Good evening, let's open your
Bibles to Mark chapter 5. We're going to read about somebody
tonight who wanted to be in the Lord's presence, and she was
willing to do anything to be there. This is in some ways a
very familiar passage, but I'd like us to read it together in
its entirety and then make some comments just about this story. And I want to stay just right
here the whole time and just look at this story and this woman's
experience. So Mark chapter 5 and verse 25,
it says, and a certain woman, which had an issue of blood 12
years, and had suffered many things
of many physicians, and had spent all that she had. And nothing
was better, but rather grew worse. And when she had 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 made
whole. 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 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, she 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 be whole of thy
plague. Who touched me? somebody touched
me. And that's what I want us to
look at tonight is this woman's experience who sought out the
Lord, who touched him and was healed. Just in looking at this
from the outset, I tried to think, to put myself in her experience
and think she had been sick for 12 years. Can you imagine what
it would be like to be sick for 12 years? Now, there are many
chronic illnesses that people have that come and go in severity,
but this woman suffered every day from this. Every day she
woke up and she knew that she was sick. She had this issue
of blood for 12 years. Now, this pain and discomfort
that she felt every day, it was a constant reminder to her that
she was not well. And in many ways, this parallels
what sin is to someone who's a sinner, someone who has some
awareness of their sin. They see their sin every day
and it doesn't get better at all. There's no laying down in
this war. This is a constant reminder that
every day I get up, and I sin, and it's no better. And this
is her experience. So it says she had an issue of
blood for 12 years. So looking at this, what is the
significance of the number 12? Kind of a thought we look at
seven as perfection, three is the number of God, so what is
the significance of twelve? Well, Abraham was called the
father of the faithful. Abraham had a son named Isaac,
and he had a son named Jacob. Jacob had twelve sons. Those
twelve sons became the twelve tribes of Israel. There were
12 apostles. So 12 represents faithful, faith. So whenever we see the number
12, we're to look at that and see that what it's around is
faith. So she had an issue of blood.
Now, in the Old Testament, whenever a woman had this issue of blood
where she was constantly bleeding, she was unclean. And the only
remedy for that was to go outside the camp. You had to go out from
where people were, you know, how they told the same with lepers.
You were unclean, you had to go outside the camp, go away
from people. Outside of that, if she came
in, she could be stoned. This is what the Old Testament
law demanded. And kind of looking and thinking about that, I thought,
does this seem harsh? This poor woman's sick, she's
got an issue of blood, and if she comes inside the camp, they're
going to throw rocks at her to kill her. Does this seem harsh? Well, consider this. If what
God has to say in His Word does not fit my personal situation
or my set of beliefs, is He to change how He feels or am I? Because at the outset, I think
our initial reaction might be, this seems harsh. She's already
suffering, but no. God's law says if she has an
issue of blood, she's to remain outside the camp. She can't come
inside the camp. And if she comes in, the law
says she's to be stoned. Consider this next time we find
fault with the things of God when we say something might be,
or think something might be too harsh, or that's unfair, or I
couldn't imagine God being that way. The problem here is with
us. We're not in a position where
we can look at God and the things that He said in His Word and
say, I don't really agree with that. It doesn't matter what
we think. We're sinners. We violated the
law. We're guilty. We're not in a
position to criticize the judge or the king in this case as to
how he rules his court. So whether we like it or not
or see the merit in it, it's still God's Word and we're to
follow it. So she was unclean and she was to be outside of
the camp or she was to be stoned. So consider this, she still came
in for this purpose. Why risk it? You had to know
if you came in, there's a chance you could be killed. She had
this for 12 years. Let's just say if you came and
went in and outside the city, you knew who she was. This wasn't
somebody who just lived in obscurity. For 12 years, she lived outside
the camp. So you knew her face. So in coming
in, there was great risk to this woman that she could be killed
at any time because they see her face and think, that's that
sick lady outside. Why is she in here? Well, somebody
had told her about a man named Jesus. And this man, they said,
had the ability to give the blind their sight. And this same man
in other villages, he had made men who were lame from their
birth to rise up and walk. And even outside of that, there
were men who had leprosy, which was a death sentence in that
day. There was no cure. He had the ability to make them
clean. And so she thought to herself, if he has the ability
to do all these things, Why not me? Why couldn't he heal me too? And shouldn't this be our attitude
with the things concerning the Lord? Why not me? He's healed
others, why not me? So we're to come to him with
this attitude, not saying, well, if I'm one of the elect, then
he'll do this for me, and if I'm not, he'll turn me away.
