Mark chapter 5. The great physician makes house
calls. He makes house calls. We don't
see that nowadays, do we? There was a time when the community
doctor would make house calls, but not anymore. But there is
one that still does. There is one that still does. And the great physician is known
by his work. Christ is known by his work.
When we go to the doctor's office, we usually see their credentials
hanging on the wall, and that's a good thing. I like to see their
credentials on the wall. Tells me they studied. They have
some education in the area they are practicing. Our Lord's credentials is who
he is. That's his credentials. He's
God. He's God. It's his deity. Now we have in verses 18 and
19. Our Lord's preaching. He's preaching in Matthew's house. And there came a certain ruler,
a ruler of the synagogue. And they give us his name, Jairus. He was an important man, a ruler,
they call him, of the synagogue. You know how important that was
in that day? That was a high position. He
was over the synagogue. He conducted the services. He
chose men to read the scriptures. This man could order a scourging. This man had the power to excommunicate
people from the synagogue. He had this kind of power. That's
why he's called a ruler. And in that day and in that time,
in that situation, he had a very high position. But God brought this ruler to
his feet. God knows how to bring rulers
down as well as peasants. He knows how to do it. And he made this one desperate,
desperate. That's how God makes us when
He saves us. Desperate. A desperate need of
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only thing that'll
bring you to Him. Everything else will make you religious.
You'll just get religious. But a real desperate need over
forgiveness, over sin, whatever He may use to bring you to Him,
He'll bring you. just like he did this man. This
man's daughter was at the point of dying. His daughter, little daughter
he calls her, my little daughter. I take two little ones back there.
My little daughter, she's dying at the point he said of death. He was just tore up about this.
He knew that no one could help her. He could not help her. All the power he had, all the
power he possessed as a ruler couldn't do one thing for his
little daughter, not one thing. It makes me think of that man
whose son was possessed. He cast himself into the fire
and into the water. And he brought him to his disciples,
to the disciples. They couldn't do anything, couldn't
do anything. And the Lord said to them, bring
him to me, bring him to me. And he cast out that devil, cured
that little, that young boy. And that's the point here in
this whole thing. coming to Christ, being brought to Christ. And the Lord makes this ruler
desperate and he's gonna bring him to his
feet. And there's four things about this ruler I wanna point
out. First of all, he came to Jesus
as a beggar. He came to the Lord Jesus as
a beggar. not as a ruler. He did not come to him as the
ruler of the synagogue. He came to him as a beggar. It's amazing. It's amazing how
grace and need kills prejudice. It kills prejudice. A drowning
man cares not the color of the skin of the one saving him, If you need a blood transfusion
in order to live, you going to ask him what race that blood
was taken from? I doubt it. I doubt it. And then when he came, he came
to worship him first. The first thing he did was take
his place in the dust, right where he belonged, at the feet
of the Lord Jesus Christ at the feet of God Almighty. This ruler
had to come down and he came down. He came all the way down
to his feet. All the way down to his feet.
He was made to bow first. He was made to bow first. He had to acknowledge, he was
brought to acknowledge the power of the Lord. You can save her. Like that leper
said, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. You can do
that. Lord, if you will, you can save
me. It's not a matter of power. It's never a matter of power.
It's always a matter of will. He is. He is. And then he prayed to him for
help, for mercy. He asked for what he needed.
I don't know why we would go beat around the bush with God.
He knows our hearts. He knows every minute. He knows
the hairs of our head. The very hairs of our head are
numbered. So when we go before him, ask
for exactly what we're after. He did. You need forgiveness,
ask for it. And you and I'll need that all
the way home. all the way home. We'll need
forgiveness and cleansing all the way home. And he believed, he came believing. He believed the Lord could do
this. The Lord said to those two blind men one time, do you
believe? They asked for their sight. He said, do you believe
I'm able to do this? And they said, yes, Lord. He said, well, according to your
face, so be it. And you know what? They were able to see,
which is evident, they believed. They believed. And here's an amazing thing.
The Lord arose. Just get this in your mind. God,
the God of heaven and earth, rising up to walk home with you
and take care of your problems. That's what he did. That's exactly
what he did. He's standing, the Lord here
is seated in Matthew's house. He's preaching to this multitude
and this ruler comes in and no doubt he's recognized by the
people. And they all, I'm sure they just kind of step aside.
