Hopefully you're still in Luke
chapter 8. That'll be the main portion of
my text, Luke chapter 8. So I chose a title for my message
from the words of the Lord Jesus in verse 50. Fear not, believe
only. Fear not, believe only. I think it is the great mercy
of our God that we are given this amazing record of the Lord
Jesus Christ and his dealings with men during his earthly ministry,
going about his Father's business, always merciful, always gracious
to needy sinners. And I'm comforted by the fact
that the Lord does not change. He is merciful and he is gracious
to us, to needy sinners, even this day. We can be certain of
that. Luke introduces his gospel in
chapter one. With this declaration, he says,
this is a declaration of those things which are most surely
believed among us, that thou might know the certainty of those
things wherein thou hast been instructed. I trust you find
it refreshing to know that in a world which is so uncertain,
everything's uncertain in this world, In a world that is so
uncertain that there is the certainty of our blessed Saviour saving
sinners to himself. In 1 John we read, That which
was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have
seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands
have handled, the word of life, that which we have seen we declare
unto you. They were eyewitnesses of his
majesty. And he says in verse four of
that chapter, these things I write to you that your joy may be full. That your joy may be full. Brethren, these accounts are
not just written as historical records, and they're not just
written for our instruction, which they are, but they're for
our believing and our joy, that our joy might be full. in reading
them. Every act of the Lord Jesus Christ
reflects something both of the truth of our depravity and the
truth of his glorious person, his character, the character
of God. And we can know for certain the truth of how God saves sinners
by the giving of himself. I trust that when we see these
interactions of the Saviour with believing sinners that we see
ourselves in these pages as recipients of his grace and of his mercy. In Luke chapter 8 verse 40 We begin there and we see the
Lord Jesus had just returned from across the sea at Gadara
after healing the demoniac. And when he'd set foot on land
again, we read that the people gladly received him, for they
were all waiting for him. I love thinking about that hope.
That's the hope we have, isn't it? We're all waiting for him. We're waiting for the return
of the Lord. And when I read that, I was reminded
of the parable of the ten virgins. You might recall that in Matthew
25, they were there to meet with the bridegroom. And of course,
the bridegroom is the Lord Jesus Christ. And you may recall in
that parable, five were wise and five were foolish. And the
bridegroom was delayed for a long time. And then he came at an
hour they least expected, and the five foolish virgins were
not ready for him. They had no oil in their lamps,
the text tells us. And while they busied themselves
going about finding some oil, busying themselves with religion,
without Christ, without the bridegroom, They missed the bridegroom altogether. They missed Christ altogether. The Pharisees who plotted against
the Lord Jesus Christ were religious people, but they missed Christ. They missed the bridegroom altogether. But the five who were wise, those
five wise virgins, they had oil in their lamps, the oil of saving
grace, the oil which takes the things of Christ
and makes it known to his people. So we're waiting, aren't we?
We're waiting for the bridegroom. What a day that will be for those
who long for his appearance. So we read, the people were waiting
for him. A multitude gathered around him. There was a lot of
people, but only two there are brought to our attention. Two
that are in great need of the Lord. A woman with an incurable
condition of blood. and a man named Jairus, whose
daughter was dying. And these accounts are interwoven
in our passage. So we looked at the account of
this woman in a previous message. So today we will touch on her,
but I want us to concentrate on the account of the Lord's
dealings with Jairus and with his daughter, beginning at verse
41 of Luke chapter eight. We read, and behold, there came
a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue. And he fell down at Jesus' feet
and besought him that he would come into his house. So we do know a few things about
Jairus. Jairus was a ruler of the synagogue. He was in some ways a ruler of
the affairs of the synagogue. So he was a man of some prominence. It's notable though that a ruler
of the synagogue here should consider and approach Christ
in this manner. that he would reverence the Lord
Jesus Christ so publicly, in such a public way. We know from
the text in John chapter 12 that there were many among these rulers
of the synagogue that actually believed. The text says they
believed on Christ, such as this man Jairus. But because of the
Pharisees, those religious leaders who opposed the Lord, who plotted
against the Lord, but because of the Pharisees, these rulers
were reluctant to come forward and confess him, lest they be
put out of the synagogue. But Jairus plainly showed reverence
for the Lord as he approached. His action could cause them to
question his position in the synagogue. But this man Jairus
had far more to lose than just his position in the synagogue.
