Coming to Christ — Neil Richards

Jesus Heals Jairus’s Daughter and the Woman with the Issue of Blood

We read together from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 5, we read from verse 21. Now when Jesus had crossed over again by boat to the other side, a great multitude gathered to him. And he was by the sea. And behold, one of the rulers of the synagogue came, Jairus by name.

And when he saw him, he fell at his feet and begged him earnestly, saying, My little daughter lies at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, that she may be healed and she will live. So Jesus went with him.

And a great multitude followed him and thronged him. Now a certain woman had a flow of blood for twelve years and had suffered many things from many physicians. She had spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse.

When she heard about Jesus, she came behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For, she said, if only I may touch his clothes, I shall be made well. Immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction.

And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that power had gone out of him, turned around in the crowd and said, Who touched my clothes? But his disciples said to him, You see the multitude thronging you, and you say, Who touched me?

And he looked around to see her who had done this thing. But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing 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, some came from the ruler of the synagogue's house who said, Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further? As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, he said to the ruler of the synagogue, Do not be afraid.

Only believe. And he permitted no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. Then he came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue and saw Tumult and those who wept and wailed loudly.

When he came in, he said to them, Why make this commotion and weep? This child is not dead, but sleeping. And they ridiculed him. But when he had put them all outside, he took the father and mother of the child and those who were with him and entered where the child was lying.

Then he took the child by the hand and said to her, Taritha, Kumai, which is translated, Little girl, I say to you, Arise. Immediately the girl arose and walked, for she was twelve years of age. And they were overcome with great amazement.

But he commanded them strictly that no one should know it and said that something should be given her to eat. May God bless the reading of his word to our hearts. Reflecting that this is in fact not the first time that I've preached at this particular conference, I preached here something over 25 years ago with a smaller congregation on that occasion.

I remember the occasion with some discomfort. I was inordinately long. And I had a reminder of that in a way that you don't have and preachers here don't have these days. In those times, it was quite common for Christians to bring along to a meeting like this their own personal tape recorder.

After I'd been going for about three-quarters of an hour. Click, click, click, click. All over the hall. And I had lots still to say. So, I remember that occasion with some discomfort. How very different people are.

God’s Design for Individuality

No two are just the same. God has no clones. I think that we've seen that in the preachers we've had during this past week. Same word coming to us. Same gracious God at work. But through very different people, through very different personalities.

I listened to Achille last night and then realised that I was to preach this evening. In many respects we're so different. But in a sense that doesn't matter. The Lord has put his treasure into earthen vessels with all of us.

That the excellency of the power may be of God. And no two people are alike. Even when you have identical twins, they're different. When I was at school, just at one stage, there were identical twins in my year.

And it caused all sorts of problems for the teachers. I was very friendly with one of them. I hardly knew the other. They were very different. We may look the same sometimes outwardly, but we're always different.

And that's a part of the wonder of God's creation. He created us all differently. Look at these two people then in this passage before us this evening. In Mark 5 and from verse 21 to the end of the chapter.

There's Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, the local synagogue. A very public position he was used to being out front. And so his approach to the Lord Jesus Christ was a very public one. He fell at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ to implore him and plead with him.

And then the woman here, so very different. We're not even told her name here, but she's a poor, sad figure in many respects. She had some kind of a hemorrhaging that had gone on for some 12 years. 12 years of weakness and pain.

12 years of failed medical help. See how she comes to the Lord Jesus Christ, hidden in the crowd. Hers was a secret, anonymous approach, as it were, to the Lord Jesus Christ. People are different. And people are different even in this great and important, greatest of all matters, of our faith and our coming to the Lord Jesus Christ.

No Two Conversions Are the Same

You ever think that no two conversions are the same? No two here of all that are gathered here and all who love the Lord Jesus Christ and who believe in him, yet no two have just the same story to tell of the way in which he dealt with them and brought them at last to faith.

Of course, it's the same Savior. It's the same atoning blood that washes us and cleanses us from our sins. It's the same Holy Spirit that works within with all his regenerating power. But the details, the story, as it were, is different in every case.

