Would you bow with me for a word
of prayer, please? Our merciful Heavenly Father, we come before
thy throne of grace thanking you that we have an advocate. We have one who has not only
made us accepted, but given us the full power of your love,
your mercy, and your grace. Know how we plead his name for
this hour. For surely, Lord, there's not
an hour in our week where we're more needy than the hour we stand
in right now. We need for you to open your
word. We need for you to open our eyes.
We need for you to reveal to us, Lord, the glory of thy dear
son, and cause us to find our hope, all our salvation, our
comfort, our peace, the forgiveness of our sin, hope of life eternal. Oh, how we ask that you would
do it for His name's sake. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. We're going to be looking at
a very familiar passage of scripture from Mark, chapter 5. Mark, chapter
5. And I asked Craig if we could
sing that hymn, I need thee every hour. because I do believe that
there's not an hour in your week and there's not an hour in my
week that we need him more than this hour. He said I open what
no man can shut and I shut what no man can open. John wept bitterly
when he saw the scroll in heaven and he looked and there was not
an angel in heaven able to open the scroll. And then the angel
said, weep not for the lion of the tribe of Judah. He can open
it. And the Lord Jesus Christ came
and opened the mystery of the gospel to John and to us. He's the only one that can open
it. And when he opens it, no man can shut it. And when he
opens the gospel to our hearts, he shuts our hearts to everything
outside of the gospel. I talk to folks sometimes that
want to argue with me and tell them I'm not interested. They
say, well, aren't you open-minded? I said, no. No, I'm not open-minded. God shut my mind. He shut me
up to Christ. And people, you know, they think,
well, that's so That's so narrow-minded? That's so intolerant? Yeah, it's
a hard saying, isn't it? But when God shuts you, your
mind, to everything outside of Christ, it can't be opened. Can't
be opened. That's my hope this morning.
The Lord will make us needy. It'll open His word and open
our hearts. I want you to know how encouraged
I am to be here. And the fellowship that I've
enjoyed with so many of you all, I've been blessed to hear you
talk about the gospel and talk about Christ. And it's a testimony
to the 35 years that your pastor has been faithful to preach the
gospel. And it's a testimony to God's
grace that he has taught you well. And I'm so grateful for
the fellowship that I enjoy with you. And with Rupert and Betty
and and I'm thankful. Thankful for this church and. I introduced the first hour for
those of you that weren't here by saying that the word commitment
is nowhere to be found in the Word of God. I fear that oftentimes
preaching is nothing more than an attempt to bolster men's flesh
in thinking that if I can just get more committed, then everything
will be well. Our problem is not lack of commitment. Our problem is lack of need.
There was a whole lot of folks that were thronging the Lord
Jesus Christ in Mark chapter 5. But there was one woman who
had a need. And when he touched her, when
she touched him with that need that he had put in her heart,
the scripture says virtue went out of him. That word virtue
is power. That's what you and I need. We
need a touch of grace. We need for power, for virtue
to come out of the Lord Jesus Christ to us. And that'll happen
to us when we're poor and needy like this woman was. You have
your Bibles open to Mark chapter five. We'll begin in verse 25.
And I want to pause on these first few words. Matthew, Mark,
and Luke all tell us the story of this woman with an issue of
blood. And none of them give us her
name, except that they all call her a certain woman. That's her name. Certain. That's
what I want my name to be. I want to be a certain man. There
was a certain man by the pool of Bethesda who had an infirmity
thirty and eight years. And out of all the people that
were waiting for the stirring of the water and all the people
that were waiting for a touch from God, this certain man was
healed. Now I'm a man that wants to be
certain. I want to be certain that God
has saved me. She felt something had happened
in her body. She knew that the Lord had done
a work of grace for her. Paul said, when it pleased God,
who separated me from my mother's womb and was pleased to reveal
Christ in me, in me. I need Christ to be revealed
in me. I don't want him just to be revealed to me. I don't
want to know things about God. I want to know him. This is life
eternal, not that they may know some doctrine, but that they
may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou
hast sent. Paul said, oh, I've not yet apprehended
that which has apprehended me. But this one thing I do, forgetting
those things which are behind, I press towards the mark for
the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus, that I might
know him. The power of his resurrection
and the fellowship of his suffering. I want to know that when Christ
suffered on Calvary's cross that I was in him. I want to know
that I've been crucified with Christ. nevertheless i do live
yet it's not i christ that live within me so that the life that
i now live in the flesh i live by the faith of the son of god
who loved me and died for me that's i need to know that i
want to be sure i want to be certain i want to know that when
he rose from the dead i rose in him when those disciples in
matthew chapter twenty said uh... you may want john and uh... and
and uh... Mark's mother came to Christ
and said, I want my sons to be on your right hand and on your
left. And the Lord said, you don't know what you're asking.
