I want to read a part of the
text again for the benefit of those who will hear this message
over the radio Tuesday evening. Let's open our Bibles to Matthew
9 again, verse 18. While he spake these things unto
them, behold, there came a certain ruler, and worshipped him, saying,
My daughter is even now dead. but come and lay thy hand upon
her, and she shall live.' And Jesus arose and followed him,
and so did his disciples. And behold, a woman which was
diseased with an issue of blood twelve years came behind him
and touched the hem of his garment." Now here we have the story of
one who had learned how to appreciate and to receive the love of Christ
and the grace of God for sinners. A woman who had learned how to
appreciate the mercy of Christ, how to appreciate the grace of
Christ, how to appreciate the love of the Son of God. This
cannot be said of a lot of people, cannot be said of many people,
but here's one. We don't even know her name.
No other part of her history is recorded in the Word of God.
She is brought before us suddenly as one who trusted Christ, who
tasted that the Lord is gracious, who received mercy from the hand
of Christ, who humbly sought the Lord, and then she disappears
to be heard from no more. Like a star she shines and then
she's gone, but her faith and her dependence on Christ and
her confidence in the power of Christ is recorded as our example. Now when I read this scripture
and studied it carefully, I lost sight of the multitude around
Christ. It was not the multitude thronging
Christ that drew my attention. It was the woman, the woman and
her Lord. It was the sinner and her Savior. It was the sick one and her healing. From every one and every thing,
our eye is turned and fixed on two people, the woman and the
Lord. The first thing that I noted
about this scripture was the thing that brought these two
together, or the way in which they were brought together. Actually,
the Lord Jesus Christ was on another errand when this woman
met him. A rich ruler had come to him
and told him that his daughter had died, and asked the Lord
to come and touch or lay his hand upon his daughter. He knew
that the daughter would be made alive, that would be raised from
the dead. And the Lord Jesus Christ was
on his way to Capernaum. This ruler had come to Christ
and said, is dead, even now is dead, but if you'll come and
lay your hand upon her, she'll be made alive. And so the master,
the multitude, the ruler, the disciples were all headed towards
Capernaum. His direct errand was to raise
the little girl from the dead. But on his way to the ruler's
house, a woman crossed his path. Opportunities such as these were
welcome to the Master. Our Lord was never too busy,
He was never in too much of a hurry, He was never too occupied to
take up the case of a needy sinner. Actually some of His side errands
were His most blessed errands. You remember He was walking into
the city of He and his disciples were walking into a city, and
he looked over, and there was a funeral procession coming out
of the city. A young man had passed away,
the only son of a widow woman, and the master stopped on his
way into the city. He stopped and walked over to
the casket, laid his hand on it, and raised the young man
from the dead. And the widow was overjoyed.
overjoyed. Another time our Lord was on
His way to Galilee, and He stopped and sat down on a well. Being
wearied from His journey, He said to His disciples, Go into
the city and get something to eat. I'll sit here on the well
and wait for you. And they left Him, and while
He was sitting there on the well, a woman came to Him who was a
great sinner, who needed help, who needed mercy, and the Lord
saved her. She found while our master was
sitting on the well, waiting for his disciples to come back
from the city. Then another time he was passing
through Jericho. This was not his direct errand.
These were side errands. These were things that happened
while the master was going somewhere, like in the text. The ruler had
come to him and said, My daughter is dead, and the master began
to hurry towards Capernaum with the crowd, with the ruler, with
the disciples, It was a woman who reached out and touched him,
and he stopped. And even so, going to the city
of Nain, the funeral procession stopped him. Going to Galilee,
he stopped by the well to talk with the Samaritan woman. She
found life. And here passing through Jericho
one day, he walked under a sycamore tree, and he looked up, and there
was Zacchaeus. And the Master stopped, and everybody
else stopped, and he said, Zacchaeus, come down, for today I must abide. at thy house." I don't know whether
this is true of you. I know it's true of me. I know
that I don't properly value and prize my side errands as I ought
to. I like to plan my day. I like
to plan my week. I like to plan my month. I have
1974 pretty well planned out. where I'll be, when I'll be there,
what I plan to do. I don't like interruptions, to
be perfectly honest with you, and I don't think most of you
do. And yet, actually, our interruptions could be our real work for God's
glory. Actually, our side errands could
be the purpose for which God called us. We plan on a certain
day to do a certain thing, and actually that may be not at all
for the glory of God, and on the way to that particular place,
God brings forth the purpose for which we were going. Little
can we guess while forming our plans, someone said, for the
day, the month, or the year, on what errand God really might
be sending us. When I left Ashland in 1947, and went to Chattanooga to attend
school. I was looking for a place to
lead the singing. I wanted to be an assistant pastor.
