The Compassionate And Powerful Messiah - [Matthew 9:18-26]

And today's gonna be no different than any other day. We're gonna learn about Jesus Christ. It's not gonna be from the book of Hebrews though. It's gonna be the gospel of Jesus Christ according to Matthew.

The Credentials of the King in Matthew 8–9

Please turn your Bibles to Matthew chapter nine. That's where we're gonna focus today, Matthew chapter nine. Who do you say that Jesus is? Great passage about the power and kindness of Christ Jesus. Some people think Jesus is just a friend.

Some people think he's a good teacher. Wonderful example. Some people think he's a religious teacher only. Some think he's a fraud and imposter. Many think he's crazy and insane. Some back in the Bible days thought he was demon possessed, maybe as a Messiah complex.

And so I ask you, who do you say that Jesus is? Now the gospel according to Jesus Christ in Matthew follows the theme that Jesus is King, he's the Messiah. And sometimes you'll see things in the Bible that are written chronologically in a gospel.

And sometimes there'll be certain themes inserted that aren't chronological, but they still have a point. And Matthew chapter eight and nine are those non-chronological things. In other words, there are a bunch of miracles bunched together so that you might learn something, that I might learn something, that Jesus is powerful and compassionate and that has the authority to say what he says.

I mean, who talks like Jesus? Who says, I'm the way, the truth, and the life? Who says, I came from the Father? And who says things like that? Well, these miracles found in chapter eight and nine give the authority to Jesus, shows his authority that he has to say these things.

If you go back to chapter eight, verse one, it talks about the miracle of the leper being cleansed. Then it moves to the centurion servant being healed. Peter's mother-in-law is then healed. Demons are cast out, verse 16.

Sicknesses healed, verse 17. Winds and waves are made still. Demons cast out. Paralyzed man is healed. These all show the credentials of the king. If you look at chapter seven, verses 28 and 29, it says, and it came to pass when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.

And then he demonstrates how he has that authority by doing things that only the Messiah could do, chapters eight and chapter nine. You can imagine a Jewish person during this time saying to themselves, who does he think he is?

How can he say these things? No mere man should talk this way. Should we believe what he's saying? And chapter eight and chapter nine provide the answers. Yes, in fact, you should believe what he says, that he is the Christ, because the miracles performed by him, no one else can do except God's anointed one.

You could really take the end of chapter four and put it with the first part of chapter eight, the narrative just flows. Chapter eight begins where chapter four leaves off. If you look at chapter four, verse 23, and he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.

So his fame spread throughout all Syria and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds, Matthew 4 .25, followed him from Galilee and Decapolis and from Jordan and Judea and from beyond the Jordan.

Jesus has the authority not only to give the Sermon on the Mount, but also to heal all these people. Some people say that the Sermon on the Mount was incarnate wisdom and chapters eight and chapter nine is incarnate power.

That's a good way to look at it, the credentials of the king. And if you stop and think about it a little bit, that's an important question to ask. Who do you think you are? Because he doesn't really seem like a king, does he?

Not our kind of king. I mean, he didn't have the job of a king. He was just a carpenter. He didn't live in a royal city, Nazareth, growing up. He didn't have royal birth, according to their perspective.

And dad was just a humble man, not a rich man. Joseph was not. What school did Jesus go to? Where did he earn his MDiv? Where did he earn his doctorate of ministry? He didn't go to school, never trained.

We're gonna listen to a common, ordinary carpenter, and he's gonna say he's God? And the credentials, the authorization is found in chapter eight and chapter nine. I can think of those old movies, can't you?

When they say, show me your papers. These are the papers of Jesus to authenticate his ministry. And Matthew is full, by the way, of Old Testament quotes. Everywhere you go, you have Old Testament references, allusions, and quotes.

And by the way, the way the canon is set up, the books of the Bible in order, isn't it kind of neat that at the end of the Old Testament, we end in Malachi, the Jews ended in 2 Chronicles. What's the first book in the New Testament full of Old Testament quotes to kind of bridge old and new?

It makes sense that Matthew, full of all the Old Testament quotes, is an easy way to get from Malachi into the New Testament, linking old and new together with these great Old Testament passages. Now, what we're gonna do is keep our finger at Matthew chapter nine.

Isaiah’s Prophecies That Identify the Messiah

And I'd like you to go to Isaiah, and I want you to see what's happening in Isaiah. Please turn to Isaiah chapter 29. And I want you to know that the people should not be shocked that the Messiah can do these things.