Are you able? He said to John and Mark, he
said, are you able to be baptized with the baptism that I'm baptized
with? And they said, we're able. We can do it. The Lord was talking
about his death on Calvary's cross and he said, you will indeed
be baptized with the baptism that I've been baptized with.
For when I go to Calvary's cross, you're going to be in me. And
when I'm raised from the dead by the power of God, I'm going
to be the firstborn among many brethren and you're going to
be raised in me. But to be on my right hand, on
my left, that's the father's place to give. I'm going to do
a work of grace for you. And through my baptism, you're
going to be baptized, not because you're able, but because I'm
able, because I'm able. And the Lord made them certain,
didn't he? He made a work of grace certain. Uh, the scripture
says in Acts chapter 17, verse 34, certain men after Paul preached
in Athens to the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers, and when he got
to the part about the resurrection, they scorned him. They laughed.
They thought, you know, this babbler's gone too far now. He's
accentuated the story beyond believability that one has raised
from the dead, and they mocked him. But the scripture says,
but certain of them clave unto him and believed. Now I want
to be that. I want to be certain, don't you?
I want to be a certain child of God and I want to be certain
in my heart that God's done a work of grace for me. What, what hope
do I have if I'm not, if I don't have assurance of my salvation?
What, what comfort is there? if he doesn't do a work of grace
in me." A certain poor widow put two
mites, all that she had, into the offering. The Lord never
named her. He never named her except a certain
widow. And the scripture says, and you
brought nothing into this world? And it is certain that you're
going to take nothing out of it. That's certain. Oh Lord,
make me certain. Make me sure. Give me assurance
of my salvation. Make me to be one of these certain
poor widows. This poor woman who had an issue
of blood. The scripture speaks of a certain
dwelling place and a certain day. I want to know that the
promise that he made was for me. When he said, let not your
heart be troubled. You believe in God? Believe also
in me. For in my Father's house are
many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have
told you. I go and prepare a place for you. And I'll come again
and receive you to myself, so that where I am, there you may
be also. How can I be certain? How can
I be sure? Hebrews chapter 11 verse 1 says
faith, faith is the evidence of things hoped for. That's the
only thing I've got. I can't look at my life and see
some improvement and get assurance of my salvation because I'm not
doing things I used to do. Faith. Lest you have faith as a little
child, you should not have the kingdom of heaven. Trusting Christ,
that's the only hope I've got. That's the only evidence that
I have, is that I put all my eggs in one basket and I'm persuaded
that he is able to keep that which I've entrusted, committed
unto him against that day. It's not my commitment. Lord,
make me. to be a certain man and give
me certainty of my salvation. You say, well, I don't know.
I'm not certain. Don't stop asking until you are. The Lord promised. He said, knock,
it'll be open unto you. And that word knock doesn't mean
to knock one time. You know, we're polite, we go
to somebody's house, we just knock a couple times. No, it
means just keep knocking. Keep knocking. Ask, and it doesn't
mean to ask one time, it means keep asking. Seek, it doesn't
mean to seek one time, keep seeking. To whom coming, we never stop,
do we? We never stop knocking, we never
stop asking, we never stop seeking. Oh, Lord. Make me certain. Make me certain. I need to be
certain. I want to be sure. This gospel's
for me. This woman had an issue of blood.