His daughter, his only daughter, was a death's door. Jairus recognized that the Lord
Jesus was his only hope. And if the Lord could not help
him, no one could. You know, it's one thing to see
our need of the Lord. It's quite another to see that
he's the only hope we have. And when he's the only hope we
have, he is all you need. Jairus approaches the Lord by
putting himself in the dust at his feet. I trust that we understand
that this is a very fitting place for sinners. before a holy God. He came and fell down at Jesus'
feet. And those words reminded me of
that time in Acts chapter 10 you might recall when Cornelius
was instructed of the Lord in a vision to seek out Peter and
to speak to him. And Cornelius waited for Peter
to arrive. And when he saw Peter, he ran
to Peter and he fell down at his feet and worshipped him.
And Peter said, get up, get up, I'm only a man. I'm only a man. But the Lord Jesus is not a man,
is he? He's the God-man. Jairus approached
the Lord with great need, and even though he was a prominent
man, he had no care for how the crowd would see him. He had no
care for how the Pharisees would view his actions. He had only
one eye for the Lord, and that was what he did. He went forward
looking only to the Lord Jesus. Ben read for us those other accounts
in Matthew's Gospel in chapter 9 and also in Mark's Gospel in
chapter 5. In Mark's account the text says
that he besought him greatly and in Matthew's account we read
that the Jairus came and worshipped him. And to the crowd, it would appear that Jairus was
worshipping a man. But the Lord did not say, stand
up, did he? I'm a man, he's the God man, and he is worthy of
all the honour and glory and worship that we can bestow and
more. And Jairus besought him that
he would come into his house. Again, this reminds me of another
encounter the Lord had with another man. You remember the centurion. You might have heard of the faith
of the centurion. Chapter 8 of Matthew. And like
Jairus, the centurion was a prominent man. He had some authority. The soldiers under the command
of a centurion, when they were ordered to do something, they
observed the order without question and did it immediately. And in
a similar circumstance to Jairus, the centurion's servant was ill
and he came beseeching the Lord for help. And the Lord said to
the centurion, I will come and heal him. I will come in healing. But what did the centurion say? What was the response of the
centurion? He said to the Lord, I'm not
worthy that you should come under my roof. Just speak the word. Just speak the word and my servant
will be healed. And when Jesus heard the words
of the centurion, he said, Verily I say unto you, I have not found
so great faith, not in Israel. And his servant was healed that
very hour. No doubt, had Jairus said to the Lord, just say the
word, his daughter would have been restored, no doubt. But I don't want to underestimate
the faith we see here in this man when we consider his situation
and his actions. Here in Luke we see that his
daughter lay a dying. In Mark it was said that she
lieth at the point of death. that in Matthew, Jairus says
to the Lord Jesus, my daughter is even now dead. It's even now dead. It seems that Jairus had left
his daughter, knowing that she would likely die And so in Mark's account, he
said, my daughter is even now dead. Whatever this man's faith,
we do not know. The Lord doesn't make mention
of the faith as he did with the centurion. But I'm so glad that
the Lord did mention something of faith. In other places, he
spoke of the faith of a mustard seed, a seed so small, It's difficult
to see it. And I've often felt that that
is a good description of my faith. But the truth is, it's not the
amount of faith one has. God gives the gifts of faith
to individuals as he sees fit. Some may have the faith of a
centurion, some the faith of a mustard seed. What matters
is the object of our faith. The Lord Jesus Christ, he is
the object of our faith. If your faith's in him, then
all is well with your soul. Reading on, we see in verse 42
that Jairus had only one daughter, about 12 years of age, and she
lay dying. But as he went, the people thronged
him. Can you imagine how anxious Jairus
would have been that the Lord Jesus would be delighted in coming
to his daughter? And there is a further delay
now. We see in verse 43, this woman comes along. And a woman
having an issue of blood, 12 years, which had spent all her
living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, came
behind him and touched the border of his garment, and immediately
her issue of blood stanched. That is, it stopped. And notice
in verse 42, The Holy Spirit gives us this measurement of
12 years, which in this case represents the entire life of
the little girl that had died. 12 years. And then in the next
verse this woman had an issue of blood. 12 years. One is a complete life of 12
years. The other is an unclean life
of 12 years. Perhaps I thought that with the
two in mind we can see an important truth about this, that all the
days of our life all the days of our life in this body of corruption
are an unclean thing before the Lord. From the day we are conceived
to the day we die, sin will be with us in these mortal bodies.
And that's the wretched man that Paul speaks of in Romans chapter
7. He says a wretched man that I am, a wretched man that I am. And then he asks the question
that we so desperately need to know the answer. Who shall deliver
me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ
our Lord. You might recall last time I
spoke, we considered this woman and her poor condition, a condition
which excluded her from society, a condition which, according
to the law, forbid her to be seen in public life. She was
unclean, ceremonially unclean, and because her condition was
perpetual, She remained unclean. There was no cycle. There was
no air being flowing. She remained unclean for 12 years.
Anything she touched became unclean. Her clothes were unclean. Her
belongings were unclean. And if somebody touched something
that she touched, they became unclean as well and had to go
and get ceremonially cleansed. And they must be separated. But
more than that, she's forbidden to touch a clean person. Forbidden. Her punishment would
be forthcoming if she was discovered attempting to touch a clean person. The Lord Jesus Christ was a clean
person. She knew full well that she could do nothing, though,
to make herself clean, nor could any physician. The physicians
spoken of here represent false teachers. She'd been to all of
them. She'd done the rounds. All they
ever do and all they ever did was take from her. And all they
ever did in return was give false hope. She'd done all she could
and found she could do nothing. But her saviour could do everything.
With just a touch, just a touch of the border of his garment,
she was instantly healed. Lord Jesus said to his disciples,
apart from me, ye can do nothing. We are tempted to think, I think,
that we are more capable than we really are. We can do nothing to save ourselves.
He must do it all. He must do it all. Remember that
we know this woman's condition is a picture of all of us. We
are, all of us, unclean before a holy God. This body of corruption
is unworthy to be in the presence of a holy God. We need God to
do for us that which we cannot do ourselves. And thanks be to
God, there is a cleansing. There is a cleansing in the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a cleansing by blood. That sacrificial system of the
Jews was a way of cleansing by blood, shed blood, representing
a life given up. But we know that the sacrifices
of animals could never take away sin. Their purpose was to point,
point to the one great sacrifice, a sacrifice that God would provide
himself, a sacrifice that would put away the sins of God's elect
forever. One sacrifice was all that was
needed. Just one, not many, just one.
Because that sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ was all pleasing
to the Father. In verse 47 we see again this
approach to the Lord. She came trembling and falling
down before him and she told him everything. And he said unto
her, Daughter, be of good comfort, thy faith hath made thee whole,
go in peace. I can only imagine that Jairus,
having seen this miracle, that his hopes would be renewed. If
he could do something for this woman, surely he can do something
for me. But then the news, the sad news
came to Jairus' ears. In verse 49 we see, While he
yet spake, There cometh one from the ruler
of the synagogue's house, saying to him, Thy daughter is dead. Trouble not the master. No doubt
the news would have been conveyed with great sorrow, and possibly
by a family member. Who knows? But before Jairus
even has time to lament, the Lord Jesus immediately gives
Jairus the hope of his word. In verse 50 we read, When Jesus
heard the news, he answered him, saying, Believe only and she
shall be made whole. I believe there are some lessons
here for us to draw. The first thing that comes to
mind is that we ought never give up hope. They came to tell Jairus
and told him that his daughter was dead. But they added those
words, trouble not the master. What were they saying? They were
saying there is no life in her. She is obviously dead and beyond
help. There's nothing you can do. There's
no hope left. They'd not thought that the master
was able to bring life where there was no life at all. We
long, don't we, to give Our unbelieving family and our unbelieving friends
and our unbelieving neighbours, we long for the Lord to give
them saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we're so, I
believe, so easily discouraged when we don't see any life in
them. We're tempted, aren't we, to give up hope. We ought never
stop presenting our loved ones before the Lord, before the throne
of grace, and whatever the Lord does, it will be right. Rest
in that. The Lord said, fear not, believe
only, and she shall be made whole. Just one instruction from the
Lord to Jairus, believe. Only how hard is that instruction
for those who seek to please God by their activities, by their
own works? Understand what the Lord did
not say here. He did not say if you can believe, she can be
made whole. He didn't say if you can muster
up the faith, she can be made whole. Works religion makes faith
a work of the creature. that faith's a gift of God. Faith
is a gift of God. If faith could be traced back
to us, if faith could be traced back to originating in us, generated
by us, I can tell you what would happen. We would boast. We would
boast in it. We would boast in ourselves and
not in the one who gives faith. If Jairus is to believe, that
faith must come from the Lord. He has no power. Jairus has no
power to raise his daughter. The Lord must do it all. He must
do it all, and that's the essence of our message. The Lord Jesus
has done it all. He is all our wisdom, all our
righteousness, all our sanctification, all our redemption, every bit
of it. And if your gospel is not all
of him, It's nothing. It's nothing. We don't do anything
to make what he did work. The scripture tells us the sins
of God's people were put away by the sacrifice of himself. He did it by himself. And if
the works of men are mixed in, all it does is turn grace into
works. Let's read on, verse 51. And
when he came into the house, he suffered no man to go in,
said Peter, James, and John, and the father and the mother
of the maiden. There were a lot of people at
the house, many of whom were not part of Jairus' household,
and the Lord separates them. God's the one who separates.
