Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to the Gospel according to Matthew
chapter 9 and verse 21. It's page 893 if you have one
of our free Bibles, 893. The Gospel according to Matthew
chapter 9 and verse 21. For she said within herself,
If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole. Matthew 9 and verse 21. This is the account in Matthew,
the same as what we read in Luke. The woman with the issue of blood,
that had had the issue of blood 12 years. In our text, we read of what
was going on in her soul, in her mind, what she was saying
within herself, when she pressed through that crowd that thronged
round about him and touched his garment. In this account we have
a miracle, and truly in the accounts that we read, those wonderful
miracles of staying the wind in the waves, of casting out
the devils out of the mad Gadarene, the power of God that made those
at Gadarene so frightened, so fearful, the raising up one from
the dead, and the healing of this woman of an issue of blood,
of her bleeding, a constant bleeding that she had had for 12 years. Spent all her substance, tried
in every way she could that she might be healed but could not.
And here the Lord healed her in a moment. These miracles,
they testified that Jesus of Nazareth truly is the Son of
God. He is who he said he was, the
Christ that should come into the world. Those works, he said,
testified of him. The Father had given them him
to do, and they gave witness of who he was. But surely there is another reason
why these accounts are in the Holy Inspired Word of God. We do know from John that he
testifies that there could be many things that were written,
and many things that Jesus did, But these are written that ye
might believe and that in believing ye might have life through his
name. So we know that many of these
things were written and recorded for this aim, that you and I
might believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and that we might be saved
through his name. But we have another aspect, and
this in our text, It speaks of the personal life, the experience
of the people of God. Now we might say, well, this
account here can never be replicated. Our Lord is not on earth now. For one thing, he has ascended
up into heaven. He is at the right hand of the
Father. It cannot be that one comes as
this woman did and touches his garment. So we might say, what
teaching, what instruction can we have from such accounts to
us in a Gospel day, having the Word and Christ preached to us
as we have this morning? Our Lord, he taught in many occasions
with parables. We are told that without a parable,
speaking not unto them. In the 18th of Luke, we have the
Lord speaking a parable from the first verse of that chapter. The parable is a natural story
with a spiritual application and teaching. And we read, he
spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always
to pray and not to faint. So we're told in this, this account,
this is what the Lord is going to tell us, is to teach us and
to show us through this parable a spiritual lesson that we ought
always to pray and not to faint. And then he speaks of there being
a city and a judge in that city that did not fear God nor regard
man. And then he speaks of a widow
in that city who came saying to him, avenge me of my adversary. And he would not for a while,
but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God,
nor regard man, yet because this widow troubleth me, I'll venge
her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. And the Lord said,
Hear what the unjust judge saith, and then he applies it. And shall
not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto
him, though he bear long with them? The point is this. We could make this parable to
read just like the account we've had of the woman with the issue
of blood, or the women with the issue of blood, like this parable. Our Lord could be telling, really,
with our text. We have recorded an event as
it unfolded, as it was actually happened. But our Lord could
tell it as a parable and with the same applications. If we can have a situation with
the judge and the widow coming to her and the way he, after
she comes again and again and again, gives her what she wants,
and the Lord draws from that very literal, natural account
a spiritual teaching. How much more so in this case? If the Lord would say that there
was this woman that had an issue of blood and she was so seeking
to be healed and for 12 years she couldn't, But then she heard
of the Lord and yet there was a crowd round about him but she
pressed through that crowd and she touched his garment and she
was healed. And the Lord then said, I say
unto you, everyone that knows their sickness of sin and has
not been able to be cured and healed in any other way, that
presses through every obstacle and every hindrance and gets
to the Lord they shall be fully healed. You know it is a real
lesson of one who above all else desire to get to the Lord Jesus
Christ. So I would bring before you this
account with this woman and apply it in this way that we
would learn from it in a spiritual way, the same as the Lord taught
the parables. Really it is a living parable. living parable. There are many
things in our lives. We could behold something happening
like this. And the Lord applied in a spiritual
way. We think of how the Lord spoke
of the lilies and we might see lilies growing. But the Lord
stops and He looks at the lily He said, Behold the lilies of
the field. How beautiful they are. He says,
But I tell you Solomon, arrayed in all his glory, that he was