12 years. How can I be sure? Here's how
you can be sure. Can you identify with this woman? Now she has a physical illness.
It's called an issue of blood. She had a bleeding problem that
none of the doctors could heal her for it. But the healings
in the Bible are not to say to us that God promises to heal
us of every physical ailment. We can't claim that. We plead
with the Lord. You know, we plead for our loved
ones. We plead for ourselves when we're
sick and ask the Lord to be merciful and to put his hand of healing
on us. But we have no claim from God's word that whereby he promises
to do that physically. But the spiritual picture, we
do have the promise of God. And so if I can identify with
this woman spiritually and see myself as one who has an issue
of blood 12 years, I can I can have some certainty. I
can have some hope. I can have some comfort that,
yes, this is me. This is my condition. And this is the promise that
God has made to me when he said, go in peace. You've been healed
from this plague. See, this issue of blood she
had was a sin problem, wasn't it? And it was 12 years. What does the number 12 represent
in the Word of God? Well, there's 12 tribes of Israel,
12 sons of Jacob. There's 12 apostles. There's
12, the New Jerusalem's got 12 foundations and 12 gates. And
the church is called 144,000, which is 12,000 times 12. And
that's all symbolic for the entire church. All the elect of God are represented
by this number 12. And so this woman who had an
issue of blood 12 years, what the Lord is saying to us is she
represents all of my people. And if you can identify with
her and see yourself in her condition, then you have reason to believe
that you're a certain woman, that you are a certain man to
whom the promises of God are made. Or can I can I identify
with her? An issue of blood. Is that my problem? She was declared by the law to
be unclean. For 12 years, she couldn't get
near anybody without declaring her condition as being unclean. How shameful was that? I'm sure
she spent most of these 12 years shut up in her house. Wasn't
able to socialize without publicly declaring herself to be unclean.
She couldn't go into the temple. She couldn't worship God. She
was unclean. And everything she touched became
unclean. And so when she was out in public
and she declared herself, people, don't touch me. Isn't that our
condition? Sin has made us unclean. And everything we put our hand
to becomes unclean. The Lord said when you make an
altar, don't put your tool to it, don't put your hand to it,
stack up raw stones, don't hue them, don't try to make them
beautiful. Why? Because as soon as you do, you
defile the altar. Don't make steps on the altar.
Why? Because you expose your nakedness.
Everything you and I put our hands to is unclean. That's the
reason why the Lord Jesus Christ had to be born of a virgin, conceived
by the Holy Spirit, because he was not able to inherit the blood
of our father, Adam. That blood's defiled. That blood's
unclean. And every child of Adam that
has been brought into this world has been brought in with defiled
blood. We've got an issue of blood. The Lord Jesus Christ's blood
was never defiled, even when He hung on Calvary's cross. And
God made Him sin who knew no sin. You know the shame and the
guilt? And the fear that you experience
when you contemplate some of the bad things that you've done
and said and thought, and yet the conviction that we have of
our sin is so minuscule. I had somebody, I talked to a
young man recently, and he's been through all these counselors,
and he said, you know, and I've got a problem with alcohol, and
my problem is that I've just got such a low self-esteem. I've
got such a low view of myself. And I just feel worthless, and
I feel like a failure in everything I've done. And all my counselors
are telling me I just need to have a better self-esteem. I
just need to feel better. But the more I look at myself,
the worse I feel. And I said to him, I said, truth
is, you're a whole lot worse than you think you are. I'm the
first person that ever told him anything like that. And he's beginning to listen
to the gospel and I'm not so hopeful. He's there this morning
listening to the gospel in Orlando. That's the truth. Don't let somebody deceive you
into thinking that your problem is low self-esteem. Problem is
we're a whole lot worse than we think we are. And the Lord
Jesus Christ, when he hung on Calvary's cross and God made
him sin, who knew no sin, bore all the shame and all the guilt
and all the horror of God's wrath and judgment for every sin that
every one of his people have ever been guilty of. It's beyond our understanding.