All the Jews would be thinking this, Isaiah tells us how to recognize the Messiah. And so we need to be watching for this particular person. How do we recognize the Messiah? Isaiah tells us. And so let's go to Isaiah chapter 29 as we're building up to Matthew chapter nine.

Did the bulletin say Matthew 27? Oh, that's okay. We change the bulletin all the time. All right, good. We do that another sermon. How do we know this Messiah is here? Well, the Old Testament has told us.

Isaiah 29, 18. In that day, the deaf shall hear the words of a book and out of their gloom and darkness, the eyes of the blind shall see. The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.

Go to chapter 35, verse four. This is 700 years before Jesus comes. And this man, Isaiah, Spirit of God has told him, this is what you write. This is what they should expect. Isaiah 35, verse four. Say to those who have an anxious heart, be strong, fear not.

Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be open. That's the kind of man you need to look for. The ears of the deaf unstopped.

They shall, excuse me. Then shall the lame man leap like a deer and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. The waters break forth in the desert and streams in the desert. This is the kind of man you should look for.

When the man who comes that can do this, you'll say, or you should say, he is the Messiah King. Chapter 61 of Isaiah, it tells us a little bit more information about this great God-man who's going to arrive.

The Messiah would be recognized because he could do miracles like this. When you see these Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in someone, you say to yourself, he's the Messiah. Isaiah 61, one, the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound. King James Version. You can identify the Messiah by the miracles he does.

And then you can say what he says therefore is true. Remember John the Baptist is in prison. He's heard some of the things that Jesus is doing. And so he sends his disciples and they say to Jesus, are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another?

And Jesus said this, go and tell John what you hear and see. The blind receive their sight and the lame walk and the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear and the dead are raised up and the poor have good news preached to them.

Yes, in fact, I am the Messiah because I'm fulfilling the Old Testament. And even if you remember Isaiah Chapter 53, turn back to Isaiah 53, you can see what this Messiah might do. To what degree will he heal?

To what extent will he compassionately restore people? Answer, he'll even forgive sin, not just healing people. You can be healed and die and still go to hell, but here he heals their sins. Verse four of Isaiah 53, surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted, but he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, upon him the chastisement that brought us peace.

It was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

The Woman With the Issue of Blood and Jairus’s Faith

Well, let's head back to Matthew chapter nine and see this great shepherd, Jesus, the shepherd of the sheep, and what he does in this particular case, two miracles, a passage within a passage. And now this particular sheep has a shepherd and so does this other one.

You're probably familiar with the story, but that's okay because there's nothing like it in all the world. Matthew nine, verses 18 through 26, Jesus is supernaturally powerful, even over death, even over physical suffering.

So if you just take a look at the headline of your Bible, a girl restored to life and a woman healed, that's what my ESV says. And we know this is going to be Jairus and the woman with the issue of blood.

And what's gonna happen in here, it's gonna be very fascinating and there could be two more different people. Jairus, man, woman with the blood issue, so woman, status, one comes from the synagogue, a leader of the synagogue, Jairus, and this other lady, because she's ritually unclean, banned from the synagogue, she can't go.

One is a very public person, Jairus, one is very isolated because she's unclean with all the blood. One you know by name, Jairus, the other one, we don't know her name. One approaches Jesus very directly, I need help, the other one by stealth, coming behind and sneaking up on Jesus, as it were.

Why are they so different? Well, maybe because the writer wants you to know from man to woman, from direct to stealth and everything in between, Jesus is the Messiah. Both thought, though, Jesus was the last resort.

Both thought that they needed to have this healing and only this man could do it. Both had other options that didn't work. And in both cases, Jesus is not affected by ceremonially uncleanness, uncleanliness, either by blood or death.

And both of these people have their sins forgiven by the Lord Jesus Christ. Here's what's gonna happen as you watch this, this passage. Jairus thinks at the end of this, there's nobody but Jesus who's the King and the Messiah.

The writer, Matthew, wants you to think that as well. At the end of the story, the woman with the blood issue and she's healed, she thinks Jesus is the only Messiah. He's the only Lord and Savior. He can heal me and he can forgive me.

And the writer wants you to think the exact same thing. This isn't just kind of a lesson in a lab. We're learning about these people and learning about the Messiah so that you too, in fact, believe. The scripture says, whoever believes in him will not be what?