Some Christians can tell you the very day and the very hour when they first believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. And when they first passed from darkness to light, Paul was like that. He was able to go back in his mind to the Damascus Road, remember the very day and the very hour when the Lord in his mercy broke into his life.

John Wesley was like that, 24th of May, 1738. At one time, every good Methodist would have known that date. Meeting in Aldersgate in London, he was there, troubled and anxious about his own soul, having no real peace, no knowledge of sins forgiven.

And someone was reading in that meeting Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. And as that great preface was read, with all its gospel truth, light dawned in Wesley's heart. You remember the words, perhaps, he said,.

And I felt my heart strangely warmed. And Wesley knew there in that meeting that his faith was in Jesus Christ and that his sins that had long burdened him were all washed away. Thomas Charles was like that.

He was taken as a young lad, just in his early teens, up to Llangoytho to listen to the elderly then Daniel Rowland preach from the letter to the Hebrews. And he was converted on that day through that text and that preaching.

And every year in the life of Thomas Charles afterwards, always in his journal, he remembered on that day, never to be forgotten day, when the Lord had broken into his life and he'd come to a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And yet, you know, and yet there are others truly converted, truly believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, but they can't tell you just the hour, just the day when that great change took place. They know it has taken place, but they don't know just when.

Sometimes that's the case, isn't it, with children who are brought up in Christian homes and who come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And sometimes they don't know just when that change took place.

They know that there was a time, perhaps, when they didn't believe. And they know that they've come to a knowledge of Christ, but just when it took place, they don't know. And you see, in the end, that isn't the vital thing.

The vital thing is to know now that we have passed from death to life and to know now that the grace of faith and of repentance are at work in our hearts and that we belong to the Lord. C. H. Spurgeon once said, It doesn't matter if you don't know what time the sun rose, as long as you know it's shining.

Faith Is Born of Need

I want to begin then by focusing on the second of these two people and to spend most of our time on that and then just to look a little as we close at Jairus. Both of these stories are stories of faith.

We ask sometimes, don't we, what is faith? What does it really mean to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? How can I recognize faith? And the Bible answers that question so very often by showing us situations and saying to us, as the Lord Jesus Christ surely does here, Look at this woman.

See how she behaves. Watch her responses. That's faith. Look at that man. See him in that situation. See what he does. See how he acts. That's the result of faith in the heart. Well, that's what we have here.

We have two lovely examples of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to look then first at the woman. The first thing we see here is that faith is born of need. Twelve years of weakness, pain and distress.

All her money spent on doctors and remedies and all had failed. Her plight was desperate and hopeless. And out of a deep sense of need, she came to the Lord Jesus Christ. She could have said with the psalmist, Out of the depths have I cried unto thee.

Now the Lord Jesus Christ says to us, That's always true. In some measure, always true of faith. We must know our need. We must know our condition. Faith arises out of a heart burdened with its need. Burdened with sin.

Do you know the first work of the Spirit in our hearts is this work of showing us our need. Showing us ourselves. Bringing us to an end of ourselves. Showing us our sins and our iniquities. Turning our eyes from looking at other people and making comparisons with other people.

And showing us, giving a glimpse to us of ourselves in the presence of God. And in all the brightness and purity of His holiness. And it's out of that need, born of the Spirit's work in our hearts. In some measure, measure will vary from person to person.

But in some measure, that consciousness of a need of God. Of a need of sins forgiven. Of a need of life that Christ alone can give. I wonder sometimes in these days whether we've lost something of our sense of the seriousness and the gravity of sin.

We live in a shameless society. And we can be so influenced by the world around us. And with that loss of a sense of the seriousness of sin comes a loss of the fear of God. And a loss of the consciousness and awful reality of judgment that is to come.

And the need of atonement for our sins. Remember that word of the Philippian jailer to the Apostle Paul and to Silas there in the prison. What must I do to be saved? To be saved from what? To be saved from the inner ravages of sin, yes.

And all its disintegrating effect on our human personality. Yes, certainly that. But it doesn't end there, does it? You need to be saved, the Scripture says, from the wrath to come. It's not only that we have present needs, but we have needs that stretch into an eternal world.

