God’s Sovereignty in Your Desperation

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Welcome to The Rap Report with your host, Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application.

This is a ministry of striving for eternity and the Christian podcast community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

Well, welcome to another edition of The Rap Report. I am your host, Andrew Rappaport, here with my repenting sidekick.

I have to say that because if you see in the video, not only is his microphone repenting now, but so is his shirt.

Bud Alheim, how are you? I'm very good, sir. How are you today? Good. You know, so your shirt says repent and believe.

So the gospel. Well, I can't see the whole part. I just see the repent and the believe part.

A shirt like this on me is a walking billboard. Yeah, especially with the mask that you have there that says repent as well.

Yeah, right. You know, we were at the recently, we had Dr. Anthony Silvestro and Mike Riddle from Creation Training Institute come out to our church and do one of their trainings.

And Mike has a sense of humor. But, you know, the thing is, is that he sees people.

He saw this guy that we know, Cliff. Cliff comes in with a, Cliff is an evangelist. He too likes to make sure he's always evangelizing.

So he's got a shirt that said something about repent and believe. And, uh, but he came in late, you know, because he had been, he had been working.

So he shows up late. And Mike makes a comment about people need to repent of being late, wearing shirts about repent.

And he kept talking about repentance and this guy wearing a shirt about repent. And Cliff is the kind of guy, he just rolls with it.

It was, it was great. He was like, every time that Mike mentions repent, Cliff turns around, just points to his shirt like, yep.

Oh, it was a good time. As much for me, it's, you know, it's like, don't make provision for the flesh.

Well, if I'm wearing something that it's like, okay, don't, you can't say that you can't, you gotta be

Christlike. Yeah. So, you know, I, I guess, but we, we can announce some things before we get started on today's show.

Um, you and I are going to do a live, I think we can do a live recording, uh, coming in in a month because you and I are actually going to be together because I will be down at your church, uh, preaching.

It'll be better for me than it will be for you, brother. I'm just telling you. Yeah, well, we're going to have to make sure either

I'm going to have to bring my setup or you're going to have to have a setup. We're going to have to see, but, uh, yeah, I'm going to be your way in, in, uh,

Jacksonville, Florida area. Cause that's the, the area roughly that you're at. Yes, sir.

So I'll be in your area on December 13th, preaching at, uh,

Christ reform community church. And, uh, that's in St. Augustine actually.

Right? Yes, it is. Technically you pronounce the St. Augustine steam, you know, it appeals to Augustine.

That's right. Yeah. No, I just figured we'd see how you pronounce it.

People get upset if you pronounce that one wrong. So everybody calls it Augustine. So, uh,

I'll be preaching at your, at your church there on the 13th, which was a surprise to me as of yesterday.

So yeah, well, you know, pastor Andrew and I talked and, uh, because I I'm actually going to be that following weekend on the, um, on the 19th,

I'll be at, uh, Bethula Baptist church, which is, it's in the

Orlando area. It's actually winter garden. And I will be Anthony Sylvester and I will be doing a, um, basically be preaching or doing a seminar on social justice.

And then I will be preaching at that church. Anthony, I think is, I think the plan is Anthony's teaching

Sunday school. My guess could be wrong, but my guess is it'll be Genesis. Genesis with Anthony.

It's, it's a safe bet. Um, at some point we have to let Anthony know there's 65 other books of the

Bible. Yeah. There's more than not that that's not important. You've got to get the foundation, right?

Hey, I'll just say for the record, I had him preach this weekend at my church. Since we had this seminar, he, he preached out of James chapter three on the, basically the sins of the tongue.

And, you know, he did an excellent job. He, you know, I do encourage people to go to themasterchurch .org and you can, you could listen to it, but I will say this.

I was actually quite a surprise, bud. Do you know, it took Anthony 20 minutes before he actually got to Genesis in James chapter three.

I mean, it was like 20 some minutes. I was shocked. I, I, you know, he's, that's,

I think the longest he's ever gone without going and make making some reference to Genesis. Yeah.

So, uh, I will be trying to mute myself on this episode as I still do have a lagging cough that, uh, is still lingering, but we'll,

I'll try to catch them all. So I will be preaching though, after Anthony does

Sunday school at Bethulah Baptist church. So, uh, if you want to check those out,

I'll try to put, uh, in the show notes and we should have them up on strivingforeturning .org.

I think we're going to, we should have those events, but I don't know. I'll have to double check with the webmaster. So get the name of the church, right?

It's Beulah Baptist church. Beulah, Beulah, Beulah, biblical name. Any, any other, you know, you, you want to correct

Augustine. I'm just, I think I'm gonna call it Augustine just to see, cause it's a lot, it's, you know, the

I has got to be long. There's a silent E there just to see.

I will obviously, I won't do that at the church. How do you think his mother called him as a child? You know, um,

Gus, Gus. Uh, well, most, most mothers call their, their boys trouble.

That's usually the name. Yes. Some wives say that of their husbands.

Yeah. Especially when you want to conquer the world, I think. So, yeah,

I mean, he, he wants to have an impact on the whole world. So yeah, he's, he's a troublemaker. Yeah.

All right. So let's, let's, uh, let's take a look. What we want to do today is to actually go through a passage of scripture.

