You remember about Jairus and
his daughter who died and Jesus raised her from the dead. But
I want to look at the case of the woman that came to Jesus
in the middle of that. This woman who had an issue of
blood. In Mark chapter 5, we're going
to read from verse 23. I want to ask the Lord to be
with us now in his word, God's word. accomplishes all God sends
it to do. Jesus said, the words that I
speak to you, they are spirit and they are life. And oh that
God would speak to us through his word today and give us his
life, give us his spirit and his life. Let's pray. Lord Jesus,
we pray that you would be with us, be with these children, be
with all of us in our heart we pray Lord that as the Lord Jesus
went about doing these things on earth we might see his purpose
for his people in their salvation to the glory of God and we might
come to him we might be drawn to him irresistibly we might
find in him all that you have deposited of your of your salvation
for your people and so come and take from him And Lord, in so
taking, we pray that you would assure our hearts before you
that He is all, and we are in great need of Him, and we have
our all in Him. So help us, Lord, today, and
help us as we go into this next week and meet with our families
and have these times together. We pray, Lord, that you would
bless us for Jesus' sake. In His name we pray. Amen. Mark chapter 5, I'm going to
begin with verse 23. Behold, there cometh one of the
rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and when he saw him,
when Jairus saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. And besought him
greatly, saying, My little daughter lieth at the point of death.
I pray thee, come, and lay thy hands on her, that she may be
healed, and she shall live. And Jesus went with him. And
much people followed him and thronged him." That means they
crowded around and pressed upon him, bumping into him, bumping
into each other. It was a crowd and they were
all trying to move to Jairus' house as Jesus went with Jairus.
Verse 25. And a certain woman, which had
an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things
of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing
bettered, but rather grew worse, when she had heard of Jesus,
came in the press behind, and touched his garment. And she
said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole. She
didn't say that to people, but she said that in her heart. And
straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt
in her body that she was healed of that plague. And Jesus, immediately
knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him
about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes? And his
disciples said to him, Thou seest the multitude thronging thee,
and sayest thou, Who touched me? And he looked around about
to see her that had done this thing. But the woman, fearing
and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came, and fell down
before him, and told him all the truth. And he said to her,
Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole. Go in peace, and
behold of thy plague. This is an amazing account. And
when I read this, I know, when I read how the Lord Jesus healed
this woman who had been afflicted by this plague of uncleanness
for 12 long years before God's law, I am compelled to pray,
Lord, According to all your righteousness, make me whole as you did this
woman." And I pray that would be all of our prayer. Because
Christ's virtue is ours only through His blood and righteousness
to heal our uncleanness before God. Now, there are several points
I want to see in this scripture. The first one here is how we
see in verse 24 through 26, this woman was desperate. She was desperate because of
a long affliction. And second, I want you to see
after that, we're gonna look at that for a minute, then in
verse 27, she heard of Jesus. She heard of Jesus and so she
came to him. And then we saw that she pressed
to get to him through the crowd because she was drawn to him
by what she heard. And then we find that she was
healed. And there's only one way we can be healed by the Lord
Jesus, and that's if He, as our substitute, makes satisfaction
for our sins. And then fifth, she knew in herself
that she had been healed of that plague as soon as she touched
Christ. That's the rest God gives us when we believe Him. And then
the sixth point is that the Lord Jesus turned, He stopped. On
His way to Jairus' house to heal this little girl, He stopped,
and He turned to see the woman who touched Him And we'll see
something about that. And then she came fearing and
trembling. We want to know why she came fearing and trembling.
But she told him all the truth. And then finally we want to look
how the Lord Jesus commended her faith. So let's consider
these things one at a time. First of all, this woman was
desperate. It says she had an issue of blood.
No one thinks today that what she had was an issue. We would
think that it's not a problem, it's normal. But God's law made
an issue of it. In Leviticus 15, God said that
if a woman's discharge from her menstrual cycle occurred longer
than that period of time normally allowed, that she was unclean. And she was unclean until that
was cleared up. And after that was cleared up,
she was supposed to offer a sacrifice for atonement for her sins. Because
that's the only reason you offer a burnt offering and an offering
to God as an atonement. To make atonement is for your
sins. So this is God's law. She was unclean. Jesus called
it later a plague. When he said, be healed of thy
plague. She knew that she was plagued with uncleanness before
God's law. And that's what made her desperate.
