The Unrivaled Greatness of Jesus

Let's go to Luke chapter 8 this morning as I'm beginning a four-part series, journeying with Jesus to the cross and the tomb. We're gonna have a couple of messages getting to the cross and then a message on the cross and then Easter Sunday morning a message on Jesus' tomb.

I'll be missing the Sunday right before that so it'll be five weeks I guess but I'll be preaching four because I'll be returning to First Baptist Church of Weston, Florida. They've asked me for numerous years to preach on the Sunday before Easter for them. I've been in something of a mentoring relationship with them for a long time and again it's one of the most unlikely churches.

I mean this is one of the most wealthy communities in the world. It's a part of the greater Fort Lauderdale area and God has given them a solid Bible-believing, reformed in theology pastor who is, now this is a new pastor that's come in that followed the old brother that was there, not old but the pastor before him I should say, who I worked with and this just not the kind of setting I would have figured out would be interested in reforming the church to biblical health. It's a large church and it's just kind of an amazing thing and that's what we do in Anchored in Truth.

They are partnering with us in missions, they're a partnership church but I hope that will grow as the years go by but I appreciate your prayers for that meeting as I go down there again this year. But anyway that'll be the week before Easter then I'll come back and do the fourth message Jesus tomb on Easter. But we come to a section of Scripture I am entitling this portion of exposition, the unrivaled greatness of Jesus. The unrivaled greatness of Jesus.

Luke chapter 8 beginning in verse 43 and going through verse 48. And a woman who had a hemorrhage for 12 years and could not be healed by anyone came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak and immediately her hemorrhage stopped. And Jesus said, who's the one who touched me?

And while they were all denying it Peter said, Master people are crowding and pressing in on you. But Jesus said, someone did touch me for I'm aware that power has gone out from me. When the woman saw that she had not escaped notice she came trembling and fell down before him and declared in the presence of all the people the reason why she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed.

Verse 48, and he said to her, daughter your faith has made you well go in peace. Now this is a in the flow of numerous glorious miracles that Jesus performed. He had been in a boat crossing the Sea of Galilee from Capernaum which was something of his headquarters for his ministry and he had gotten in the boat to get away from the press of the people to get some rest. And when he gets to the other side he's confronted with the Gerzines demoniac. He miraculously heals the man of the legion of demons and cast those demons into a herd of swine. They run off the cliff and then as he leaves from that a wealthy, well likely wealthy, but a sophisticated leader in the community, a leader of the synagogue, Jairus bows at his feet throwing all pride and all esteem and all human virtue, if you will, of who he is in the community at Jesus feet and implores Jesus if he would just come to his house because his daughter who is just about to blossom into womanhood was laying sick and about to die and Jesus feeling compassion heads toward Jairus's house and now journeying to Jairus's house he's interrupted by this woman who has this hemorrhaging of blood has had it for 12 years. And Jesus must have been used to this because he was always getting interrupted.

I mean one time he was in his house and preaching or in a house preaching and they tore the roof open and dropped the guy down on a bed in front of him. People just heard of him, heard of the testimonies of his teaching and of his miraculous power and they just wanted to be around him and obviously wanted healing and help. But here we have this woman and notice first of all, Roman number one, her suffering and helpless condition. Suffering and helpless. Verse 43 tells us her crisis is that she's had a hemorrhage, a discharge of blood for 12 years. Now ladies in our congregation could perhaps help us understand better of this lady's desperate condition. This was an illness of the most personal nature, personal type.

Hers was a life of continual weakness through anemia, pain, embarrassment and even public shame. She under the Levitical law would be considered spiritually unclean and being condemned as unclean by Levitical law, the Old Testament law that is, it would have been defiling for her to touch anyone else. Even the furniture like a bed or a chair that she touched or used would have to be considered unclean. Now there were some health reasons for that in this very unhealthy, unclean environment, if you will, that they lived in. But beyond that, there's more that we need to understand about being unclean. And in addition to that, her physical suffering included the crude and primitive medical treatments of the day that would drive one to complete despair and then the emotional turmoil in her heart from being considered dirty or socially or spiritually unclean.

And this has gone on for 12 years. The text says in verse 43, she could not be healed by anyone. She was incurable.

Now Luke's a physician and he's likely pointing out to something that kind of defends his position. But now Mark, he doesn't say it that way, Mark says she endured much at the hands of physicians. Their treatments were very crude and as she obviously has a deterioration of the uterus and a diseased uterus, she's dealing with this malady and it was only made worse. For example, a John MacArthur points out that one of the medical treatments of the day was to tie an ostrich egg around your neck. Another of the treatments of the day from the medical community was to utilize and manure in your treatment.

And there are many, many others, superstitions mixed with their so-called medical treatments. So she lived in this extremely unsanitary condition. She's considered unclean. She's suffering greatly from the physicians who tried to heal her.

And I think it's worth noting, there's nothing that's just a coincidence in the Bible, that we go from Jesus journeying from the Gerasenes demoniac event and as he's journeying, the high-up synagogue official bows at his feet, totally humbling himself before Jesus, saying please come help me with my daughter, she's about to die. And as Jesus turns and walks away, then we have this woman who we don't even know her name. She's just a nobody and on top of that, she's under this Levitical law, the Jews, that she's unclean and impure.

She shouldn't have any physical contact. And perhaps we can understand something in our day about what it's like to be suffering and hurting and have no physical contact as our government so overreacted in telling us we couldn't even go and comfort a one who was sick with this Chinese virus that went through our country. And that's a horrible thing to picture that for 12 years, not absolutely no one within a hundred yards of her, but nobody giving her any intimate consolation and encouragement. Hurting, helpless, and as far as she knows, at this point hopeless, an outcast, considered unclean, even by those in her own family. But there are spiritual lessons here that we must see. Again, nothing in the narratives are just by coincidence.

Now you don't take a narrative and run off to the backside of the solar system and back making it meet everything in the world, but there are basic truths, certainly spiritual lessons that we need to pull from this. Number one would be the cold cruelty of barren law. This woman had known this condition again for so many years and the law just put her in an unclean, desperate, in a condemned position. And that's what happens if we just take the law of God, the Old Testament Ten Commandments, and the ceremonial laws, the moral teachings of the Bible, and just only lay that on people.

That's a barren, cold, and cruel thing to do. That's all she knew was law. That's all she had. But we've got to understand that the law was given to us as a diagnosis of our malady, and grace is the cure of our malady. The law is the medical chart that coldly and concisely states one's condition.

Grace is the kind and knowledgeable physician that tenderly administers the cure for the disease. Romans 3 20 reminds us that by works of the law no flesh shall be justified in his sight. You say, Pastor, if it's just cold, barren law is such a cruel thing to leave people only with that, then why do you have the Ten Commandments in the hallway out there?

Because you've got to come through the law to get to that one. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes, Romans 10 4. Then you've got the whole picture. So the Levitical law concerning this woman with the issue of blood had practical health applications to prevent the spreading of further diseases, etc., etc., but there was a higher spiritual purpose in that the law was given to show us the fact of our unclean, sinful, wrath-deserving condition before God. It showed us that sin is indeed a disease. It's a disease of the soul. It's a disease of the heart and the spirit.

It's the worst disease there is. It teaches us that sin is uncleanness. There's a sense in which we are impure before God.

We need a cleansing before Him, and sin separates us from God, and that's part of what God was picturing when He gave the Jews the Levitical law, and when they had these difficult things like this woman's condition, she had to be separated, and it is sin that separates us from God. But praise the Lord, the law was never meant to come to us alone. If you give someone the law and nothing else, you leave them in cold, barren helplessness.

You leave them condemned without a cure. But Paul told us in Galatians 3 24 that the law was given as a tutor for us, an instructor, if you will, a schoolmaster to guide us to Christ. Never, never, never leave people alone with the law. This dear lady and her diseased, suffering, and distressful condition had only known the law, and it just magnified her desperate condition. Colossians 2 14 reminds us that the law is consisting of decrees that are against us and hostile to us. Wait a minute, pastor, the law is good and holy and righteous.

Absolutely it is. The law is a reflection of the very nature and heart of God. But in our sinful condition, if you just have the law, all we are is condemned.

The law can only point out your need. It can only point out your guilt. It can only point out your condemnation.

It cannot provide your redemption. Well, so first thing I think is for our spiritual lessons, we see the cold cruelty of barren law, but notice also we see that all are unclean in sin. You see, her uncleanness was a picture of all of our sinful condition, our sinful uncleanness.

We all need a purification. Sickness, cruelty, pain, and suffering like this woman experienced, these are the fruits of being a sinful person in a world polluted by sin. As we see the bizarre and vile and filthy and idiotic things that people are teaching and embracing and celebrating in our culture today, you think, where did this come from? Easy, we're sinners. We've fallen short of the glory of God. And that's what happens when God starts pulling history's strengths off of man and lets him go on in his own perverseness.

We're seeing that in our country. You say, pastor, is this going to bring the judgment of God? It is the judgment of God. There's more to come.

These are just sprinkling, but it is the judgment of God. Sometimes God gives us a penetrating look at just how dark and corrupt and unclean the human heart is. About ten years ago, a man by the name of James Holmes dyed his hair red and put on a bulletproof helmet and a throat protector and a vest and leggings, sneaked into the back of a packed movie theater and began to mercilessly murder and injure those who had come to view the movie, used automatic weapons, automatic pistols. He killed everyone he could until his gun jammed and then he sneaked out to go to his car where he was apprehended by the police.

Twelve people died in 58 were injured. Why? Because we're unclean. Man is sinful.

I'll never forget in the Nuremberg trials that one of the attorneys who was in charge of the process, the jurisdiction of finding these Nazi war criminals are showing their criminality and when one of the leaders of one of the great concentration camps had killed untold numbers of Jews walked into the room he looked nice and respectful and decent and the attorney said I broke down in tears because I looked at him I thought he's just like me. We have sinful unclean fallen hearts. It's a gracious mercy that God restrains so much evil.

The evil that exists in the hearts of men. So we learn a spiritual lesson from this poor woman's predicament. We see that if you just give people the law it's a barren cold and cruel thing and we see that all of us are unclean before this triune holy God.

And the third lesson I want us to get is that there is no hope in man. She had exhausted everything she could find that men could possibly do for us, probably spent all of her money, tried every doctor and she always heard five fatal words, there's nothing we can do. Two thousand years later, despite all the blessings of medical advancements, doctors every day turn to their patients and say those same five words, there's nothing we can do, nothing more we can do. That's the conclusion of the matter considered considering our standing before a holy God. One day the great physician will come and he'll dismiss all the other physicians because there'll be no longer need for any experts when he returns and he will do something that no one else can do.

He'll remove sickness and he'll remove disease and he'll remove all of those desperate conditions and he'll remove all depression and anxieties and sufferings because he's the great physician. So we see her deeply sorrowful, suffering and helpless condition. Roman numeral two, let's notice her humility and hope.

Thank the Lord we don't have to stay here. Notice her humility combined with her hope. She had been helpless and from any human perspective hopeless and then she hears about Jesus.

Look at verse 44. She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak. She lived as a committed Jew under law. She knew she was spiritually unclean and she dared not touch another person and women didn't dare go into the close environs of a man in public in this day anyway. So this is a very bold thing for her to do but she thought that maybe if I can just get close enough if I could just humbly quietly and unnoticed I suspect she's crawling on the ground because she touches the very bottom edge of the garment.

She fights her way through the throng of the people hoping she can just touch the hem of the garment. She was without hope until Jesus showed up in her community. So here she is with this humility trying to honor the law but knowing whatever else happens I've got to get to Jesus.

Verse 44 says she touched the fringe of his cloak. What a important spiritual truth comes in my mind as we think about that. You see the key to the miracle of eternal life and eternal hope is a vital touch, a vital connection to Jesus Christ. We should take note that how many in our day follow Jesus and in this day would say they follow Jesus but none of them have really touched Jesus. They're following because he's healing. They're following because he's got incredible teachings. They're following because he he raised the dead. They're following because he he's fed the multitude miraculously but they haven't had a vital faith connection with Jesus.

It's always been that way. Verse 44 tells us that when she did that, actually the the fringe garment, the the Jews would put a a colored thread, a certain colored thread in the in the hem of the garment in a tassel that would identify them as Jews. And so she probably just reached out and touched the tassel and held on to it. And immediately, verse 44, immediately her hemorrhage is stopped. Though she extended the weakest actions, just touching the tassel and the remotest part of her Lord, the hem of the garment, yet she found immediate and complete healing. Verse 48, what a tender compassion. He said to her daughter, your faith has made you well.

Go in peace. The Lord shows that it's not the actions of her touch that actually healed. It was the faith in her heart that was the channel to the healing. Jesus healed a lot of people who had no faith, but Jesus never saved anyone who had no faith. Now she's likely, like the people of her culture of the day, matter of fact, more than likely, very probably, she's like the rest of the culture of her day, filled with silly superstitions about how God may heal and how God does some things. She had lingering resolve perhaps that the law was still helpful in getting her to God.

She had all kinds of false thinking and baggage in her life, yet she possessed a grain of true faith. Brothers and sisters, it's not the value of your faith, it's the object of your faith that saves you. It is not faith that saves you, though that is the channel. It is Christ that saves you. Stop analyzing your faith and analyze Jesus, and that is the kind of faith that saves. Matter of fact, if the faith you put in Jesus came from you, it can't save anyway, because all of every part of you is sinfully corrupted and defiled.

Exactly the faith He gives you to put in Him that saves you. And in the end analysis, I think being human beings, we like to get things in our own hand, we have this pride and control issue, you know, and we try to make it something that it's not. You couldn't be more desperately pitiful and probably shallow in understanding than this woman, but there was a genuine grain of authenticity in her reaching out and saying, He's my answer. Verse 45, very interesting what Christ does, and Jesus said, Who's the one who touched me? And while they were all denying it, I guess they thought they were in trouble. Peter said, Master, people are crowding and pressing around. Hey, Peter's saying, Master, it could be dozens and dozens of people. There's just thrones everywhere Jesus went. Everyone was pressing in to see and touch and get around Him, be healed by Him.

And Peter says, it could be anybody. But you see, the Lord knows the difference between a common touch of the flesh and a touch of faith. Thousands upon thousands, quote, touched Him during His earthly ministry, but most of the time that was just the touch of a flesh, a fleshly motivated person that is, a touch that viewed Jesus maybe as a magic cure or solution to life's trials and problems so they might have their best life now. You thought that just happened when Joel Osteen came along.

No people always been doing that. Can we use God, can we use God's Son Jesus to have our best life now? That's a touch of flesh, a touch that comes from the lower natural base motivations of man, that is, out of his fallen and sinful heart. But in contrast, this desperate lady that comes from nowhere, and I believe by the Spirit of God, learned of Jesus and knew that she needed Jesus both for her physical and her spiritual healing.

And she possessed faith. We've seen so many, quote, followers of Jesus over the ages who come after Him and some of them put on the greatest outward show of denial and suffering and sacrifice and labor and toil. But when you analyze it further, you find out they come from the same basic man-centered works mentality like the dark heathen in India who sacrificed everything for the bizarre idols and false deities of Hinduism.

It's just no real difference. They just make Jesus the idol of their works instead of the false gods of Hinduism. So many today, quote, follow Jesus but have never touched Him, never had a vital connection to Him. He's not just some thing, some abstract thing, some principle that gets you into heaven.

He's a real person who really lives and still lives. Well, we see her suffering in helpless condition. We see her humility and her hope, you could put, and her healing. Thirdly, let's notice the unrivaled greatness of Jesus because that's the main point of the text. That's the main emphasis of the text, not the story, not the woman, not the healer, that's wonderful. But the story of the story is the unrivaled greatness of Jesus Christ. Notice, let's go back through it again, notice the unrivaled greatness of His knowledge, of His knowledge. First of all, in verse 45, Jesus is asking, who touched me?

Because He knows something has happened. Peter says, Lord, it could be anyone. And Jesus said, no, somebody touched me. And what He's saying is, somebody touched me in a way I'm not touched very often, because power has gone out from me.

Wow, what a statement. I don't know all that that means other than something very authentic and real happened, and something very powerful and real happened on the part of Jesus to have His power to go out to somebody who touched Him in a special way. You see, Jesus heals her and nobody's ever told Him anything about her. He knows exactly what's going on here because He's omniscient. Nobody's announced her presence, nobody's said anything about her coming, nothing like that's happened, but He knows everything.

You know, humans, we can study each other's countenance, we can listen to each other's words, we can watch our actions, and then we can form conclusions about a person, but often the judgments we form do not agree with the truth. But in contrast, Jesus is omniscient. He knows everything. He has all knowledge, perfect knowledge. You remember it was His knowledge that astounded Nicodemus when He said, Nicodemus, you must be born again. It was His knowledge that stirred the admiration of the woman in Samaria.

Drink this water and you'll never thirst again. It was His knowledge that confounded the scribes and the Pharisees as He would boldly and without pulling a punch lay out the wickedness of their hearts and their actions. They'd even say, well, you got all that wisdom, you got all that knowledge from the devil, you're the Son of Satan Himself.

That's what the scribes and Pharisees would say. This woman had told no one as far as we know of her thoughts and plans and certainly none of those around Jesus knew anything about that or her, and yet Jesus already knew all about it. He knew her thoughts, her plans, her wishes, and her expectations. And He knows you well. He knows everything you're going through. He knows every desire of your heart. He knows every trouble in your soul.

And that's what we're going to talk about a little more in a moment. And He cares. He cares deeply. The unrivaled greatness of His knowledge. Secondly, the unrivaled greatness of His wisdom. You see, it's not just enough to know things, it's to know the wisdom that comes from knowing things. Knowing how to use the knowledge in a righteous and God- honoring way.

That's wisdom. Notice His unrivaled wisdom. He doesn't just know us. He knows our truest deep need. He's wise enough to take us from what we think we want to need and bring us to with what He knows that we really need. That's His wisdom. She had intended to touch the Lord's garment and then she wanted to sneak away in humility being totally undetected, but the Lord would not permit it.

Notice how He says it here. Someone touched me. Verse 46, I'm aware that power went out from me. Verse 47, who knows what else went on to come to what we're going to read in verse 47. Them talking, her having to stand up, some people saying, were you the one that did it?

And she's, well, I guess, yes, I am the one. So verse 47, when the woman saw that she had not escaped notice, she came trembling and fell down before him and declared in the presence of all the people the reason why she had touched them and how she had been immediately healed. Brothers and sisters, this just didn't happen. This is orchestrated by a sovereign God. Lady, Jesus has healed you and saved you and that must be made public. That's not, that, listen, that's never a hidden thing. It might be for a while, but there has to be a public profession that the power of Jesus has saved me and changed me.

He wouldn't, he's not, he's not gonna let her sneak away. You think that's kind of harsh for, no it's not, it's good for her. So verse 48, daughter, your faith has made you well, go in peace. You see, that's another spiritual lesson, is it not? It glorifies the Lord when we publicly profess that He has changed us.

It gives him the recognition, it gives him the fame, it gives him the credit. It's essential for our continued sanctification. I preached a message years ago, I may have preached it more than once, where I said that baptism saves us and I don't mean salvation from the penalty of sin, i.e.

justification. That's settled once and for all when you believe on Christ, but equal to and always connected with justification or that you're going to miss hell is sanctification, that you're going to join a local church and grow in your faith until you get home to glorification. The Bible never separates these and we must not. This woman needed this public profession that she had confidence in Christ and that Christ had saved her and so do you and so do I. So what is the biblically required profession of faith? It's believer's baptism and united with the local church. That's not just a thing we thought up or a thing we do, it's not one of four or five good ways to organize with Christians and do God's work. It is the required foundation stone of all of God's work in the earth and it is essential for your continued growth in Christ. So we see here, perhaps in a crude and undeveloped way, a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. It brings glory to the Lord. It's essential for this woman's continual sanctification and it will encourage others to do the same. Christ no doubt orchestrated this entire event to illustrate or teach truths that would otherwise not be known and I think one of the foundational truths that we need to see here is that this miracle was not accomplished simply by her work of touching the garment but by the personal and free exercise of His will, His personal choice. You can see it in the text when He says, somebody touched me, power went out for me. Do you think power comes out from Jesus without His control, acknowledgement and sending it out?

Of course not. You see in a very real way Jesus was the initiator of this whole event and she is the receiver of all the blessings. Jesus's knowledge exceeds that of mere men.

He didn't just know all that was happening, He planned all that happened. The woman's faith, though genuine and saving, was yet shallow and immature. Again, an immature faith probably that was marked by unbiblical superstitions and legalisms that were so prominent in the Jews of the day. For example, they had the superstitious belief that if you could touch a prophet's mantle, the shawl a prophet would wear around his shoulders, then you would be healed of whatever disease you had. Those kind of things were so prominent in this day and time. So she's probably just a product of her culture, she had a lot of that going on in her head.

Yet she does have faith in Christ and He does save her. There's a real application for us I think here and that is that we do need sound, strong Bible preaching and sound, mature, biblically strong local churches so that we will not drift into our own superstitions, that we will not drift into our own unbiblical errors, that we will not be prone to add to orthodoxy things that are not orthodox. Well hasn't it happened through the ages? You know I enjoy reading church history and it's amazing, for example, what the Roman Catholics have done through the years, that's more like having magic charms and following superstition than anything that's biblical. They have their statues that they more or less worship and their beads and their sign of the cross and the relics, the old bones or something of a quote saint that's been deceased for a thousand years perhaps, the clothing of a pope that was anointed and you got to get close to that and the worship of Mary and on and on we could go. I remember when I was in Brazil, it's been a long, long time ago now, but we went to a community and as a matter of fact, just driving through Brazil you'd see all these little shrines of Mary everywhere, just a statue of Mary and in one particular village they had their little statue of Mary and the whole community was in a joyous uproar because the toe of the statue of Mary began to produce milk.

That's what they said. Well, I went and looked at Mary and Mary was made of marble. It had been a very wet season and no doubt the porous white marble had taken in some of the moisture and a little bit was leaking out of the toe and had a little milky color to it because it had taken the, absorbed the elements of the marble and they thought this was God bringing healing powers to their community. You know why they believe that? Because they had been taught wicked error by their church leaders and they're prone to every silly, ungodly, magical charm or incantation or superstition that might float by. Aren't you glad we have truth settled forever right here and don't have to follow that silly nonsense?

But that's what happens. It's so much a part of our culture at times and certainly it was a part of this lady's culture. Well, I need to be fair, Baptists have had their silly superstitions. If you'll just walk to the magic spot, you'll be saved. Can you find that in the Bible? And they want to conflate that, well, you've got to make it public. Well, that's what that Baptistry is for.

That's what the Bible says the Baptistry is for, not a spot in a building. And on and on we can do. Would you repeat this mantra to God and, quote, you will be saved, end quote.

We've had our silly add-ons. And let me be balanced, let me be kind. Well-intending and good brothers and sisters have taught these things. And here's the interesting thing, if you ever sit down and talk to them heart to heart, they will say, yes, we see that's misleading at best. The modern charismatic movement, though there's good brothers and sisters in that movement who don't do any of these crazy things, they have their holy water, their prayer cloths, blowing on people, plant this seed and God will heal you, healing touches, mantras, incantations.

That's today. So when we look back at these ancient peoples and say they were so dumb and superstitious, oh no, we all are if we're not diligent and intentional to stay with the truth. So Jesus requires this woman with all of the stuff that's probably in her background to come forward.

She herself needed the public acknowledgement, the eyewitnesses needed it and succeeding generations rather would know that there was no magic power in what she did or in his robe. It came from his personal voluntary divine power and the mechanism was faith. Pastor, how does that work that in reality faith doesn't save us but faith does save us?

I don't know. All I can tell you is in the balance of biblical truth, you cannot possess the faith that says if God hadn't initiated a work in you already. And we'll never figure that out completely, but like I said in the earlier part of the service, we serve a God that's bigger than your brain and my brain for sure. See, the unrivaled greatness of his power.

Now just before this, I didn't, I left this out. Remember when they were on see a Galilee coming across, try to get some rest, a violent storm breaks out. The disciples think they're going to sink and die. Matter of fact, they cry out, Lord do you not care that we're perishing? And he stood up and rebuked the sea and said, hush and be still. And there wasn't even a tiny ripple left to hit the shore bank.

There was an immediate stillness on that sea like the starry heavens on a summer's night. Then he deals with the Gerasenes demoniac and miraculously heals him. He's on his way to Jairus, his daughter, and to heal him. The power of Jesus Christ, the power of Jesus Christ. In our text, we find that when she touches his garment, Jesus issues his power. In the Bible says, verse 44, immediately she is healed. This was not a cure that comes from the agency of men.

It was instantaneous, complete and permanent. And if she indeed possessed saving faith, and I'm convinced she did, Jesus instantaneously healed her of the physical disease, cleansed her of all defilement before the holy God. He will keep her in progressive sanctification and secure her in glorification when she departs this earth. That's powerful. That is powerful.

In every conceivable way, the power of Jesus Christ is immeasurably superior to anything known to man. Let me say it again, in this woman, now think about this, with mixtures of superstitions and legalisms, yet had a true grain of faith. You don't come to Jesus having dropped all your baggage, you don't even know how much baggage you have yet.

I realized something this week again. I still sin. I still have thoughts that are not really square with Scripture.

I'm still fraught with frailties and weaknesses. But in the midst of all of that, my faith in Christ is genuine, and my faith in Christ is real. And the reason why a woman like this, with all she had, quote, against her, could come to Christ with maybe just a kernel of true faith and be wonderfully saved, is because of the unrivaled greatness of Jesus' power to save. Number four, the unrivaled greatness of His love and goodness, the unrivaled greatness of His love and goodness. This is one of those attributes of our Lord that vastly separates Jesus Christ from every other so-called God. I've told you many times when you sent Paman out of grace, and we loved it, we loved it.

We were talking this week, we want to go back. It was just so enriching and just blessed us. But I did some reading and studying on the ancient Greeks, and again, just what a bizarre bunch of nuts.

I mean, good night. They worshiped all of these mythological gods, and all the gods were mighty, and all the gods were powerful, but all the gods were evil. They were vengeance, and they were jealous, and they were immoral, and they were corrupt. Not Jesus. He's full. They were vindictive, not Jesus.

He's different. He has holy love and holy goodness. No other so-called God comes close to the love and goodness of Jesus Christ. His love and goodness flows in abundance from the pages of Scripture, and His love and goodness is seen in His condescending care for this poor woman in her condition. The Bible just bleeds with the great compassion that Christ has that comes out of His love and goodness. Matthew 9 36, seeing the people, He felt compassion for them because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Matthew 20 34, moved with compassion. Jesus touched their eyes and immediately they regained their sight and followed Him.

Luke 7 13, when they saw her, or when the Lord saw her, He felt, notice, felt the personal element here. He felt compassion for her and said to her, do not weep. He goes to the tomb of Lazarus, and the Bible says He wept.

Two parts of that, I think. He's weeping because they didn't see Him as the resurrection and the life, but also I think He was weeping because people were hurting. His compassion, His love and goodness. We live in a lost and dying world and people all around us are suffering, they're desperate, they're helpless. So many are still unhealed in their loss and desperate condition, and like this woman so many have tried every kind of physician, or maybe even every kind of religion. You noticed all these new religions that are popping up, and that's what it is, it's a religious, there's a zealous religious zeal these people. The climate crisis religion, and the woke-ism religion, and the social justice religion, and if you don't adhere to their doctrines while you're excommunicated from the world, because it is a worldly religion by the way, didn't come from God.

There's tidbits of truth in a lot of these things, but they totally corrupt it, being completely void of any God-centeredness and holiness and being all based on the so-called false wisdom of man. And then people maybe in a more traditional religious environment look to the law, if I can just keep these laws, they look to if I can morally clean up my life and ethically change a few things. If I just put on the rituals of religion, I'll take the Lord's table and I'll be baptized and I'll participate in things in the church, none of that works. You're still suffering, you're still desperate, you're still helpless, but there's one more physician you need to consult, and that's Jesus Christ. The unrivaled greatness of Jesus Christ, the unrivaled greatness of His knowledge, He knows you, He knows your case, He knows your situation, He knows your condition, the unrivaled wisdom of Jesus, He knows your true real deepest need, you're a lost sinner, you're spiritually unclean, He knows that and He's died for you, and He knows you need to look only to Him and not at your condition. You need to look to Him in faith, the unrivaled power of Jesus Christ that He indeed can cleanse you and save you, and the unrivaled love and goodness of Jesus, He has all compassion for you and He will save you. He will save you, the unrivaled greatness of Jesus Christ.