Sin has dark consequences in this world and in the world to come. It's only against that background, a dark background of God's righteous judgment against sin, it's only against that background that we begin to see the glory of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ and all that He accomplished for sinners on Calvary.

Someone once criticized Anselm's doctrine of the atonement to Anselm himself. And he replied, you have not considered the gravity of sin. It's only as we begin to face up to the gravity of sin that we begin to see our need of a Savior, of the cross, of sacrifice, of atonement.

I wonder this evening, I wonder if you've been making light of sin, laughing at it. Isn't that the danger in these days? When sin is just regarded and sins as something to be laughed at, trivializing it, excusing it, rationalizing it, stifling the voice of conscience.

If that's your condition, then oh may God in His mercy give you a sense this evening of the gravity of sin and of your own need before God and before His Son, Jesus Christ. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is always born of need.

Christ Alone Meets Our Deepest Need

It was with this woman, it always is. And then the second thing to notice here is that faith is a conviction that Christ alone can meet that need. You notice what is said in verse 27. When she heard about Jesus, she came.

She heard of His power, of His compassion, of His mercy, and of His grace to save. And she came to Him. And the scripture says, Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is God's great magnet for drawing sinners to the Lord Jesus Christ.

We've been reminded on more than one occasion that faith isn't a leap in the dark. Someone said it's the reverse, isn't it? It's a leap into the light. But faith is trust in a Savior who is made known to us in His person, in His love, in His saving power in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And faith is a response to that Savior made known to us in the gospel and in the word of God. The purpose of preaching and the purpose of Christian testimony and Christian witness is to introduce men and women, sinners, to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Can I add this here? I'm repeating really what has already been said here. But it is by the gospel, by this message of love and of mercy and of grace, that God works out those eternal counsels and purposes that He has in the Lord Jesus Christ to save a people.

And the gospel, when it comes to us, comes to us with all its wide invitations and gracious calls. Come unto Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. If any man thirst, let him come unto Me.

And those words are addressed to sinners. They are addressed to sinners. No one can ever know His election before His conversion. All we need to know and all we can know is that we are poor, lost sinners and that Jesus Christ came from glory to save sinners.

All that you need to know is made known to you in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Someone has put it, and I'm sure you've heard it before, that it's like coming to a door and on the door is written, whoever will come is invited.

The free, gracious invitation there on the door taking us in when so many things would disqualify us. Our own sense of sin and unworthiness would shut us out. But that lovely invitation there takes us in in all its love and compassion.

Then when we enter, we read as it were on the other side of the door, chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. But you can only know that as you enter and as you respond to those gracious invitations in the gospel.

That's how faith works. Faith is born of need. Faith is a conviction that Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone can meet the deepest needs of my heart. And then faith is trust in Him. This woman not only had a conviction that Jesus Christ could help her and save her, but she came to Him.

She stretched out her hand. And true faith has the element of trust and of commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus, I will trust Thee. Trust Thee with my soul. Guilty, lost, and helpless. Thou canst make me whole.

The Woman’s Secret Approach and the Power of Faith

And then notice here too with this woman. Notice the secrecy of her approach to the Lord Jesus Christ. That too is helpful to us. She didn't come to Him openly, but secretly. And she devised a way. She'd thought it out.

A way whereby she could come without anyone knowing. Almost perhaps without Him knowing. And she came in the crowd, you remember. And got herself near to Him. Near enough to stretch out her hand and touch His clothes.

And in that moment, she was healed. The hemorrhage ceased. And she knew inwardly that what she had long sought had come to her. The Lord Jesus Christ had healed her. And it had all happened in secret.

No one knew. But all her plans went wrong. Look. The Lord Jesus Christ stopped. The crowd was moving. He was walking. He stopped. And He said, Who touched me? Disciples thought that was a very strange thing to say.

The crowd were jostling around Him and pressing in Him on every side. It was not like the Queen goes on a walkabout and there are those there properly to see that she doesn't get crushed. That people don't get too close.

But it wasn't like that with the Savior. Men and women pressed close to Him. Brushed against His clothes. And the disciples said, What do you mean? Who touched me? Here you are in this crowd. But the Lord Jesus Christ stopped and looked into the faces of the crowd and waited.