And yet God was pleased with the sacrifice that he made because
his blood was without sin. He shed his precious blood. You
are not redeemed with silver and gold. As the traditions of your father
say, but you've been redeemed with the precious blood. of Jesus
Christ as a lamb that is without spot and without blemish. That's
what I need. I'll mention this personal note
just to ask you to be in prayer for my daughter. She has liver
cancer and she's had it for many years and she's had several surgeries
and she's about to have another one. Everybody that finds out about
it, always inevitably they ask me, well, can't she have a liver
transplant? And my answer to that is, she's
not a liver transplant candidate because the cancer is in her
blood. And if they give her a new liver,
the new liver will just get infected with the same disease. See, that's
our problem. We think, well, I'll just cut
away. And every time they do its radical surgery, they remove
most of her liver. It's a big deal. And the liver
regenerates. But isn't that the way we are?
We think, well, I'll just cut that away out of my life, and
then I'll be clean. No! The disease is in your blood. You cut away whatever you want
to cut away. It's going to grow back, and
it's going to be infected. We need one whose blood is undefiled. One who is holy, harmless, undefiled,
and separate from sinners. to offer up His blood on our
behalf. And God says, when I see His
blood, then I'll pass by you. Not when I see your commitment.
Not when I see your dedication. When I see His blood. His blood
is the only blood that doesn't have any issues with it. You
and I were born with an issue of blood. We've had it 12 years. Every one of us have got it. Those who are of the child of
God, those who are of God's elect, those who are chosen of God and
the covenant of grace, they know this is me. This is my problem. I'm trying to clean things up.
I'm trying to change things. And it's, it's, uh, it's futile. Oh, That the Lord would. Stain our
pride as he says in Isaiah 23 verse 9. Strip us naked before
him. Show us our need. God makes us
to be sinners. We're going to save you. And
there's only one. There's only one. That's why
the Lord Jesus Christ was able to say, I am the way, the truth,
and the life. No man can come to the Father
except by me. I'm the only hope. Oh, but what
hope he is. What hope he is. To be found
in him, not having my own righteousness which is of the law, but that
righteousness which is by the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. The faithful one. He's faithful and true to stand
in my stead, to bear my guilt, and to put away my sin by the
sacrifice of himself once and for all. I can be certain. If I'm looking to Christ, I can
be certain. A certain woman which had an
issue of blood 12 years, Anne had suffered many things of many
physicians and had spent all that she had and was nothing
better, but rather grew worse. Turn with me to Jeremiah chapter
five, Jeremiah chapter five. Look at verse 30, a wonderful
and horrible thing is committed in the land. Now that word. Wonderful doesn't mean good.
It means bad. Something, something that will
cause God's people of wonder and something that will cause
horror to strike their soul is happening in the land. What is
it? The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by
their means, and my people love it, love to have it so, and what
will you do in the end thereof?" These false prophets. The doctors,
physicians, take a Hippocratic oath, which says that they promise
to do no harm. These false prophets take a hypocritic
oath. When they say, peace, peace,
when there is no peace, they promise you things that they
can't deliver. And the scripture says that the majority of people
love it so. They love it to be so. But what's
going to happen to them in the end? Look at verse 14 of the
next chapter. They have healed also the hurt
of the daughter of my people slightly. They're putting Band-Aids
on cancer patients. They're giving pain medication
to people who have terminal illnesses. They're making them feel better,
but people are dying. I talk to folks all the time
who contemplate, well, my daughter's contemplating surgery and she's
getting second opinions. And the question you ask the
doctor is, how many of these surgeries have you done? How
successful have you been? And what would you think if you
asked the doctor those questions and they said to you, well, you
know, I've done thousands and every single one of my patients
have died. You wouldn't be interested in going to that doctor, would
you? No profession is filled with
more quacks than the profession of preaching. And that's who
the Lord's identifying here. Look what he says. Were they
ashamed when they had committed abominations? Nay, they were
not at all ashamed. Neither could they blush. Therefore,
they shall fall among them that fall. At the time that I visit
them, they shall be cast down, saith the Lord. All their patients are dying.
