All right, if you would, let's
open our Bibles to Mark chapter five. Mark the fifth chapter. Before we begin, let's bow before
our Lord together in prayer. Our Father, how thankful we are
that out of your goodness and mercy and grace to your people,
you've given us one more opportunity to meet together to worship your
precious name. You've given us one more opportunity
to hear the gospel of your son proclaimed. And Father, I pray
that you'd bless us. Bless us and enable us to worship
you. And Father, bless us, enable
us to hear and to believe your darling son. Let his name be
preeminent and exalted in everything that is said and done here this
morning. Bless us in this hour as we look
into your word and show us more of the glory of Christ our Savior.
And Father, what we pray for ourselves, we pray especially
for our children's classes at this time, Father, that you might
be pleased to bless our teachers, enable them to teach the word
to our young ones. And Father, enable them to hear. Plant the seeds of faith in their
hearts. we pray how we thank you for
all these young ones that you've given to us. And father of all
the things we would pray for them. The chiefest of all is
that you would be pleased to be merciful to their souls, that
you make us faithful to always teach them the scriptures and
point them to Christ. And father, we pray a blessing
for your people that are in times of great difficulty, sorrow and
sicknesses. Father, we pray you'd be with
your people, that you'd heal, that you'd comfort, that you
would deliver as soon as it could possibly be thy will. We pray
especially for our sister Andrea. She's going through these treatments
that, Father, you'd be with her. That you continue to be with
Jackie and Peggy, that you'd heal and deliver according to
thy will. Give them a special portion of
your presence that would comfort their hearts till you're pleased
to deliver. Father, all these things we ask and we give thanks
in that name which is above every name, the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ, amen. Now, I've titled our lesson this
morning, What Brings a Sinner to Christ? Our lesson begins
in verse 21 of Mark chapter 5. And when Jesus was passed over
again by ship unto the other side, much people gathered unto
him and he was nigh unto the sea. Now you remember the Lord
had been teaching a large group beside the Sea of Galilee. Then
he and his disciples got into a little boat and crossed the
Sea of Galilee to go to the other side. And they went through a
great storm. The storm was so large it scared
the disciples half to death. But the Lord crossed that sea.
He took his disciples. He went through that great storm.
He went to all this trouble to cross the sea to find one man,
one man who was possessed with a legion of demons, and the Lord
was merciful to him. Now the Lord showed mercy to
his object of grace, now he crosses back over the sea again, because
he's got two more needy people he's gonna show mercy to on this
day. So here's the first thing we see right off. Remember the
title, What Brings a Sinner to Christ? A sinner is brought to
Christ because Christ comes to us first, doesn't he? All right,
verse 22. And behold, there cometh one
of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and when he saw
him, 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. You know, I'm a father of daughters.
It's hard for me to really imagine the desperation that Jairus was
feeling when he came to the Lord, his little daughter. I mean,
is there anything more precious than a little daughter? Was at
the point of death, Jairus was probably afraid she had already
died. And he was so heartbroken, he
was desperate to have his little daughter to be raised again.
And that's why Jairus came to the Lord, it's because he was
desperate. He knew his little daughter was not going to get
any better. So that when all hope was gone, he tried everything
he could think of. And when all hope was gone, he
came to Christ because he knew that only the Lord Jesus could
heal his daughter. He knew if she had died, he could
even raise her from the dead. He believed that. Now can you
imagine how thrilled and how relieved he was when he came
and laid out his heart's desire to the Lord, and the Lord immediately
went with him. Well, Jairus is so happy. I mean,
if the Lord's coming to his house, his little daughter's healed.
I mean, Jairus has got no worries now, does he? And on their way
back to Jairus's house, they meet a certain woman. Now, I
just bet you Jairus was not real thrilled with this interruption.
Now, we're going to spend the rest of our time here looking
at the Lord's interaction with this certain woman. We'll come
back at looking at Jairus and how the Lord dealt with him.
next week, but this is an interruption, as far as Jairus can see it,
on the way back to his house to heal his little daughter.