She was desperate. Listen to this from Psalm 107.
In verse 17 it says, "...fools, because of their transgression
and because of their iniquity, are afflicted." She was afflicted,
wasn't she? And it says here that the Lord
afflicts them because of their transgression and iniquity. And
then in verse 18 of Psalm 107, Their soul abhorreth all manner
of meat, and they draw near to the gates of death. When God
afflicts them, they lose their appetite and they're ready to
die. And then in verse 19 of Psalm 107, Then they cry to the
Lord in their trouble, and He saveth them out of their distresses. You see what affliction does?
You see what desperation does? It causes men, by God's grace,
when He applies it, He causes us to call on the name of the
Lord. And who is that? That's the Lord
Jesus. Verse 20 of Psalm 107, He sent His Word and He healed
them and delivered them from their destructions. Because of
their iniquities, they were being destroyed. They were sick. They
were plagued. And then he says in verse 21,
Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness. For his
goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men.
That's why she was desperate. God's law said she was unclean
and she knew that uncleanness was a plague. And before God
she was unclean. And so, what did she do? Well,
it says that she went about trying to rid herself of her uncleanness
and her plague. What did she do to do that? She
sought out and found many who said they were able to heal her
and she did all that they told her to do and she even paid her
money to them in order to get healed. But for all of her efforts
and all that time, 12 years, she didn't get any better. In
fact, all they told her to do caused her to suffer many things
and it only made her worse. Now that's desperation, isn't
it? Am I desperate like her? I ask myself that question. When we read God's Word, always
take it personally. Am I desperate like this woman?
There was a crowd pushing around Jesus, bumping into Him, no doubt,
touching Him as they were following Him. But only one took virtue
from Him. She was desperate. It says in
another place that He healed all those who had need of healing.
I cannot rid myself of my uncleanness. That's what God teaches us from
His Word and by His providence that we, when He afflicts our
conscience, like He did David in Psalm 32, verse 3, He says,
When I kept silent, my bones waxed old within me. all of my days until while the
Lord was afflicting me, my conscience was accusing me because of God's
law. I knew I was guilty, I knew I was corrupt in heart, and I
could do nothing about it. That's what God teaches us. In
1 Kings, chapter 8, Solomon prayed and he said this. Listen to what
Solomon prayed in 1 Kings, chapter 8, verse 38 and 39. He said in
his prayer, What prayer and supplication
so ever be made by any man, or by all thy people Israel, which
shall know every man the plague of his own heart, and spread
forth his hands toward this house? And he was talking about the
temple. He said, if a man prays to God looking towards the temple,
then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive.
He's plagued in heart. What does he ask God to do? Forgive
that one. Because the only healing that
we have is when God heals us from our sin. And that has to
come when God forgives us for our offense against Him. Psalm
103 and verse 3 says this about our sin. He says in Psalm 103,
he says in verse 1, Bless the Lord, O my soul. And all that
is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits, who forgiveth all thine iniquities,
who healeth all thy diseases." And so she was desperate by God's
law and had a plague in her heart. She was desperate because God's
law says we're all guilty. There's none righteous. The law
speaks what it does to us in order to prove our guilt, in
order to convince us of it. When we find ourselves sinning
against God, what should it do? What should our reaction be?
It should be, God's law told me this is the way I was, and
now I'm discovering it for myself, something at least about it,
that I am a sinner. In fact, Jesus said in Mark 7,
21-23 that sin, evil, comes from within the heart of man. It comes
from within us, from within man. It comes out of his heart. He
says, out of the heart of man proceed evil thoughts and all
the things that go with it. Adulteries, fornications, murders,
thefts, covetousness, wickedness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride,
foolish. All these things, Jesus said,
come from within and defile the man. This is our state before
God. And by God's grace, when the
finger that wrote God's law on stone touches our heart and points
His law to our conscience, it makes us desperate. Like the
man Solomon referred to, who knew the plague of his heart,
he cried to the Lord, he looked to the temple. Why did Solomon
say to look to the temple? Because the temple is where God
meets with man. The temple is where God makes
himself known. And he meets with men there and
makes himself known there in the sacrifice that makes atonement.
And so a man who looks to the temple is really looking to the
one who in the temple made sacrifice and that's the Lord Jesus Christ.
