The Solution (Part B)

I have the ability to reason, and part of reasoning involves inquiry, and part of worship involves inquiry to God. And I know He doesn't rebuke me for it. He doesn't have to answer me either.

He knows that. That's an agreement we have with Him, is it not? On my part, I will do what I'm told, Lord. On Your part, You will do what You want.

That's our agreement. You be God, and I will not try to be God. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Mark.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Today, Pastor Rick will continue his message called The Solution as he teaches through Mark Chapter 5. Twelve years of questions not answered by God. Why, Lord?

Why? Silence. Twelve years of gloom. Almost, as I said, a leper's life. How cheated she must have felt as she watched other women her age not have this burden in their lives. Other women with their husbands, with their children, with their health, not her.

We get the point. Verse 26, and had suffered many things from the physician. She had spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse. Poor thing, she's exhausted. She's now broke.

It's a pitiful condition. Yet, she does not seem to have come to the place where she's given up. She's still looking for the solution, but this time it's in Christ whom she's heard so much about. She probably knew people that he had healed. But there were others that were worse off than her.

There always is. John's Gospel Chapter 5, know a certain man was there who had an infirmity 38 years. Some of you aren't even 38 years old yet. 38 years, that man had to deal with his situation until Christ came along and changed things. Then there are other people living in surrounding lands that just went to their graves this way. Keeps it in perspective for us that God has a different view and his view is right and it is important that we line up with that and stay there.

That we abide, adhere, and faith does that. Luke speaks of another one in Luke Chapter 13. Behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity 18 years and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up. She could not even look up to the sky.

Christ sees them all. Here she is for 12 years, not alone. That brings some comfort but not relief enough.

She suffered embarrassment, disappointment, financial ruin, playing all that she had. How many times did the doctors say, go try this? Okay, that didn't work. Okay, no, try this. Okay, don't eat that.

Okay, eat this. She went through that until finally they would have nothing to do with her because they had no solution. They could probably give a name to her condition but they could not cure her. They collected her fees and gave up. Not that they were shysters.

Some of them may have been. Some may have been very genuine but in spite of this, she was worse off. Verse 27, and when she heard about Jesus, she came behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. Now, just entering this midway, there are those who over the centuries have come to know Christ and have had worse conditions than this and they read this story and still they get stronger in their faith. Understanding that, okay, Jesus healed her but that's not his way with me.

I have to find out what he's going to do with me. And that has been very successful in the causes and interests of the king. And let's not think for one moment that whatever you endure is in vain if you belong to Jesus Christ. It will seem in vain many times, pointless.

It will make you angry and upset, hurt, feel cheated, not want to pray, not want to read, not want to attend church, not want to love. That's the war. You hear people talk about prayer warriors.

Warriors die on the battlefield, incidentally. So, we look at this and we say, well, you know, I'm in a position here where I am forced to make a choice. I'm going to full out trust Christ or not.

I choose to follow him and so many others have also and I know many of you, if not all of you here, do too. So, we picture her frail, alone, desperate, maneuvering through the throng, through the multitude, through the crowd. All the healthy people around her and she's pushing through. She's not supposed to touch any of these people. She can't help it. She's willing to sacrifice whatever penalty that may bring to get cured.

Secretly, she's on a mission of hope and nobody knows it but her. Of course, the Lord says and touched his garment. The Greek word for touch really is to grasp, not to just to touch it like that. Mark will explain what went into this action in a moment, but being unclean, as I mentioned, she wasn't supposed to even touch his garment. The rabbis would say that that defiled her and him and they would have been right, ceremonially speaking. Haggai chapter 2 verses 12 to 14, Haggai uses this doctrine of corruption to make a great point against the people who were at that time living pretty nicely while the temple lied in ruins.

God's house was in shambles but they were doing pretty good and that's the prophet Haggai staring up the nation to do something about the place that they were to worship. But the laws of contamination are this, Paul writes to the Corinthians, do not be deceived. Evil company corrupts good habits. This is big. This is big because as Christians, many of us get older, we are corrupted by the junk we read.