not so beautiful as these. And the Lord points to his creation. He points to what he has done,
and he brings those spiritual lessons out of it. We could perhaps see a little
bird drinking from a fountain, and as it drinks then it points
its beak upwards towards heaven. And we think, what a lesson to
us. Whenever we drink, whenever we
eat, do we acknowledge that it all comes from God? Do we look
up? Do we see the Lord's hand in
it? Day unto day, utter a speech, or in the words at the end of
Psalm 107, whoso is wise and will observe these things. In
many things we observe, we see, but we don't ponder and think,
take notice of it. In the Proverbs it speaks of
going past the field of a slothful man, seeing it all overgrown
with weeds. And a lesson learned of slothfulness
and what the end result shall be. The Bible, the Word of God,
is full of these parables, full of teaching in the things that
we see. I want to then look at four points,
and we'll introduce them as we go, concerning this woman's account,
and especially the word of our text, her own experience. She said within herself, if I
may but touch his garment, I shall be whole. The first thing I bring
before us is her incurable condition. She'd had 12 years attempts to
heal this condition that she had. She knew she had it. And she
tried in all her power to be rid of it and to be free of it. And yet she could not. This was
what was the background before she came to the Lord Jesus. Now let us apply that in a spiritual
way. We are all born in sin and shapen
in iniquity. And outside of the Lord Jesus
Christ, that is an incurable condition. The sentence on our first parents
was that In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. Death is before us each, and
in this world there is sin, there's affliction, there's sorrow, there's
weakness. Everything that shepherds us
right to the grave. And after death, the judgment. The Lord brought in thee, law
of God, with one aim, that all the world might be brought in
guilty before God. Men, by nature, because they
are dead, they have this condition, but they do not know they have
it. They do not know the root cause
of it. They know there's death and sorrow
in the world. They do not know that it is because
of sin, because of original sin, because of their sin, because
of their transgression against God, that they are under condemnation,
and that the soul that sinneth, it shall die. They have a malady,
but they don't know what it is. They don't know and don't feel
any need to seek a remedy for it. They live with it, as it
were. But this woman, she not only
had this malady, this sickness, this issue of blood, but she
desperately wanted to be healed of it. Now the thing that the Lord does,
when you have mercy upon a person, a man, a woman, a child, He'll
make them to know that they have the sickness of sin. He'll make
them to want to be free and rid of it. By the law is the knowledge
of sin. With the Apostle Paul, he was
a Pharisee of the Pharisees, a religious man. Yes, there no
doubt is in this land, there no doubt is in many of our churches,
Many religious people who do not know their sinners and have
never known the Saviour, they may speak about Him, they may
even try and point others to Him, but do not know Him themselves. They do not really know what
they have within them as a sinner. With this woman, She tried in
every way she could to have this cured. Now the effect, if God
really shows us what sin is, we will want to be free of it.
We want to be saved from our sins. We'll know what the end
of it is. We'll know that it is something
that is within us that we would not. The Apostle Paul sums it
up in Romans 7. The good that I would, I do not. The evil that I would not, that
I do. O wretched man that I am. It is sin within him. And he
knew it, he felt it. And he said before that, that
commandment came He was alive. He thought he wasn't a sinner.
But when the commandment came, sin revived and he died. And
the point I bring before us here is this. It's absolutely vital
that we feel sin as to what it really is. It's not a good sign
when we do not view sin as what it really is. If we can excuse
our sin, speak lightly of it, live with it, we're like someone
with a condition that rather than seeking healing, just says,
well, nothing I can do about it, we'll just live with it,
just go with it. But the thing with sin, it's
not just living with it here in this life. After death is
the judgment. After that is eternal damnation. It's not just a matter of getting
through this life the best we can with afflictions and troubles
and trials. When death comes, it puts an
end to everything. It's not an end to everything. In this life, those that are
outside of Christ, it is the best that they shall
ever know. Then comes eternal torments in
hell. For those that are the Lord's
people, this life is the worst that they'll ever know. Heaven
awaits beyond the grave. The point in this first point,
and we picture this woman with the issue of blood. She felt what she had enough
to make her even spend all her substance trying to be cured
and rid of it. How does that compare with how
we view sin? Now we know many of the Lord's
dear people When they do feel their sin, we'll try many, many
remedies. Many will seek to do it in obedience
to the law, but by the deeds of the law shall no man living
be justified. We cannot mend our own ways and
save ourselves from sin in that way. Some will go on to men who
prescribe many different remedies and pointing to many different
ways. Some will be completely secular,