And that passage is Mark chapter 5, 21 to 43. This is, it's going to sort of be for, for me, uh, this is coming out of my, you know, my sermon notes for, uh, what

I'm preaching at church. And this is one of the things with preaching is you can never get everything.

In an hour message that you study. So this is the advantage of doing this.

And I know there's some podcasts where all they do, I know a couple where the whole podcast is just about the sermon from the previous

Sunday. It's the leftovers that the pastor didn't get to discuss and they just keep discussing it.

That's sort of what this episode is going to be. But we, we just, I thought that this passage bud with everything going on in America is very fitting for our times, uh, just the overarching view of God's sovereignty in this passage.

So let me start with reading this passage. Um, I'll tell you what, do you want to, you want to read

Matthew? Oh, sorry, Matthew. What am I doing wrong book? You want to read

Mark 5, 21 to 43. Sure. And I believe, uh, had it printed out from the

NASB, if not, then just follow along anyway. Okay. The word says when

Jesus had crossed over again in the boat to the other side, a large crowd gathered around him. And so he stayed by the seashore.

One of the synagogue officials named Jairus came up and on seeing him fell at his feet and implored him earnestly saying, my little daughter is at the point of death.

Please come and lay your hands on her so that she will get well and live. And he went off with him and a large crowd was following him and pressing in on him.

A woman who had had a hemorrhage for 12 years and had endured much at the hands of many physicians.

And it's been all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse after hearing about Jesus.

She came up in the crowd behind him and touched his cloak for, she thought if I just touched his garments,

I will get well. Immediately, the flow of blood was dried up and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.

Immediately, Jesus perceiving in himself that the power proceeding from him had gone forth, turned around in the crowd and said, who touched my garments?

And his disciples said to him, you see the crowd pressing in on you and you say, who touched me? And he looked around to see the woman who had done this, but the woman fearing and trembling, aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before him and told him the whole truth.

And he said to her, daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your affliction.

While he was still speaking, they came from the house of the synagogue official saying, your daughter has died.

Why trouble the teacher anymore? But Jesus overhearing what was being spoken, said to the synagogue official, do not be afraid any longer, only believe.

And he allowed no one to accompany him except Peter and James and John, the brother of James.

They came to the house of the synagogue official and he saw a commotion and people loudly weeping and wailing.

And entering in, he said to them, why make a commotion and weep? The child has not died, but is asleep.

They began laughing at him, but putting them all out, he took the child's father and mother and his own companions and entered the room where the child was.

Taking up, taking the child by the hand, he said to her, Talitha Koum, which means little girl,

I say to you, get up. Immediately the girl got up and began to walk for she was 12 years old.

And immediately they were completely astounded. And he gave them strict orders that no one should know about this.

And he said that something should be given her to eat. OK, so one of the things we always do first, bud, is

I know you know this because we talked about this before we started going. We started recording. Right.

We can't just jump into a passage and ignore all of its context, especially in a book like Mark.

Mark is a historical narrative and it moves rapidly. It does.

Actually, the word immediate is shows up in this book more than any other.

And in the first chapter, it's like immediately this immediate, this immediate. So this is a very quick paced book.

But in a historical narrative, one of the things with a historical narrative is it's telling a story.

And you need to know where you are in that story. Now, some historical narratives are chronological.

Some are going to be more. They're more in the line of events that may not be necessarily in a time order, but in an order that the writer is trying to lay out a story, a case to be made.

So it's historical in its context. So one of the first things I want us to think about as we think of a historical narrative, one of the rules with a historical narrative, interpreting any historical narrative, is that what we have is what the scriptures say is what actually happened.

Not necessarily saying what should or should not happen. Now, Bud, one of the things that I find, my background in studying world religions and cults,

I've always found it interesting that so many of these cultic groups like to look at the historical narratives of the

Old Testament and try to find something they pull into for themselves today.

And they go, well, see, it's in the Bible. It happened here, right? One example, you see David having many wives.

Therefore, we should have many wives. Solomon had many wives. Well, if you make that argument, there is a slight problem.

And that slight problem is Solomon did have many wives to his own downfall, right?

Scripture is clear that his many wives caused his heart to walk away from God and follow after the false gods of his wives.

So what we look at when we have a historical narrative is the fact that it records what actually happened.

In other words, Judas took his own life. It doesn't mean you should, okay? But it is accurate in the fact that what we have recorded actually happened.

The reason this becomes important is because people will try to use the scriptures to say, oh, well, look, this event happens.

This happened. Therefore, it gives us the right to go and do something, whatever that something is.

And the scriptures are recording where Israel went to war, where Israel does things, where the disciples do things.

It's not necessarily saying that in a historical narrative, we should go follow that. I'm just going to say that because what will come up in this passage is an issue of healing.

And some people will look at this and say, well, see, there's a healing so we can heal today. That assumption is not the way that we would interpret a historical narrative.

This event that we read actually happened. And it happened the way that it's laid out. But it doesn't mean that we go around and do some of these things.