Disappointed. What a great verse. Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. So if you're not a Christian today, although your sins are great, although you've merited hell and judgment, eternal displeasure from God, there's a compassionate shepherd of sinners who saves people.

And your response, recognizing your sin and recognizing who Jesus is, this great Savior who will one day then die on the cross and be raised from the dead, free forgiveness found for you. And if you're a Christian, it's just a good reminder of who Jesus is because I dare you to watch this passage go by and say, I'm so sick of Jesus.

Can I have a different kind of sermon? I almost said double dog dare, but it's a snow day so I can't do it. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all talk about this. Mark's usually kind of the truncated gospel, but he talks about it a lot more than Matthew does, this double miracle.

So we're gonna start off in Matthew and then we're gonna see some of the expanded part in Mark and we're gonna go back to Matthew and we're gonna take a look at Jesus, this great Savior, who doesn't only physically heal, but heals sins.

He forgives sins. This man and this woman and everybody in between and you, my dear Christian friend. Matthew 9, verse 18. While he was saying these things to them, behold, there came a synagogue official, bowed down before him.

I mean, while he's talking, while he's saying these things, my daughter just died, but come and lay your hand on her and she will live. So Jesus is speaking. It's like he's in the middle of a sermon, as it were.

What's he talking about? These things, he was saying these things. Well, that's easy because what was he just saying? Verse 14 and following, it was about fasting. 9 .14, when the disciples of John came to him saying, why do we fast and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast.

Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them and then they will fast. No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment for the patch tears away from the garment and a worst tear is made.

Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed, but new wine is put into fresh wineskins and so both are preserved. My daughter just died, interruption.

He's giving this message about fasting and behold, you can see the text. Behold, here comes the synagogue official. He's down, bowing down and he interrupts. We know his name from Mark is Jairus. Here we don't know his name, but here he is just known as a synagogue leader.

His name is Jairus though. It means he will give light. And what does the text say that he does? He is a synagogue official. Essentially, he's kind of the deacon of liturgy. He does things like get everything set up in the area where they're gonna meet in the synagogue.

He'll make sure everything's cleaned. He'll make sure they have the proper scripture reader. He'll make sure they have the proper preacher. He's the deacon of liturgy. He wants to get that all set up.

So he's not low on the totem pole socially or religiously. He's higher up. He's like a priest in a sense, but with deacon duties we would think of, administration. And he runs up to Jesus and he bows down.

This is language of what? Worship. He gets down on his face. He's driven by, I don't have any other option. Now, remember when you go get down on your face in front of an angel, what will that angel say to you?

If you went down to Judea and you found a man there and his name was Abraham or you found Moses on Sinai and you went and you began to worship them and you got down on your knees, what would they tell you?

What should they tell you? What must they tell you? What does Jesus do? He didn't say a word about it. He accepts worship. Revelation 19, and the angel said to me, write this. Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

And he said to me, these words are the true words of God. Then I fell down at his feet, the angel, to worship him. But he said, you must not do that. I'm a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus.

Worship God. Only get down on your face in front of God and God alone. And Jesus here accepts the worship. He doesn't say a word. It's the right thing to do. Jesus, the Lord, accepts worship because he in fact is the Lord God.

And what does this man say? My daughter just died. Come and lay your hand on her and she will live. You can just imagine what must be going through his mind. Luke said, it's his only daughter and she's 12 years old.

You were a woman at 12 back in those days, but you can just feel the tenderness and the compassion. My daughter, my only daughter died. Now you can study this on your own with Luke and with Mark. It's kind of a two-stage with those guys, but Matthew summarizes it.

She's almost dead and then she's dead. And Matthew just puts the two together. She's dead. It's just a summary. It's an abbreviated narrative. Mark's expansion is, if you'll come and lay your hands on her, she may get well and live.

She's at the point of death is what Mark says. Jairus was confident that Jesus could save his daughter's life. And the writer wants you to be thinking, you know what, I'm confident that Jesus can heal, forgive.

Verse 19, and Jesus rose and followed him with his disciples. He doesn't say anything, does he? He doesn't respond in any way, does he? He just gets up and follows. He follows the official. Mark says a great multitude was following him and pressing in on him.

So Jesus is teaching about fasting. He's interrupted, a guy's on his face. I know you're the Lord God, help me, you're my only hope. Jesus just gets up and follows him, but people are still pressing in, pressing in.

The language in Mark is sifling Jesus, choking Jesus, crushing Jesus, hard to breathe and move. I'll only say this to try to get your attention, but I remember going to a rock concert once and people were so smashed in.

