All right, well, good morning,
and welcome to our continuing study in Luke chapter 8. And as our pastor was mentioning
this morning, that we use the exegetical approach, just going
through the Bible verse by verse, line by line, one book at a time. And we never miss anything. We
might not understand all of it, but we cover it all. And so we're in Luke chapter
8, verse starting in verse 40 this morning,
and we're going to go through the end of the chapter, and of
course the close of the chapter is really just because of the
editing of the publishers when they put these together. There's
really no hard line there. Easy for us to find things that
way. But anyway, today's scripture takes us through the end of this
chapter. And we're at this point where in
our last lesson, directly after the Lord and his disciples returned
from Gadara, remember they went across the sea of Galilee and
he stilled the raging sea and then he got to Galilee. took
care of one of his sheep over there that had the raging sea
in him, and he stilled and calmed him, and the man was clothed
in his right mind and sitting at the feet of Jesus. And all
that way for just one of his sheep. Boy, he doesn't miss a
thing. He doesn't leave one behind. And he goes where he's needed.
So as we get to Luke chapter 8, beginning in verse 40 today,
and we'll read through to the close. And it came to pass that
when Jesus was returned, the people gladly received him for
they were all waiting for him. And behold, there came a man
named, and we pronounce it in English, the Gyrus, but it's
in the Greek, it's Eeros. And he was a ruler of the synagogue,
and he fell down at Jesus' feet, and besought him that he would
come to his house. For he had one only daughter,
about twelve years of age, and she lay dying. But as he went,
the people thronged him." They closed in on Jesus. And at the
same time in verse 43, having an issue of blood 12 years, which
spent all her living upon physicians. Neither could be healed of any,
came behind him and touched the border of his garment. And immediately her issue of
blood stanched. And Jesus said, who touched me? And when all denied, Peter and
they that were with him said, master of the multitude, throng
me and press thee and say, is thou who touched me? And Jesus
said, Somebody hath touched me, for I perceive that virtue is
gone out of me. And when the woman saw that she
was not hid, she came trembling and falling down before him.
And she declared unto him before all the people for what cause
she had touched him, and how she was healed immediately. And
he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort. That's the title
of our message today. Be of good comfort. Luke 8, 40 through 56. Be of good comfort. Thy faith
hath made thee whole. Go in peace. And while he yet
spake, there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue, this
house of Eeros, saying to him, thy daughter is dead, trouble
not the master. But when Jesus heard it, he answered
him saying, fear not, believe only, and she shall be made whole.
And when he came into the house, he suffered no man to go in save
Peter and James and John and the father and mother of the
maiden. And all wept and bewailed her. But he said, weep not, she's
not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn,
knowing that she was dead. And he put them all out, and
took her by the hand, and called, saying, made arise. And her spirit
came again, and she arose straightway, and he commanded to give her
meat. And her parents were astonished, but she charged them that they
should tell no man what was done." Boy, what an interesting passage
of scripture we're in today. There are just so many things
in there that were valuable to the church. And one of the things
that we're always trying to look for is and point out is what's
the relevant application to us today, to the church, to the
sheep. And, and boy, there is a lot
in here. And so we find these two, just
as we found in our last lesson, the The thing that was recorded
about going in by ship across the Sea of Galilee and the raging
of the sea was directly linked to what he was going to do, what
the Lord was going to do when he got to Gadara. They were intrinsically
linked. They weren't two just separate
events that didn't have anything to do with each other. And then
we find here two more events that are intertwined, because
it starts talking about one thing, and then it goes to Eros and
his daughter, and then back to, they're kind of intertwined there
for a purpose. And so we'll look at that. And
so it came to pass that tells us here. regarding these two
sets of circumstances and people. And it's just no mere random
happen chance, but it's the direct result of him who worketh all
things after the counsel of his own will. Just as he went to
Gadara for this one sheep, we find here is this woman that
we talked about. And it's interesting to note,
as I was talking to Norman this morning, As we often find in
scripture, when the Lord gives us the name of someone, particularly,
oftentimes it's used to point out some particular attribute
of him or something about the nature of man that's valuable
to the church. And in this case, we find out
that Eeros is a Greek form of this Hebrew word, the Hebrew
name, which means the enlightener. And, that the root word of his name
is from the same words that we found in Norman's lesson Wednesday
night on the golden candlestick. They would light the candles,
and the candles would give light. That was from Exodus 25, 37. Thou shalt make seven lamps thereof,
and they shall light the lamps thereof, that they may give light. And that's the same, give light
is the same word that there's a root of this fellow's name. And we know that Jesus is the
one that gives us light. And so it's describing an attribute
of God. And we find that same word in
Genesis, the very first chapter of the Bible, Genesis 1 through
15, let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to
give light. to enlighten upon the earth and
it was so. And God said, light be. And there was light. So it's
interesting, these names and these words that give us some
indication of what the Lord wants us to know and understand here.