Be careful. Don't think because a book has a nice cover and everybody's loving it that it's right. What is in that book? Does it line up with scripture? Who's the author?

Does that author believe in the infallibility of God's word or are they one of those liberal authors that, well, some of it we believe, some of it we don't. And for you younger ones, evil company corrupts morals, good habits. It ruins you.

It contaminates you. Do you have a friend that is not interested in Christ but you feel like you've got to be their friend? Listen, you invite them to church.

If they don't want to come, find another friend. Don't be the dumb guy on the block. It's your choice.

It's up to you. You may get persecuted for it. Well, I don't want to be persecuted any more than you do, but just the way it is. So when Paul says, don't be suckered, oh, did I say it that way?

That's exactly what he's saying. Satan is seducing you. You might think this is harmless, but Satan knows it is harmful.

Do not be deceived. Evil company corrupts good habits. God can get you better friends.

You might go for a while without some but he'll get you better ones. You don't need to be around those who represent the evil company. And evil corrupts at a faster rate than righteousness purifies. So if you say, well, I'm going to hang around this person until they get saved, you may find out they have corrupted you to now you need to get saved.

This is not a game. There's a very real devil and he does not take prisoners to just take them. He takes them to destroy them. Catching cleanliness, catching holiness only comes from God. You catch that from him.

You get that from him. Isaiah chapter six verse seven. And he touched my mouth with it and said, behold, this has touched your lips. Your iniquity is taken away and your sin purged. Of course, that was the servant of the Lord in Isaiah's vision, touching the lips of the prophet at the command of God. And Mark chapter one verse 41. Then Jesus moved with compassion, stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, I am willing be cleansed. It is the touch of God that cleanses us. We don't rub up against sinners and get clean.

It is God that does it every time. And verse 28 now, for she said, now Mark's giving us the background, her reasoning. For she said, if only I may touch his clothes, I shall be made well. Matthew says that she said, if I can just touch the hem of his garment. Now of course when we think of a hem, we think of the bottom of the trousers or the bottom of the dress.

But that is not at all the idea with their garb, the wardrobe of that day. This would have been the garment that he would have wrapped and folded and part of the hem would have been pushed over the back of his shoulder, in between his shoulder blades. And there with the tassel hang right there.

And that is what she is going to grab, come behind him and grab hold of this. Let's pick up Matthew chapter nine. And suddenly a woman who had a flow of blood for 12 years came from behind and touched the hem of his garment.

And there's the explanation. The hem was a big deal with the Jews in those days. It is to this day too, when they wear their prayer aprons that you may have seen with the tassels and the blue stripes. Numbers chapter 15 verse 38, speak to the children of Israel, tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations and to put a blue thread in the tassels of the corners. That is significant to what is going on.

We could take a lot of time going through this, but I think you get the picture. She believed that this was going to be a point of contact with him that would create or heal her. Well, you know, the day did come where his clothes did radiate. Matthew 17, he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as the light.

Pretty intense. Everything that was touching him reflected or radiated his glory. There's no one like Jesus Christ. He never was, never will be. He's God, the Son. He is God Almighty, the Son.

He lacks no attribute. All that the Father has, all that the Holy Spirit has, they all have. There's no break.

They present themselves in separate roles in dealing with us, but the unity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is so joined together, there's nothing that creates a wedge. You know, with a little wedge, you can lift tons. You can take a little steel wedge and you can just lift up so much stuff where you can't with God.

Not like that. Verse 29, immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up and she felt in her body that she was healed of affliction. Instant result. Remember, meanwhile Jairus is like, you know, he thinks he's just moving along, but the delay is coming.

It's not coming yet, but it's coming. This word here, affliction, at the bottom of verse 29 in the Greek means to scourge or whipping. Luke uses it both ways as an affliction and also as a whipping. Paul picks it up and he uses it as a whipping and this is what the Spirit is saying. This woman was scourged by this condition. She was whipped.

But there's more to the story with Christ in her. Verse 30, and Jesus immediately knowing in himself that power had gone out of him turned around in the crowd and said, who touched my clothes? He knew at once that some evil had just been defeated. He knew it. He knew that a hand of faith in need touched him.