You know, here comes this ruler of the synagogue. And what does
he do? He doesn't walk up and the Lord is sitting there and
walk up to him and they start talking, you know, to him while
he's, he falls at his feet in front of everybody. God's gonna
make this happen. He's gonna make him fall down
just like this woman. She's gonna have to confess before that whole
crowd why she touched him. And this ruler, he comes in,
the Lord's seated, and he falls at his feet. And he tells him,
my daughter's dying. He's desperate. I mean, his voice
is trembling. He's shook. This man's tore up. He's absolutely tore up. And God arises. And he just follows him. He said,
let's go. And his disciples are following
him. I thought of this, the verse
in the Psalm 23, mercy shall follow me all the days of my
life. He has no idea how mercy's following him and has followed
him all the days of his life. Long before he knew the Lord,
the Lord knew him. And mercy had been following
that man. Mercy had been following you long before you knew the
Lord had been following you. You and I would never make it
if it weren't for the great grace of God. You can look back, I'm
sure everybody here can look back at times in their life.
I look back at times in my life, I ought to be dead. Two or three
times, I ought to have been dead. Mercy, mercy. Mercy and grace followed that
sinner home, and the Lord went where he was needed. In one place it says, he healed
as many as needed healing. He healed as many as needed healing. I need healing. I need spiritual
healing. I need it every day. I need forgiveness. And he's in that business. The
scripture says he delights to show mercy. He delights to show
it. I promise you this, he delights
to show it more than you and I delight to have it. However
much we delight to have it, he delights to show it even more. If we could just comprehend the
readiness of the Lord Jesus Christ to show mercy, if we could comprehend
that, my soul, it would put a snap in our step. Now while on his
way, there's this woman who has this
issue of blood, and she's dying. I mean, I can see her. She's anemic. She's very frail. She's had this for 12 years now. For 12 years, she's been bleeding. And she's dying, and she's weak,
and she's condemned. Because the law says she's unclean. The law condemns that woman. That woman couldn't even touch
anybody. Can you imagine? She couldn't touch anybody. Anything
she sat on was unclean. If she touched anyone, they were
unclean. Can you imagine that kind of a life? Can you imagine
what it'd been like to have been that leper and no one allowed
to touch you? And you are not allowed to just
try to go through a day or a week. Just try to do that for a while.
Not touch your wife. Your wife not touch you. Your
children can't touch you. All the power of that touch.
It's one of the best experience of the human race is to be able
to touch, to feel, to hug, to do that. And this woman with
this issue of blood couldn't do it. I mean, can you imagine? It's
like, don't touch me. You don't want to feel like,
just try to imagine what it would feel like to have a plague that
you have to stay away from everyone. And you're condemned. The law
has got you condemned, like a criminal. Well, that was her life. That
was her life. She had this issue of blood.
So while on his way, She heard of him. See that there in verse
27? When she had heard of Jesus,
that was no accident. I assure you, you did not hear
the gospel by accident. You did not hear of the grace
of God in Christ. You did not hear of the person
of Jesus Christ by accident. God purposely crossed this woman's
path, just like he purposely did this ruler of the synagogue. Purposely did it. And she heard
of him. And I have no doubt, she said,
I'm going to him. When she heard of him, she heard of his person,
she heard of what he was able to do, she said, I'm going to
him. This man can heal me. She had hope. You ever seen a
person who's really had hope? I've seen a person who's lost
all hope. I've seen it. You can't give
it back to them. It's gone. But boy, when you
give them hope, there's a snap in their step and the day gets
brighter. This was her. This was her. This woman, she had this issue
of blood. Her life was slowly draining
away. She's gonna die. She'd had it for 12 years. She
had no hope. All hope was gone. It says she
spent all of her money. She spent everything she had,
look there in verse 26, and had suffered many things and many
physicians, and spent all that she had. What will a man give
in exchange for his soul? I've lived long enough now that
I've seen people that get terminal illnesses, cancer and stuff,
and they'll spend every last dime they got to live another
day. Just to live one more day. And she suffered many things
and many physicians. You can imagine back in that
day the hocus pocus practice of medicine back then. They probably
had her doing all kind of weird stuff, taking all kind of weird
stuff. She tried everything too. She
wanted to live. She'd hear about this thing, this medicine or
this concoction and she'd take it. She'd hear about just doing
something this way and she'd do it. I had a coughing fit, asthma.
And he was showing me you do something here and you do some
kind of weird stuff to the throat and he was doing it and I was
trying not to laugh because he looked weird doing it. I thought,
man, you think that's going to work? It's not going to work.
Suffered many things in many positions. I have a friend, his
wife, The diagnosis was some kind of lung disease. They could
not find out what it was. They wanted to operate and take
the bottom part of her lung off. They put her on this very powerful
medicine, but he did not and she did not let them do that.
They kept searching. They finally ended up at the
Cleveland Clinic and she had asthma. That's all she had was
asthma. And it took him a while to bring
her down off that medication, it was so strong. Oh, he was
living. He was absolutely living. Suffered many things, many physicians. Spent all her living. And I'm
telling you this, religion will let you spend all your living
on them. And you know what they'll do?