No other profession has a higher percentage of criminal negligence.
And God has charged these physicians with malpractice and the full
weight of the law is going to come down on them. That's who
she went to. She spent everything she had
on doctors. And in the end, she was worse off than she was to
start with. It's interesting to me that most
of God's people that I've met have been drug through all the
physicians of this world before they meet the great physician,
the Lord Jesus Christ. I started out in Catholicism,
went to free will, worked Southern Baptist, then went to Reformed,
and then finally the Lord was pleased to show the gospel to
me. And in between that, I tried
all sorts of Eastern mysticisms and everything else. What was
I doing? Going to physicians. Going to
physicians. And every physician I went to,
I was worse off than when I got started. Why would the Lord allow His
children to spend all that they have on physicians, to bring
them to the place to where they're poor and needy. Lord, I've spent
all I've got. I've got no place else to go.
What a blessing it is when God shuts you up to that. I pray
for our children, our young people who have not had to go through
all those different religions, and yet I know in their heart
the same things those religions are teaching exist in their hearts. It's called self-righteousness.
It's called an attempt to save oneself apart from the finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we're all plagued with it.
That's our issue of blood. When the Spirit of God comes,
He will convict the world of sin because they believe not
on me. Lord, I've looked everywhere
else to try to get the answer to my problem, to try to cure
my disease. I went to Dr. Will Power to start
with, and his prescription was, just pray this prayer and mean
it with all your heart. And God will reward your willpower
with salvation. And I tried that until in the
secrets of my heart, I knew that I was a liar and that my will
was not able to save me. And then the Spirit of God brought
the Word of God to my heart. It is not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth. It is of God that showeth mercy. Free will is the lie that God
has sent. The scripture says in 2 Thessalonians
2 that man has set himself up on the throne of God and that
God has sent to him a strong delusion that he should believe
the lie. The lie is free will. That's
the lie. And yet there's physicians on
every corner selling free will salvation. Oh, if you just make
a decision, just, you know, God's voted for you. Christ has done
everything he can do. Now you got to do your part to
make what he did work for you. And your part is to exercise
your free will. The problem is that we're dead.
We're dead. And tell the Lord, Nicodemus,
you've got to be born from above. You've got to be born again.
How can I go back into my mother's womb and be born again? Oh no,
Nicodemus, you don't understand. That which is of the flesh, that's
free will. That's flesh. The flesh profiteth
nothing. That which is of the spirit,
now that's the work of grace that comes from above. And that's
when God makes you willing in the day of His power. And unless
He does that, you're not going to do it. You're not going to
come. But all these doctors telling
us just believe in free will. I love when Bartimaeus, remember
when Bartimaeus was crying out for mercy, he was a man in need,
wasn't he? Blind, beggar, had one thing to his name, an old
ragged, dirty coat. And he heard the Lord Jesus was
coming through and he cried, Son of David, have mercy upon
me. And what did people around him
say? Shut up, Bartimaeus. You're just a dirty, blind beggar. You're embarrassing yourself.
And you're embarrassing everybody else. He's not interested in
you. And he cried all the louder. Can you see yourself in blind
Bartimaeus, son of David? Have mercy upon me. Be of good
cheer, Bartimaeus. He calleth for thee. And Bartimaeus
dropped his coat and went to the Lord. And the Lord said,
what would you have me to do for you, Bartimaeus? And Bartimaeus
didn't say, offer me sight so that I can receive it. Here's
what Bartimaeus said. He said, oh Lord, that I might
receive my sight. He didn't ask the Lord to give
him sight. He knew the Lord was able to give him sight. He asked
the Lord to make him able to receive the sight that God was
going to give him. Lord, that I might receive my
sight. People say, well, you know, just
receive, just invite Jesus to come into your heart. That's
Dr. Will Power, and he will leave
you worse off than you were to start with, and you spend all
you've got on him. He can't save you, because you
can't receive your sight. unless he makes you able to receive
it. Lord, make me able to receive
my sight. I've been to Dr. Willpower. And I've been to Dr. Work Harder.