I wanted to lead the singing for some preacher while I attended
school in Chattanooga. I wanted to do the work which
I did here in Ashland. That was my plans. I tried out
as assistant pastor at the Second Baptist Church and then at the
Gospel Tabernacle, the Christian Missionary Alliance. And then
at the Woodland Park Baptist Church, I went there to talk
to the pastor and to lead the singing. And one Friday evening,
the president of the college called me in, and he said, There's
a church out here in the country that doesn't have a pastor, and
the pulpit committee has gone to another city to hear a preacher,
and they need somebody to fill in for them while the pulpit
committee is gone, and why don't you go out there Sunday and preach
for them? So I went out Sunday morning, and I preached for them,
and Sunday night I preached for them. This was just a side area,
and I had no intention, no desire, no ambition for this church. I went out there to Philly, and
the pulpit committee wasn't even there. The people in charge of
securing a pastor were not there. So I went out and preached for
them that Sunday morning, Sunday night, and I served as their
pastor for two and a half years. I preached that Sunday, and the
next Wednesday, and the next Sunday, and never stopped preaching,
Father, until I came back here in 1950. So here's a master. I heard another story about a
minister who was in the seminary over in England many years ago.
And back in those days, this was back in the 18th or 19th
century, a man just didn't go anywhere without a hat. A farmer
wore a hat, a minister wore a hat, all men wore hats. A man just
felt undressed without a hat, and informal. And all ministers
wore black hats. Well, this young man, seminary
student, and a very capable young man, a very scholarly young man,
didn't have but one hat. He wore it Sunday through Saturday. And he had an appointment the
next Sunday to preach a trial sermon at a certain church that
was looking for a pastor, and they were interested in him in
particular. He was out cutting wood. He had
his hat on. And he drew the axe back, and
when he did, the wind blew his hat off. But the motion in which
he was engaged at that time, he couldn't stop, and he brought
the axe down and just chopped a hole in his hat. It fell on
the wood he was cutting. He just cut it in two. But he
didn't dare, this is a true story, he didn't dare go to that church
without a hat, and he didn't have another hat, and he wouldn't
wear the hat that was cut in two. So he asked his friend,
I forgot the preacher's name, but he asked his friend, he said,
go and apologize to the people and tell them that I'll come
the following Sunday and you'll substitute for me this Sunday.
But his friend went to the church and preached for them. The people
said, this is the man for us. They called the friend to be
their pastor, and he stayed there forty-eight years as their pastor
and had a fruitful and prosperous ministry. So here the master
was on his way to raise a young lady from the dead. And he was
going that way, the disciples were going that way, this was
the mission, this was the error. and all the people, and suddenly
out of nowhere came a woman, reached out and touched his garment.
A side errand, a side mission, a by-errand. And as I read this,
I thought to myself, perhaps my side errands are my real work
for God. Perhaps I shouldn't plan, and
perhaps I shouldn't dread and fear interruptions. Perhaps the
interruption is the purpose for which God called me to that hour.
Maybe I'm going that direction only in order to pass this particular
spot. I need to give that a lot of
thought. That's the way in which this woman and the Lord were
brought together. And then secondly, I notice this, the occasion that
brought them together. What was it actually that brought
them together? It was man's failure. That's
what brought them together. Man's total failure brought her
to Christ. If you read this same story in
another gospel in the Bible, another book in the Bible, you'll
find that this woman, having been sick for twelve years, had
tried many physicians. The scripture says that she had
tried many physicians and many doctors, and they all had failed. and she steadily grew worse. Man had done his utmost. Man had exhausted all of his
energy and strength and knowledge to make this woman well for twelve
years and had miserably failed. She wasn't any better, she was
worse. Man's failure brought her to
him who cannot fail. It was man's helplessness that
brought this woman to the Lord Jesus Christ who could be her
not only help but salvation. How slow we are to turn from
man to God. How slow we are to turn from
our traditions to Christ. How slow we are to turn from
ourself to the Savior. We go from one earthly remedy
to the other. We go from one earthly crutch
to the other. We go from one earthly solution
to the other. We go to these things, and these
people, and these doctrines, and these ways, and we cry, Heal
me! Heal me! Heal me! And we find
no help. We hew out one broken cistern
after the other, and they all fail. We go from church to church,
from preacher to preacher, from help to help, and we find no
help. how slow we are to turn to Christ. Turn to Psalm 107. In Psalm 107,
here's the solution. This woman had tried for twelve
years to find healing, but all these twelve years she had turned
to the wrong person. She had sought the wrong aid.
Finally, in her desperation, after man had totally failed,
she turned to the Lord. In Psalm 107, Verse 4, they wandered
in the wilderness in a lonely way. They found no city to dwell
in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul
fainted in them. And then, and then, they cried
unto the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them out of
their distresses. Look at verse 10. such as sit
in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction
and iron, because they rebelled against the words of God, and
contemned the counsel of the Most High. Therefore he brought
down their heart with labor. They fell down. There was none
to help. None to help. That's where this
woman was. None to help. Man had totally, completely,
absolutely failed. And then they cried unto the
Lord, in their trouble, and he saved them out of their distress. Blessed failure. Blessed failure. You say, when can a person praise
failure? When it brings him to Christ.
Blessed failure. We can praise failure, we can
praise want, we can praise emptiness. Happy disappointments. When is
a disappointment happy? When it throws the aching, empty,
hungry, sinful heart on Christ alone. That's when it's happy.
And this woman had gone to every physician. I'm sure that the
people next door said, now I had a friend that had the same thing
you have, He went to Dr. So-and-so, or she went to Dr.
So-and-so, and she was made whole immediately. Somebody else said,
well, I had a cousin, or an aunt, or someone else that had the
same thing you've got, and this doctor healed her immediately.
And this woman went from place to place, from doctor to doctor,
and man's failure finally shut her up to Christ. The third thing I noted in this
scripture is this. the point of connection between
the woman and the Lord. Now the way they were brought
together, it was a side errand. The Lord was on his way to a
certain place and this woman interrupted him. And the occasion
that brought them together was man's failure. If she had not
seen man's failure, she would have never turned to Christ.
If she had not lost all confidence in the flesh, she would have
never turned to Christ. God has got to strip us of all
confidence in our flesh or anybody else's before we turn to Christ. Now Paul the Apostle said, follow
me as I follow Christ, but don't follow me. I've heard people say, well I
quit church because I lost confidence in a certain preacher. Was that
where your confidence was placed? It was placed in the wrong place.
Well, I quit church because I lost confidence in a Sunday school
teacher. I lost confidence in a deacon. Is that where your
confidence is placed? It's in the wrong place. We have
got to see man's utter, total, complete failure. And when we
do our failure, and the failure of others, and the failure of
every system, and the failure of every doctrine, and the failure
of every denomination, and the failure of every way of salvation,
that's when we turn to Christ. That's when this woman turned
to Christ, when she lost all confidence in the flesh. She
had tried every doctor she knew, and she wasn't any better, she
was worse. worse, worse. And then she turned
to Christ and she was made whole. Blessed failure. Thank God for
failure. Thank God for disappointments.
Thank God when we lose confidence in the flesh. The best thing
that will ever happen to you spiritually is when you lose
absolutely all confidence in the flesh. That's when you lean
on Christ. And that's when you'll look to
Christ alone. That's when you'll depend on Christ alone. That's
when you'll realize more than ever before your need of Christ
alone. The point of connection, what
was it? It was the woman's sickness. That was the point of connection.
Had it not been for her sickness, she would never have sought the
Lord. It is not that which is whole about her that drew her
to Christ. It was that which was broken.
It was not that which was commendable about her which brought her to
Christ, it was that which was despised. And so it is with our
sin. That's the point of connection
between us and the Savior. It is not my good that brings
me to the house of God, it is my sin. A good friend of mine said one
time to me, as we were riding along in the car, he said, well
I'll tell you, if I ever If I ever stumble, falter, and fall, I'll
leave the church. I won't embarrass you. I won't
come back to the church. I'll just quit." And I said to
him, that's wrong. That's the time when you need
the house of God. That's the time when you need
me and the people of God. That's the time when you need
the Lord. It is not your goodness that's
the connection between you and Christ. It's your evil. It's your sin. My death needs
His life. My sin needs His grace. My sickness needs His healing. My poverty needs His riches. My weakness needs His strength. So if God is pleased to ever
let me walk through a deep valley of trial, you can look for me
on the front row, because that's when I plan to be there. This
woman needed Christ. All connection between Christ
and the sinner begins with the sinner's sin. He said, I came
not to call the righteous, I came to call sinners to repentance. I hear people, they make the
wrong application altogether here at this point. Oh, I'm not
going down to the church, I'm not fit company for those people. I beg your pardon. I beg your
pardon. That's like a man saying, I'm
not going to the hospital, I'm too sick. The hospital's no place
for me, I'm too sick. I don't want to go down there
with all those well people. There's no need for me going
down there to the doctor. I'm just too sick. He doesn't
have time for sick folks like me. That's supposed to be his
business. The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is the hospital
for the sick. It's the well to quench the thirst. It's the table spread for the
hungry. If you're not hungry, you stay
away. If you're not thirsty, you stay away. If you're not
sick, you stay away. If you're not a sinner, you stay
away and make room for people who are. That's what Christ said
back in Matthew 9. Listen to it, Matthew 9, verse
11. And the Pharisees saw it, and
they said, why does your master eat with publicans and sinners?
Why does your master associate with sinners? And Jesus heard
it, and he said, The will, the whole, do not need a physician,
but those that are sick. Give me the opportunity to preach
to sinners and people who know they're sinners. Give me the
opportunity to talk with and witness to and preach to those
who failed, utterly failed, who have no goodness about them,
who are wicked from the sole of their feet to the top of their
heads, who have no soundness, nothing but open running sores
that have not been mollified nor bound up nor healed with
ointment. Give me the guilty. I've got
grace for them. Give me the sinful. Christ has
mercy for her. Give me the needy. Give me those
who have nothing, know nothing, are nothing. I've got good news
for them. This woman, the point of connection
between her and the Lord was her sickness. That's why she
sought Him. That's when she sought Him. When
she could do nothing for herself and nobody else could. And that's
the point of contention. between the Savior and the self-righteous. They said, we've been up sinners! Oh, how slow we are to learn
this particular point, but this is the essence of the gospel.
Grace for the guilty, healing for the sick, life for the dead,
clothing for the naked, salvation for the lost. Christ said, I've
come to seek and to save the lost. Some of you are too good
to be saved. You'll never be saved, because
you'll never be anything but good. You're too proud to be
saved. You're too haughty to be saved.
Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before the
fall. God giveth grace to the humble, and God resisteth the
proud, and you're too proud to be saved. You'll never be humbled,
You'll never be broken, you'll never be a sinner. You're a good
woman, and you're a good man, and you're going to hell." This
woman was sick, sick, sick. This woman was absolutely sick. This woman had reached the end
of her road. This woman had been a victim
of man's complete failure. This woman needed Christ. Oh,
how she needed Christ. This woman had a great long sickness. Her need was great. She simply
had to have Christ. No one else could do her any
good. It was Christ or death. And so
it is with us, we who are sinners. So it is with us, we who are
guilty. We need Christ. I need Thee every hour, most
gracious Lord. No tender voice like Thine can
peace afford. I need Thee every hour, in joy
or in pain. Come quickly, Lord, and abide,
or my life is vain. I need Christ more than I need
life. I go to Him. It may be my sense
of guilt, it may be my lack of it, it may be my ignorance, it
may be my foolishness, it may be my fear, my absence of goodness. It doesn't matter. I need Christ.
And I'll go to Jesus, though my sins like mountains round
me rise. I know his courts I'll enter
in, though many may oppose." Then the fourth thing I want
you to note is this, and I may shock you just a little bit here,
but I want you to think about what I'm going to say. I pointed
out the woman's need of Christ. Now, may I point out to you Christ's
need of the woman. It may sound strange for you,
for me to declare that Christ needed this woman, but it's true,
and it's blessed as it is true. Let me ask you this. Does the
congregation need the preacher? You say yes. Well, the preacher
needs the congregation, too. Does the sick need the physician?
Why, certainly. Is a physician a physician who
has no patience? The physician needs the patient. Does the earth need the sun?
Why, certainly, you say. Well, I say the sun needs the
earth. What would become of the sun's warmth and the sun's life
and the sun's radiance if there were no earth to shine upon? And so I say to you that Christ
is full of love. Christ is love. But love's got
to have an object. I've heard preachers say, well,
God could have saved everybody or God could have damned everybody. I'll go along with the first
statement. God could have saved everybody. But love's not going
to damn everybody. Love has got to have an object.
Love has got to be expressed. If true love is there, if real
love is there, it's got to be shown. And Jesus Christ needed
this woman. Christ is gracious, but grace
must have a recipient. Christ is glorified, not simply
in being love, but in loving. Christ must have the guilty to
forgive. He must have the empty to fill.
He must have the poor to enrich. He must have the dead to raise.
He delights to show mercy. He delights to show mercy. God
is plenteous in mercy. Brethren, our God has mercy to
spare. Our God delights to show mercy. Our Lord delights to heal. I'm
just looking for some folks that are sick. And I can't find any. Our Lord delights to reach down
and lift the fallen, but who's fallen? Our Lord delights to
come in and soothe the broken heart, but who's got one? Our
Lord delights to cleanse the guilty, but who's guilty? Anybody
here guilty? Who's guilty? This woman came. She was guilty. She was sick.
She knew it. She was dying. She knew it. She
was polluted. She knew it. She came and touched
the Lord. And he stopped. And he said,
Who touched me? Who touched me? And the disciple
said, Well, Lord, There are thousands of people around here brushing
against you, bumping you, pushing you. That crowd didn't have a
policeman to order it and control it. They were pushing and shoving.
He said, somebody touched me. I perceive that power, virtue
is gone out of me. Somebody touched me who had a
need. Somebody touched me who had a
sickness. Somebody touched me who needed
me and I want to know who it was. And he turned and the woman
came forth and she said, I touched you Lord. I'm a sick person. I've tried everything and nobody's
been able to help me. I'm at the end of my rope and
Lord I knew within myself that if I could just touch your garment
I'd be made whole. He said, be of good comfort by
faith that may be whole." Now, there are multitudes of people
going to churches this morning. There are multitudes of people
using the name of the Lord. There are multitudes of people
who are reading the Bible. There are multitudes of people
who are singing the hymns. There are multitudes of people
who are reading the Sunday school lesson. There are multitudes
of people thronging the Lord, all about the Lord, but in those
multitudes somewhere There is a woman who is a sinner, and
who knows it, who has been stripped by the law, broken by the law,
and exposed by the Holy Spirit, and she sought peace and joy
and rest everywhere, and she's found nothing but failure. Everyone
to whom she has turned has failed her. She's lost all confidence
in everything and everybody, and she is reaching out and touching
the Lord. And Christ said, somebody touched
me with a need. Somewhere there's a man, there's
a young person, and they've tried everything and every body, and
they've never found anything but failure. They've never found
anything but disappointment. They've never found anything
but religious rubble and religious rubbish, and that's all it is.
And you know it and I know it. We're playing games, we're playing
church. And somewhere there's a man or
a boy, or young girl that's going to reach out this morning, having
lost all confidence in the flesh, theirs and everybody else's,
lost all hope because of human helplessness and human failure,
mine, yours, and everybody else's, and somewhere with me there's
a guilty person going to reach out and touch Christ. And from
the Lord they're going to receive grace and mercy and power and
virtue and healing. And that person is going to stay
in touch with Christ. They're going to stay in connection
with Christ. They're going to stay right there
in the footsteps of Christ because they find in Him all they need. He of God is made unto me wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. He's all I need. And I'm here to tell you this
morning and confess plainly before God, I'm not good. And I'm not
holy. I'm a sinful creature who needs
the Lord. Christ is good, and Christ is
holy, and He's my substitute. And I have no confidence in myself,
and I have no confidence in you, but I have complete, absolute
confidence in Christ. And I know whom I have believed,
and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have
surrendered, that which I have committed, that which I have
laid at his feet until that day. I was sick when I came to him,
and he made me whole. I was naked when I came to him,
and he clothed me in his spotless righteousness. I was an outcast
when I came to him, and he brought me home. I was an alien, and
he adopted me into the family of God. And I find in him my
hope and my strength. Do you? Can you come to him that
way? If you can't, don't come at all.
But if you can, you'll find in him all you need. Our dear Lord,
bless this message. Show us our guilt. Reveal unto
us these sinful hearts. O Lord, there's nothing good
about us. O Lord, grant that we shall not
seek to find either in our flesh or anybody else's flesh perfection. and holiness. It's only found
in Christ. There's none good but God. All
we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned every one to his
own way, and thou hast laid on him the iniquity of us all. Don't let us be afraid to use
the word iniquity and transgressions and ungodliness where we're concerned,
because that's what we are. But, O God, we find in Christ
all we need, His precious blood that cleanseth and purifieth
and makes us as white as snow, His precious blood that speaks
for us on the mercy seat of glory, satisfying justice and the divine
law, Christ our hope. Through Him we pray. Amen.