aimed at deadening the mind and taking away the thoughts. Others
will be in a religious way, pointing to some other remedy to pacify
the conscience, to make sin not be sin, to somehow heal it. Like a descendant of Israel of
old, they have healed the daughter of my people slightly, saying,
peace, peace, when there is no peace. That is not healing. And if we truly have been slain
by the Lord and convinced by the Lord that we are sinners
and brought in guilty as sinners, then that kind of a remedy won't
satisfy us. So we have a lesson. A lesson
in the knowledge of the sickness in this woman. An incurable condition. An incurable condition outside
of Christ. And that is what sin is. But then secondly, We have her
aim. What was her aim? In our text
we read, she said within herself, if I may but touch his garment,
I shall be whole. That was her aim. She wanted
to get so close to him and to touch his garment. May our aim be after Christ and
Christ alone. We think of the testifying of
so many in scripture. The Greeks, they came to the
disciples, so as we would see Jesus. We think on the Mount
of Transfiguration, they saw no man but Jesus only. We hear the testimony of John
the Baptist, behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the
sin of the world. We hear our Lord's own words,
if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall perish in your sins. We hear the words of the apostles,
there is none other name given among men, whereby we must be
saved. We hear the determination of
the Apostle Paul, I determined to know nothing among men, save
Jesus and him crucified. We have our Lord's teaching in
John 14. I am the way, the truth and the
life. No man cometh unto the Father,
but by me. The aim of each, the object of
each is Christ. He is central. And this was her
aim. And may that be a real message
to us. Message to all that feel their
sin. The secret is the Lord Jesus
Christ. The very key is the Lord Jesus
Christ. He is the answer. He is the way. He is the remedy. It is Jesus only. Let us, says
the Apostle Paul, run the race that is set before us, looking
unto Jesus. Now sometimes, sometimes we lose
that aim. We get all confused and turned
aside to this or to that. May the message this morning,
the word before us this morning, focus us again as this dear woman
had her focus on the Lord Jesus Christ, not on all of those round
about him, on him, on him alone. She had to get to him. That's
what she wanted. She wanted to receive power from
him, to receive virtue from him. She wanted him to do what none
other could do, that he would do that for her. She wanted him
to heal her. In a way it was like Martha and
Mary when their brother Lazarus was sick. They wanted the Lord
to come, he whom their lovest is sick. They left it to the
Lord how he would deal with the matter. He didn't deal with it
as they thought that he would. But he did deal with it. And
may it be with us, confused as you may have been,
Many different guides pointing this way and that way, this remedy
and that remedy, and this thing to do and that thing to do. But
have one aim. If I may but touch his garment
I shall be whole. There's a beautiful picture and
a sense of this, the garment of our Lord, his robe of righteousness. but really it is the garments
of salvation. That is what we are touching,
the Saviour. His name shall be called Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their sins. And that is
why the desire, the aim, is unto Christ, Christ alone. So that was her I am. And may
that be our I am. Jesus only. Jesus only. But in the third place, there
is the obstacle. An obstacle to that I am. There are a couple of contrasts
in the portion that we read in Luke 8. We began the reading
in verse 19. When we read that, Then came
to him his mother and his brethren, that is his own brothers, and
could not come at him, for the press. So here was his own kindred
wanting to get physically to the Lord Jesus Christ. They couldn't. Why? Because of the press, because
of those that were thronging him. And then we have the case here with this woman and we have the multitude that is
round about as well in verse 42, but as he went, that is to
go to Jairus and his daughter, as he went the people thronged
him. Then later, when the Lord said
that someone had touched him, it was the disciples saying that,
well, there is so many people, verse 45, the multitude thronged
thee, impressed thee, and so is thou who touch me. And we have this picture in both
cases of those crowds round about our Lord. The contrast between
even our Lord's mother Mary and her brethren and this woman. And this woman's case seems to
give her more drive to press through these crowds and this
throng than even his own relatives. And yet there is this obstacle. There are these crowns to press
through. What are they in a spiritual
sense? One of them will be those which
are inward. Now it's not told in this account,
but Her very condition would have been debilitating. It would
have hindered her. In many conditions like that,
you know, if one has a broken leg and they've got to go to
a physician, one of the difficulties of actually getting to the physician
is the broken leg itself. And nothing more can be more
real or vivid in a sinner seeking to come to the Lord Jesus Christ
to be hindered by the very sins themselves. Their very malady,
their very complaint, those sins, their besetting sins, their lust,
their pride, their hatred, their malice, their envy, those things
that rise up within, every thought, an act impure, all of those things
hinder So there's the inward things.