It'll make it worse. It says she rather grew worse. They take
the money though, you don't get a refund. My friend, they didn't offer
him the money back. No, they take the money, but she grew
worse and worse. Anything, you remember this,
anything short of Christ is worse. It's worse. She was none the better, but
grew worse. When she heard the Lord Jesus
Christ, God the Father brought her to the end of herself, and
when He finally brought her to the end of herself, that's when
she heard of Him. That's when she heard of Him.
Hearing of Him before you come to the end of yourself won't
do anything for you. It will not do anything for you. You'll be like the rest of religion.
You'll think that Jesus Christ is a good man. You'll want the
benefits. That's why you see all these
people get into healing, these healing services. They want the
benefits. People want the benefits of going to heaven, as opposed
to going to hell. But they don't want Christ. They
don't want to be saved from sin. They just want the benefits.
But she wanted Him. She said, I want Him. I can just
get to Him. They needed Him. And she heard of him. She heard
of his person, son of David. This is the son of, this is the
Messiah. She believed that. She heard of his power. She heard
of his grace. She heard of his mercy. She probably
heard this man, this man, the Pharisee said, this man receive
a sinners and he eats with them. Nobody else would receive her.
Why nobody else in that town going to receive her? They wouldn't
want her to walk in those doors there. But he did. She probably heard of him healing
the leper, or raising the dead, or casting out the demons. She
said, you know what? I fit that group. I fit that
group. Christ came to save sinners.
Do you fit that group? I do. I do. She heard the good news of the
gospel. Him. He's the good news. The
good news was him. She heard of one who could heal
her diseases. There's one who can forgive.
There's one who can heal us. Who can give us spiritual healing.
He'd give us physical healing if he so desires. All true healings
of God. He may use medicine, but it's
his medicine. All healings of God. But even if he doesn't heal me
physically, what I need is a spiritual healing. He said it's better
to go into heaven, into the kingdom of God, lame, limping, than to
be made whole physically and go straight to hell. I need my spiritual things taken
care of. My relationship to him. My love to him. That's what needs to be taken
care of. Every sinner whom the Lord saves
must be brought to the end of themselves and then hear of Him. Christ will profit us nothing
until we come to the very end of ourselves. Every hope we can
have, everything. Got to go. Everything. There
can be no rival. Everything. Whether it be family history,
the Jews said, we be Abraham seed, so what? A large part of them perished. They hung on to being Abraham
seed. They didn't do them any good. Now she said within herself,
and that's where faith starts, in the heart, in here. If I can
just touch his garment. She kept saying, if I can just
touch him. Oh, if I can just get to his feet. If I can just
touch the border of his garment, that's all. And she came in the press, it
says, I have no doubt she had everything
hid. She was probably hid under a
veil. Nobody recognized her. She's too ashamed to be out there. And she came through that press,
that weak, frail little woman. Squeeze her way through that
press. It's called a press, a crowd. I'm telling you this, if God
ever convicts us of sin in our need of Christ, nothing can hold
us back. Nothing can hold you back. Coming to Christ, and I'll tell
you this, coming to Christ is never easy. It's not easy, it's
not like what religion makes it look like. It's never easy. There's always a press in the
way. There's sin, that's in the way. Satan, he's in the way. Self, excuses. But if you ever come to need
of him, if you and I see our need of him, it's like do or
die, I'm getting to him. Here's the process. She heard,
she believed, she came and she received. That's basically how
it happens. Only the Lord Jesus Christ can
heal our sin issue, take care of us. And when she touched him,
the Lord knew that he said, you know, he said, he says, virtue's
going out of me. Saving virtue, the power to save, that power. That divine power, the power
of God, the power of God, he said, has gone out of me. And
that woman, when that happened, that woman felt in her body that
she was all right. You know, we can fight with sin
and struggle, but we know, we know, we know in the deepest
recesses of our heart that in Christ it's all right. It's all
right. Whatever comes my way, if I have
Him, I'm all right. We sing this song, it is well
with my soul. Is it? Do you really believe
that? If you believe Him, you do. If you believe Him, you do. And he turned around and he looked
at her and he said, who touched me? He's going to make her confess. Sir Arnold's secret disciples.
He's going to make her confess before that whole crowd why she
touched him. And she confessed before all
of them why she touched him. She told why she touched him
and what happened. He saved my soul. Meredith Warren
was at the well. She went back to town. I tell
you, you're talking about an evangelist. She went back to
town and told, she said, come see a man that told me everything
that I did. And that whole town went out
and a multitude of those people were saved. And what did she
do? She just told of him and what
he had done for her. Back to the ruler. You think
this guy's forgotten, don't you? Here he is, he gets up and he
goes out there, then this woman touches him, you have this whole
incident going on right here. And in the meantime, while all
this is going on, his daughter dies. His daughter dies. Let me find my verse here. Now
while he yet spake, see he said in verse 34, he was speaking
to her, he said to her daughter, and I can hear the father speaking
here, he called her daughter. Daughter, thy faith made thee
whole. Go in peace and be whole of thy plague. And while he yet
spake, there came from the ruler of the synagogue's house certain
which said, she's dead. The very thing he
was hoping to prevent. This was so devastating to him.