You've been to Dr. Work Harder? You know, just try
a little harder. Pray a little bit more, read
your Bible, get a little bit more devoted, join this committee
or that committee, join this church, you know, maybe go on
a mission trip. Just do more for God. It's not of him that willeth.
Ramp up your commitment. God will reward you if you just
work a little bit harder. It's not of him that willeth
nor of him that runneth. I can't work hard enough. God
requires a perfect work, and I can't produce it. The Lord Jesus Christ, He's the
only one that offered up a work that God's pleased with. Dr. Will Power and Dr. Work Harder
can't help you. You spend all you got on them.
You're gonna be like this woman with the issue of blood. You're
gonna be left off worse than you were to start with. So you
know who I went to next? I tried Dr. Willpower, tried
Dr. Work Harder, then I went to Dr. More Knowledge. And I
thought, well, I'll go to seminary. I'll get a degree. I'll get some teaching and some
doctrine and some learning and, you know, that'll solve my problem. And became a five-point Calvinist,
at least I thought I was. knew something about church history,
studied the Bible. Dr. More Knowledge did me no
good. You know there's a guy, they
call him the walking Bible. I think his name is Jack Van
Impey. I don't know if you've ever seen him on TV. He has committed
the entire, I don't know if he's still alive. Years ago I watched
him, I listened to him. He had committed the entire Word
of God to memory. He memorized the whole book.
If he's still alive, look him up and listen to him preach.
He has not got a clue of what this Bible has to say. He's got more knowledge. He's
got it all committed to memory. And he's the first one that's
going to send you to Dr. Will Power and Dr. Work Harder and Dr. More Knowledge. And he doesn't know Christ. He's
just like those Pharisees. The Lord told him, he said, you
search the scriptures because you think in them you have eternal
life. But these are they which testify
of me. The message of this book is the
person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the sum and substance
of the book. He's the author of the book.
It's all about him. No amount of knowledge. is gonna
cure our issue of blood. So then I became a Calvinist.
I'm telling you about all the doctors I've been to. Because
I wasted my inheritance on doctors. And I went to Dr. Lawmonger.
And I thought, well, I'll just make the law my rule of life.
And I'll do my best to keep the law of God. And somehow God's gonna be pleased
with my attempts to keep the law. And I'll crack the whip
on anybody who doesn't keep the law. I went to a church in Pennsylvania,
I may have told you all this, and they, first, they were, they
were, had Dr. Lawmonger in their pulpit, and
the first question they asked me, they said, well, we want
to know how you all practice church discipline in your church.
How is it that you crack the whip of the law in your church
and keep everybody in shape? And I said, well, you know, we
practice church discipline every single time we get together.
And they, I mean, their eyes got big and they thought, wow,
this is a really spiritual church. You know, they're keeping everybody
in line. They said, how do you do it?
I said, I preach Christ. And believers are corrected.
And unbelievers eventually leave. And that's how we practice church
discipline. But I used to follow Dr. Lawmonger. I followed Dr. Freewill. I followed all these
doctors, more knowledge, work harder. And the Lord was letting me spend
everything that I had to put me in a place of need. So I went to Dr. Feelgood. We just need to let folks feel better
about themselves. I remember when I first learned
Calvinism, I was in a free will church, a mega church. The auditorium
seated 6,800 people and it was full every Sunday. The choir
loft seated 450 people. And it was on hydraulics. It
came up out of the basement with smoke and mirrors. I mean, it
was a big show. And I got introduced to Calvinism.
And I preached a message on total depravity. And the senior pastor
came to me the next morning in my office, and he said, Greg,
he said, you need to understand that when people come here, they
come here because they need to feel better about themselves.