No, that's not it at all. We don't know we're elect until
we're in heaven. We might have some evidences
of faith and things in this life, but our response to all things
is, if he has the ability to make me clean, then I'm to come
to him expecting him to do so. because he said so in his word.
Well, in verse 26 it says, she had suffered many things of many
physicians, promises that fell short. Everybody had a cure for
her. None of those cures gave her
any lasting relief. Promises that fell short, cures
that did not cure, pain, frustration, and disappointment. Can you imagine
how many times, if you were this desperate, to be made clean,
to be cleansed of your disease, and you went to every physician
you could find. Somebody's gotta help me. Failure,
failure, failure. So what was the problem then?
This is a good way, I think, to describe false religion. She
had suffered many things and many positions. Suffering. That's
all that false religion can offer. It offers no lasting cure. It
offers promises none of which it can deliver on because it's
not based on what's in the scriptures. They offered hope, but they had
none to give. They had no power or authority
to deliver what they said they had to give. Those of you who
came out of false religion, you suffered, didn't you? You were
told many things. You even believed them, knowing
that you wanted what was being presented there, but yet you
found no peace in it. Nothing that they offered gave
any lasting contentment. It maybe did for a while, you
had an experience, you felt different for a while, but you came back
to the same place. You found no fulfillment in it.
There was always something more to give, always something to
confess, something to yield for the sake of their cause. The
focus was not on Christ. The focus of false religion today,
especially, we see it's on building a church. It's on yielding things
and attracting people in to build a place for you and your kids
to come. It's a great place for your family. The focus is on
basketball because we have to entertain kids or else they won't
come and be interested. You know, I find it interesting
that, you know, some of the churches around here, they build the basketball
gym first before they build the sanctuary where you have worship
because they have to have entertainment or else people aren't going to
come. They have focus groups. The focus is on everything but
the gospel. The focus is on everything but
Christ, everything but the gospel. Do you reckon when Solomon built
the temple, he made space for whatever the sport or the game
was of the day in order to keep people entertained? We laugh
at that, but it's true. This is what people are doing
left and right in every city in America. or during the Lord's
time on earth. He talked to the people about
divorce care, or a study series on God, or bragging about how
many souls he had won the week before. This is what goes on
every week in churches all across this city. The focus is on everything
but the gospel, everything but Christ. These physicians could
do no healing, and they are just like the religious hucksters
of today. They're selling you a cure-all for your soul. All
the while, they're lining their pockets with your money, tickling
the ears of the people who are sitting in their congregations
for the purposes of keeping butts in pews. They tell them what
they want to hear. God said, this is smoke in my
nose. It's an offense. And he has nothing to do with
this. This is entertainment for the masses. The problem then
and the problem today is these physicians and these false prophets,
they don't understand the disease. And this was this woman's problem.
She kept going to doctors who did not understand her disease.
Let's look at who she went to see. Well, first she went to
see Dr. Law. Dr. Law told her, well,
if you do this, then you'll live. Seems simple enough. For how
long? Did you start off that way? Well,
no. Well, you're in trouble then because you can't have one sin
and come before God, so you're in trouble. So Dr. Law couldn't
help her. And then she went to see Dr. Know-it-all. Dr. Know-it-all told her, you need
to learn theology. You need to learn doctrines.
You need to learn types. You need to learn histories.
You need to be taught how to live. And if you do these things,
then you'll be all right. How much do you have to know?