And out of the crowd came this woman. She fell at His feet. And the Scripture says, She acknowledged all things. Her secret was out. What she had sought to keep hidden, suddenly everyone knew. Now we may ask the question, Well, why did the Lord Jesus Christ do this?

Well, because He had something to teach this woman, as He has something here to teach us. First, He wanted her and us to be clear about the power of faith. It was important for her to know how and why she had been healed.

It was not simply that she had touched His clothes. There were people all around Him who brushed against Him and touched His clothes. And no special blessing came to them. The Lord Jesus Christ said to her daughter, Your faith has healed you.

Go in peace. It was because she had put her trust in Him that healing had come to her. He had healed her. His power, His grace had brought healing to her. Not some magical property in His clothes. But faith in Him and the power of Christ flowing to her.

Do you know, that's a vital lesson for us this evening. We must never substitute outward things for inward faith. There's always a danger of that. And it's a danger that the church of the Lord Jesus Christ has not always avoided.

I was once in the great Orthodox Cathedral in Bucharest some years ago with a friend and standing in that vast, cavernous place. And there was a woman over the far side against the wall and there was some kind of casket there.

And she was standing holding her hands against it. And I said to my friend, Why is she doing that? What's happening? Oh, he said, well the casket is said to contain the bones of one of the saints. And it is believed that if you can get there and touch the bones, as it were, that healing power flows.

Our Lord Jesus Christ here is clearing away all of that kind of superstition. Do you remember the Turin Shroud that caused so much excitement a few years ago? Why? Well, people said, if this was the shroud that was used to cover the body of the Lord Jesus Christ and we have that shroud in our midst and we can be near it, we could touch it, it's the same kind of superstition.

And our Lord Jesus Christ puts it all aside and He says to her, it's not touching things outwardly, it's faith in Him. It's turning to Him in our hearts and in the very depths of our being and putting our trust in Him.

I wonder have you grasped that? That it isn't outward things, but we can keep the imagery. It's reaching out the hand of faith, that unseen hand to the Lord Jesus Christ. That empty hand stretched out to the Saviour.

Nothing in my hands I bring. Simply to Thy cross I cling. Come to the Lord Jesus Christ by faith and you'll know, you'll know like this woman knew, you'll know the difference between all the false remedies of this world and the gracious saving power of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So Christ wants you to be clear about the power of faith in Him. And then secondly, He calls for a public confession of faith. This woman wanted to keep her faith secret. She wanted to come to the Lord Jesus Christ to have healing from Him, but to do it kind of anonymously.

Public Confession and the Necessity of Following Christ

I think that points to a weakness in her faith which the Lord Jesus Christ here purposes to strengthen. Why? Why the secrecy? Why did she come in this way? Why did she not come openly? Well, I think we have at least a hint of an answer to that in Scripture.

It may have been a sense of shame that kept this poor woman from coming openly to the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, the disease that she suffered from, the haemorrhage, the flow of the issue of blood that was there and that had been there for some twelve years in Jewish society under Mosaic law rendered her unclean.

The law of Moses excluded such a woman with an issue of blood from the services of the temple. You can read that in the Old Testament. The aim of passages like that and the aim of the symbolism there is to teach the inherent sinfulness of human nature.

But there it is. Under Jewish law, she was excluded. She was cut off from the fellowship of God's people. Twelve long years she had not been able to go with the people of God into the temple. She had not been able to take part in the worship of God in that formal sense.

She had been cut off from those privileges. There was a sense of shame about her. I wonder whether that hindered her. Consciousness of our own shame. Not wanting to appear in public. Maybe even uncertainties as to whether the Lord Jesus Christ would heal her.

And yet she knew He was able. She knew He had power and grace to heal. And so she comes secretly to Him. You see there were depths of love and of compassion in the Lord Jesus Christ that this woman had not yet grasped.

It may be that there is someone here very much like that. You know in your heart that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God. You know that He is the only Savior. And you know that He is able to save.

You've seen examples of that. You've seen examples in your own family perhaps. In your children, in your parents, in a brother, in other friends, or a neighbor. You've seen something of the gracious power of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You don't doubt that He has saving power. You see the peace that this friend has. You see that her life has been changed. And you don't doubt that. But you're uncertain as to whether all this could ever be true of you.

It may be some sin that's lingered there for years. Some failure, some shame. Even some long hardening of the heart. And you felt in your heart that though He is a Savior to others, though He is a Savior to others, you know that there's a block there that keeps you from coming.

Look at this woman. Look at how our Lord Jesus Christ deals with her. Look, if you like, at the infirmity of her faith. And yet, the Lord Jesus Christ didn't send her away. He received her, blessed her, strengthened her faith.

Isn't one of the things that we have to grasp is that it's not the greatness of our faith that saves us. It's the greatness of Christ. We have to grasp that. Faith is slender as a single strand of a spider's web that's fixed in Jesus Christ.

Brings all the blessings of His salvation. A weak faith saves as well as a strong faith. Now I'm not saying it doesn't matter which you have. Oh, there are many benefits in a strong faith. A strong faith glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ.

A strong faith will bring a growing assurance. But a weak faith, a weak faith, a mere faith fixed in Christ, will save. And this woman reminds us of that. So the Lord Jesus Christ calls her out. She is to take her stand with Him.

And He gives her more than she asks. She comes, it seems, only wanting healing. Though there are deeper needs in her heart. And the Lord Jesus Christ gives her peace. He meets her deeper needs as well as the needs of her body.

Here's a great lesson here. That faith in the Lord Jesus Christ can never be a hidden thing. You can never be a secret disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you remember the Saviour's words? Whoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess before my Father in Heaven.

Oh, I remember as a young lad I came to the Saviour by His grace when I was a boy of 14. I remember the struggles I had to make my faith known. To let my parents know. And my grandparents. And I remember as a lad just late 17 going into the Air Force and knowing that I had to take my stand.

I had to nail my collars to the Master. I think there was a very strong tradition in those days of Christian lads going into the forces. That you knelt by your bed to pray. It really wasn't the best place to pray.

I used to do my praying in the toilets. But praying by your bed it nailed your collars to the Mass. They knew. Reading the Scriptures. I remember doing that. Trembling in what was known then as square bashing.

I remember doing it in the billet before all the men. It wasn't easy. And I wasn't particularly brave. But the Lord Jesus Christ must be owned before men. If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord.

Believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead. You will be saved. Both the belief in the heart and the confession of the lips. Both are needful. You know there are two men in the Gospels that were for a very short time secret disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I wonder if you could think who they were. Nicodemus. Joseph of Arimathea. It seems for a little while that those men were secret disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. But you know it wasn't for long when the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross and they took that precious body down.

Those men were there. It was the cross that brought them out. You can never be a secret disciple of the Saviour for very long. It may be that there is someone here this evening and you are very much in the same position as this woman.

You have prayed to the Lord Jesus Christ. You have asked for forgiveness. You have asked for mercy. And in your heart you believe. You put your trust in Him. But you have never told anyone. You have never come out, as it were, in the open with your faith.

And you find yourself saying to yourself, well, my faith is a private thing. I don't have to tell everyone. I can keep this to myself. I seek to live a Christian life, but I don't really need to say anything.

I want to say to you this evening that they are not Christ's terms. You see, we must have the Lord Jesus Christ on His terms. Oh, they are gracious terms. But He is Lord. It is not for us, as it were, to lay down the terms.

He is Lord. And we must bow the knee. And we must own Him. And we must take up our cross and follow Him. And follow Him by His grace and in His power all the days of our earthly lives through trials, through storms, in difficult periods, follow the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jairus’s Tested Faith

Now just in these remaining minutes, I want to go back to Jairus because these two stories overlap, don't they? In a wonderful way. In a sense, Jairus was interrupted. We must say that the Lord Jesus Christ was interrupted for what He was going to do for Jairus.

It's a temptation for us to think that the life of the Lord Jesus Christ was very smooth and calm and that everything kind of fell into place. But as we read the Gospels, we get some impression of the pressure, the busyness, the demands.

And it's like that here. He's responding to Jairus and this woman comes in. So back to Jairus. Jairus has stood silently while all this is going on, watching and waiting. And with his heart, as it were, in his mouth, his daughter is dying.

And he's just longing and yearning that the Lord Jesus Christ would come to his home, lay His hand of healing and of grace on his daughter. And in this strange way, Jairus is kept waiting. Why? What was the Saviour doing here?

Well, I suggest to you that he was testing this man's faith, drawing it out, making it stronger, making his faith work. You see, faith grows by testing. And the Lord Jesus Christ was drawing this man's faith out.

Do you remember the Syrophoenician woman? Do you remember? She came to the Lord Jesus Christ for her demon-possessed daughter. And she pleaded with Him. And at first, the Lord Jesus Christ was silent.

But she persisted. And then you remember the Lord Jesus Christ said to her that He was not sent unto the Gentiles, but unto the house of Israel, and that it wasn't right to give the children's bread to dogs.

And she comes out with this tremendous reply of faith. Faith, yes. But even the dogs can eat the crumbs that fall from the Master's table. Faith tested. Faith drawn out. And that's what we see here with Jairus.

Will Jairus give up? Will he despair? Will he go away? You see, if you're a Christian this evening, then you must expect your faith to be tried and tested. Do you pray like this? Do you pray, Oh Lord, give me a stronger faith.

Oh Lord Jesus Christ, give me a firmer, clearer grasp of You and of all that You are. I pray like that. Oh, I pray like that every day. But you know, when we pray like that, the Lord sometimes has strange ways of answering that prayer.

He answers prayer for stronger faith, for greater grace, often by trials and storms. You want a lovely example of this. You have it in that hymn by John Newton, hymn number 698. It begins, I ask the Lord that I might grow in faith and love and every grace.

And the Lord has strange ways of answering that. He uses trials and storms to test and to try and to strengthen our faith. It was a dark hour for Jairus. Not only now was his daughter sick, but he receives news that she died.

What was he to think? And the Lord Jesus Christ at that very point says to him, Don't be afraid, only believe. Faith overcomes fear. Fear not, only believe. Oh, that we could hear the Lord Jesus Christ, that you could, perhaps in the trials that you face, even this evening, or go back to at the end of the conference, to hear Christ saying to you, Don't be afraid, only believe.

Christ’s Tenderness and Power in Raising the Child

And so the Lord Jesus Christ went to his house. The house was full of mourners. Mourning is a very noisy thing in the East. It's generally quiet, isn't it, in our culture. And so when he got to the house, there was wailing and mourning.

And the Lord Jesus Christ asks them why they are wailing like that. And says, She is not dead, but she is asleep. And they laughed him to scorn. They knew better. But you see the Lord Jesus Christ, as he came into that home, and as he stood at the bedside of that girl, lifeless, dead, yet he stands there as the resurrection and the life, and he is as able to raise her from the dead, as you and I are to wake a sleeping child.

And you know, he raised her to life with all the tenderness of a mother's touch. We have the exact words that Jesus spoke. And we have them in the Aramaic. Talitha kum. That's a marvelous thing. That was just what Jesus said to that girl.

No magical formula. No strange incantation. Simple, plain words. Daughter, little girl, I say unto you, Rise. What gentleness, and yet what power. You know when men try to do powerful things, and big things, sound a trumpet, they beat a drum.

But you know that isn't always God's way. With extraordinary gentleness and tenderness, he raised this little girl to life. There is lovely humanity in that. He deals with this little girl, not as a case, but as a little girl.

And he speaks to her as such. And yet in those simple words, are all the power of God. You remember Elijah outside the cave? You remember the storm, the earthquake, the wind, the fire? Then the still, small voice.

Sometimes it's like that. Sometimes when people are converted and come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, yes, it's like the jailer that has an earthquake. It's dramatic. But sometimes, sometimes it's like Lydia, whose heart the Lord opened.

The Lord is very gracious. The power is the same, but he deals with us tenderly and differently. And no two people come to him by faith in just exactly the same pattern. He deals with us as individuals.

Cesar Millan, the great evangelical leader in Geneva in the 19th century, he used to say of his own conversion that it might be compared to a mother waking her child with a kiss because there was an extraordinary gentleness about his own conversion.