And that message you preached last night didn't make people
feel better about themselves. Well, I knew enough about the
truth. Although I didn't know the truth,
I didn't know Christ. I was just a Calvinist. I knew I couldn't stay there.
I'd leave. But there's a whole lot of Dr.
Feelbetters in there. Dr. Feelgood. Just make folks
feel better about themselves. Don't tell them that every imagination
of their thought is only evil and that continually. Don't tell
them that in them dwelleth no good thing. Don't tell them that
Jacob is a worm. You're just gonna make folks
feel bad about themselves. I'm afraid Fleetwood Mac got
it right when they said, when they wrote that song, tell them
lies, tell them lies, tell them sweet little lies. The problem
with the lies of these doctors is that they're not sweet, they're
bitter, and they're not little, they will damn your soul to hell.
But that's what preachers are doing. And my people love it
so. Had a lady ask me one time, she
said, are you a positive preacher? Are you a positive preacher?
No, as you all talk about sin, are you? Doctor, think positive. Your problem is your stinking
thinking. You just got to think better, and you'll be all right.
The world's full of doctors. And there's doctor tradition.
Boy, I was a big doctor in religion, isn't it? Just keep doing, kind
of like Papa in Fiddler on the Roof. Remember, he sang that
song, Tradition, Tradition. And they asked him, they said,
he said, he said, and you asked me, tradition is the only thing
that gives order and balance to life. And you asked me, where
does tradition come from? And I'll tell you where tradition
comes from. And then Papa says, I don't know. I don't know where it came from. It's just tradition. It's just
the way we've always done it. And men love tradition, don't
they? It makes them feel good. And Dr. Tradition will send you
to a second opinion to Dr. Ceremony. You just participate
in these ceremonies. And whether it be the high church
ceremony of Catholicism or the low church ceremony of some free
will Baptist, it's just ceremony. And people love ceremony. They
love invitations, they love walking forward, they love doing the
things that, well this is the way the fathers always did it.
And they turn the commandments of God into the commandments
of men. Touch not, taste not, handle
not. Just follow after these ceremonies
and you'll be alright. And then, of course, there's
a very popular doctor today called Dr. Entertainment. Boy, he's
got lots of folks coming. Somebody showed me this past
week on the Internet, this church packed with thousands of people
had two water slides. They open up the curtain, and
there's two water slides, and the water slides go down into
a pool, and they've got auctioneers who are the baptismal candidates
come down the water slide into the pool. And in the few seconds
that they're going down this slide, the auctioneers pronouncing
them baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And they were blown away by that,
and I thought, Doesn't surprise me a bit. You
know, they say, well, you know, we live in a time when everything
has to be in sound bites. You know, we've got instant messaging
and we've got TV and people don't, they can't concentrate on anything
more than just a few seconds. So, you know, this, what I'm
doing right now, the world would call foolish. People are not
going to listen to that. You're going to listen to you
talk for 45 minutes? No, you got to give it to him quick.
He's got to be, it's got to be high voltage entertainment. Let's do more music and more
drama. And, and they're packing out
churches, Dr. Entertainment and P and their patients are
all dying. Every one of them. This certain woman had been to
every doctor in town, and she spent everything she
had. Medically speaking, you know
what the biggest practice was for her disease. It was bloodletting. I mean, we did that up until
George Washington. Read about George Washington's
death. He got a cold. He got a cold. He was out riding
his horse at night and he got a cold and they treated him by
bloodletting and they let out too much blood and that's how
he died. I mean the last thing this woman
needed was bloodletting. She was already anemic. And yet,
isn't that what the doctors do? They give us just the opposite
of what we need. What she need? She need to get
to the master. She had heard of Jesus. You see that? Look at the next
verse. Look at the next verse. She suffered many things and
many physician verse 26, verse 27. And when she heard of Jesus,
Jesus, what she here, You shall call his name Jesus
for he shall save his people. He's not gonna try to save you.
He's not gonna make an offer of salvation. He's not gonna
do his part contingent on you doing your part. He's gonna do
the saving all by himself. He's the Messiah, the Christ,
the son of the living God. Oh, if I can just get to him.