At what point is learning enough? How does that save you? You may
understand facts, but again, what does that have to do with
the savior for your sins? Dr. Know-it-all couldn't help
her. So then she went to see Dr. Works. Dr. Works said, if
you do this, you'll become acceptable to God. Well, what happens when
you do bad things? Do you have to do more good things
than bad things to be acceptable of God? Hopefully you've got
that balance beam and equation by the time you end up to where
you die, or does God just wink at those sins, at the bad things
that we do? So we can see Dr. Works can't
help either. And then finally she went to
see Dr. Will. Dr. Will told her, you've
got to choose to make his work effectual for you. So when you
think about this, this presumes that you have the ability to
choose what's good. So let's think about this, and
this is true for everyone in here, whether you admit it or
not. We've sinned probably 5,000 times up until, you know, 6.30
at night tonight. What does that say about my love
to God? Well, if you loved Him, you wouldn't
do that. If you have the will and the ability to choose to
do it or not do it, then you wouldn't do that. So Dr. Will can't help either. So the
law, what you know, what you do, and what you choose, and
think that you can choose, none of these things could help her.
She saw all these physicians, said she was none the better.
These doctors offer no lasting rest. They offer a promise, but
they cannot deliver a lasting result. They give you enough
medicine to knock you out, and then you wake up in the morning
and find you've got a headache, you're no better than what you
were when you started, and you've been swindled out of all your
money. This was her situation right here. And this accurately
describes what false religion is offering today. It's a cure
that can't help, and it's a means to swindle you out of your money.
And false religion is predicated on a love of money. They lie
to men to keep butts in pews. Oh, you say you believe in election.
You say you believe that the only way a man can be saved is
if Christ chose him before the foundation of the world. Then
why don't you preach it? You say that men are dead in
sins, and you believe that. Why don't you tell them that,
that they might flee to Christ? Religious hucksters peddling
their wares today and what she was seeing in her own day. In
verse 27, it says, when she'd heard of Jesus, She came in behind
the press and she touched his garment. She said, I've got to
get to him, whatever the cost. She was willing to lose her life
over this. As we said earlier, people would
have seen and known who she was. She was willing to lose her life
over this. This is how important this was to her. Are you? Will you give up your life? Will you lose your life for the
sake of the gospel? because you're not going to win
friends and influence people by it. The gospel is an offense. The gospel divides. The gospel
throws man in the dirt. The gospel gives no glory to
man and all to God. Will you? Will you come like
she did? if the things that meant so much
to us in our life got in the way of me coming to Christ. And
really, that's what it's about. She was willing to forsake all.
She said, no matter what the cost is, I'm gonna get there.
So she crawled through the crowd, and you can just kind of imagine
her. You've got this crowd around the Lord. You know, they can
barely walk through the crowd. You know, they're pushing along
and slowing down, and, you know, she sees Him coming, and so she
crawled through the crowd, and you can see her just kind of
reach out and just grab Him real quick, right, when He slowed
down for a second in order to...because she believed that would do something.
She said, if I can just touch him, I'll be made whole. She
had faith that his power to heal was greater than what her disease
was. Well, in verse 29, it says, in
straight way, after she had touched him, the fountain of her blood
was dried up. And she felt in her body that
she was healed of that plague. So the effects here were immediate. It said the issue of her blood
dried up immediately. There was no more blood. She
was cured. The effects are immediate. They
are not gradual. And the second thing they are
is that they're permanent. I can assure you this woman died of
something, but it was not this issue of blood. That was cured.
She may have died from something else, but she did not have this
ever again. She was cured from this. And I love this, it says
that she was healed of the plague and she felt in her body that
she was healed. She knew that she was healed. There was no
question in her mind as to maybe I gotta give this a day or two
or get checked out by a doctor. She knew that she was healed.
Friends, if we ever come in contact with the Savior, the effects
are immediate. There's no gradual warmup to
Him. We will see him for who he is.
And just like Isaiah, when he saw who the Lord was, he said,
woe is me. The effects were immediate. There
was no, he had to come to a greater knowledge of who he was. He saw
him for who he was. There's no warmup and there's
no allowing him to have his way with our life. The effects are
immediate. He gives life where there was
no life, and that's what he did for this woman. He cured her
of her disease. The scriptures call this a new
creation. This is being born again, where
you're given a new heart, you're given a new nature, you're given
eyes that can see, ears that can hear. And what that means
is I'm given new spiritual life. When Adam fell, he died. So we
lost all of our spiritual life. There was no life. So when we're
born again, we're given new spiritual life. Eyes that can see Christ
in his word. Ears that can hear the gospel
when it's preached and rejoice in it. And it's not just words.