This is important because Mark and Matthew and Luke will all tell the story, make it clear that the crowd was shoving and pushing and touching him. And he also knew who it was. He also understood the value of public confession.

He is going to extract that from this woman for her own good. This healing was not something to be concealed. Your salvation is not something to conceal. Why are you hiding that you're a Christian? Well, I have a concealed carry permit. No, you don't. There's no such thing as a permit to conceal your faith.

You're permitted to broadcast it, to let your light shine. A city set on a hill. You can't hide it. It's right there. You ever travel to some places in, well, a lot of places in the world? For me, Ville France, you could see all the villas up on the hill that the ship pulls into the little heart. You see all these, you can't hide it.

Day or night, it's there. And the Christian testimony is to be that way. She was not going to be permitted to exchange the shame of her condition for the shame of concealing her faith. She was going to be given the opportunity to come out and out loud. Look, the world has no problem broadcasting their sin. They can't make a movie without a curse word in it. Oh, I got to put one in there. It's going to make the movie so much better. I'm kind of ranting, aren't I?

Because it's so, not only it's dumb, and that should be enough, but it's disappointing very much. Anyway, the only person in that crowd that knew who touched him and why was Christ, and he is now saying, who touched me? And she has got her, she must have froze right there. Her heart is pounding. You can hear who it is. Oh, it's you, lady. I can hear it.

She feels like she stole something and got caught. Verse 31, but his disciples said to him, you see the multitude thronging you and you say who touched me? This is astonished unbelief.

This is, you're kidding us, right? Everybody pushing and shoving because they miss the meaning. They miss the meaning that he makes a distinction between what type of touch comes in contact with him. He makes a distinction from those who are curious versus those who are serious, and he's doing it right now. He could tell the crush of the crowd versus contact with a soul driven by distress, and that's very important to him. In fact, it was so important that he was not going to let it pass, and he was going to let it interrupt his forward motion to go heal the daughter of Jairus. Everyone at this moment in the crowd was under pressure in some form. The crowd was eager to get a look at him, to brush up against him, to see some miracle, something he'd do, something he would say.

The disciples were under pressure to keep him from being crushed. The woman with the distress in her life arrived there under pressure, and now is even more trying to push her way through the crowd just to get. How did she do that? How did she make it through those people? You ever been to a big concert or something, you're trying to get through and you're just people blocking you every way? Excuse me, pardon me.

How long did this go on? In the midst of it all, the only one without pressure, Jesus Christ, asked a question that sounded unrealistic, even selfish. Who touched me? Again, I think I've referenced, you know, riding on a New York City subway in rush hour and you're going to be smashed into people. There's no way around it. And to say, who touched me, you know, is fighting words.

It's not realistic. And that's what the disciples are saying, but they didn't get it yet. They didn't understand that love was in the power of Christ that went out from him. He was fully aware. He felt love go out of him into another, the same way electricity goes through, you know, a copper wire, that current flying through. He discerns a touch on him, on his robe, not overlooked.

He's not careless about this. In fact, in this little section of Mark in verses 27, 28, 30, 31, we read, she touched his garment, she touched his garment. Who touched my garment? Who touched me? The disciples said that. You say, who touched you? Really, she touched his garment.

Close enough. That was him. All contact with him is instantly noticed to this very day. We think our prayers aren't heard because he doesn't respond. He doesn't answer. I even write out in my prayers sometime, why am I writing this, Lord? You're not going to answer my question.

Why am I asking it? But I am compelled. I'm built that way. I have the ability to reason. And part of reasoning involves inquiry.

And part of worship involves inquiry to God. And I know he doesn't rebuke me for it. He doesn't have to answer me either.

He knows that. That's an agreement we have with him, is it not? On my part, I will do what I'm told, Lord. On your part, you will do what you want.

That's our agreement. You be God, and I will not try to be God. Verse 32, and he looked around to see her who had done this thing. Oh man, those eyes sweeping the crowd.