And in verse 52, we read, they all wept and bewailed her. But
he said, weep not. She is not dead, but asleep. The Lord Jesus is just about
to exercise his mighty power to raise a person from the dead. And there's a picture here, of
course, both physically and spiritually for us. All gods elect are born into
this world spiritually dead. We are spiritually dead. And so there is a sense in which
the elect of God are asleep in this life for a time and in due
season. Those elect ones shall be made
alive and cleansed by the touch of his hand at the time of his
love, when the Lord regenerates the heart and opens the eyes
to his sovereign grace. And until they come, until the
elect of God come to faith in Christ, it can be said they're
asleep, they're only asleep. And the Lord says that this little
girl is asleep. She's waiting for the Lord to
call. In Paul's epistle to the Thessalonians, we read that those
who have died in the Lord are said to be asleep in Jesus. They will rise again, just as
the Lord Jesus did. What a great hope that is, and
one that ought to comfort us in such times. But let's see
what's happening here at the house of Jairus. Reading from
Matthew's account in Matthew 9.23, let me read it to you.
When Jesus came into the ruler's house, he saw the minstrels and
the people making noise. And in Mark's account, we're
told that there was a tumult of people weeping and wailing
greatly. Now in those days, it was the
custom of the Jews that when a death occurred, that minstrels
would be hired, or pipers as they were, and they would come
to the house and they would play their pipes and weep and wail. They were professional whalers,
professional pipers, professional grievance people, whatever you
want to call them, an odd thing. And they would play their pipes
and they would play them in such a way, not in a calming way,
but they would play them to excite the grief, to exacerbate. And so the Lord must deal with
these people first. These people are there to increase the mourning
and to increase the sense of loss. paid to weep and wail,
but now comes the Lord Jesus, that one who is spoken so wonderfully
in Revelation 21. Behold, the tabernacle of God
is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be
his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all their
tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither
sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the
former things are passed away." Lord Jesus Christ is amongst
these people now. It's not fitting that his presence
be accompanied with weeping and tears and grief. And the Lord
said, weep not. She is not dead, but sleepeth.
And in an act that showed their complete insincerity, those weepers
and wailers, at a moment's notice, they turned around and laughed
at him. They laughed at the Son of God.
They laughed him, in verse 43, they laughed him to scorn, knowing
that she was dead. Had these people known the power
of the Lord, they would have known that there was no need
for such a display. But the Lord was in control,
as he always is in control. And in verse 54 we see that he
pulled them out and took her by the hand. Lazarus was called
from a distance by the Lord. But the Lord takes this young
damsel by the hand, perhaps simply to show his tender care of this
little one. You might remember in Matthew
19 that the people were bringing their little ones to the Lord
Jesus for a blessing and the disciples scolded them for it. And the Lord said, Suffer not
the little children to come unto me, forbid them not, for such
is the kingdom of God. The Lord loves his children.
He is never above taking notice of his little ones. We come to
the Lord with childlike faith for good reason. He took her
by the hand and her spirit came again and she arose straight
away and he commanded to give her meat. Just turn in closing,
turn to Mark's account if you would. Mark chapter 5. Mark records what the Lord said
in the old language, in Aramaic. It was a commonly spoken tongue
at the time. Mark 541, he took the damsel
by the hand and said unto her, Talitha cumon, which is being
interpreted, damsel, I say unto thee, arise. I was interested
to see what the commentators had said about this, and I read
that The word Talitha by variation
can mean lamb. And kumai means arise. And what the Lord was really
saying was little lamb, arise. The Lord had previously spoken
a stern word, didn't he, to the demons who fled his presence.
He spoke a word of rebuke to the wind and the waves and there
was a great calm and here he speaks with the tenderness of
a shepherd to a little lamb. The Lord said, I am the Good
Shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the
Father knoweth me, even so I the Father, and I lay down my life
for all the sheep. No greater love hath no man than
this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. The sheep
are His, aren't they? He bought them with price. The
price was the blood of the Son of God. It was God's blood that
was the price. Thanks be to God for all that
He is and all that He has done in these things. Amen.