Now we all know the story of how the Lord healed the woman
with the issue of blood, and I want us to look at this story
as a picture of how the Lord interacts with his people and
heals all the spiritual wounds and bruises and putrefying sores
of his people. Now what brings a sinner to Christ?
Well, number one, our misery. brings us to the Lord. Look at
verse 25. And a certain woman, which had
an issue of blood 12 years. Now this woman, her disease was
she was having her time of the month for 12 years. For 12 years, she was enduring
this monthly curse of sin without any stop, without any interruption.
And you can just imagine how horrible she felt, just unrelenting
pain cramping, she's an emotional wreck. She was weak from anemia. And the law forbid this woman
to come to Christ. The law forbid this woman to
be out in public, to come to the synagogue, to come to the
place of worship, to be out in public, because she was unclean.
Anything she touched would become unclean. Now normally, I mean,
you know, that is a problem for a woman, a few days every month.
But this woman had been enduring this for 12 straight years. She was sick, miserable, and
she was miserably lonely. To think that you can't go out
in public, you know? It was her misery that brought
her to Christ. Her misery made her seek the
Savior. Now a sinner will never come
to Christ for salvation until we're miserable. And when I'm
talking about miserable, I don't mean that we're just sad because
of our earthly circumstances, you know. I mean miserable. Miserable because of what we
are. Of what we are. Not the consequences
of what we're going through, but miserable because of the
sin that we are. You know, sin is not just doing
something that's a violation of God's law. Sin is what we
are. Sin is something, anything that's
the opposite of God. It's coming short of the glory
of God. That's what sin is. And that's
what this woman issue of blood pictures. Sin is in us. It's in our blood. It's in our
nature. And if a person thinks, well,
you know, I'm not that bad, then they'll never come to Christ.
The Lord has to make us miserable. because of who we are. That's
when we'll come running to Christ. It was her misery that brought
her to Christ, and it'll be our misery that brings us to Christ
if the Lord brings us to him. All right, number two, it's man's
failure that brings us to the Lord. Verse 26 says, she had
suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all
that she had and was nothing better, but rather grew worse. Now it was this woman's personal
failure that brought her to the Lord. It was her sin that caused
this disease in her body. So it's her failure. It's her
nature of sin that brought her to Christ. But you know, it's
also the failure of everybody else too. This woman went to
every doctor she could find. She spent every penny she had
trying to find any cure. Somebody that told her this ointment
or this mixture or this something, you know, will make you better.
She spent money on it until she'd seen every doctor within traveling
distance and she spent every penny that she had and none of
them could help her. All of man's inventions failed
her. She went to all those doctors
and they just made her worse. You know, her neighbor told her,
you know, my sister-in-law's aunt's cousin, she had the same
problem that you did. She went to Dr. So-and-so, you
know, and he fixed her right up. Well, this woman immediately
made an appointment. The doctor just made her worse.
Now, here's the picture of you and me. You know, we start to
get some sense of our sin. We start to get some sense of
our guilt. We start to get some sense of our sin sickness, and
immediately, We go to man to find something to do to make
our situation better. We go to man to find something
to do that will get rid of this sin, will get rid of this guilt,
will get rid of this heavy weight that's upon us. We go look into
the doctors of religion. Invariably, first place we'll
go is old Doc Freewill. But he just makes us worse. Because
our will, left to its own devices, will always go away from God
instead of bringing us to God. Then we go to Dr. Law. He's an
impressive looking doctor. He's got an impressive looking
practice, but we'll find Dr. Law that makes us worse. Dr. Law, he can show us our sin. He can show us here's the problem.
Here it is. But he can't cure us. He can't
heal us. He can't give us mercy. He can't
bring us to Christ. So then we try Oh, Dr. Miracles
and Dr. Speaking in Tongues. But we find
out those two fellas, they're just quacks. All they're selling
is snake oil that doesn't do the soul any bit of good. About time we were ready to give
up. We hear about a new doctor in town. There's Dr. Church Membership.
He got a partner in his practice, Dr. Denomination. And they look
us over real good, and they make a referral to Dr. Baptism, to
Dr. Ritual, and Dr. Ceremony. But
we'll find out all their soothing words and their candlelit ceremonies
and their washings and their ointments can never take away
the guilt of sin, the burning guilt and weight of sin. All
they're trying to do is cloak the sin that's already there. They're trying to cover it up,
but they don't even make any attempt to take it away. See,
that's the problem with man's religion. All man's religion
ever tries to do is treat the outward symptoms of the disease. Man's religion can't treat the
disease because they don't know where it's at. The disease is
not outward, it's inward. They don't know that sin is in
the nature. It's in the blood, it's in the
heart. And while they're treating all
those outward symptoms of sin, the nature just gets worse. The
root of the problem just gets worse. They talk about righteousness
and salvation and forgiveness and grace. They use all the right
words. They talk about Jesus, but everything they do takes
you further away from God instead of closer to God. They just make
you spiritually worse. Now, am I exaggerating that?
You know, someone said, well, religion is good, isn't it? I
mean, good for society, at least if it cleans up the outward and
makes somebody, you know, a little more moral. Isn't that good?
No, sir. No, sir. It's evil. It never does anyone any good. It just makes them worse. And
I can show you that's true. Look back at Matthew chapter
23. Here's our Lord talking to all
those doctors. These are doctors, law and doctor
ceremony, doctor baptism, doctor washing, doctor ceremony. And
this is what the Lord says to them. Matthew 23, verse 15. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees,
you're hypocrites, for you compass sea and land to make one proselyte. I mean, you put the work into
it to find one proselyte, and when he's made, you make him
twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. Those doctrines
of religion only make our disease worse, don't they? make us more
deserving of hell, not less deserving of it. What the master said,
only Christ can heal the disease of sin. Only Christ can make
us whole. Only Christ can take sin away
and give us a new nature that will never sin and never cause
us to be sin sick again. But the Lord has to make us miserable
and make us have no hope before we'll ever come to Christ. We
have to see there's no other way. except Christ to come to
God. And here's why God has to do
it that way, because you and I are so sinful, we will only
come to Christ when everything else fails. It's just the process
of elimination. Once you eliminate everything
else, that's when you'll go to Christ. When God makes you see
that you're gonna fail in everything else that you do. All right,
here's the third thing. Now, what brings a sinner to
Christ? It's the work of God's providence that brings us to
the Lord. Now, this poor woman was miserable. I mean, doesn't your heart just
break for her? I mean, just, oh, you're so sorry for her?
But do you know what? It was her misery that brought
her to Christ. This woman didn't want to be
sick. That's why she spent everything she had trying to find some cure.
She'd do anything to get better. She didn't want to be sick. She
hated the sickness. But do you know what? If she
wasn't sick, she never would have come to Christ. The Lord
is the one who made her sick. He's the one sovereign over all
things. The Lord is the one that made her sick so that she would
be forced to come to him at his feet. And the same thing's true
of our sin and our guilt. And please understand, I'm not
saying there's anything good about our sin. There's no redeeming
quality in our sin or our guilt whatsoever. It's horrible, it's wretched,
it's against God. It deserves damnation, that's
what it deserves. But when does sin come into the
world? When Adam sinned against God in the garden. Now the Lord
certainly could have stopped Adam from sinning. Good, the
Lord's sovereign over all things. The Lord could have stopped Adam
from sinning if he'd have wanted to, but he allowed it. And here's
why. Because if we never sinned in
Adam, we never would have known the joy of being made righteous
in Christ. If we had never known death in
Adam, we had never known the joy of life in Christ. If we never experienced the misery
of guilt in Adam, we never would have known the peace of righteousness
in Christ. The Lord sovereignly overrode
Adam's sin and overrode our sin. so that his people would be brought
to Christ. It's called sovereignty, his
purpose that brings his people to him. All right, number four,
what brings a sinner to Christ? It's the preaching of the word.
