Keep sharing good news without ads.
No description available
Well, it's a great pleasure to be with you this morning. I've really enjoyed my time here even the yak meat was very pleasant, it's Great to have a growing friendship with Mike and the folk here. I want to express my thanks to everybody especially Bob who helped to organize all the logistics of getting me here, and I've had a great time and It's a real delight this morning to be able to share God's Word with you.
I wonder if you would turn with me to the Gospel of Mark. And read a very famous passage from Mark chapter 5 we'll read the second half of the chapter beginning at verse 21 and finishing at verse 43. Hear the word of the Lord.
And When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side a great crowd gathered about him. And he was beside the sea. Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue gyrus by name. And Seeing him he fell at his feet and implored him earnestly saying my little daughter is at the point of death.
Come and lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and live. And he went with him. And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him and there was a woman Who had had a discharge of blood for 12 years and who had suffered much under many physicians and had spent all that she had.
And was no better, but rather grew worse. She'd heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said if I touch even his garments I will be made well and immediately the flow of blood dried up and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.
And Jesus perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him. Immediately turned about in the crowd and said who touched my garments. And his disciples said to him you see the crowd pressing around you and yet you say who touched me.
And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman knowing what had happened to her came in fear and trembling 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 disease.
While he was still speaking there came from the rulers house some who said your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further? But overhearing what they said Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue do not fear only believe.
And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John the brother of James. They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue and Jesus saw a commotion people weeping and wailing loudly.
And when he had entered he said to them why are you making a commotion and weeping the child is not dead but sleeping. And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was Taking her by the hand.
He said to her Talitha kumai, which means little girl. I say to you arise. And immediately the girl got up and began walking for she was 12 years of age and they were immediately overcome with amazement.
And he strictly charged them that no one should know this and told them to give her something to eat. Praise God for his holy word. Let us ask his blessing from the preaching of his word. Oh Lord God You are a God who dwells in unapproachable light.
You are infinite and we are finite you are perfect and we are fallen. You are light and yet our minds are clouded with darkness. We would pray this morning Oh Lord that your Holy Spirit would take your words and apply them to our hearts and minds that we would see clearly from this passage the glory and the sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ and that we might leave this place with the renewed vision of him strengthened and encouraged for the week that lies before us and Longing for the passages of heaven for we pray these things in Jesus precious name.
Amen. It's a truism today that people no longer understand what you mean when you you use the language of sin. We're told that sin is a concept that really modern society has to a large extent lost the idea of right and wrong.
Seems to be entirely negotiable had a rather well I for my for me a rather bizarre Example of this yesterday, but it seems to be more and more normal. I was in Starbucks in Northampton with Mike and some friends and there was a gentleman there dressed as a woman and Nobody batted an eyelid and I was thinking how strange my grandfather 50 years ago.
My grandfather would not have had the categories. To have understood that and yet here we are standing in line in Starbucks and it's as if there's nothing unusual going on. The world in which we live seems to have lost its concept of Right and wrong and of sin.
Well, I'm not so pessimistic. About the world not understanding what sin is. I think it's just a question often of The language one uses if you say to the average person in the street today who talk about sin.
They might look at you with a quizzical expression. But if you talk about the language of dirtiness and uncleanness. People still understand that they may disagree at times on exactly what is dirty and what isn't.
But if you talk about dirt a dirty politician. Everybody still knows that's a bad thing. He's a dirty politician. You shouldn't vote for him. He's untrustworthy. He's corrupt. He takes bribes. Dirty politician the language of dirt still speaks there.
And you can say it's a dirty film or that person has a dirty mouth. The language still means something even in the culture in which we live today. And that's what makes mark chapter 5 a very relevant and fascinating chapter because the chapter as a whole is dealing with dirtiness.
We're only going to deal with the second half today. But the first half is the healing the exorcism of a man with unclean demons. The language of uncleanness pervades mark chapter 5 and we come in this chapter to see two ladies two women who are afflicted by Uncleanness and we see how Jesus responds to that uncleanness.
First thing though to say is that mark chapter 5 is a classic example of a chapter in mark. Mark has a definite way of writing his gospel. His gospel is a gospel of action. The word immediately comes up again and again in the gospel of mark.