As Claire was saying, if we meet here and the Spirit of God's
not here with us, these are just words. It's a waste of time.
But when the Spirit of God is here, we're given eyes where
we can see the Savior. Now, I've never seen Him with
my eyes. I've seen Him in His Word. I know Him. He is a person
that I know, even though I've never met Him in person, myself,
in my flesh. But one day I will. You will know it if you are born
again. And you can consider this, when
you're given a new nature, How much convincing do you have to
have to be told that you have a second nature? One that believes
and loves God, one is the flesh and loves the things of this
world. You don't have to be convinced of that. The person who is not
convinced of that and who doubts that, they only have one nature.
They can't understand it. But if He gives you a new nature,
you don't have to be convinced in that. You know that there's
a war going on inside you. One loves the Lord. One loves
His word and takes sides with Him against ourself. The other
finds love in the things of this world. You'll know it. Now, the question is, is this
what you need? because this is what this woman
needed. She had gone everywhere else and tried anybody who would
listen to her and take her money. None of them can help her. But
if this is what you need, you and I, we're to reach out and
we're to touch the Lord, just like she did. To reach out and
touch him. We're to come just like her,
risking everything. She risked her life. And you
know, she brought nothing with her. She had no more money to
pay. It was gone. She put her life
in the Lord's hand. If he healed her, could the law
have any more claim on her life? Once the issue of blood was gone,
law had nothing to say to her. She was clean. She was not guilty. There was nothing the law could
try her for. But yet at one time there was.
How does that parallel what your experience is? Guilty before
the law, but yet in Christ, when he died and he washed me in his
blood, the law has nothing to say to me. There's nothing it
can look at me, and our sin and our flesh tell us, yeah, but
what if it's not enough? What if God can see something?
It's clean. If his son died, he had to die for something.
He died for sin, that's the only reason for death. So we're made
clean. And if he healed her, the law
had no more claim on her. It was only after that she spent
all that she came to him. That's why Isaiah 55 says, ho,
come to the waters, come by and eat. He that hath no money, come
by. No money's required here. You
know why no money's required? He's already paid the price.
There's no price. It's already been bought. Can't
he not freely give of what he already owns? It's his. It's
his to give. So he paid for it. No money,
nothing to bring. She had tried everything. He
was her only hope. And if he heals you and saves
you from your sins, is there anything that God can look at
you and find guilt for and find fault? What about the law? How
does Christ fare before the law? Well, the scriptures say that
he is blameless. Well, if he's blameless, then
so are all those who are united to him. But see, because you
can't separate the head from the body. You can look at me
and you say, well, there's an arm and a hand and a foot and
a head. No, you say there's Andy. You can't separate me from a
part of my body. And if all those who are united
to the Lord Jesus Christ are part of his body, they can't
be separated. You can't say my hand's guilty
and my foot's not. So if he is not guilty, if he
is blameless, then so are all those who are united to him.
If there's no law, then there's no more death. We're united to
him and we live by his life. Well, in verse 30, it says, And
Jesus, immediately knowing in himself virtue had gone out of
him, turned about in the press and said, Who touched my clothes?
The Lord stopped. He knew immediately virtue had
gone out of him. Virtue is the same word for power.
Consider this. What was the greatest exercise
that the Lord ever had of virtue and a power in this life when
he was here? It's when He took His power to
take all the sins of all His people to Himself. He bore them. They became His. Only He had
the power to do this. This is substitution. The Lord's
power is exercised and seen and manifested in substitution. The
not guilty died for the guilty, but he was made guilty because
of what we did. We were united with him, and
we shared in that. That's what we confess in baptism,
isn't it? We had a baptism just last week.
When he died, I died with him. When he was raised, I was raised
with him. So this was an exercise of the
Lord's power. And then it said he stopped,
and he asked this question. Who touched me?" Now you can
imagine they were all clawing on him and pulling him, and,
Lord, come, you know, meet my relative and touch him and heal
him. They were pulling him all over
the place and touching him. But when he stopped and he said,
who touched me? I kind of imagine everybody took a step back. They
thought, uh-oh, you know, maybe I wasn't supposed to touch him.