Verse 27 says, and when she heard, when she heard. Now somehow,
I know she's not supposed to be out in public, she's not supposed
to be going places, she's not supposed to be around people,
but somehow she heard of Christ. Somehow she heard this man has
power over every disease. And besides having the power,
he's compassionate. He cares about the suffering
of people. He cares about people. She heard about his glory. That's
what she heard about. You know, hearing who the Lord
Jesus Christ is, hearing about his power, his compassion, his
love, his grace, his mercy, that's his glory. That's what made her
come to him, wasn't it? She heard. Now the same thing's
true about everybody that God saves. We're gonna hear Christ
preached. We're gonna hear him. Somehow,
someway, I don't know how it'll be. Some people in different
ways than others, but somehow, God's people are gonna be brought
to the place where they hear Christ preached. And when we
hear, now Christ is the only savior of sinners. When we hear
he has compassion for sinners. He has mercy reserved for sinners. When we hear about their forgiveness
of our sin because of the blood of his sacrifice, he shed his
blood, he suffered and died for sinners to put their sin away. When we hear about his power,
his blood cleanses us from all sin. There's no sin that's so
great, that's so horrible, that is so deeply stained our soul
that his blood can't wash as white as snow. He's got power
to save. He is able to save to the uttermost,
completely and fully, everybody that comes to God by Him. That's
the glory of Christ. He's going to have mercy on somebody. And that brings His people to
Christ. Now, we can't come to Christ and we can't trust in
Christ until somebody tells us who He is. We have to hear who
He is before we can trust Him, don't we? We have to hear who
He is before we're going to be drawn to come to Him. Faith cometh
by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, by the preaching
of the Word of God. All right, number five, what
is it that brings a sinner to Christ? It's the gift of faith. Verse 27, and when she heard
of Jesus, she came in the press behind and touched his garment.
For she said, if I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole. And straightway the fountain
of her blood was dried up. And she felt in her body that
she was healed of that plague. Now, it was God-given faith that
made this woman crawl up. I mean, can't you just see this
crowd and this crowd thronging the Savior? And here's this little
old woman crawling up on her hands and knees, you know, getting
between everybody, just to reach out and touch the hem of the
Lord's garment. Now, what makes somebody do that?
They believe if they touch Him, they'll be made whole. They believe.
That's why they do it. She believed because God had
given her faith in Christ. Saving faith in Christ always
acts. Always. You know, some of them
might think, well, do I have faith in Christ? Here's how you
can tell. Faith reaches out and touches
Christ. Faith reaches out and lays hold
on Christ. Faith trusts Christ. Now here's
how I know I trust Christ. I quit trying to add my works
to help him save me, and I just trust him. He's enough. That's saving faith. Saving faith
always acts. I'm gonna quit trying to establish
my own righteousness and trust Christ. I'm gonna quit trying
to sin less because I trust his blood has put all my sin away.
I trust Christ. Now verse 30, and Jesus immediately,
knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned to
him about in the press and said, who touched my clothes? And his
disciples said unto him, thou seest the multitude thronging
thee, and sayest thou who touched me? And he looked round 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 unto her,
daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole. Go in peace and behold
of thy plague. And the Lord said to her, your
faith hath made thee whole. Now we know it wasn't her faith
that healed her, don't we? We know that. It's Christ who
healed her. But if we would be saved, God's got to give us faith
to believe Christ. God's got to give us faith to
reach out and touch him. Now, you know, there are a whole
lot of people touching the Lord in this crowd, weren't there?
They were thronging Him. They were just pressing up against
Him, just touching Him on every side. Everybody was just wanting
to get as close as they could to Him. So many people were thronging
Him, but one person touched Him. One person touched Him in faith,
and she was healed instantly. See, Christ healed her, but she
believed that Christ was all she needed. Christ healed her,
but she received that healing through faith. Not because of
her faith, but through faith. See what I'm saying? And that's
how God saves sinners. Christ saved his people. He saved
his people by his obedience to the law for them. Christ saved
his people. It's by the blood of his sacrifice.
He put the sin of his people away by his precious blood that
he shed to justify his people. and make them the righteousness
of God in him. Christ saved his people. Christ
is the savior of sinners. And that salvation is received
through faith in Christ. It's received by trusting Christ. So it's faith in Christ that
brings a sinner to come to him. If God gives you faith in Christ,
this I promise you, you'll come to him. Because you can't do
anything else, because saving faith acts. Now that's what brings
a sinner to Christ. Now there's a couple things here
that a sinner finds when they come to Christ. And I can't end
without giving these to you because they're so precious. Number one
is this. Our Savior is never too busy
to help a sinner. Now here, Remember how this whole
trip started where this crowd is thronging him and he comes
up upon this certain woman who crawled up behind him and touched
the end of his garment. How it all started was Jairus
came to the Lord and told him about the sickness of his little
daughter, that she's nigh unto death. And if you'd come touch
her, she'll be healed. The Lord says, I'll come. They
start walking. And now they've got this interruption. Can you imagine? I mean, just
try to imagine for a second how Jairus felt about this. This conversation to Jairus has
taken a long time. The Lord has stopped in his tracks
for a long time. Jairus didn't have time to stop.
Now, I don't know anything about Jairus. I don't know one blessed
thing about him except his daughter here. But truth be told, I just bet
you, he didn't care a whole lot about this woman. I mean, maybe
under other circumstances he would have cared about her, he
had some compassion about her. But at this particular moment,
all he cares about is his little daughter. Because remember, he's
desperate. It's his desperation that brought
him to Christ too. Jairus is just flat too busy
to stop and help this poor woman. He's in emergency mode, there's
no time to spare. Now our Savior is never too busy
to stop and help a poor lost sinner. I know a couple things,
couple different times that our Lord stopped in his tracks. Right here with this poor woman
and the cry of blind Bartimaeus. The Lord heard that cry, that
begging for mercy, and he stopped. The cry of a needy sinner always
stops the Savior in his tracks because he's never too busy to
help a poor lost sinner who's begging for mercy. Never, never. The great physician is never
too busy to heal a sin sick sinner. Now, if you need an appointment
with a doctor, You better be getting on a phone tomorrow morning
trying to make an appointment, because it's going to be a while,
isn't it, before you can get in? Not the Savior. No, He's never too busy to heal
a sin sick sinner. This Savior is the Lord of glory. He's God Almighty. He's ruling
this entire creation. He's ruling everything that happens
in this creation all at once. I mean, there's a lot of people
in this world. There's a lot of things going
on in this world. There's a lot of animals. There's a lot of
molecules. There's a lot of dust mites.
There's a lot of clouds. There's a lot of mountains. There's
a lot of grass. There's a lot of rain. There's
a lot of drought. I mean, there's so much going on, and the Lord
is orchestrating it all to accomplish his eternal will and purpose.
I mean, billions of people, I reckon, living in this world, doing things,
and the Lord's working it all together for good. Now you think of that. Everything
that's going on in this creation, and there's no one and no thing
more important to God Almighty than a sinner crying for mercy.
You think of that. There's never so much going on
that he's got to say, wait a minute, I got to take care of this first.
There's never so much going on that the Lord doesn't hear the
weakest cry of a poor sinner begging for mercy. He hears it,
and he's never too hard-hearted to help. Never. Now, I'm going to ask you something.
If that's so, then why haven't you cried and begged him for
mercy? Why haven't you cried out? Why don't you ask Him to
save your sin sick soul? As insignificant as you are,
if you cry for mercy, God Almighty will hear you. He absolutely
will. All right, here's the second
thing. When we come to Christ, this is what we find out. Number
one, we find out He's not too busy to help. And number two,
we find out Oh, I was a child of God all along. Did you notice,
in verse 34, the Lord said in her, daughter, thy faith hath
made thee whole. Go in peace and behold of thy
plague. This is the only place in scripture where the Lord Jesus
calls somebody daughter. Now, like I told you, I'm the
father of daughters. And that's a pretty special word. That's a very, very, very special
relationship, my daughter. This is God called this poor
woman, this miserable, suffering, sick woman. He called her his
daughter because she is his daughter, because she is. He made her his
in divine election when he chose her to be his. She's his daughter.
The reason that the Holy Spirit drew this woman to Christ, do
you know why? She was his daughter all along. She was his child
all along. God the Holy Spirit will do that
for all of God's children. He will draw them to Christ. Now that's what draws sinners
to Christ. And that's what you'll find out when you get there,
if you ever come to Him. I hope we will. All right, the
Lord bless you.