Jesus immediately does this. He immediately Goes there the crowd immediately surround him. Great sense of action in the gospel of mark. The other thing is that mark is also very interesting in terms of the names he includes and the names He doesn't include and this chapter is a great example of here.
We have two characters one of whom we've given the name of and the other one remains anonymous. Jairus we're told is the ruler of the synagogue. The woman with the flow of blood remains simply the anonymous woman with the flow of blood.
What makes the difference? Well, the difference I think is this Mark includes the names of people who were famous enough and important enough in their own day that if you'd been around in the first century and you'd heard Mark's gospel being read and you'd come to the Chapter and the the reader had said, you know Jairus the ruler of the synagogue.
You'd have said ah, I Remember him my father used to talk about him. That's Jairus who lived in such as he married to so-and-so and he had the daughter. Jairus is one of the the great and the good in ancient Israel.
He's a synagogue ruler. He's an important and well-known man, and we know that because mark includes his name. He expects contemporary readers to recognize him. He doesn't include the name of the woman.
Why is that? Because she's not important. She's a nobody. She's somebody's daughter. Presumably she was loved by somebody but she was not a great public figure. She was nobody of any real stature. In fact, she had as we shall see fairly shortly.
She had no stature whatsoever within the Jewish community so the first thing to Observe in Mark chapter 5 is just the breadth of God's grace. Here is the Lord Jesus Christ performing two great miracles one for an unknown woman and the other one for one of the great and the good and it's a great example of the breadth of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let's actually dip into the the story now then the story starts with Jairus a Synagogue ruler comes and he throws himself at Jesus fleet and implores him earnestly that his little daughter is ill and dying and Jesus should go he wants Jesus to come and help him.
He says his daughter is at the point of death and we know he's not exaggerating. Because the the brief delay caused by the healing of the woman with the flow of blood is a sufficiently long delay to mean that.
The girl has already died. And they were clearly expecting her to die because the mourners were already there by the time Jesus gets to the house. The mourners are already wailing and Expressing their grief at the death of this girl so Jairus this important man comes to Jesus and he asks him to come because his daughter is on the point of death and Jesus moves to go with Jairus but as he's going.
This woman this nameless woman appears on the scene and it's worth Spending a few moments reflecting upon the depth of this woman's suffering. We hear that her basic medical condition is she's had a discharge of blood for 12 years.
In other words, there was a month when her period started and it never ended. It just kept going. So this woman didn't have the sort of the weekly cycle and then was back to normal it started and it never ended.
And presumably it had all of the physical discomfort associated with that and This has had an amazing profound and terrible impact upon her life. We're given three facts about this woman and there is an implicit Terrible fourth fact that we will reflect on after we've looked at the three that mark gives us.
And you'll be given four facts, aren't we? First of all, she's had it for 12 years. If you're under the age of 20 today 12 years probably seems like a long time. Once you're past the age of 40 12 years passes in the The blink of an eye.
I've been in America now 11 years and it's as if I left home just yesterday. Life gets faster and faster. You do an awful lot you live an awful lot of life in your first 18 years looking back. They seem to go on forever and now they fly by in indifferently.
This woman's been ill for 12 years. 12 years Features at another point in this narrative if you look towards the end verse 42 we're told this and immediately the girl got up and began walking for she was 12 years of age and You got a wonder.
Why does mark stick that fact in? Yeah, she was 12 years of age, but why does he put it in? You know if you're reading that story, it makes perfect sense immediately. She got up and began walking. You just assume this girl's old enough to walk.
We're not told that she was a baby and that Jesus has performed this miracle that allows a tiny baby to walk. We just assume she was old enough to walk. So why does mark? Put in that she's 12 years old.
Well, the text doesn't tell us but this is my explanation. 12 years is a lifetime. That little girl 12 years. That was the whole of her life. This woman who's been suffering with the flow of blood she suffered for what must have seemed to her like a lifetime.
Have you ever tried to to do anything constructive when you've got a toothache? You got an abscess. It's all consuming, isn't it? Or if you've got a headache or a migraine. You can't do anything. Time passes very very slowly you get a toothache on a Friday.