And you can imagine a silence fell over the crowd at this time.
They had a lot to say before, but then he said, who touched
me? Can you imagine her fear at this
time? Would they pull her out and stone her, knowing that she
was in there and that she wasn't supposed to be there? Would the
Lord accuse her of taking something that didn't belong to her? Because
she said she knew in her body that she had been healed. Well,
in verse 31, it says, The disciples said unto him, Thou seest the
multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me?
The disciples were dumbfounded at this. They were walking right
with him, next to him, no doubt helping to clear some of the
crowd so that he could walk. Everybody's touching him, everybody's
talking to him, and Peter looks at him and says, Lord, I don't
understand you. The crowd's thronging thee, everybody's
touching you and around you. and you say, who touched me?
They just didn't understand what he was talking about. The disciples
didn't see him. Well, in verse 32 it says, and
he looked around to see her that had done this thing, to see the
power and effects of Christ on the heart of her child. But the
woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her,
came and fell down before him and told all the truth. You see,
She feared because she knew that she had no right to be there.
She knew that she was not supposed to be there, but yet she was.
And being in the unclean condition she was, she touched the master. Be different if you touch somebody
else. But to touch him, she knew she had no business being there.
or to lay hands on him. And she came before him weeping
and in fear. And you know she fell down and
said, she told him all the truth. You know what? He didn't have
to get anything out of her, did he? He didn't have to say, out
with it, confess what you did. No, he just said, who touched
me? And it said she came, weeping and trembling, and she told him
all the truth. And you know, neither will a child of God require
coaxing to own what they are, and that's a sinner. People describe
themselves in many other ways, but not a sinner. You want to
know if you're one of his? Are you a sinner? That's a hard
thing to find today. People are a lot of things that
maybe have sinned, but not a sinner. I wouldn't go that far. But yeah,
I find it funny because you ask some of the people of God, they
go out of their way to let you know that they're a sinner. That's
all I am. They go out of their way to make sure you understand
there's nothing good in me. There's no reason for him to
have done anything for me, and that all I ever have done is
sin, and he has no reason that he should show me any mercy.
Vast difference from what people describe themselves of today
who don't know him. So she had no problem in confessing
exactly what she did. She had no worth. She knew she
was deserving to be cast off. She was unrepentant and stained
by sin. That describes us. This is the
truth, Lord. This is who I am. You know me. I can't hide it from you. I'm
guilty, but here I am. I can go nowhere else. I've been
everywhere else, and none of it helped me. Nobody was able
to help me. They took all my money. They
took all my hope, and all I've been left with is sorrow and
pain, and things have actually got worse. And so I'm coming
to you because I have nobody else to go to. I have nothing
to bring to you. There's nothing redeeming about
me, and there's no reason that you should show me mercy or even
heal me." That's how she came to him. Isn't that how we're
called to come to him as well? We have nothing. She came with
an empty basket, and she left with a full basket. That's how
we're to come. She had nothing. She trembled
before King, as opposed to what goes on in most so-called churches
today, where they tell you to choose to make what he did work
for you. Did this happen with her? She
touched him, and she was made whole. She didn't choose to make
anything work. And then these words, because at this point,
she thinks, The hammer's about to drop. The axe is coming to
my neck because I'm exposed for what I am. I shouldn't have been
here. And in verse 34, can you imagine hearing this? And he
said to her, daughter. Oh, these words. Can you imagine
her relief when she heard that? Daughter. Not just lady, not
just somebody, it's daughter. That means you're my child. He
knew her. What was the reason why you think
he passed by that way? Just before this, Jairus came
to him to come heal his own daughter who was sick and eventually died
that the Lord raised later, but he was on his way to heal somebody
else. What do you think drew him this way to where she was? Because he had a child there
and she was suffering and she needed healing. So the only way
she could be healed is to touch him. Can he say this even to
me, even to you, daughter? Thy faith hath made thee whole. I can promise you this, as I've
said before, the issue of blood never returned. When she was
made whole, she was made whole, and that was it. Do you have
an issue of sin? Then you're to reach out, and
you're to touch the Lord. Was it her personal faith that
made this work? Because he said, thy faith had
made thee whole. So the will-worshippers and the works-worshippers, they're
going to look at that and say, see, it was her faith. He did everything else, but her
faith's what made the difference. No, that's will-worship. But
faith always has an object. Her object of her faith was Christ. The object of her faith was His
ability to heal her. So her object of her faith is
what healed her, not her faith. We say the Lord is sovereign
over all things, the thoughts that are going on in your head,
the sun that rises in the morning, the rain that falls here at night.
You don't think He has the ability to move her heart to come there
to touch His clothes? He didn't ask because He didn't
know who touched Him. He asked because he was calling
on her to confess what she did, to confess who she was, to tell
the truth in front of all those people. So it wasn't her personal
faith, it was the object of her faith. She cast her life, she
cast her health, she cast everything on His power to heal. And that's what we're to cast
our lives on as well. I'm to cast my life, I'm to cast
everything about me on what He can do for me, because if He
can't do it, I don't have a hope. So we're called to do this. Why
was she healed and the rest who touched Him in the crowd were
not? Think about that. How many people were touching
Him as He was going through? Because the disciples didn't
understand when He said, who touched me? He said, everybody's
touching you, Lord. How are you asking who touched
you and everybody else's, but yet we find her healed. What
made the difference? So it certainly wasn't the act
of the touch, was it? She was healed because there
was only one person in that crowd that had need of healing. The
rest of the bunch, they just wanted something. The multitudes
that followed him, they liked being fed. He said, you come
around because you ate of the loaves and the fishes. You wanted
to get a free meal out of this. A lot of people came around because
they wanted to see the miracles. They wanted to do something,
show us who you are. But there was only one person
in that crowd that actually had need of healing. And that's the
reason that she was healed. And if you ever really have a
need of the healing that only he can give, reach out and touch
the Lord. That's what she did, and we're
to act on the promise that's given in the word. Reach out
and to touch the Lord. And what that means is to come
to him, asking him to heal us. Believing he'll do so because
he said in his word, and it's because it's in his power and
ability to do so. We're to reach out and to touch
him, knowing if he doesn't do this for me, I'm lost. It's not
the physical act. It's the object of her faith
who has that power. So he said unto her, daughter,
go in peace. Not go and do anything. He's
the only one who can tell us, go in peace. Why can he say,
go in peace, thy sins be forgiven thee? He said that to how many
people? Why can he say that and nobody else can? In order to
make peace, sometimes you have to go to war. The Lord went to
war for us to take our sins away. that required him to die in that
war that he might win our peace. There's no more fight in that
war, is there? Paul said that. We're laid down in that war.
There's no more battle to be waged. He said, it's been finished. There's nothing else to do. So
when there's nothing else to do and I have no enemies, my
enemies are my sins, my enemies are my flesh, my enemies are
our evil spirits, it's Satan. All those things have been vanquished
in Christ. So if all those have been vanquished,
then I can have peace. I can sit and be tranquil and
know there's nothing to do. I have nothing to worry about. It's all been done for me. She
found peace. It's done. Salvation is free
and he's already paid the price. She found the physician who understood
the nature of her disease, didn't she? He was able to heal her
where none of the others were. Have you found him? Have you
found the same physician? Do you have a disease that you
haven't been rid of and you've tried everything else? Then you're
to reach out and you're to touch the Lord. Have you found him? Not have you found religion.
Have you found a set of beliefs? Have you found a preacher? Have
you found others, the common interests and values and morals
that you have? No. Have you found him? not religion,
not a set of beliefs, have you found him? If you found him,
then as Clara said this morning, we have everything. We don't
need anything else. I've been healed and I've found
him. I'll say the same thing to you as what she heard, because
this is what she heard before she came. There's somebody passing
by this way, and he's healed others, You go see him and he'll
heal you too. She was the only one who had
need of healing and therefore she was healed. She had faith
in his ability to do it. We're to reach out and we're
to touch the Lord. He's our only hope for cleansing,
our only hope for salvation. We're called to reach out and
touch him. All right, I'll let you go.