And another interesting word we find here in connection with
this study is this woman that had the issue of blood 12 years
touched. the hem of his garment. That
word touch, you know, in our modern vocabulary, well, I touched
the podium. I touched it. But in the Greek,
it's much more definitive, and it means to latch onto, to fasten
onto. It means not just to touch, but
it means to grab that and hang on for dear life. It means to
fasten onto. And it also gives us the sense
of to set on fire, to kindle, to light. And so we're drawn
back to that light again. It's the same word we found in
Luke 8, verse 16, where it says, no man, when he hath lighted
a candle, covereth it with a vessel. Well, who does the lightest candle?
It's the Lord Jesus Christ. When he lights a candle, when
he lights a light in someone, They're supposed to give off
that light. They're supposed to tell. He
says, go and show what the Lord did for you. It's what he told
that man in our last chapter from Gadara. He says, go back
home and show what marvelous work the Lord has done in you.
He was supposed to give that, reflect that light. Remember,
that's from our lesson back in earlier, hearing and seeing from
the parable of the light and the cover and hearing and doing. So, she touched him, she fastened
herself on, and then this light is kindled. It kind of begs the
question, who fastened on to whom? Really, because it says
the crowd thronged him. There was a lot of people touching
him. There was a lot of people jammed up to him. It says they
pressed on him. They thronged him. And yet, he
said, I perceive someone touched me. Who touched me? And so who
called who out of darkness and kindled this light? Who called
who out of darkness into his marvelous light? Who kindled
that fire, that light in this woman? Well, that word kindle
is kind of an originator word. It means the one that, the creator
of it, the one that, a fire doesn't kindle itself. Something causes
it to, generally be set on fire. And it's Christ the Lord. Now,
again, these two records are kind of interwoven, such as the
example that we had from the previous lesson on the Sea of
Galilee. And remember the words of the
Lord when He, they said, Master, we perish. And He said, where
is thy faith? And He demonstrated His power.
And it was for a purpose of growing their faith, a purpose of demonstrating
who he was. And it's a lesson to the church
that, you know, these ones that were with him constantly, and
yet their faith was You think, well, they would have the absolute
greatest amount of measurable faith because they were with
him 24-7 and saw him do all the stuff. And yet we find they're
just like we are. They're in these these, what's it say in Corinthians
chapter five, we have these, we're in these vessels, these
earthen vessels. And we have trouble with that. So some things to consider that
have really important, relevant value and application for the
church and to those whom the Lord is in the process of adding
to the church. It's the same thing. The same
gospel not only calls in his sheep, but feeds the sheep that
are in the fold. This woman, she had an issue that was incurable
by man. What a picture. We saw that picture
in the Old Testament. Thy wound is incurable. Just what a metaphor of sin. And she had this issue 12 years.
That's a long time. She tried everything. And isn't
that what we do in religion and life? We try everything to try
and do our own righteousness. And she spent all her money.
How many times have we heard that? Oh, they put a billboard
up in California, send all your money because the end of the
world's coming and we need to, so people sell everything and
send all their money to some shyster and charlatan religious
person. She spent all her money. She
sought the best physical help that was available and it was
all to no avail. The issue she had was serious. And you know, according to Jewish
law, she would have been considered unclean. And she would have been
required to be set apart. That's seven days it tells us
in Leviticus chapter 15 verse 19. Well, when it never ends,
When does the setting a party? It just never does, you know.
Her uncleanness never ended. Isn't that a picture of how we
are in nature until the Lord reaches out and fixes us. What
a picture of sin in our natural condition. And you know, anyone
that touched her, it says, would have been unclean too. And so,
can you just imagine the religious folks, that woman touched him. How awful. if you would have
known the kind of woman that was washing your feet. Same thing. No one would have
wanted her to come to them, let alone touch them, but God who
is rich in mercy. No doubt this woman, like others
we've seen in the Scripture, She suffered maladies. And we
look at that in life when we say, who did sin? This man or his
parents that he was born blind, like it says in John chapter
nine. And we'd look at things like that. Well, they must've
been sinners or they must've done something to merit God doing
that to them. But you know, we find out most
of the time It's for his purpose. As he said in John chapter nine,
verse three, he says, neither at this man's sin nor his parents, but that the works of God should
be manifest in him, made manifest. From eternity had been purpose
that he would intersect with this man. This blind guy. And everybody knew that he was
blind from birth. And it was all to demonstrate
a scriptural point. That we're blind spiritually. And isn't that what he said in
Luke chapter 4? Go and tell John that the blind
see, the lame walk, the deaf hear. And this is just another case
of that. And we just say the same thing about this daughter
of Eros who was Leah dying. And the same thing with Lazarus.
We noted that when they told Jesus said, Lazarus lay a dying
and he waited around four days before he went over. They said,
oh, he's been dead four days on purpose. It wasn't that he
wasn't compassionate. It was according to his purpose
from before the foundation of the world that he would go and
everybody would know that Lazarus was so dead that he just stank. Don't go in there. You know what
dead stuff smells like? It smells awful. So there wasn't
a shred of nothing left in him. He was dead, dead, dead, and
the Lord went in there and raised him to life. And then the religious
folks wanted to kill him again. I'd say that would be a bad plan
because if he was raised once, he just doesn't stay dead. Why
would you want to do that to him and have him raised again?
That seems counterproductive to me, but that's how off the
mind is in natural man in its enmity against God. There's just
no reasonableness to it. So, but again, we find this daughter
that lay dying, and then she did die, but God, who's rich
in mercy, the Lord himself, he says some special words to them. And to the woman with the issue,
N-T-E-A-R-O-S, to the woman, he calls her daughter. Remember
our last lesson, they said, hey, we got this big crowd thronging
you here. And your mother and your brother
are outside. They can't even get through the
crowd. They want to get up to you. They that hear the word
of God and do it, they are my mother and they are my brother. And so he identifies spiritually
as family. And we spent that whole lesson
kind of examining that. And so now he calls this woman
daughter. That's a familial term. That's
a family word. Daughter, be of good comfort. And this woman, She sought out
Jesus and latched on, she fastened on to him. She didn't just go
up and touch that garment. She went up there and she fastened
on to him. So that word touches, describes
Jesus. Haven't she exhausted all the
fleshly means? And she's finally at the appointed
times that our pastor talked about last Sunday. The appointed
times for her to meet the Lord, to hear His voice. Drawn to the
Savior by God the Father. Isn't that what the scripture
tells us in John? No man can come unto me except
the Father which sent me draw him. Something happened that
caused this woman to, nothing else could help her. Something
drew her to the Lord. And you know what the best part
of this is? She had an awful problem. And
it was an embarrassing problem. And it was a problem that set
her apart. If you have that problem, you're
set apart. You're ostracized. You're supposed to stay away
from everybody. You can't touch anybody. And
nobody can touch you. How awful and lonesome and miserable
would that be? But you know, it says, all that
the Father giveth me shall come to me. And when they come, he
says, I won't cast them out. I won't reject them. Can you
imagine she would go to the priest and say, I have this problem.
Don't touch me. Stay back. In fact, you're supposed to be
away over there. Go away. Rejected. But when you come to Christ,
if He's drawn you, He's not going to turn you away. He's not going
to reject you. He says, I will in no wise cast
out. No way. No man can come to me except
the Father which sent me, draw him, and I will raise him up
at the last day. Another one of those I wills
that we read about so often in scriptures, the I wills of God.
It's written in the prophets, they shall be all taught of God. Every man that hath heard and
hath learned of the Father cometh unto me. How plain is that? How that works, how that happens.
So the good news for the church, the relevant application for
us is the good news of the gospel is that anyone who's heavy laden,
who's burdened with whatever sin or care is bidden to come
to Christ and He'll give you rest, the scripture tells us.
He says, if you come to Him, He'd know why He's going to cast
you out. If anyone does come, you know,
it's an interesting thing that in our unregenerate mind, we
can't see or understand any of this. But after the Lord saves
us, we know that our coming is rooted in eternal electing love
and we would have never have come. You know, what we think
is, We're just reacting to whatever motivates us. We're just reacting. We're in a reactionary mode.
We get hungry, well, we go eat something. And all of our lives
are spent in that mode. And so we think that it's a cause
and then a reaction kind of thing. And then we find out that that
really is true. There's a cause, and that cause
is found in Christ. And the reaction is we come to
him because he has caused us to, blessed is the man whom thou
choosest and causes to approach unto thee. That's what tells
us in the Psalms. So this fear of this woman, was
that if she approached openly in her condition, she tried to
hide herself. She snuck up there and she latched
onto that. He'll never notice in all this
crowd of people that are just groping and pressed up against
him. It says, he says, he knew he
caused her to come. And he, he pointed this out to
her, not because he didn't know who it was, but he calls it out
for her attention. So this fear she had that if
she approached openly she would be rejected, the truth is that she is exactly
representative of who Christ came to save. She is just a picture
of it. While we were yet sinners, Christ
died for us. Christ came to save sinners of
whom I am chief. He didn't come to call all those
people that didn't have an issue that were just there to see Him
do some magic or some interesting thing. Or just so they could
say, were you over at the coast where Jesus was? I was. When we get into the next chapter,
He feeds the 5,000. And later on he says, you know,
you just came because you wanted the free food. You didn't want
the spiritual truth that went along with it. So anyway, not
to get ahead of ourselves here, but this is just so much stuff
there. You know what? He already knows
our issues. That's one of the blessed things
about this lesson. We think we can hide stuff from
Jesus, from the Lord, from the God who knows everything. And
one of our previous lessons says, everything is naked to Him with
whom we have to do. He knows all. We're not gonna
surprise Him with some, oh man, I hope He didn't see me do that.
He knows all of our problems, all of our issues, all of our
sins, all of our burdens. And you know, we'd just rather
get beat up than take them to him. And we'd just rather get
beat up than say out loud, just to him, we don't have to confess
it. Like this woman, when he called
her attention to it, she declared openly in front of all those
people, I had an issue of blood 12 years. I shouldn't even be here. But something made me bold. Something
made me courageous. Something made me, something
drew me. Remember how powerful that word is, that drawing that
they drew when he says, cast your net over on the right side
and get ready for a haul. And they tried to draw that net
in. It was so heavy that it was like
tipped the boat over and broke the net. They were having to
pull on that pretty darn hard. That's that drawing power of
the Lord. So when we come to Him, He knows
all of our issues. And He said, who touched me?
Who fastened on to me the very one that I fastened on to from
before the foundation of the world? Not that He didn't know,
but for that purpose of that woman, who was to know that her
secret It was not only known, but it was dealt with. As soon
as she fastened on to Jesus, her problem was gone. She who was far off and had this
issue of blood was now made nigh by the blood of Christ. Isn't that an interesting corollary
there? She had a problem with blood,
and blood was the very thing that took care of her problem. And Jesus says two important
words here in, let's see. In verse 46, he said, somebody
has touched me for I perceive that virtue has gone out of me. This word perceive, we think in our modern day language,
when we perceive something, we think it's something that we,
it's defined as to understand by, or become aware of something
by, or through the senses, through touching or smelling or seeing
or hearing. But it's a much more, valuable
word than that. In the biblical sense, this word
perceive is the Greek word ginosko. And you might be more familiar
with it as found in John chapter 10, verse 27. My sheep hear my voice and I
know them. That's that same word perceive. He didn't just say, huh, I wonder
who touched me. It's a word that means to know
absolutely and intimately. I know them and they follow me. And this term virtue, It likewise has a different understanding
now compared to then. We think of virtue in a moral
sense, a moral quality. Oh, that person's virtuous. They
don't do anything wrong. We think of it in those moral
terms. But in the biblical sense, that
word is the Greek word dunamis. And it talks about power of the
Lord. And we find that word in Ephesians
chapter one, verse 19. And what is the exceeding greatness
of his dunamis, his power to us word who believe according
to the working of his mighty power. This, the working is the
application of that power, but the power speaks of Christ. his, the greatness of his power. So when we read that, if we apply those definitions
to that, Jesus said, somebody has fastened onto me and I know absolutely, intimately
that power, almighty power has gone out of me. And what did
it do? It's that we believe according
to the working of His mighty, almighty power. So we see from
start to finish the hand of Almighty God in everything to do with
this woman. And He's the author and the finisher
of our faith, of our total reliance on Christ for salvation. And
more important words for those who are drawn to Christ and salvation,
for those who've already had Christ revealed in them, he says,
daughter, that family relationship he calls her now. She's not just
woman, now she's daughter. Be of good comfort. He says, thy faith, thy total
reliance on Christ hath made thee whole. Go in peace, peace
with God through Christ. The words be of good comforter,
when we look them up, they're more than just words of platitude. We always say, oh, Lord bless
you. We always say things like that.
hope you have a great, wonderful day, and all those kinds of things. But he says, be of good comfort.
And more exactly, those words mean to have courage. And they
come from a root word, which dictates a sense of boldness
and daring. Isn't that interesting? He says, Don't be afraid. You have an issue, be bold. Bring your issue to Christ. Have
courage. Like this woman, she was degraded,
she was ashamed, and she was so tired. Can you imagine that
worry all the time, that stress of having to deal with that all
the time? And 12 years is a long time.
and all the social repercussions of it, all the religious repercussions
of it, all the money she spent, everything that had to do with
it. Be bold. Bring your issue to
Christ. Hebrews tells us that very thing
in Hebrews 4, verse 16. We'll find that very counsel
from the Lord. In Hebrews 4, 16 says, let us,
therefore, come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain
mercy and find grace to help in time of need. And that, it's
all the time. But I just love that lesson on
the Pharaoh Miter. Every day, his mercy is new every
day. And you know why it's new every
day? It's because every day we need it. We need new. We need it. Whatever our condition, whatever
our need, the grace of God and Christ, it's always the answer.
None of the other stuff. Now, tied in with this narrative
of this woman and the exercise of her faith, we have a record
of Eros and his coming to Christ with the issue of his daughter
who was sickened to death. And we'll kind of hurry through
here because we're getting to the end of our time here. But
he came to him and we find a little bit later in Hebrews chapter
11 says, without faith, without total reliance in Christ, it's
impossible to please Him, that's God, for he that cometh to God
must believe that He is, and that He's a rewarder of him that
diligently seek Him. Now this Eros, he exercised a
bit of that in coming to Christ. He fell down and called Him Lord.
My daughter's dying. She lay sick to dying. He must have believed that He
could have helped. Otherwise, He wouldn't have came You had
to have that level. But you know what we find here
is that in the case of Eros and the disciples, their faith was
limited by a physical view of the circumstances around them
and not according to the view of the Lord God Almighty, who
is limited by nothing. Almighty is not just a catchphrase. It's not just a clever thing
to say. It's the truth. He's almighty. And you know what the Lord said
to him? Fear not. Can you imagine the fear? We've all had family that's been
in this condition. sick that we thought that might
be a possible outcome, and our hearts are just breaking and
we're afraid. But in the spiritual picture
of how we are in nature, it's fear not, believe only. That's
all he says, believe only. And we know that we can't even
do that on our own. And when we pray, we don't even know how
to pray. He has to help us with that too. We're so frail. So
it's interesting here. We see the different levels of
faith are brought to our attention in this passage is an opportunity
to grow in total reliance on Christ. To grow in faith, not
only for Eros and the disciples, but also for the church. These
are written for our admonition, for our growing, for our learning,
and they're not just Bible stories that we would throw up on a flannel
graph to entertain someone for a little bit. They're there for
a purpose. You know, verse 49 through 53,
I'm not going to read them again, but it shows what happens when
we only look with physical eyes and not with the eyes of faith.
Too late, she's dead. Too late. That's what they told
Jesus when he went to Lazarus. Too late. He's been dead four
days and he smells bad. That guy on the funeral buyer
coming out unnamed. Too late, he's dead. Can't help
him. You know, do we say that same
thing about ourselves or others that we know? Can't help that
one. Too late for them. No possibility
there. That's what my brother used to
say about me. I remember when I told him, I
said, well, the Lord just let me know that He's saved me. And
he says, just a minute. And he put his hand over the
phone, but I could still hear him. And he says, honey. The
last guy on earth just got saved. Isn't that funny? He'd give up on me a long time
ago. So anyway, it's just another
lesson in faith for the disciples in the church. Because you know
in verse 53, they just came from Nain where he raised that guy
off the funeral pyre. They just saw him do all kinds
of stuff. And verse 53 says, They all wept
and bewailed her, but he said, Weep not, she is not dead, but
sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn,
knowing that she was dead. And you know who that was? That
was Peter, and John, and James, and the mother, and the father
that he loud in the room. And when he said, She's not dead.
They all laughed at him. And we have these We're just contained in these
earthen vessels. And we struggle with that. And
He uses times like this to help us to grow in trust and faith
in Him. Jeremiah 32, 27 says, Behold,
I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too
hard for me? Where is your faith? That's what
he said to those disciples there in Luke 8, 25. And in closing,
we're just gonna, kind of our closing statement here is, you
know, the resolution of our issues depends entirely on the object
of our faith, which is Christ, and not in the measure of our
faith, which is we. He said, if you just had faith
like a grain of mustard seed, It would be so good. We have
to depend on the faith of Christ, is what it tells us in the Scriptures.
We have to depend on His faith. Because it says, I believe, help
thou my unbelief. Mark 9, 24. So, usually we say,
be free at this time, but today we're saying, be bold, come to
Christ with your issues, and then you'll be free. So we'll
stop there and thank you for your attention. Next time, Lord
willing, we'll be in Luke chapter nine.