Remember, people died at a Who concert because they were all smashing in and they couldn't do that kind of seating anymore. So they had to control it, but people so crushing in, I'm fairly, I might no longer be six two, I'm six foot now.

You know, when you're a kid, you're always like, well, you know, I'm five foot now and five two, and you're all happy that you're going this way. Some of my family members think I take pride in telling people now that I'm shrinking, but I don't really want to be shrinking.

But I remember I was in a concert and I could lift my legs both up off the ground without falling over because people were smashing in on me. They're just trying to get to Jesus. It's just kind of a mob pressing against him, hard to breathe.

And speaking of breathing, hold your breath because here comes an interruption. And behold, here's another behold, a woman who had suffered from a discharge of blood for 12 years came up behind him. As long as that little girl had been alive, she has had this blood issue and touched the fringes of his garment.

She said to herself, if I only touch his garment, I'll be made well. Is this an obstacle to go heal this other person or do we have another opportunity for the Lord to show how great he is? The girl's dying, the woman's bleeding.

It's like the camera's zooming in. Or maybe another way you could picture it is you can go to places now or maybe you have this on your own TV. You can watch the main thing and then you can have a little box up in the corner.

You can kind of watch another game if you want. So here's the main thing. We've got to go to Jairus's house and all of a sudden now we've got this box up here for the interruption, but now this box becomes the larger box and Jairus is up here.

Do you see where I'm going? I'm glad you watch a lot of TV, you pagans. Those people that have direct TV are even worse than Comcast people. See, aren't you glad you came out today? You get this insider stuff.

Now Mark tells us that this woman who had the hemorrhage for 12 years endured much at the hands of many physicians and she had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse.

She's got this hemorrhage. The text is, in Mark, it's like a flow, being in a flow, that's the Greek. And people say, well, it could have been a tumor. It could have been a chronic menstrual disorder, some kind of uterine discharge, whatever it is, she can't get any better.

And she's willing to try about anything. The problem is the physicians botch it up every single time and make it what? What's the text say? In Mark, worse. Now here's how they treated those things back in those days.

I just will give you a few. I found 11 different cures for this type of problem. Here are just a few. Take the gum of Alexandria, the weight of a fraction of a silver coin, the aluma the same, of crocus the same, let them be bruised together, given in wine to the woman that has an issue of blood.

Sounds like an HMO that I know. If this does not benefit, take the Persian onions, three pints, boil them in wine, give her to drink and say, arise from thy flux. If this does not cure her, set her in a place where two ways meet and let her hold a cup of wine in her right hand and let some come behind her and frighten her and say, arise from thy flux.

Sounds like how to get rid of hiccups, doesn't it? If that do no good, take a handful of cumin, handful of crocus, a handful of another type of fennel, boiled in wine, arise from thy flux. You could also carry barley corn, which had been removed from the droppings of a female white donkey.

And lastly, but not leastly, carry the ashes of an ostrich egg in a linen bag in summer and a cotton bag in winter. See what the writer's doing? There's no other cure. You can't figure this out. It's been 12 years.

No human cure. She's probably gonna die this way. I can imagine she's very white and pale. Luke the doctor says, and could not be healed by anyone. Would not Luke the doctor know? Can you imagine the pain?

Can you imagine how weak she was? I've been in ORs enough to see ovarian cyst and bleeding. 12 years, I gotta find Jesus. He can heal me. Jesus is the one. After hearing about Jesus, she came up in the crowd from behind and touched his cloak.

Why'd she sneak up? Answer, because if you've got this kind of blood issue and you touch somebody who's a Levitical priest, you touch somebody who's not a Levitical priest, both of those people are unclean.

Leviticus 15. Now, if a woman has a discharge of her blood many days, not at the period of her menstrual impurity, or if she has a discharge beyond that period, all the days of her impure discharge shall continue as though in her menstrual impurity, she is unclean.

The list goes on and on and on. Whoever touches them shall be unclean and shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening. So she devises this plan in her mind to sneak up on Jesus.

What she didn't know, it's impossible to defile Jesus. Jesus can touch a leper and the defilement of the leper doesn't go to Jesus. Christ's cleanliness and holiness and purity goes to the leper. I just wanna touch his garment.

See it in verse 21. If I only touch his garment, maybe superstitious, but that doesn't stop Jesus. Let's go to Mark chapter five. It's important to do that. And I think I said, we do that at the beginning.

Mark chapter five, because he gives us some interesting added information. And what we're driving to is only Jesus can heal. Only Jesus is the Messiah. Only Jesus can forgive. And therefore, what he says you ought to believe as authoritative, no matter what it is, no matter how wild the world thinks it is.

By the way, the world thinks the exclusivity of Jesus as the only savior is preposterous and it's only gonna get worse. Mark 5, 28. For she thought, if I just touch his garments, I shall get well. I know he can do it.

Jesus has the ability to do it. And by the way, in perfect tense. For she said, she kept thinking, this is it. I know it. I know, I know, I know he can do it. All these other physicians, they can't do it.

I know Jesus can, over and over and over. You can imagine if she's pressing through the crowd and trying to get there. Remember, it said people were pressing in on Jesus. How's this weak woman going to get there?

But she knew Jesus could do it. I know he can do it. I know he has the power. I know he has the authority. And she kept saying to herself, if I only touch his garment. She's got faith in the right object, friend.

She comes up and touches the fringe of his garment. It says in Luke and now Mark 5, 29. And immediately the flow of her blood was dried up. The source of her bleeding, gone, dried up. She felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.

I mean, this is instantly healed. The Greek word for her sickness was like a whip or a scourge. The pain as you're just getting whipped in the back, except she just had this pain in her stomach, in her abdomen.

I don't know what was going through her mind. If I just touched the fringe, it was cloaked. By the way, I think somebody else picked this up and people ran with this. Later in Mark 6, 56 and wherever he entered, villages or cities, countryside, they were laying the sick in the marketplaces and entreating him that they might just touch the fringe of his cloak.

And as many as touched it were cured. Mark 5, 30. And immediately Jesus perceiving in himself that power proceeding from him had gone forth, turned around in the crowd and said, who touched my garments?

Now the wrong view is Jesus doesn't know. The father did it. Jesus had to learn afterwards. He knows. And he says, who touched my garments? Why didn't he just turn around when he knew power came out from him?

Why didn't he just turn around and smile? Why didn't he just turn around and kind of just give her that look of, I know what you did. Why didn't he, I don't know, wink or give some kind of approval? Why didn't he turn around and confront her?

Who touched my garments? I mean, maybe we don't even need to talk about this. Jairus' daughter, according to Mark, is dying and is gonna be dead by the time he gets there. Verse 31, and his disciples said to him, you see the multitude pressing in on you, lots of people, and you say, who touched me?

But a lot of people were pressing up against Jesus, but there was only one who went purposely to go touch him for a reason. Verse 32, he looked around to see the woman who had done this. And there's a lot of people, and the Greek text is, he just kept looking.

It's like one after another after another till he knew the right one and looks right at her. And he is going to give her an opportunity to praise him. Reminds me of Psalm 107, they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, he saved them out of their distresses.

He sent his word and healed them and delivered them from their destructions. Let them give thanks to the Lord for his loving kindness, for his wonders to the sons of men. Let them also offer thanksgiving and sacrifices and tell of his works.

Woman, I'm gonna give you an opportunity to praise God from all your heart. Verse 33, but the woman fearing and trembling, aware of what happened to her, came and fell down before him and told him the whole truth.

Luke says, and when the woman saw that she had not escaped his notice, she came trembling and fell down before him and declared in the presence of all the people the reason she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed.

First we have Jairus falling down in his face. Now she begins to fall on her face. Jesus doesn't rebuke her either. Back to Matthew chapter nine, please. She's going to get more than she bargained for.

She's gonna get more than just physical healing. She's gonna have forgiveness of sins. Matthew 9, 22, Jesus turned and seeing her, he said to her, daughter, excuse me, take heart, daughter, your faith has made you well.

And instantly the woman was made well. Whoever believes on him shall not be disappointed. Faith in Christ Jesus has its great reward. Take heart, that's the first thing he says. How sweet, how encouraging.

Maybe her whole life, she's just, you know, last 12 years at least, scared of being with people or maybe she did something wrong. Take heart, daughter, that's amazing. Your faith has made you well. You're trusting in the right object.

This word save that the writers use, physical healing. Your faith has made you well. Your faith has saved you. That's the idea. Verse 34 of Mark chapter five says, daughter, your faith has made you well.

Go in peace and be healed of your affliction. That is so nice. You've been healed or saved and now I want you to go in peace. Now the way we'd say it in Hebrew is shalom, right? And it means, what does shalom mean?

It doesn't mean just peace, it means wholeness, our completeness. It doesn't mean just peace of mind, but I have peace with God. That's what real shalom is. And literally it's go into peace in Mark. Go into peace.

You have peace with men now, you're no longer richly and clean and you have peace with God, you're forgiven. Your faith has made you well. Not touching the garment made you well, but faith in Christ Jesus has made you well.

You trusted in me. Mark says, while he was still speaking, they came from the house of the synagogue official saying, your daughter has died. Why trouble the teacher any? And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John, the brother of James.

The Girl Raised From the Dead and Jesus’ Authority Over Death

And now Matthew 9 .23 says, and when Jesus came to the ruler's house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, he said, go away for the girl is not dead, but sleeping. And they what?

They laughed at him. So quickly he makes it over to Jairus's house and the little girl's dead. By the way, the mourners are already there. That did not take long. They didn't wait for the father to return.

The mourners start mourning. Can you imagine Jesus gets to Jairus's house and it's noisy, there's an uproar. The crowd thinks that she's dead at least. Flute players are there. By the way, if you were gonna have a funeral back in those days, they did a lot of things differently than we do.

What do we do when we go to a wake or a funeral? It's very what? Quiet. There it's very loud. First of all, you rendered your garments. You ripped your garments. You had three main mourning customs. Ripping your clothes and you'd rip the clothes close to your heart and expose the skin to your heart because of obvious reasons, somebody's dear to your heart.

You'd hire people to wail for the dead. And by the way, usually it was women. They were professional wailing women. One writer says, there are in every city and community women exceedingly cunning in this business.

They're always sent for and kept in readiness. Hey, somebody's sick. Let's just stay close by. It's kind of like these lawyers, ambulance chasers. That's what I was after. Thank you. When a fresh company of sympathizers come in, these women make haste to take up the wailing that the newly come may more easily unite their tears with the mourners.

See, that's the idea. You just need a little help in mourning. And then there were flute players. So Jesus comes back and it's just this cacophony of wailing, this cacophony of flute players. Verse 24 of Matthew chapter nine says, our Lord said to them, go away.

I mean, that's about as blunt as you get. Go away. The girl's not dead, but sleepy. Go away. It means to exercise demons. It means to throw out. Get them out of here. Eviction notice. There needs to be some kind of calm, some kind of decorum, something, one writer said.

The girl is not dead, but sleeping. That's an interesting way to put it. What does the word cemetery mean, by the way, when you drive past a cemetery today? What's cemetery mean? Sleeping place. Here's what the liberals do.

There's a writer named William Barclay. And William Barclay, probably some of his commentaries are in your very houses, which is okay as long as you know that he's liberal. He would say that when it comes to the crossing of the Red Sea, that it wasn't this huge crossing.

The water was only about this deep and the Israelites made it across the land. But I always remember my old Bible teacher used to say, well, it was a pretty big miracle then if all of Egypt's army drowned in six inches of water.

Jesus didn't walk in the Sea of Galilee. He walked on a sandbar. And this man, Jesus, saved this poor girl because they buried people alive all the time because they're in comas and stuff like that. And they would just bury people too soon.

So Jesus comes back and make sure she's not buried too soon. What a savior Jesus. The old day, no compromise radio, we had for books, we had page turners and we had book burners. Barclay would be the latter.

Sleep is a very sweet way to think about a loved one who's dead and one day be resurrected. I agree. The child has not died, but is asleep. The Greeks, the Romans and Jews all substituted sleep for death to take the sting out.

We do that too, don't we? Somebody's passed away and somebody's gone on. We know it means death, even when we look at Lazarus' account because he said he was sleeping, Lazarus. Now Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought he was speaking of literal sleep.

Then Jesus therefore said to them plainly, Lazarus is dead. Luke makes this clear. Her spirit returned and she rose immediately. Luke knew she was dead. The girl's not dead, but sleeping. As Jesus knows he's gonna raise her up from the dead and they laughed at him.

The Greek says they kept laughing him down. Luke, my son and his friend Renee went to Israel a few years ago and he said, one of the things that the Jewish people do when they wanna make fun of you to your face is they point a certain way and say, poo, poo.

And I just watched Luke and Renee do that all the time. Poo, poo, poo, poo, poo, poo. That's how they were doing it. I never thought they'd make it into a sermon. Wow. If any of my doctoral students are watching me, the teacher, preach, don't watch this one.