But let's get some context now. As we started this, before we started recording, you wanted to go back to, because you noticed in the end of Mark chapter 4, you noticed something that when

I was preaching through this, I had pointed out. But I want to let you explain, there's four things that you saw in chapter 4 and chapter 5, where the way that I word it, you'll word it differently, but this is

Christ putting his deity on display. And he does it in four different ways.

So what were those four ways that you had brought out? Yeah, I mean, this was just, you know, you look at the broader context, you told me you were going to look at this section in particular.

So let's look at what surrounds it in the text. And if you go to the end of Mark 4, you have

Christ in the boat with the disciples and the storm, and he's asleep, and he arises, and he speaks a word and stills the storm.

Then you get into the opening of Mark 5, and you've got the demoniac healed with legions, and you've got that whole episode there.

So he casts out the demons. Then in this text of Scripture, you've got the woman with the issue or the hemorrhaging woman, and then the story of Jairus' daughter.

So in that quick end of chapter 4 and chapter 5, you got four things that Jesus is showing his divine authority, his sovereignty over.

He's showing his authority, his power over the natural world by stilling the sea, the supernatural world by casting out the demons.

He is showing his authority over disease with the woman who is hemorrhaging. And then finally, he's showing his authority over death in raising

Jairus' daughter. And each of those. The natural world, the supernatural world.

No, I'm sorry. Yeah, I was just going to recap. The natural world, the supernatural world, disease and death. Yeah, and as we see each one of those, this is his deity on display.

I mean, that's what he is displaying here, that he has this authority. Whether it be over the weather, because when you look at that passage in Mark 4, it's really interesting, and I don't know if you've ever picked up on this, but when

I preached through this, I was pointing out the fact that when you end up seeing this, they're in the boat.

This storm is a fierce storm that is very violent in the way that it's worded there.

The word there for fierce gale of wind is like a mega hurricane.

That's how we understand those terms, a mega hurricane. And as quickly as this arose, and that's the idea here is that there arose quickly, like immediately there arose this storm.

But then that same mega, the term that we have is for mega calm.

When he said, hush, be still, as quickly as this storm came up, it quieted down.

Now, why do I find that as interesting? Because if you've been at sea, you know that the wind pushes the water, and that's what creates your waves.

It's the wind pushing water, and it creates the wave, and that even if the wind dies down, you don't have the waves just stop.

They continue to ripple until they settle down. That's not what you have here.

It ends up saying that the wind died down, and it became perfectly calm, mega calm, so still that there was no more wave.

That wave defied nature because it should have kept rippling, and it just dissipates.

The wind just stops, and it just dissipates. And that's why they became afraid. In verse 41, they became very much afraid.

Yeah. When I preached through this, I was saying the fact that the one thing scarier than being in the center of a storm is realizing you have

God Almighty in the boat with you, right? Yeah, exactly.

But here's the point that you end up seeing. Just as in this passage in Mark 4, when these disciples were in the center of a storm, they were in the center of God's will.

People don't often think about that because when we think of a storm, we think about being in a storm, we don't want to be there.

We want to be out of that situation. It's no different than we have difficult times in life. Right now, the country seems to be in chaos.

There's questions with the election and people trying to steal it, or it's someone trying to be a dictator and not leave office.

The accusations back and forth are tearing the country apart, and we could sit here and what in the world is going on?

Is God in control? Does he know what's happening? Well, the answer is yes. God knows exactly what's happening.

But for the disciples, they had a lesson to learn, and Christ allowed this mega storm, this mega hurricane, so that he could bring a mega calm.

He knew what he was going to do, but he's putting his deity on display in nature. But as you pointed out, he then goes right from there, and it's just so interesting how

Mark lays this out because it's like, oh, then they came to the other side. I mean, they're basically just crisscrossing back and forth over the sea, right?

It's like, just picture the scene. Here you have Jesus, you got a crowd of people, and when you read through Mark 4 and 5, it's like he's over on this side, there's a crowd of people.

You'd think, okay, hey, you should want the crowd. You're going to build a big platform. You can get the message out. It'd be great.

What does he do? He leaves the crowd to go to the other side. What does the crowd do? They all follow, you know, whether in boats or they run around.

I mean, it's like they're all looking to get more from him, and he's just crisscrossing back and forth across the sea, finding other places to go and to preach, and each time there's these large crowds.

He goes to a place where you have the demoniac, and he is basically, no one can control him.

This is the account, for folks to remember, this is the account where the demons, legion, they want to go into the swine, and the swine run off a cliff.

Again, what happens there? The locals want Jesus gone.

They're afraid of him. Yeah, it says here that in verse 15 of chapter 5, they came to Jesus and observed the man who had been demon -possessed, sitting down, clothed in his right mind, and the very man who had the legion, and they became frightened.

This is, so first, what you see is a common reaction, both between the disciples and the people in this region.

They see Jesus do something that's divine, and they're afraid.

One of the things, the reason I bring it up is you're going to see that same consistent pattern here, at least with the woman.

She's going to be fearing and trembling. This is actually a proper response to Christ's deity.

That's one of the things I note here is that we see that, well, let's look at some accounts.

You have people like Beth Moore who, I think she had Jesus brushing her hair in a dream, and she saw

Jesus and he was brushing her hair, and you have accounts of people who they had snowball fights with Jesus.