He stops, everything stops. The blessings from God, they're to be brought to light. When he delivered the maniac, verse 19, however, Jesus did not permit him to go with him, that is, but said to him, go home to your friends and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you and how he has had compassion on you. There are times when Jesus had to suppress this or made attempts to because of the reaction of people getting out. You know, we read in one spot, Jesus said, don't tell anybody that. And a man went around telling everybody, and Jesus couldn't even minister anymore.

You know, it wasn't good. But in this case, again, she is not free to conceal what Christ has done for her. Being a secret disciple of Christ is the same thing as being a weaker disciple of Christ.

Now, there are exceptions. There are times of heavy persecution where the church moves underground because the mission is still to save souls, and if we all just recklessly get ourselves killed, there's no one left to save souls. But as a rule, if your motivation is cowardice, you're afraid what people are going to say, it's something you have a conversation with the Lord now about that. You tell him right now, I'm afraid. I'm afraid you're going to laugh at me, ridicule me, mock me.

What can I do? So that he can say, well, there's not much you can do other than coming to me and telling me, and I can do something on your behalf. And so she goes, this poor little thing, the ride that she has this day, she goes through, if I could just touch him, I'll be healed, and she's not sure if she could touch him. She finally touches him, she gets healed, and then he calls her out, the drama of it all, in front of everybody.

Who touched me? A terrifying moment for her as she sees his eyes moving through the crowd. But the woman, verse 33, fearing and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before him and told him the whole truth.

You can hold it back. She just knew I'm busted. And she's trembling, she's fearing and trembling. The Lord's instant reaction to her healing, she paused, and then she comes forward. Was she afraid because she got a blessing without permission? Was she afraid because everybody would have known that she had defiled everybody on the way to the healing?

We're not told. But she comes, and she falls down before him, and she tells the whole truth, verse 34. And he said to her, daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your affliction. How many times do we want to hear him say that?

And he does not. And how many times, how many times does Christ say, I'm not going to heal you? And the one who asked to be healed and their loved ones say, okay, Lord, your will, not ours, and hell is enraged because of it. Because there is a Christian still serving, still believing, still following, and there's nothing hell can do about it.

I think that's incredible. Now, I don't want to be the one. I don't want to be the one with the affliction. But we all are afflicted at some point or another.

There's no way around it. Understanding that faith is that deciding factor that leads us into glory. How we should treasure our faith because of the blood of Jesus Christ, because of the suffering and dying of Jesus Christ. And he died on multiple levels. It was not just the blood coming out of his body that was taking on sin for us in front of the Father.

There was the public shame. There's so many things that went into his death that are so far beyond us that we just know enough to accept and be accepted because of it. He was not upset at her for touching him.

He applauded her. She trusted him. Trusting Jesus Christ is faith. That is the meaning of faith, is trusting him. Faith is not in the abstract.

It is concrete. Faith is not in the power of anything. Faith is in the person of Jesus Christ. It's in him, who he is, and not in some magical force that's out there. His power is him. It is not an additional thing that he has.

It is him. The kingdom of God is power because that's who God is. 1 Corinthians 4.20, for the kingdom of God is not in word but in power.

Sometimes we have to wait to death to see enough of it. But by faith, we begin to see it. And so he speaks tenderly to her. This is the only place where Jesus addresses someone as, in the sense of his daughter. He talks about the daughters of Jerusalem, the daughters of Abraham.

This is, he says, daughter, your faith directly to her. Now, he's 31, 32 years old. She is likely 25 to 45, somewhere in there.

You know, you factor in the 12 years of the issue and you just kind of come up with an age. In other words, he's not old enough to be her father. And yet he speaks to her as a father to a child. You come along and you read, you know your Old Testament, you know your New Testament enough, you say, for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulder. And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. This is one of those many signatures of the deity of Christ. He is God.

He is God the Son and God the Father has no problem with it. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Mark. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more information about this ministry, visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. Once you're there, you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. That's all we have time for today, but we hope you'll join us next time as Pastor Rick continues to teach through the book of Mark, right here on Cross Reference Radio.