They're saying, she's dead, why troublest thou the master any
further? It's over with. It's just beginning. Now you're
about to see the glory of God. When things are at their worst,
God is at his best. At least we see it that way.
That's when you're about to see the glory of God. As soon as Jesus heard the word
that was spoken, that she was dead, he said to the ruler of
the synagogue, because he saw how tore up he was, no doubt. And I can't imagine, I can't
imagine this. He was so tore up. He looked at him. And I believe
with what he said here came the power to calm down with it, because
the Lord spoke it to him. He said, be not afraid. And I
just believe that calmed him down. That's the only thing that calms
our fears when the Lord speaks to us. When those guys were in
the ship, remember, rocking and rolling, and they thought they
saw a spirit of wind and wave, he said, he came to me, he said,
it is I. Be not afraid. Don't be afraid. Another place
he said, why are you so fearful? Why are you so fearful? We have
never a reason to be fearful, do we? I know we are and we always
will be, but we don't have a reason to be. Not if we believe that
all things are God, all things are in his hands. We have no
reason to be fearful, but we do. Because we have such
attachments to these things in this life and sin. Because of
our makeup, we still have sin. But he says to this man, be not
afraid, only believe. And he suffered no man to follow
him save Peter and James and John, the brother of James. And he comes to the house of
the ruler of the synagogue. And there's a tumult there going
on. Back in that day, they had what
they called professional whalers. There were people who were professional.
This was their job. When someone died, because there
might not be enough people in that family to mourn, and they
were professional whalers. They go to this ruler of the
synagogue's house, and I'm sure there's plenty of people there
because he's a ruler. This man had high status. And
he sees the tumult that's going on, all this commotion that's
going on. And then they wept and they wailed
greatly. And when he was come in, he said
to them, why make you this ado? Why are you acting like this?
He's not dead. You know, there's a glimmer of
evidence here or instruction here of how we handle the death
of believers. Do we mourn? Yes, we do. Do we
absolutely make a tomb fall apart? No. No. Because he gives us a hint here.
She's not dead. She's asleep. If she was not his, She'd be
dead. She'd be double dead. He says she's not dead. She's
just asleep. Every time the Lord speaks of
a believer, a believer's death, every time the Lord spoke of
it, He spoke of it as sleep. Lazarus was asleep. They said, well, if he's asleep,
he'll do well. And then it says he spoke to
them plainly because he spoke to them in the language that
they could understand. And as far as you and I are concerned,
they're dead. They're not coming back here.
We're going to bury the body and they're gone. But as far
as the Lord's concerned, and as far as that believer's concerned,
he says they're asleep. Lazarus is asleep. The young
lady here, the 12-year-old daughter, she's asleep. And they laughed
him to scorn. They laughed him to scorn, and
so what does he do? He puts them out, put all the
laughers out. Put all the laughers outside.
They're not gonna see the glory of God. Had they not laughed,
had they believed, they'd have been right there in that room
and got to witness the resurrection of that daughter. But they laughed
at him. You know, you take the things
that we preach. You take the things we preach. People laugh
at them, especially in our day and time and in the society we
live in and the education we have now, people laugh at this
stuff. But they won't see the glory of God. They'll not see
it. But you who believe, you'll see
it. You'll see it. We put him out, he taketh the
father and the mother of the damsel, and them that were with
him, and entered in where the damsel was lying. And he took
the damsel by the hand and said to her, Talitha Kumai, which
is being interpreted, damsel, I say to thee, arise. And another
gospel says, her spirit came back. Her spirit. He gave it back to her. He brought
it back. It was asleep. Straight away she arose and walked.
She was at the age of 12 years. It's amazing that that woman
had that issue of blood, 12 years, and then he goes and heals this
daughter that's 12 years old. They were astonished, with great
astonishment. I bet you if he raised somebody
from the dead here this morning, we ought to be amazed. amazed that he would visit us,
he'd have mercy on us, and raise someone from the dead, spiritually,
spiritual death. And he charged them straightly
that no man should know it, and commanded that they should give
her something to eat. Isn't that something? He took
care. He didn't just raise her from the dead and then just sit
back. He just said, take care of her. And as someone who preaches
the gospel, here's what I see. He raises sinners from the dead.
Now, feed him. Peter, feed my sheep. Peter,
do you love me? Feed my sheep. And he said to
him, give her something to eat. I hope I gave you something to
eat this morning. I hope I did. All right.