I think that was Paula White, you know, Trump's spiritual advisor. Yikes. He needs a real spiritual advisor, right?

But I think it's Paula White that had a snowball fight with Jesus. I forget who it was that had a splashing fight in the

River Jordan with Jesus. Just look at the accounts of people that say they've had a vision of Jesus, and then compare it to these accounts.

When Jesus actually walked the earth and put his deity on display, people didn't find it as, oh, let's go have a lighthearted thing.

No, they were afraid. The disciples saw him do many miracles, but when they were in a storm that they knew, keep in mind, they were experienced fishermen.

They knew this was not a normal storm. They see Christ calm this storm.

They know it's supernatural. They know that's something only God could do, and what do they do? They're afraid.

Yeah. Kind of reminds me of Jonah. You know, when they're in the storm, and Jonah says, you gotta throw me overboard.

And they don't want to do it. No, they don't want to do it. No. And what happens the moment they throw him overboard?

Calm. Calm, right? And then what's their reaction to that calm? Because they know this was

God doing this. They feared and worshiped. Yeah. That should be the reaction to the deity of Christ.

Unfortunately, I think that too many Christians have been desensitized to the thoughts that we should be in awe of who

God is. And when we read passages like this, and we see God on display, we should be afraid, just like they were.

Christ should be our new normal every day, not the circumstances that we find ourselves in.

Yeah. And as we look through this, you know, here's some interesting things I thought in the study of this,

Bud, was, okay, here you have Jairus. Now, we have some explanation.

He was one of the synagogue officials. Okay. Now, right off the bat, we want to, when we're interpreting scripture, it is good to, you know, have scripture interpret scripture.

In other words, we don't take something from one spot and just suddenly grab, oh, it's that same word is over in this spot, and we slam them together.

No, they have to be within their context. But what we can do when we examine scripture with scripture is we can look at the

Jewish religious leaders and their behavior and what they did.

Now, why do I say that? Because there were times when Jesus would heal people, and we have one account of a blind man who's healed.

And what happens with his parents? They start charging, the Jewish religious leaders go after the parents, and they say, hey, go talk to him.

We can verify he was born blind. We can verify that. But we don't want to answer. Why didn't they want to answer?

For a very simple reason. Because the Jewish leaders had threatened that anybody who was following with Jesus was going to be put out of the synagogue.

Okay. Now, let's put that into the context here. Is this a light thing that Jairus is doing?

His daughter is sick. She's not dead yet, but she's to the point of death. He recognizes that.

And he comes to Christ. Do you think, Bud, that this man counted the cost?

Right? Yeah. You know, you even mentioned earlier the fear that they had, and it doesn't expressly say that, but here's this guy, a synagogue official.

He may have been a Pharisee. You know, we don't know that. That text doesn't tell us that. But he's a synagogue official.

He comes up to Jesus, seeing him. He falls at his feet. Now, that could be merely an act of respect, but we see that elsewhere in Scripture as obeyance to the sovereignty and divinity of God.

But his motive is his daughter. His daughter's dying. And he has no doubt heard what

Jesus has been doing, because these miracles are, this is why these crowds are following him.

So, yeah, it's very provocative that he has had to have thought, this could cost me, but I love my daughter.

I want my daughter healed. And it was no light thing to be an outcast. You know, the parents of the blind man, that did not merely mean you didn't have access to religious worship.

It was also a social issue, buying, trading, dealing with neighbors.

You would become an outcast. Well, and that's one of the things that we don't appreciate as much with the synagogue life, but the synagogue was more than just the place that you went to worship.

It was more than the place that you learned God's Word. It really was the center hub of Jewish life.

To be put out of the synagogue is to be put out of everything. You couldn't talk with your family.

You wouldn't be able to talk with friends. You might not be able to work. You would have to leave that area and go into a

Gentile living, because nobody in the synagogue would talk to you.

So this was, it shows a couple things with Jairus, and this is when we look at Scripture, we do want to kind of not just read over these things, but meditate on them and think about Jairus.

I mean, he must be desperate. He must be at a point of such desperation that he's willing to throw off all of the trappings of the culture.

I mean, you think about this, for some people, getting thrown off Facebook would be devastating to them, and they couldn't tell everyone what they had for breakfast.

It would be horrible. But we don't have that same mindset.

We're so disconnected from our neighbors that we really don't know the people that live next to us that well.

It's a different culture that we're in that we don't really value and appreciate this.

We unfortunately live in a culture where far too many Christians just pick up and move up the street to a new church when it's something they don't like.

They didn't have this option in the synagogue, and so right off the bat as I'm looking at this, here you've got this guy, he's got this 12 -year -old girl, he loves her, he cares for her, he knows she's at the point of death, and what does he do?

He comes and falls at the feet of Christ. Now, when people fell at the feet of Peter, what did he do?

He said, get up, don't worship me. Jesus didn't say that. Jesus didn't say, stand up.

At least not that we have recorded. This man comes and worships because that's what actually the word worship is, to bow down, and so he comes down, he lays himself at the feet of Christ and just implores him to just lay his hands on his daughter.

Now, here's the interesting contrast that we have between Jairus' daughter and this woman, because the account with the woman is right in the middle of this account with Jairus, and as I look at this,

I see that there's a contrast, I think, that Mark is also trying to point out here in giving these details.

But with Jairus, he feels that Jesus has to actually come to the house and lay hands on the daughter.

Contrast that with the woman who, she doesn't even want to be seen, right?

Yeah, she's hidden in the crowd. Yeah, and why is she hidden? For a very simple reason.

If you have a disorder of blood, it makes her unclean. She would have been almost like a leper.

She had, by virtue of that malady, she couldn't have been in the synagogue anyway.

Correct. So for 12 years, she's out of the synagogue. Let's look at the contrast between these two people.

Jairus, he's an official in the synagogue. So the synagogue is not only a major part of his life, where everything revolves around, but he's a leader in there.

He's a man. Then you have this woman who, because of her affliction, she's not going to be able to go to the synagogue.

She's ailing. So Jairus is of good health, where she's ailing.

And for 12 years, the same amount of time that this little girl has been alive. I know you may want to see a little bit more with that than I would, right?

I don't know that there's a significance. I don't think there was.

I'm just curious. This is a good general principle, though, when it comes to interpreting scripture, is

I don't apply or look for things that are not clear in scripture.

In other words, just because the girl is 12 years old and this woman has been struggling for 12 years, they both mentioned 12 years.

It doesn't necessarily mean that there's some connection there. Maybe Mark noted that, hey, 12 years old, and this woman's been struggling for 12 years, and he found significance there.

But I won't say there's a significance if the scripture doesn't. Yeah, the scripture doesn't point that out.

Yeah, but it is interesting that as long as this girl has been alive, this woman has been struggling with this disease.

And so, but in the contrast and similarities between these, that is something we note.

We know Jairus, synagogue official, male, this woman who would have been out of the synagogue because of this ailment, she's going to hide in the crowd where Jairus is going to come straight up to Jesus and fall on his feet and beg him to come and heal his daughter.

This woman is hidden in the crowd, doesn't even want to be known, and she just comes up and she convinces herself, if I just touch his garment.

Well, Jairus is saying, come lay hands on my daughter. But this woman's saying, I just need to touch his garment.

He doesn't need to touch me. Now, that's different than the way the faith, those that say they could do faith healing, do things right.

We don't see people getting saved just by touching their garments. Well, actually, it's probably because we don't see people getting saved by them at all or healed, right?

They're waving their jackets at them, the white jacket, you know. Oh, you're talking Benny Hinn, that's yeah.

Benny, yeah. You know, and we didn't discuss this beforehand, but one of the things that did strike me when

I read this account with Jairus, he's wanting Jesus to come and lay hands. So you don't know what he may have been exposed to as far as the previous miracles of Jesus thinking that he actually had to do this.

And you never see in the text where Jesus commends him for his faith as he does this woman.

But this is a Jewish official, a synagogue official. And the contrast that just came to my mind was with the centurion's servant.

When the centurion had approached Jesus and said, would you heal my servant? He is sick. I'm not worthy for you to even come under my house.

But I am a man just like you with men under authority. You speak the word and it will be done. And here's this guy who's not, you know, he's a centurion.

And the Lord said, you know, not even in Israel have I found such faith. So that was an interesting note to me.

It came to mind when I was reading this. Well, in my sermon notes, what I had noted was

I was just curious, how did Jairus know about Christ? Right?

Now, here's the thing I'm thinking. Here you have Jairus. He's an official in a synagogue.

Do you think that word, when the Pharisees are putting these decrees out that anybody who's a follower of Christ is to be put out of the synagogues?

So they can't serve and worship and be part of the synagogue life.

Do you think maybe he heard this, but maybe not in the way of here's what's happening. Here's the events.

I think more likely he's hearing this as this is someone to stay away from. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

And so Jairus is going in the face of the Jewish leaders.

The hearing that Jesus is doing this, what does this say about Jairus?

Jairus is hearing, hey, there's these accounts. Jesus is healing all these people. You got to make sure no one is following after Jesus.

Right? Well, he's probably going, well, wait a minute. My daughter's dying. He's done all these miracles.

He claims to be God. So what does he do? He goes, falls down at his feet, which as a leader in a synagogue, he would know that would be an act of worship.

And he should not do that. Not many years from this event.

There was an event where there were 70 Jewish men that they were told they had to worship the

Roman emperor. And what they did is they all just kneeled down, put their heads down, said, take off our head because we're not going to worship a man.

So when Jairus comes and does this, he knows that I think that what he knows is not, hey, he's not hearing the stories that Jesus is healing people.

I think he's hearing the fact that the Jewish leaders are saying, this guy's a fraud. We, you know, he's a false teacher.

We got to stop him. Well, if that's the message that Jairus has been hearing, but then he goes and does this.

It says that Jairus knew only God could be doing these things. And I think that the act of falling at his feet is an act of worship then.

That is, I can't prove that. The scripture doesn't say that. But as we look at all the events, it sort of looks to be that way that Jairus is going against everything in his culture.

And there's going to be a conclusion with this that I think is important for us today as we keep working through this text, though.

We're talking about the contrast between Jairus and this woman. I find it interesting that here the woman is, she touches

Jesus. And what happened? She's immediately healed. Right. Verse 29, immediately the flow of blood dried up and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.

So she knew right off the bat. OK, this isn't like the healings that you end up seeing from these fake healers where they're like, oh, you know that that cancer, it's slowly going away.

I'm starting to feel better. Yeah. You know, this is immediate. It's immediate.

And she knew she was healed. So it's something that happened within her body that just immediately, just like that wind immediately stopped and the winds that should be pushing the waves and those waves should continue.

No, the waves immediately stopped. Same here with her illness. It immediately went away.

But verse 30 is the one that's kind of interesting because immediately Jesus perceived that power proceeded from him, had gone forth, turning around to the crowd.

He said, who touched my garments? And his disciples were confused by this. They say, you see the crowd like they're all pressing upon you.

What do you mean? Who touched me? Everybody touched you. Right. Jesus knew what happened.

Now, did Jesus need to feel the power leaving him to know that this woman was healed?

No, no, he's God. He's omniscient. He healed this woman, but he also wants this to be a learning lesson for the disciples, for her, for Jairus, for everybody there.

Think about this. But if she's healed and Jesus kept walking, she would go about her business being rejoicing the fact that she was healed.

She may tell the story. I touched his garment and I was healed. It went away. I spent all this money on doctors and they couldn't do anything.

But as soon as I touched Jesus's clothing, I was healed. Now, that account would be an account she could tell.

It wouldn't be an account we would then know about. No. Well, as Paul wrote to Corinth, I think

Corinth, these things are written for our instruction. All this whole thing was orchestrated by God, by Christ, sovereignly.

This was no random encounter with a woman in a crowd. Yeah. This is divinely orchestrated for that purpose, for our instruction.

And he wanted her not to hide in the crowd. He wanted to highlight her.

A woman who in that society should be shunned or would have been shunned.

He wants to bring her to light. Now, that's so interesting because here Jairus is in that sense, he is in a good position.

He's well respected by the community. He's putting all of that at risk by going to Jesus.

And here's this woman who would be shunned that Jesus wants to bring out of the shadows.

And so he turns to her and he knows exactly which woman. I mean, that's the thing. He's looking around to see the woman who had done this, right?

And she's afraid. She's trembling. It's so interesting, bud, because here what you end up seeing is he knows exactly which woman he healed.

Oh, yeah. He just wants her to come forward, right? He wants her to come forward.

And then he says, daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace.

Be healed of your affliction. Now, this also may be something, this event, that Jesus wants as a teaching opportunity for Jairus, because what's happening during the time that this event is happening, they're walking on their way to Jairus' house.

Jesus stops, says, who touched me? He turns to the woman. He tells her that her faith has made her well, which that is faith.

She knows that Jesus is divine, that he's so divine that just touching his garment would be enough to heal.

Now, if you think about that, I mean, all those people touching, were they healed of all their diseases? He doesn't point out anyone else's, but he did something different in the healing of this woman.

And I think part of it is because of the fact that I think the woman didn't want to ask for healing because the shame.

There's such shame in that society. And one of the things I pointed out in my sermon notes was the fact that here you have this woman that would be so ashamed in the society, contrasted to Jairus, who wouldn't be ashamed.

He would be praised in the society. She would be shamed in the society. And here

Jesus isn't going to let her live in the shame. He goes to her to bring her to light so that everyone knows she's now healed, so that she's not hiding in the shadows.

I just think it's interesting of the character of Jesus that instead of just walking on, he wants to bring her out of the shadow.

And he's not going to let her just hide away with her fear and shame.

He wants to remove her shame. Certainly. And so the mechanism he points out, your faith.

Correct. There Jairus is standing with him on the way to his home for his daughter.

And then a couple of verses later, you see Jesus say, do not be afraid any longer.

Only believe you have just seen what happened in Jairus's eyes by an incidental event.

But it's orchestrated to highlight faith in that woman who was healed.

Yeah, because I mean, think about this. What synagogue is it that this woman would have been shamed out of?

Well, that's the other question. I think it's Jairus's if they're in that area, right? Sure.

It's not like what we have today, where you have a church on every corner. And if you don't like one church, you go to another.

No, they had a regional synagogue. And so someone would be in a synagogue that you end up having.

That synagogue is going to be for everyone in that area. So for that community. Yeah, that whole community.

And therefore, Jairus probably knew this woman. He would not have been allowed there.

Exactly. So the fact that he hears Jairus, could it be? This is something

I don't know, but could it be Jesus is pulling this woman to light in front of Jairus to say, you are healed.

Could it be that she was out of the synagogue and Jesus is letting Jairus know, put her back in the place of the synagogue.

She's been healed. But in the meantime, while he's speaking to her, verse 36, but Jesus, you know, while he's talking to her, actually verse 35, while he was still speaking, they came to the house of the synagogue official.

So they're walking, they're talking with her. They come to the house and and a synagogue official come saying your your daughter has died.

Why trouble a teacher anymore? Now, maybe the synagogue official wants to protect Jairus, you know, the shame he would experience the the ridicule, the tension with the

Jewish leaders that he wants to save him from that. And hey, you know, just leave

Jesus alone now. Your daughter's dead. There's nothing more. And Jesus overheard it.

In other words, Jesus is still speaking to the woman as these officials come to speak to Jairus.

And after seeing this woman healed, Jesus then turns to the official, not to Jairus, to the official.

Do not be afraid any longer. Only believe. So now this is a learning lesson for this official that came up from the house.

Now, excuse me. You have only three people are allowed to accompany him in the house.

I'm sure Jairus is there, but he says it that only Peter, James and John, he allowed to accompany him.

So for whatever reason, he didn't want all the disciples. He wanted these three.

And we see this at multiple times that these these three did other things where it was just them and kind of like an inner circle.

And they come to into the house and there's a great commotion.

Now, one of the things that would happen, especially if you have someone who's a religious leader in the area, you actually had at that time professional mourners, people who would be wailing and crying to make sure that everyone hears that there's a sadness.

Almost like nowadays, if we have a flag, we lower it to half staff when someone dies so that everyone knows that there should be a sadness.

We do it at great tragedies. That's what these mourners would be. But look how quick they could change from weeping to laughing.

All it takes is Jesus to say, why is there why a commotion and weep? The child's not dead, but asleep.

Now, these people that are weeping inside this house, they know the child is dead. And what do they do?

They turn it to ridicule. I mean, it's amazing how quick snap of a finger they just went from crying and weeping to laughing.

It's almost like when you have that person who is angry, they're yelling at their their spouse or their child.

And the phone rings. Hello, right? Why did you do this?

Hello. Can I help you? That's when you call me and I've been abusing the dachshunds for annoying me.

And suddenly I'm calm on the phone with you. That's what you have here.

They were able to control this. They go right to laughing and ridicule.

They're laughing at Christ. Now, some of this might be they know that Jesus just walked in. They as well know the

Jewish religious leaders have threatened to put anyone out of the church. And so again, what do you see?

You see the faith that now Jairus has to put in Christ. And he just takes the child and says, little girl, get up.

And immediately again, this is like the third time in this text we've seen this word. Immediately, the girl got up and began to walk.

Now, why was she walking? Because she was 12 years old. So there's just saying that she's at an age.

She should have been walking. And this isn't like a little child. And immediately, the fourth time now, and immediately they were completely astounded.

These people who are mocking Christ, laughing at him, end up, we end up seeing here that they're now shocked.

Now, it's very interesting because the next thing is he gave them strict orders that no one should know about this and that they should give her son eat.

Now, this is the difference I see. And in this contrast, the woman could have gone away silently, but Jesus brings her out of her shame here with Jairus.

He's saying, keep this to yourself. Now, it's very interesting when Jesus would do these different healings. We see very often he says not to say anything, go to the priest, get checked out.

Everybody like the fact that they're healed is the testimony. In this case, they don't have to go around saying anything.

The fact that everyone in the community knew the daughter was dead and now they see her walking around, that itself is the testimony.

Now, it is interesting because the passage that we just we just in the context looked at briefly with the demoniac, what is he told?

He wants to go with Jesus and Jesus says, no, stay here and tell everyone. Interesting to the

Gentile. He says, go tell everybody. But to the Jews, he says, follow what the law says.

Keep it. Keep it quiet. Interesting. Now, here but is what I see with this whole passage.

There's one thing I see throughout this passage, and it's the sovereignty of God. And I think this does apply and help us in our day right now with all of the uncertainty with people that just don't know what's going to happen between the elections,

COVID, are the Marxists going to come in? And as they've been promising, take a list of who's supportive of Trump and keep a list to get rid of those people.

You know, there's a lot of things. Everyone's like, oh, what's going on? Christ knew when

Jairus came to him, he already knew that the daughter was going to die. He also already knew he was going to heal her.

He knew about this woman. He knew all of this. You still see Christ on his throne. He's going through these things because he wants these people that were eyewitnesses to these accounts and you and I today to learn a lesson.

And that's the thing that we always have to remember. Christ is God. He had the authority to heal.

He had the authority to do, as Bud said in the beginning, he had the authority over the natural world and the supernatural world.

He has the authority over disease and death. He has that authority.

In fact, when we think about that authority, we can look to Christ's own words.

He speaks of his own death, having his own authority in John 10, 17 and 18.

For this reason, the Father loves me because I lay down my life so that I may take it up.

No one has taken it away from me, but I lay it down on my own initiative. I have authority to lay it down.

I have authority to pick it up again. This commandment I received from my

Father. So you see, he has this authority in which he can raise up his own body.

Now, he raised up three people that we know of. We have this account of Jairus' daughter.

We have the widow at Canaan where they're having a funeral procession.

Jesus just ruins a funeral procession. Yeah, just ruins it. He just raises the child from the dead.

And then we have the account with Lazarus. So those are the three people we see

Jesus raising from the dead with this authority he has. But the greatest of them is that he raises himself from the dead.

You know what dead people do, bud? They're dead. Yeah, they rot. That's what they do.

They don't raise themselves from the dead. But Jesus can.

Jesus can because he was putting on display his deity. And that's the thing that I end up seeing throughout this.

Here, if you put yourself in Jairus' situation, you put yourself in this woman's situation, the one thing you see consistent with both of them is desperation.

They're desperate. And yet Christ resolves it. Christ healed.

He took care of both these situations. Why? Because he's God. You wanted to say something, bud?

No, and I wanted to say it. Yes, I did want to say it. And the mechanism is both.

In both cases, it's faith. Faith on the woman. And Christ tells

Jairus, only believe. But it is not faith in faith. It is faith in Christ.

All these events have been orchestrated to portray and present and proclaim

God with us in Christ. He's orchestrated all these things sovereignly to show his power.

And, of course, the epic event of his own resurrection. There's just so much depth in this section that you haven't covered.

Well, there's a lot here, but we got four minutes. No problem.

We can cover it. But that's the beauty of scripture. I mean, a lot of this, this is more than what

I've brought out in my sermon. You know, that's the beauty of scripture, is we can keep digging.

There's so much here. But I think that what we end up seeing is there's a lot of similarities here.

And we have a lot of people, Bud, right now that feel desperation.

They feel desperation. And they feel it because of the fact that they look at the culture.

They look at what's going on, and they feel that there's no way out. But that's so short -sighted.

God is still working. He is still on his throne. Jesus didn't leave us here and go, oh, oh,

I didn't see what Biden was going to do. Oh, that surprised me that that doesn't happen. Just like Jesus wasn't surprised by this woman touching his garment.

Jairus and this woman were desperate, and they came to Christ in faith, not in faith in a church, not in faith of a man.

They had faith in God. And they saw that Christ was

God. I am the way, the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the

Father but by me. And this is what we end up seeing here, is that Jesus takes people's desperations, and he can turn it into joy.

But what we do notice in these accounts is he does turn it into fear as well, right?

The woman was afraid. The people in the house were astonished, right?

They were not expecting that result, shall we say.

The idea there is that they're about to lose their mind. That's what that term ends up means.

So amazed, they're blown away, we'd say in our vernacular. And so that's what we have in the account here.

So my encouragement for us, Bud, those who are listening, there's times in our life and our culture where we could feel desperation.

Maybe you are feeling like Jairus or like this woman. Maybe you're like Jairus where you stand out in your community, and you feel that you should be heard.

And here you are, and now you feel this desperation because your little girl is about to die.

And you're so desperate, you're willing to give up all of the prestige and the position that you have in the culture for the sake of your daughter.

Or maybe you're like the woman who is so shamed, she doesn't even want anyone to see her.

She wants to hide in a crowd, just touch Jesus and run away and hide. And there's all that shame, and yet she too is desperate.

She's desperate because she's done everything she can. And now she comes to Christ to touch him.

And all those doctors that took all her money couldn't do anything. But just touching the garment of Jesus is all it took.

And the hemorrhage stopped. The hemorrhage of 12 years just stopped immediately. She was desperate.

Now, let me also let us know, sometimes some of us, we read accounts like this, and we think, the things like this don't happen in my life.

Are you like that? Are you one of the people you think, this could never happen to me? I have desperate times, but I just don't see

Jesus work in some way that I'd be in awe, I'd be in shock, I'd be in fear.

Maybe you're not desperate enough. Maybe you're still holding on to things in this world. Maybe you're still holding on to things that you don't want to let go of.

Jairus was willing to give up everything. This woman was in such shame, she didn't want anyone to see her.

And they both come to Jesus by faith, willing to give everything up. Maybe the reason that some of us don't experience that, what these people experienced, is because we really don't have that faith.

We may be desperate, but are we desperate enough? Unfortunately, the biggest problem we have is, we tend to only come to Christ at the point of absolute desperation.

But other than that, we try to solve it our own way. You see this, at least with the woman. She spent 12 years on doctors trying to solve it any way she can.

Now, in Jairus' case, maybe he realized there's nothing more he could do. Maybe he did do everything he can before coming to Jesus.

But Jesus was the solution. And what we have to do when we're at a point of desperation, well one, before we get to the point of desperation, maybe we should have been trusting in God a little bit more.

But I think the thing is, is that there's times where we do get to points of desperation. And for many of us, what we do instead of turning to Christ, we go, woe is me.

And we give in to our own little pity party, when we should be turning to Christ and live.

So I hope that's an encouragement to someone listening. Maybe you're at a point where you feel, you look at what's going on in our culture, in our society, and you feel desperation.

Maybe you're sick of being stuck at home, and threats of another lockdown are causing you anxiety and to fear.

Do not fear. Christ is on the throne. And that's really the message that I would have for you today as we look through this text.

This text is to show us that God knows what he's doing, but he has lessons to teach us.

Maybe you and I need to learn to have a little more faith and to trust

God more. Could that be true in your life? I know it's true in my life. I know it's true for me.

Maybe we just need to trust the Lord a little bit more. So Bud, any closing comments you have?

No, I'm in the same boat with you, looking at Jesus saying, be still, and everything is still.

And that's where we need to abide. Our faith is in Christ, not in anything else.

We're not searching for experience. We're searching for Christ, and he is ours. That's right.

And so, we want to encourage you guys, if this has been encouraging to you, if this has been helpful to you, let us know.

Let us know if this has been something that has helped you in your faith.

We want to be a help to you. We want to know that this is something that you're getting value out of.

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