I know that if I can just touch his clothes. Isn't that what
it says? Look. She heard of Jesus and
came in the press behind and touched his garments. For she
said, if I may but touch his clothes, I shall be whole." There's
our problem. Adam. Where art thou, Adam? Where was Adam? He was hiding
in the woods. What was he doing? He had sewed
together fig leaves to cover his nakedness. And he said to
the Lord, when the Lord said, where art thou? And he said,
I heard of thee, and I was afraid, and I hid myself, because I'm
naked. And the Lord said, who told you
you're naked? Who told you you're naked? Did
you eat of the tree that's in the midst of the garden? Lord,
the woman you gave me, she gave me to eat, and I did eat, and
now I'm naked? You and I ate of that fruit in
our father Adam. And our blood became infected
and we became naked. And man ever since has been trying
to cover his nakedness with fig leaves. The only way Adam's nakedness
could be covered was for God to take that pet lamb. I'm sure
it was a lamb. And I'm sure it was probably
one of Adam's favorite lambs. Adam had never seen anything
die before. And God took that lamb. and shed His blood right
there in front of Adam, and fleece that lamb, and cover to Adam's
nakedness with the fleece of that lamb. Oh, if I could just
touch His clothes, my clothes are defiled. My clothes are like
blind Bartimaeus. I've got to be clothed in the
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. If I can but touch His
clothes, I'll be made whole. And the Lord said, who touched
me? Virtue has gone out of me. Power, that's the word. Power's
gone out of me. And the disciples said, Lord,
look about you. You're in a crowd and everybody's
touching you. Oh, no. No. These people are touching me
because they're curious. And they've got some temporal
needs that they think, I'm going to help. You follow after me
so that you can have your bellies full. That's what the Lord said. But one touched me with a need. And she's wasted everything she
had on physicians. And she's worse than she's ever
been in her whole life. And she came to me. Believing
that if she could but touch my clothes, she'd be made whole
and virtue has gone out of me. And she came trembling. And she told him all the truth. All the truth. She exposed herself before the
Lord and before everybody else. Can you imagine? Here she is
in the midst of this crowd and now she's admitting that she
had been unclean and everybody's looking at themselves and thinking,
oh, I wonder if I touched her. She told him all the truth. Have you told him all the truth? Lord, I've got no righteousness.
I can't save myself. I've tried other physicians.
They can't help me. I don't have anything. I'm in need. Oh God, make me
to be a certain woman and make me certain that you've made me
whole. She felt in her body that something
had been done. And that this disease had been
taken away. Has the hope and comfort and
joy of looking to Christ flooded your soul with rivers of living
water? So that you can rest in Him. What do you say to her? Daughter. Daughter. Lady cut my hair the
other day, I was sharing the gospel with her and she said,
she said, well, doesn't God love all of his children? And I said, well, yeah, he does.
Well, there, you just said that he only loves the elect. I said,
well, when did I say that all people were his children? Just
because you're part of his creation doesn't mean you're part of his
children. You're part of his family. Behold what manner of
love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called
the sons of God. Not everybody's a child of God.
God doesn't call everybody his daughter. He calls this woman
his daughter in affection. Son, daughter, it's well. It's well. I've done everything
for you. And I made you to be needy. By faith. Have made the whole. Go in peace. Everybody wants the peace of
God. You can't have the peace of God
unless you have peace with God. And you don't have peace with
God. apart from having the Lord Jesus Christ as the Prince of
Peace stand in your stead before God and present himself as your
advocate to the Father. What hope? Go in peace. You've been made whole of your
plague. The real plague that we have
is our issue of blood and Lord, make me whole of that. Make me
whole. Let's pray together. Our merciful
Heavenly Father, we ask that you would bless your word to
the hearts of your people and cause us Lord to see ourselves
in this certain woman. And give us certain hope. For
we ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Craig, do we have a closing
hymn? Let's stand together. Craig's
going to come and lead us in a hymn. What number? Number 314.