion or a salvation being brought in any place, the Lord Jesus Christ knows that very well.
[29:59] He does feel a power going out of him. And then finally, the third point very briefly is the acknowledgement that had to be done by this woman who was healed of the discharge of blood.
[30:17] Jesus was not unconscious of the power that went out of him, not of the faith that received it, even amongst this great throne. He was not unconscious of that.
[30:31] And it was necessary for that subject to take the subject into a conscious and open relationship to himself. And this is why he called this woman back.
[30:45] A great, we have a picture of a great of the Lord hearing along the state and being thrown by the crowd, jostled by a great throne. But we also have a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ wanting to see this woman when he felt the power going out of him.
[31:06] And he wished to see it and he wished to show, to make witness to the fact that he had been healed by himself.
[31:18] He suddenly turns around and asks a question that even amazes the disciples. Who touched me? And the disciples explain to him that there's a throne of people around the world that he could have been touched by anybody.
[31:36] But he still insists that somebody touched him and that a power went out of him and that he wants to see that person face to face.
[31:48] So we have the woman coming back. She's trembling and she falls in front of him there and she admits that she was the one who was the recipient of that great healing and that great power that the Lord himself felt going out of him.
[32:11] Now, if she had been allowed to slip away, she would have lost two things anyway. She would have lost the honour of confessing it here.
[32:23] And she would have lost the fact that Christ himself wished to confirm her cure. He wished to confirm her cure and he wished to crown her in a certain way as we have in these words in verse 48.
[32:43] Notice what the Lord said to her and he said to her, daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. What a crowning episode to this miracle when the Lord Jesus Christ said to this woman, daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace.
[33:07] Now even that word daughter, it means a lot to us in the sense that everyone who is healed and saved by the Lord Jesus Christ, they are adopted into his heavenly and divine family.
[33:22] And he was able to call her daughter in this instance. What a crowning glory that was for her. Well, to confess with a move is an essential part of salvation as far as I can see from this miracle.
[33:40] And it comes this confession that we have to make to the Lord Jesus Christ himself. It can only come by believing with the heart.
[33:53] And perhaps I should end with this that Augustine himself said that, salvation is neither comforting nor complete until it is openly acknowledged.
[34:10] And I suppose that is why the Lord's people wish to gather at the Lord's table from time to time. They want to confess and acknowledge to the Lord the goodness that has been done for them in their lives here on earth.
[34:28] The substitution that made on the cross of Calvary in their room and in that place. And the thankfulness that they have in their hearts when they say, O though my soul, bless God the Lord and all that in me is, be stirred up as holy name to magnify and bless.
[34:50] These would have been the words of this woman who was saved from this issue of blood that she had for twelve years. She wanted to magnify from no one the name of the Lord in confessing the healing that he did for it that day when he was on the way to the raising of Jesus' daughter.
[35:14] It would be the case in this community that people would be able to extend their hand and Adam and touch the hand of the Lord's garment.
[35:28] Touch his heart to the extent that he would want them to be in the blessed fold and touch everybody else's hearts around them and see what is happening in the community and in the congregation.
[35:45] Let us pray.