And you've got to wait till even till Saturday morning to see the dentist. That is a long 12 hours. This woman has been suffering for 12 years and mark is reminding us at the end of this chapter. That's a lifetime.
This woman suffered for what must have seemed to her like a lifetime. So the first thing is she suffered terribly for a lifetime. Secondly, we hear that she suffered under many physicians. My Specialist area as a historian is 16th and 17th century.
You want to read some of the medical textbooks written in the 16th and 17th century? They're terrifying. They're absolutely terrifying. There are no anesthetics. There are no antibiotics. They don't really understand how the human body works.
They're like butchers manuals. This woman has suffered much under many physicians. Not only does she suffer from this flow of blood but goodness only knows what kind of medication or Physical therapy she's been put through by these Physicians.
So she's been physically. She's been physically suffered at the hands of these people. Secondly, we're told she spent all she had. She's been financially consumed financially broken. By this condition all the money she's got.
She's given to these doctors and then of course there is that Terrible terrible third kind of punchline here and she was no better. But rather she grew worse. She just gets worse and worse all this money she spent not only is it you know.
She's not even being kept at the level. She's at the problems just got worse and worse and worse. So this woman is in a very very bad physical and financial and presumably emotional condition. But her condition is actually more more terrible even than mark describes here.
And were you a first century Jew you'd have known you mark doesn't need to spare that act. You'd have known how terrible her condition was. Turn with me to the book of Leviticus chapter 15 book of Leviticus.
Nobody's favorite book of the Bible. If it's your favorite book of the Bible, you're probably mad or you probably never read any other bits of the Bible. I Do one of these read through the Bible in a year schemes and it just so happens this morning.
That I read Exodus 40. Which means that tomorrow I go start with Leviticus 1. I got a month of Leviticus to get through the great stories of Moses going through the desert. They're all put on hold for a month while we plow through this endless stuff about sacrifices and cures and cleansings for leprosy.
Well, it's sad that we think of Leviticus that way because actually a good knowledge of Leviticus Allows us to understand the New Testament and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Much better than we might otherwise have done.
And Leviticus chapter 15. You may have read Leviticus chapter 15 before and thought, you know, it's kind of distasteful. It's been unclean reading about this stuff when my wife a few months ago I was going out to preach her on this passage and my wife said what text you preach on this morning?
I said the woman with the flow of blood and she said I was built just makes me so unclean even to talk about that Stuff and I thought that's a great reaction because that's a passage about uncleanness.
Leviticus makes it clear just how unclean it is. Verse 19. And you may have wondered if you've read this before why on earth does God stick this in the Bible. Chapter 15 verse 19 when a woman has a discharge and the discharge in her body is blood she shall be in her menstrual impurity for seven days and whoever touches her shall be unclean until the evening.
And Everything on which she lies during her menstrual impurity shall be unclean. Everything also on which she sits shall be unclean. And Whoever touches her bed shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening.
And whoever touches anything on which she sits shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening. Whether it is the bed or anything on which she sits when he touches it He shall be unclean until the evening.
And if any man lies with her and her menstrual impurity comes upon him He shall be unclean seven days and every bed on which he lies shall be unclean. You get the message when a woman has her monthly period she's unclean.
Anything she lies on or sits on is rendered unclean. Any man who touches her or even lies on the same bed that she's laying on at that point is unclean. Does this uncleanness is contagious. And if you look at the Old Testament teaching on uncleanness you'll find that Ignorance is no excuse.
Paul will talk about sins of ignorance in the New Testament what he's really talking about. He's he's paralleling his own Preconversion sins to the sins of ignorance in the Old Testament. In other words If you touch a bed on which a lady one of these women has been lying.
But you don't know that it's her period at this moment in time. You're still unclean. You can't plead ignorance. That's interesting actually means, you know. Sincerity never sanctifies in the Christian world.
Just because you did it out of good motives doesn't make it a good thing to do. Don't if you saw recently that lady who tried to restore the fresco in Spain and that sort of it was just terrible. She'd taken her paint box and had painted over it.
You always know you're in for a good news story when one of the opening lines says she had the best of intentions. You know that there's something big and disastrous coming. The Old Testament makes it clear the best of intentions don't sanctify.