Then there's Satan, he tempts. He lays his traps, his snares. Then there is the world, it surrounds
us, it calls for us, it presses upon us, presses upon our time,
our attentions, our energies. It's a basic thing, if we have
a solitary place to go, and to seek the Lord in. Many don't
have that. Many have gone out for walks
into the hedgerows and quiet places where they can go and
call upon the Lord and seek Him and read His Word. But there's many things that would compete for our time, our
thoughts, attention, especially when we are seeking after the
Lord. There's the religious crowd as
well. Now you might be seeking the
Lord, maybe haven't been to a place of worship, looking on the internet,
you can look on there, you can look on many places and you get
one saying this thing, one saying that, all contradicting each
other, one pointing one way, one pointing another, a world
full of religion. You might have come from one
that have known nothing of the things of God whatsoever and
you just start upon the feeling of your sense of your sinnership,
an aching void this world can't fill, And you're met with this
religious crowd of all sorts of thoughts, of advice, and religions,
and beliefs. You think, where do I start? This is something like the crowd
round about the Lord Jesus Christ. Those false teachers. Those like
with the Galatians saying, except you be circumcised, you can't
be saved. Except this, except that. You
must do this, you must do that. Like the Roman Catholic Church,
no, you must go through Mary. You must go through a priest.
You can't go straight to the Lord Jesus Christ. Or like the
Jehovah's Witnesses, they said there was no use coming to Him
anyway because He's not really God. He's only created. It is not divine. There are many
things that will crowd in, go round about the Lord, to stop
one from coming unto Him. It was a great blessing to have
the holy, pure, inerrant Word of God. The Trinitarian Bible
Society have their Bibles without comment, because they want men,
women, children to be able to read the Word of God, pray over
it, without having those to, as it were, make it of none effect. And there are many like that.
Our Lord said of those of his day, they made the Word of none
effect because of their tradition. We read of the Bereans, that
they were able to take the Old Testament scriptures. When the
Apostle Paul preached to them, they could take those scriptures
and compare what Paul preached to those scriptures. And you
should be able to do that. In everything that is brought
before you from the pulpit or taught, compare it with the Word
of God. The Word of God is infallible. Don't let any man try to disannul
the Word of God or to turn you away from its teaching by the
teaching of man. The Word of God stands superior
alone, the infallible, inerrant Word of God. Now command is to
preach the Word. But there will be many things
for a seeking sinner to press through. May your aim, may my
aim, be Christ alone. May we be seeking after him,
not get caught up, as Paul warns, about endless genealogies, or
about this doctrine and that doctrine, and many. Doctrine
is needful, we need doctrine, we need teaching. But let not
those things be as great to confuse us and to turn us aside from
the Lord Jesus Christ. Well then in the fourth place
we have her aim achieved. She did obtain her aim. How did she do that? She pressed
through that crowd. She didn't let the crowd stop
her. Her need was pressing. We think
of the parable I spoke to you of, of the widow and the unjust
judge. She kept coming. She wouldn't
take no for an answer. She kept pressing her case. And
that's what we must do. in prayer, coming before the
Lord, seeking the Lord Jesus Christ, asking Him to reveal
Himself. As we read the Word of God, praying
that Jesus be revealed, that He would speak to us through
His Word, that He would come to us, that we might come to
Him, that we might find Him in the sacred place. that we might
not lose sight of that purpose and that aim, though it be delayed. We read of Ruth in the Book of
Ruth. The Lord directed her into the
field of Boaz. And Boaz's charge was to her
to keep fast by my maidens. May that advice be to anyone
pressing unto Christ. You keep close to those disciples
of the Lord, to those who also have that same aim and desire. Flee far from those churches
that are nothing more than religious social clubs, whose gatherings
are nothing more than to amuse the flesh, to have a band in
the corner and to have some music and just to amuse the natural
man. Cleave to those that have that
same aim and desire, to have Christ preached to have him set
before you, to be drawn to him through the lattice of the Word,
unto you which believe he is precious. And if Christ is precious,
then we will desire him. Dear Mary, when she came to the
tomb and was weeping, and the Lord was there, but she thought
he was the gardener. Woman, why weepest thou? They've
taken away my Lord, I know not where they've laid Him. She wanted
Him. The people of God need the Lord
Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul says, when Christ,
who is our life, shall appear, then shall we also appear with
Him. She achieved her aim. The power
was hers, the healing was hers, the blessing was hers. In the
Lord Jesus Christ, we have Him sent by the Father to this world,
made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that are
under the law. In His life, His perfect life
and obedience, He wrought out a righteousness to give to every
believer. In his death he suffered in the
place of his people. He bore their sin on Calvary's
tree. He endured the wrath of God in
the place of them. Those are sweet times when we
get a little glimpse of what the Lord suffered. He suffered
much in his soul, the hiding of his father's face, the wrath
of God because of sins not his own. But his physical sufferings
were much as well. In this last week, the earlier
part of it went through coughing because of a chest infection.