He himself came, it says in John 1.14, the word was made flesh
and tabernacled amongst us, dwelt amongst us. Jesus told his disciples,
if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. The temple of God
is the Lord Jesus Christ. In himself he made atonement.
He's the high priest. He's the ark, the mercy seat
where he sprinkled his blood and God saw it and received his
people because he received satisfaction from his son. That's why Solomon
said, knowing the plague of his heart, if he prays toward the
temple, then forgive because he's looking to God to forgive
him for Christ's sake. We can't do what God requires,
can we? We can't take away our offense to God for our sins. Every thought we have, and every
word we speak, and everything we do. Like this woman trying
to get healed by ridding herself, spending her money, finding physicians,
doing all that they said. It only makes us worse. Have you ever found that to be
the case? The more you're told to do, the
more you try to do it, the worse you appear. The worse you get.
That's the principle, because we cannot take our sins away. We can't remove one sin before
God. We can't change ourselves. Jeremiah
13.23 says, Can the leopard change his spots? Or the Ethiopian his
skin? Then no more can you, being evil,
who are used to doing evil, do good. We can't. We can't do it. I want you to realize that this
woman, who had an issue of blood, as far as I know, is the only
place in scripture where this is mentioned, of a person having
this affliction. And Leviticus 15, that describes
this in God's law, and this woman seemed to have been designed
by God to pair together in order to show us what this means in
this scripture. Listen to this in Isaiah 64,
verse 6. We are all as an unclean thing. And all of our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. Our best works. That means what
we do, like she did, trying to rid herself, it only made her
worse. Everything we do adds to our
pollution before God. And the filthy rags God is referring
to is the same word that means those claws that she would have
used to soak up that uncleanness of her blood. That's what God's
law said. Sometimes we think God's law
is too high, too hard, too critical of us. But she knew it in herself
and she was ashamed because of it. She didn't go about because
of the shame she felt because of other people, although that
was a factor, but it was because God's law had said she was unclean. David said in Psalm 51, against
thee, and thee only have I sinned. So that was her desperation.
Apart from God's grace, apart from Christ's cleansing blood,
apart from the gift of Christ's righteousness, we, like her,
have no hope. There's no physician on earth
that can heal us. That's the message here. That's desperation. That's God's affliction. Fools,
because of transgression and their iniquities, are afflicted.
But when God afflicts us by His grace and draws us to Christ,
then we cry to the Lord and He heals us. Oh, that men would
praise the Lord for His goodness. And then, in verse 27, it says,
when she had heard of Jesus, she came. When she heard of Jesus. One of the things that we don't
want to miss from this account is that this woman who had this
issue of blood was not healed until she came to Jesus. Isn't that simple? How was she
healed? Jesus healed her. And in what
way? When she came to Him and heard of Him. When we hear of
Christ, when God causes us to hear of Him, then we're drawn
to Him. To hear of Him is not hearing
what I need to do, because that's what we think. If you go to most
churches, like I did when I was a kid, they always preached about
what you needed to do in order to be saved. That's not hearing
about Jesus. That's hearing about what I need
to do as creating a filthy rag's righteousness. That won't help. In fact, that'll only make you
worse. The burden of your sin and the weight of God's law on
your conscience will only increase, by God's grace, when you attempt
to rid yourself of it. But when you hear of Jesus, you
don't hear about what you have to do. You hear about what He
did. That's the point. And so God's
law teaches us that we're sinners and in our experience we see
it's evident. It becomes evident. Everything we think about, do,
and say is evidence that God's law is true. We're guilty and
corrupt and helpless to change and helpless to remove our guilt.
But then Then, by God's grace, we hear of Jesus. And what happened? Well, when she heard of Jesus,
she came. She came to Him. She heard about Him. She heard
about Him who was God's mediator. God's answer to God for His people. The one who would take away our
offense against God. That's an amazing thing. She heard about Him because through
Him all the blessings of God come to His people. It's only
through Christ. And it's not by me doing something
in order to make what Christ did work for me. Well, we hear
that Jesus died for everybody and loves everybody, and if you
do this, then he'll do that. That's not hearing about Jesus.
That's hearing about a contorted, compromised salvation that makes
God dependent upon me. But salvation is not any part
that I contribute because I'm a vile sinner. Everything I think,
do, and say is full of sin. And so God has to save me in
spite of my sin. He has to overcome the barrier
of my sin that it presents a barrier between himself and me. He has
to remove it. It offends him and he has to
take it away. And then he has to bring the
news of that to me. So she heard of Jesus. No one
is saved unless they hear of Jesus. No one is saved unless
they hear about what Jesus came to do and how he actually accomplished
that salvation. How could you be saved if you
think that Jesus came into the world, was born as a baby and
somehow the angels were all around and then we all go out and buy
Christmas presents and that's it. That's nothing to do with
the gospel. That's an abomination. Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And He did it by
the sacrifice of Himself. He was born in order that He
might die. That's what hearing about Jesus
is. And in His death, He obtained an eternal redemption for His
people. He actually established an everlasting righteousness.
He perfected forever those who were sanctified by His blood.
That's hearing about Jesus. It's hearing that He's the Lord
of all. as hearing that salvation is in Him alone, is coming to
Him because we hear of Him. Now no sinner can come to Christ
unless God the Father draws him. Jesus said in John 6.44 that
no man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me
draw him. And the word draw is strong.
It's a compelling draw. It's a draw that can't be resisted
because the force comes from God and the one drawn can't resist
it. Like a net being drawn from the
sea with a fish in it. The fish can't resist. And that's
what God does. The Father draws us to Christ. Because we're compelled by the
desperation of God's law and by seeing what Christ has done.
That He has accomplished salvation for sinners. And we see that
salvation is in Him alone. And we're compelled to come to
Him. And take from Him. Jesus said, All that the Father
giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. But I'll raise him up at the
last day. Therefore, if we're drawn, if God has drawn you to
Christ, if in your own heart you know, I need the Lord Jesus
and there's nothing in this world I need more than to know that
His righteousness is mine and God receives me for His sake,
I'm a vile sinner, and your law, God, is true and accurate. It describes me to a T. And I
don't even know the half of it, but I know my heart is plagued,
and I'm looking to Christ. Receive me for His sake. God
says, that sinner will be saved to the uttermost. The Lord Jesus
Christ is able to save all those who come to Him, to the uttermost,
Hebrews 7, 25. And so she came because she was
drawn. Now the third thing here, it says in verse 27, that when
she heard of Jesus, she came in the press behind and touched
his garment. Most people when they came to
Jesus, hollered out from the crowd like Bartimaeus, Jesus! Son of David! Have mercy on me! Or, like the man who came for
his daughter, he said, my daughter's at the point of death. And he
fell down at Jesus' feet and asked him to come with him. And
he came. But this woman didn't come in
the front. She didn't approach him from the front. She came
from behind, secretly. And she came from behind, going
through the crowd, pushing people aside in order to get to him. She pressed to get to Christ.
She was secretly drawn. Secretly means because it was
in her heart. She wasn't there to make a show.
Like the publican who stood in the back of the temple. And he
beat on his chest and he said, God be merciful to me the sinner. He wasn't praying out loud. He
was just praying in his heart. God be merciful to me the sinner.
And so she came secretly because she wanted salvation. She wanted
it for herself. We think, well, that's a selfish
thing to do, to come to the Lord to be saved. I mean, you should
think of other people. You can't bless others unless
you come to Christ for yourself. God will not bless others through
you unless you yourself have taken from Christ and received
from Him this saving grace. She came from behind and she
pressed. She did this If I can use the word violently. She was
compelled and she was getting through the crowd, going through
the crowd, pushing through to get to Him. That's a violence.
And in Matthew 11, 12 it says in the days of John the Baptist
until the time of Christ that the kingdom of heaven suffers
violence and the violent take it by force. Those who are desperate
by God's law and they see who Christ is, they must get to Him. They must, and they will do it
no matter what. In your heart, you are driven
to Him. And you can't live without knowing that your salvation is
in Him and having that knowledge that He knows you. So you come
to Him. You press, Lord. Say unto my
soul, the psalmist says, I am thy salvation. Say it to me,
Lord. And when you say it to me, then,
in Psalm 51, 13, David said, then I will teach sinners. Then
I will teach sinners your way. When you forgive me for Christ's
sake, then I'll explain it to sinners, but not till then. I
can't bring glory to God unless I come to Christ and find my
salvation in Him. God persuaded this woman. He
sent His word. She heard of Jesus. And she was
persuaded that she herself was nothing at all. No one could
help her. Only Christ. And so she came.
And she did it in violence. And when she did it in violence,
you know what she did? She violently loved Christ for
His grace. And she wanted to be there with
Him. We can't rest until we find our
rest in Christ. We won't know rest until we see
He's done it all. All to Him I owe. Sin has left
a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. Isn't
that it? And here's an amazing thing.
I want you to understand this. When a sinner violently presses
to Christ, what does God think of that? Is the Lord Jesus going to scold
her? Does He disapprove of this? Is
He somehow offended that she would come secretly behind and
lay hold of His garments like that? Have you ever wondered,
how do I have any warrant to come to Christ? How can I lay
hold of His garments and claim His righteousness as my standing
before God? How can I, a vile sinner, come
hoping to be cleansed in His blood? God is pleased. And Christ is delighted to have
sinners come and take from Him. And that to me is a great thing.
The Lord Jesus said, Come unto me, all ye who labor and are
heavy laden, I will give you rest. So do we press? Do we press to know that He is
all of our salvation? That we're saved for His sake
alone? And then the fourth thing here is in verse 27 and 29. It
says that she pressed from behind to touch his clothes in order
to touch him that she might be made whole. Now I already mentioned
this, that when Solomon prayed and said that those who know
the plague of their heart look to the temple and pray to God
that God would forgive them and heal their plague. Therefore,
The healing of the plague has to be on the basis of sins forgiven. There's only one way that the
Lord Jesus can heal our sin-sick souls. There's only one way.
He can clean us up before the law. How is that? Well, look
at Matthew chapter 8. He says this in verse 16, Matthew 18 16 and then verse
17 says that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the
prophet saying himself took our infirmities and bear our sicknesses. How did Jesus heal her? He took. He took from her first. He took
her sins. Those sins became his. He owned
them as his own sins before God And he suffered under the requirements
of God's law that God's justice demands from sinners. The curse
of God's law had to be poured out upon him. And this is what
the way it says it is in Isaiah chapter 53 and verse 4 and 5. It says this, Surely he has borne
our sicknesses and carried our pain. Yet we, esteemed him, plagued,
smitten of God, and afflicted." That's interesting. The affliction
and the plague of this woman had to be laid on Christ. Her
sins had to become His and the affliction for her sins had to
come upon Him. And verse 5 of Isaiah 53 says
He was wounded. for our transgressions, he was
bruised for our iniquities, and the chastisement of our peace
was upon him, and with his wounds we ourselves are healed." You
can hear the lash of the soldiers striking the back of the Lord
Jesus Christ, and every lash was to bring upon Him the requirement
of God's justice in order to heal us of our sins. He Himself
bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead
to sins, should live unto righteousness, by whose stripes we were healed. Healing of our souls is the remission
of our sins. Forgiveness is a judicial declaration
by God because a payment has been received. It's the redeeming
work of Christ that pays for our sins and God therefore sets
us free from the charge of our sins and the guilt, the requirements
of His law. Remission is the forgiveness.
It says in Ephesians 1.7, in Him we have redemption through
His blood, even the forgiveness of our sins. who forgiveth all
thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases." They're joined
together, aren't they, in Psalm 103.3? And in Leviticus 15.30
it says the woman whose uncleanness stopped, that she was to bring
an atonement, an offering, a burnt offering and an offering for
sin for an atonement to God. That's interesting. Because in
order for her to be healed of her uncleanness before God, atonement
had to be made. And so we learn from this, the
only way that Christ can heal us is as our sin substitute. and satisfaction that he made
to God for our sins. That's the only way we can be
healed. He himself had to purge us of our sins. He had to cleanse
us from our sins. He had to wash us from our sins.
And he did that. Before he went to heaven, after
he rose from the grave, having died on the cross, as a substitute,
he rose and went to glory. It says in Hebrews 1.3, when
he had by himself purged, or cleansed, our sins. He sat down
on the right. It was done then. The work of
our salvation was done when Christ rose from the dead. He cried
on the cross, it is finished. And that's what hearing of Christ
is. We see that in His work all God's saving virtue to sinners
is not only available but is given to them. Faith itself is
the result of what He did. It's the gift of God. And then the next thing we see
here is that, in verse 29, it says, "...and straightway the
fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body
that she was healed of that plague." You see what she did? As soon
as she touched him, she touched his garments. And what are these
garments? Why was it, it says in Matthew
9, that she touched the hem of his garment? Just the edge of
his clothes. Why would that be the case? Well,
you see, The Lord Jesus says in Isaiah 61.10 that He has clothed
us with the garments of salvation, the robe of His righteousness. The Lord Jesus Christ worked
out a righteousness. He himself obeyed God's law in
every part, and that obedience was fulfilled in his love for
those who were sinners and enemies of God in laying down his life
for them. So his obedience to God fulfilled
all of God's law, and it established a righteousness, the only righteousness
that there is in all of heaven and earth, and that's the only
righteousness in which sinners may appear before God, and so
it's the robes of His righteousness, the garments of His salvation.
She wanted to touch the clothes that He wore because through
His obedience unto death, through His sin atoning death, all of
the blessings and the virtue that cleanses sinners in their
heart comes to us through what He did. So she had to touch his clothes.
I gotta touch his clothes. And sinners who are convinced
by God that Christ is all who see themselves to be sinners
and know they can't save themselves and hear in the gospel that God
has received us for Christ's sake alone. I gotta know that
God receives me for what Jesus did. I have to know that He thinks
of me because of what He thinks of His Son. I have to know that
He has justified me. because of the obedience and
blood of His Son. And that's all my hope. And so
they lay hold on that. And in receiving then, in laying
hold on Him by faith, they receive to themselves a knowledge of
something. And you know what that is? I've been made whole.
Before God, I've been made clean. And I know that the burden of
God's law is no longer on me. All that God requires, He has
found and received from His Son. And this is amazing grace. That's
amazing grace. She received this rest. It says
that we who believe do enter into rest. All who believe have
ceased from their own labors as the Lord did from His. And
then in Hebrews 4.11 it says, let us therefore labor to enter
into that rest. Because that's what she did,
squeezing through the crowd, trying to find a way just to
touch his clothes to know that in Christ all of my salvation
has been accomplished. That's where peace is, when we
believe. And joy and love to God all come
through faith. And then in verse 30 it says,
Jesus immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone
out of him, turned him about in the press and said, who touched
my clothes? That's an amazing thing. Did
Jesus know who touched him? It says in Jeremiah 17.10, I
the Lord search the hearts and try the reins. As repeated in
Revelation 2.21, the Lord Jesus Christ is the One who searches
the hearts and knows the thoughts of men. He therefore knew who
touched Him. She was given to Him by His Father. His Father drew her to Him. He
knew who touched Him. But He turned in order that she
might know that He knew her. and that he knew her in saving
grace. Christ stopped on the way to
heal and raise from the dead Jairus' daughter. Like Bartimaeus,
Jesus is on his way one way and Bartimaeus cries out, Jesus,
son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood still. Because
when a sinner touches Christ, That's the purpose. That's the
fulfillment. That's exactly why He came. He
came to seek and to save that which was lost. And in touching
Him, He turned that she might know that He knew her, and that
she had received from Him saving mercy and grace. And you know
what she thought at that point. Before He turned, identified
Himself to her, It says she came fearing and trembling. Fearing
and trembling. Why was she afraid? Why was she
fearing and trembling? Well, wouldn't you have? You
snuck up behind him and stole this blessing almost. Didn't
it seem that way to her? I didn't ask for it. I just heard
about it. And I took it. That's kind of
selfish. That's a secret thing. You weren't
even openly honest enough to come and tell Jesus before all
what your problem was. You just came in the secret places
of your heart and laid hold on him. And so she came fearing
and trembling because she thought maybe he'll disapprove. Maybe he'll retract his blessing. Maybe what I have received from
him won't last. Maybe I did it presumptuously
and he didn't really mean to save me. All these thoughts swirling
around in her head. But Jesus said, remember all
that come to me I will in no wise cast out. She didn't know
with assurance that it was his purpose to save her. She thought,
I'm just going to get there and touch him. When she was healed,
and before he had turned, and when he asked the question, who
touched me, she must have thought, he doesn't know. But she knew in herself that
she was healed. A whole inside struggle of wondering, was it
his will? Had her desire been only one-sided?
Had she ventured upon him without warrant? Had she believed presumptuously? Had she believed him for too
much? Maybe she'd come selfishly, secretly,
and she wouldn't receive the blessing that she thought she
had already had. But this is where we see how
the Lord Jesus Christ delights to give himself for the salvation
of sinners and then give himself to them. He makes himself known
to her, I know you. And so she came fearing and trembling
knowing that she had been healed and knowing she couldn't be hid.
And you know what she did next? It says next that she told him
all the truth. Now she had been healed. Now
she knew that she had been healed through touching his clothes.
And so she comes and she says, this is my case. I was unclean
for 12 years. I sought out every kind of doctor.
I spent all of my labors and all that I had and it only made
me worse and suffered many things by it. And then I heard about
Jesus and I came. And I laid hold on his righteousness,
Lord I laid hold on your righteousness and I found that in just receiving
from you the healing of my soul I realized that I was saved by
Christ alone and only by him. And she told all the truth. If
you believe in your heart that... Let me read it to you from Romans
chapter 10. Read how it goes here. Christ did this. He wasn't going
to let... He was not going to let it be unknown that He had
healed her. He wanted everyone to know this
was His work. He especially wanted her to know
that this was His work. And so he says in Romans 10 verse
9, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,
that's what she did. And shalt believe in thine heart.
Secretly she came and touched him. She really believed that
she would be made whole through his righteousness. That God hath
raised him from the dead. He accomplished it all. Therefore
he was raised. Death has no more dominion over
him, because he paid the full debt owed to God. And death has
no more strength. Thou shalt be saved. For with
the heart man believeth unto righteousness, unto the receiving
of it, and with the mouth confession is made to salvation. So she
said, You saved me, Lord, because of what You've done. All of her
confidence was in Him. It says in 1 John 5, verse 14,
it says this, And this is the confidence that
we have in Him. That if we ask anything according
to His will, He heareth us. So if we ask according to His
will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears
us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petition that
we desired of Him. Did she come and touch Him according
to His will? Jesus said, all who see the Son
and believe on Him should not perish but be given everlasting
life. In John 6, 39 and 40. And so,
we know it's His will to save sinners. He came into the world
to save sinners. All salvation, He is the Lord's
salvation. So touching Him is asking according
to God's will. And so she told Him all the truth.
And in telling the truth, God teaches us as sinners how we
are saved. Unclean before his law, plagued
in heart, afflicted, long afflicted. spending all that we have, nothing
bettered, everything we do, only sinks us lower. And then hearing
of Christ and coming to Him, believing on Him, we find all
of our healing, we rest in Him, and then we hear from His Word.
This is why the Lord came. This is why He sent His Son.
This is His delight. He delights to save sinners.
Remember the woman at the well? Jesus said to her, give me to
drink. She goes through this argument,
and he says, if you knew the gift of God, you would have asked
me. I asked you for a drink, but
if you knew the gift of God, you would have asked me, and
I would have given you living water. She came to the well for
water. He asked her for a drink. And
then he says, if you knew who I was and the gift of God, then
you would have asked me, and I would have given you living
water. And then in John 4.34, he says, this is my meat and
drink to do the will of him that sent me. You see, Christ drinks. He is satisfied. He is fulfilled
in giving himself as a drink for his people. Take water out
of the wells of your own cistern. Proverbs 5.15. The Lord Jesus
takes water out of the wells of his own cistern. He is satisfied. when He gives salvation to His
people for whom He died. Look at Ephesians chapter 1,
verse 19, that the Lord raised Christ from the dead. And verse
20, this mighty power which He wrought in Christ when He raised
Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in the
heavenly places. And then verse 21, He says, far
above all principality and power and might and dominion and every
name that is named, Not only in this world, but also in that
which is to come, Christ is seated on the throne of glory. Why?
Why did the Lord Jesus Christ... Why did God seat His Son as Christ
on the throne of glory? Because He purged our sins. He
accomplished God's will. He saved His people. He glorified
His Father. Take your place here. This is
where you belong. All glory, all power in heaven
and earth was given to him on the throne of his father because
he accomplished our salvation according to the eternal will
of God. In verse 22, And he hath put all things under his feet.
He rules over everything. And he gave him to be the head
over all things. Why? For the church, for his
people. Did it please the Lord that she
came and touched Him and took from Him? Did it please Him?
You better know it did. This is why He came. This is
what it says here in Ephesians 1.22. He gave Him all things
to be the head over all things to the church for His church's
sake. For His people's sake. Christ did all that He did for
His church. For His people. And so you know
that it was his will to save her. It was the reason he came. And so the last thing I want
you to see here is that the Lord Jesus commends her faith. It
says in verse 34, when she told him all the truth, Jesus said
unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole, go in peace,
and be whole of thy plague. I want you to notice here how
the Lord Jesus delights in faith that drives a sinner to take
hold of his righteousness and find all of his sin-healing virtue
in him. She took life from him by believing
that if his righteousness was hers, all she needed from him
was hers also. Does that make sense? If Christ's righteousness is
mine, if God delivered up his son to death and didn't spare
his son, then God's going to give us all things with him.
And so, he wanted her to know this. Christ honors faith. Why? Why does the Lord Jesus
Christ here commend her faith? Was it a goodness that came out
of her? Some intrinsic value that inherent to her that she
somehow just believed on Jesus? There you go. Ah, there's someone
believing. Oh look, we got to attend to that. Of course not. Faith is the gift of God and
it's not of works lest any man should boast. It's the grace
that comes from the throne of the exalted Christ who conquered
death and answered God for our sins and therefore gives all
blessings as he reigns on the throne of glory to his people.
Faith is that gift. It doesn't come from us. It comes
from God. And it's not a decision that
we make or a will that we exercise. Faith is not accepting Jesus.
Faith is seeing that Christ is all of my salvation. It's the
persuasion God gives that He's everything. And it's a glad embrace
of Him as mine. God does that. It's His gift.
And Christ honors faith because faith honors Him. Faith excludes itself in all
that I am as contributing anything and gives all glory to God in
Christ. To do anything less is idolatry.
God has to honor faith. It's His gift. It's His work.
And faith honors Him. And so the Lord Jesus here commends
our faith. Faith seeks from Christ what
God has spoken in His Word. That's what faith does. Lord,
do as you have said. And therefore, faith justifies
God. It says in Luke 7 29 that the
publicans and sinners, when they heard of God's salvation in Christ
through John the Baptist, that they justified God. They didn't
actually make God righteous, but they said He was righteous.
He's good. He's gracious. Look how He saves
sinners. He's right to condemn me for
my sin, but look how gracious He is. John the Baptist pointed
to the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the Lamb of God, which takes
away the sins of the world. And so, they knew that this was
Christ. And they justified God. They
knew this is His salvation. They said good things about God.
That's what faith does. Faith ascribes everything to
Christ in salvation. That's why God honors faith.
We shouldn't minimize this. If the Lord Jesus said, Don't subtract from that. It's
just saying that, like a boomerang, it just pointed back to Christ.
Look, your faith is coming to me and taking from me all. That's
exactly what my work of grace in you has produced. It's the
operation of God. God always assesses his own work
and looks at it and says it's very good, doesn't he? All that
he did in Genesis is very good. It's very good and he rests in
it. And so He looks at this woman,
drawn by the Father, given faith from His throne of grace, having
received all power in heaven and earth because of His salvation,
giving faith now. And that faith brings us to Him.
And so He says, your faith has made you whole. Because faith
lays hold on what makes us whole, the Lord Jesus. It's not our
virtue, it's His work that makes us whole. Faith is faith in His
righteousness. It's faith in Him as our Savior.
And so the Lord Jesus commends this faith. It's given by God
to persuade us that Christ is everything. Why would we ever
think, then, that faith is anything of its own? Faith is only Christ. Our faith sees all things in
Christ. Let's pray. Lord, we pray, though we're unclean
and long unclean in our own sin, that You, by Your grace, have
afflicted us and taught us that our only salvation is in Christ
Jesus the Lord, who made Himself of no reputation and took willingly
our sins, the vileness of all we are, and suffered as a sinner
for them. and made full payment, and obtained
full remission for us, and we did nothing. And it took the
affliction of our own sinfulness under your law to teach us that
Christ is all, and to bring us to Him, to have what He has provided,
what He has accomplished. Help us, Lord, like this woman
to lay hold on Him and hear from Him His delight to save sinners
so violently pressing to Him and coming to Him to have and
to know that salvation is all in Him. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.