You lie on this woman's bed you're unclean. But it gets worse verse 25 if a woman has a discharge of blood for many days. Not at the time of her menstrual impurity. Or if she has a discharge beyond the time of her impurity all the days of the discharge.
She shall continue in her uncleanness as in the days of her impurity. She shall be unclean. Every bed on which she lies all the days of her discharge shall be to her as the bed of her impurity and so on and so forth.
Essentially the same regulations are Recapitulated there as would apply for a woman who's just having her monthly period. Well, you're all sitting there thinking who is this weird guy? Talking about menstruation in the pulpit.
Why is that? Significant for us today because it's significant for this woman. This woman is unclean for all of the physical suffering. She's had it is nothing compared to the spiritual suffering. She's going through.
This woman has been unclean for 12 years. Nobody can touch her. She may have been married, but a husband he can't put his arm around her to comfort her. He's probably long gone by now. Nobody can touch her.
Nobody can sit next to her on the park bench and talk to her. Nobody would want to come close to her because then you've got to go through all those ritual washings and you yourself are ended unclean.
The spiritual suffering of this woman is catastrophic. Bad as the physical and financial suffering is the spiritual suffering is truly catastrophic. She is dead woman walking. She's there among the people of God, but she doesn't belong to them.
She can have no contact with them at all. And then one day she hears stories of this rabbi. This man who has a good track record. It seems of healing and there's an air of expectation in the air. We're gonna find in Mark chapter 6 Jesus will feed the five thousand and as he's about to feed the five thousand.
He looks out and he sees they're like sheep without a shepherd. Mark is very carefully chooses his words there. He doesn't mean they were just milling around like a load of old sheep. He's deliberately recalling Old Testament teaching about shepherds.
Just before that we hear that Herod the shepherd of Israel. The king has beheaded John the Baptist. So when it says in Mark chapter 6, they were like sheep without a shepherd. We're being reminded that the shepherds have failed.
And our mind goes back of course to Ezekiel 34 where God says the shepherds have failed. So I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep. Jesus as he feeds the five thousand announces that he is the great shepherd.
Maybe this woman's heard something of that. Maybe she's beginning to connect. Some of the miracles she's heard about Jesus with the bigger picture of the history of God's people but whatever the reason she makes her way there in the crowd and she pushes through the crowd and she leans out and She touches him.
Think about Leviticus 15. She reaches out and touches Jesus. What is meant to happen at this point? Jesus is meant to become unclean. Leviticus 15 is very clear. If you have contact with a woman like this you are rendered unclean.
But what we're told we're told and mysteriously Jesus felt the power go out of him and the woman is healed. Jesus is not rendered unclean. This woman is made clean. Isn't that stunning? That you expect everything that you'd expect would be.
Jesus is now rendered ritually unclean and he's got to go off and bathe and wait until night time before he can be clean again. But no. This woman is made clean contact with Christ Cleanses this woman and the story gets better, of course because not only is this woman healed of her uncleanness.
But Jesus then insists on finding who it is and his disciples, you know people pushing around you. You know and you ask who touched you? Well, Jesus knows that somebody in uncleanness has touched him and he knows that he you know.
He should have been unclean and he feels the power go out of him. He knows. He knows. That there has been a great reversal. And this woman comes before him and then most beautiful of all he says, of course daughter your faith has made you well.
Go in peace and be healed of your disease. Isn't that stunning this woman even Mark knows she's of no earthly importance. That's why he doesn't put her name in. And yet Jesus calls him to himself and he uses this term of affection.
Daughter your faith has made you well, you've become clean. You reached out and touched me in faith and you have been made clean. I love that bit in Exodus where the Lord says, you know, it's a it's described that the Lord spoke to Moses.
As a man speaks to his friend. But how much greater is it for the Lord to speak to you as if you're his child? That's a great end to this story. It's a it's a happy ending for this woman's story. But of course the delay that brings such wondrous Healing and news to this woman brings devastating tragedy to gyrus.
The delay caused by this poor woman means that the child has died. While he was still speaking there came from the rulers house some who said your daughter is dead. Why trouble a teacher anymore? That's how critical the illness of this child was.
Jesus's response, of course is he presses on because he knows how this is going to an end. He comes to the house and the people are weeping and wailing loudly. And as he entered he said to them why are you making a commotion and weeping the child is not dead.