And I ripped the abdominal muscles and they still are very painful.
But then when it first happened, just to breathe deeply was very
painful. to cough, and when I knew I had
to cough, I knew that as soon as I coughed, I'd be wracked
with excruciating pain. And my mind went to my Lord on
the cross at Calvary. One of the things with the cross,
of course, they were, they were scourged before they were put
on the cross. And the way they were hung on
the cross, The only way that they could breathe was to press
up with their feet, release the pressure on their ribcage so
they could breathe. And to do that, their back would
have scraped upon the timber of the cross. It would have been
excruciating pain every breath that they wanted to take. And
I thought that on every cough I wanted to make, that was going
to be excruciating pain. Every breath our Lord took on
Calvary was excruciating pain. And yet even there, he could
speak to that dying thief, the thief who said, we indeed just
leave, for we receive the due reward of our deeds. This man
hath done nothing amiss. Lord, remember me when thou comest
into thy kingdom. Our Lord said, verily, verily
I say unto you, this day shalt thou be with me in paradise. It was on the cross the Lord
put away the sins of all of his people. Without the shedding of blood
there is no remission, but there at Calvary is the answer. His
name shall be called Jesus, for he shall save his people from
their sins. That is where the deed was done.
That is where the justice of God was satisfied. That is where
the full payment was received. God requires nothing more. nothing
more from you or I, but the Lord Jesus Christ is set before us
in the gospel, and whosoever believeth on him should not perish,
but should have eternal life. It is this touch, it is this
faith that the Lord commended this woman as having, a faith
that began with thee, realization of the malady first. A faith
that was further realized in pressing toward the Lord, in
being convinced that if she but got to Him, healing was with
Him. That faith then that was fully
realized in being healed. Now may we be very clear, you
and I Here below will always be sinners. Not this side of the grave will
we be free from sin. But in the Lord Jesus Christ,
and believing that He has put away our sins, there is freedom
from condemnation. We read in Romans 8, there is
therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. You walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit. We will still be sinners, but
faith that lays her hand on Christ's head, faith that fully believes
that that payment is made, is settled, is done, it takes away
the sentence of eternal death. It makes death but a passage
from this world into heaven, the same as with the dying thief. As he was dying, this day shalt
thou be with me in paradise. Death released him of all his
pains, all his guilt, even as a sinner, even as a thief, released
him from the cross. His body was still there. but
his spirit, redeemed spirit, was to be with the Lord in heaven. None but Jesus, says the hymn
writer, can do helpless sinners good. Sometimes we might think our
afflictions, and the Lord does use afflictions, make them work
for good, but they won't turn our hearts, and we prove that. We prove that. Sometimes we find
our sins, our afflictions, make our sins even worse. We think surely under these painful
strokes that we will learn righteousness, forsake our sins. But no, it
is only the Lord himself can save. And we're brought to this
aim and this desire then, the message this morning. Don't look
to any other but Christ. Don't press to any other but
Christ. Don't look for any other power
but Christ's power. Don't look for any other grace
but Christ's grace. No help but in the Lord alone. It is Christ alone that saves,
that no flesh might glory in his presence. This is the message. The word
of our text is the word of the experience of this dear woman. And may we know something of
the experience of a soul that is brought to flee unto Christ
to press through every obstacle and every crowd to him and obtain
the blessing through Christ and to give him the honour and the
glory and the praise. You know, our Lord drew from
that dear woman and she told before all that multitude what
the Lord had done, what her condition was and what God had done for
her. and you know if you are like
her, if I am. May we be helped to tell as well
to sinners round what a dear Saviour we have found. Point
to His redeeming blood and say, behold the way to God. May we
be helped to tell the Church of God, encourage the Church
of God that Jesus still saves, that sinners are still drawn
to Him, still find Him precious, the one thing needful. May we
be then found amongst that number that go and tell to their families,
tell to sinners round still, of their personal knowledge of
the Lord, their personal closeness with the Lord, touching the Lord,
what He is to them, For she said within herself, If I may but
touch his garment, I shall be whole. The Lord bless us with
that same like precious faith, and that same bringing to the
Lord, and hearing from his blessed lips as well, that same word,
Daughter, be of good comfort, thy faith hath made. thee whole. May the Lord add
his blessing. Amen.