But sleeping some liberal commentators have said clearly the girl was just in a deep swoon and Jesus knew that of course. It doesn't explain how Jesus would have known that she wasn't in a deep swoon.
You didn't get the mourners in to come and create a great commotion unless you knew somebody was about to die. This woman's dead. This girl is dead and Jesus goes in and he takes his inner circle and the mother and father in he goes in and he takes This woman by the hand.
Again I won't bore you now by reaning Leviticus to you again, but Leviticus has some pretty interesting things to say about dead bodies. Dead bodies are unclean. If this poor woman with a flow of blood is unclean dead bodies are ten times more unclean than that.
If I go home this evening and you know I'm tired and I jump into bed and my wife says oh I forgot to tell you somebody died in that bed last night. And I haven't changed the sheets yet. Not only would that be gross.
But it would also render me unclean. It would render me unclean. Jesus touches this girl this corpse. What should happen. Jesus should be rendered unclean. Jesus should be made ritually impure. And he should have to go through the ritual cleansings in order to be restored to fellowship in the community.
What actually happens of course? Is the girl sits up gets up starts walking around. The greatest uncleanness of them all death itself. Cannot stand before the Lord Jesus Christ. And that of course carries our minds forward to Calvary.
What happens on Calvary? Calvary the greatest uncleanness of all grasps the Lord Jesus Christ not only he doesn't touch a corpse on Calvary. He becomes a corpse. Jesus Christ of Nazareth dies on the cross.
The man who carried him to his tomb that night would presumably have gone home to engage in the ritual. Purifications that would have been necessary for those who had touched a dead body. Jesus takes on himself the greatest uncleanness of all.
And death cannot hold it. As this girl's death could not stand as her uncleanness was not strong enough to resist the cleansing power of the Lord Jesus Christ. So Christ's own death is not strong enough to hold him, but he rises on the third day.
Clean having triumphed over the greatest uncleanness of them all. Was the practical? Implication of that for us today. Well, I would say just this. I Don't know. I don't know many of you. I don't know any of you very well.
But I'm sure there are some of you sitting here today, maybe you're Christians. Maybe you're not Christians, but you've come to church and you know, you're unclean. You know, you may scrub up. Very nicely on a Sunday you may put your best clothes on.
You may look very smart and respectable and you may know the words to say and the way to behave. Among the people you're mixing with on a Sunday, but you know, you're unclean. You know the dark places of your mind and your heart that are kept secret only to you.
And of course to God himself, you know, you're unclean. Maybe this week you've looked at those pictures. You shouldn't have looked at you read those books. You shouldn't have read you've hung out with that company.
You shouldn't have hung out with you watch the program on television that just left you feeling dirty. And maybe you've come here today and you're thinking is I'm just too dirty for God. I Can't lift my voice in prayer to God.
I can't reach out to Christ in faith. I've done that thing. I said I would never do again. I treated my wife in that way that I said I would never treat her again. I'm dirty and I cannot reach out to God.
That is the devil's lie. The devil's lie is this. There is an uncleanness that is too great for Christ and you have wallowed in it. That's the devil's lie. What mark chapter 5 teaches is? The sufficiency of Christ to deal with uncleanness even the greatest uncleanness of all death itself.
And so I would encourage you and urge you this morning reflect upon the sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ read this passage. You know, you're unclean. I know I'm unclean. And that's the very reason why you should reach out to touch Christ in faith this morning.
You cannot dirty Christ. Christ on the cross took on the great uncleanness. He became a corpse. And he rose again on the third day and triumphed over it. If you feel unclean this morning, then I plead with you.
Don't walk away. Reach out in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is sufficient. You cannot make him dirty. You touch him in faith. You will be cleansed as this woman was cleansed as this little girl was cleansed.
He will not be made dirty and again as the story of the little girl ends. What does he say? Taking it by the hand. He said Talitha cumai, which means little girl. I say to you arise. As he called that earlier woman daughter.
So he calls this little girl by a term of affection. Little girl arise. God's power. God's love. God's care for us as individuals is sufficient to overcome all of our dirtiness. And to make us clean praise God for the power sufficiency glory magnificence and mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ.