The Miracles of Christ - Woman with Issue of Blood

[0:00] We are continuing our examination of the Gospels, and I just want to remind you that what we are actually studying has to do with a divine drama that was begun long before there was a heaven and an earth and angels and planets and stars and all of that.

[0:24] There was a Father and a Son and the Holy Spirit, and we use those terms advisedly because they do not mean exactly what we mean by them, simply because there is no way that the deity can be adequately described in a way that we can understand.

[0:43] He is, as I've often said, the otherness. The otherness. We use the terms Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for purposes of identifying and understanding, and He has graciously given us those terms because we have a frame of reference for a Father and a Son.

[1:07] And we all know, of course, that the Father has to come first, and then the Son is produced by the Father. But when we're talking about deity, it does not work that way. Well, how does it work?

[1:19] I have no idea. It doesn't work in any way that we can comprehend, and that's the first thing that we need to understand. Yet, God in His grace has been pleased to give us a certain amount of information, not only about Himself, but He's given us adequate information that we need so that we can intelligently respond.

[1:39] And that's the thing that really matters. So, what we have is eternal being, or beings, plus, plural, yet we emphasize that God is one.

[1:51] There are not multiple gods. There is but one God, subsisting in three persons. What does that mean? I have no idea. We just really don't understand that either. So, it only stands to reason, guys, that we're talking about creatorhood, not creaturehood.

[2:10] And the distance that separates creature from creator is infinite. It's greater than the distance that separates humans from a gnat or a mouse.

[2:24] It's a difference that is otherness. That's all we can say. And yet, in this supreme being, however it is that He subsists or consists, for reasons that are not disclosed, He was pleased to create, to bring all things into existence.

[2:47] And we pointed out before that verse, I think it's Revelation 4.11, where the four and twenty elders are bowing down and worshiping Him who is on the throne, and says that He is worthy to receive honor and glory and dominion and power, etc.

[3:06] For, or because, thou hast created all things, and by thy good pleasure they were and are created. And that word good pleasure, of course, ties in with the word pleased.

[3:20] It means God was pleased to create. We are not told why He was pleased. He was just pleased to create. And before He created, there was nothing.

[3:34] No angels, no people, no world, no stars, no planets, no anything. There was this deity, this first cause, this otherness, who has existed from eternity past, and has no beginning, so He is the uncaused first cause.

[3:56] And everything that I have said is completely beyond our ability to understand. But that's the best we can do. That which separates us from Him is immeasurable.

[4:08] And yet, because He was pleased to create all things, He created beings to whom He gave powers of choice, will, volition. And the first that He created, apparently, were angelic beings.

[4:23] We do not know how many He created. We're just told that there are legions of them. There are myriads of angels. These two are spirit beings. They have no physicality.

[4:35] Just like the Creator. He is spirit. That means He is immaterial. That is what enables Him to be everywhere that He is, pervasive in every situation all over the universe.

[4:50] Can't understand that either. It's the difference between God being great and God being big. And I make that distinction because God is not big. When you use the term big, you're talking in terms of size or dimension.

[5:08] Larger, smaller, etc. That is inadequate. So, we use the term that God is not big, but God is great. He is great.

[5:19] That's different. And that is immeasurable also. He is immeasurably great. And in this person of creation, with all that He brought into existence, the angels were all spirit beings, like Himself, had no bodies.

[5:38] Then He decided, in accordance with Genesis 1, to create human beings. Give them a body. Physicality. But if you're going to do that, you've got to have a place for physical to dwell.

[5:51] And that's where planet Earth comes in, as well as all the other planets. Because we have a body, physical body, we have to have time and space in which to exist.

[6:03] Spirit does not. God does not exist in time and space. People do. Angels are different in that they are immaterial, but they also have the ability to assume a human-like shape.

[6:18] And we see that a number of times in the Scriptures, Old and New Testament, where angels appear just like people. And they are mistaken for people, and they are even called men.

[6:30] But they are later revealed to be angelic beings. So they, too, are a completely different stripe. So anyway, long story short, these angels, created by God, were also given volition.

[6:45] That is, the ability to obey or to disobey, to defy or to, what shall I say, to cooperate.

[7:04] And they had that ability. And we know that the chiefest of the angels, who is referred to as probably the greatest of his creations, chose to rebel against God.

[7:14] You find this in Ezekiel, if it hasn't moved, I think it's in 18. Ezekiel 18 and Isaiah 14, something like that.

[7:26] Talks about Satan in his original being, how he defied God, and so on. So then, God decided he's going to resolve this angelic conflict.

[7:38] The conflict that is established between the Creator and angels that he had created that had rebelled against him. He is going to resolve that. How is he going to do that?

[7:50] Well, he's going to create lesser beings. That's you and me. Lesser beings called humans, who are not endowed with the powers of angels, but still are endowed with volition.

[8:03] And yet, they are going to have a body, and they are going to reproduce, and so on. Angels do not do that. There's no indication that angels get married and have little angels. But humans do.

[8:15] So, we are of a lesser order than the angelic being, in wisdom and power, etc. Yet, we are also innumerable in our company, and now we're talking about, what, 6-7 billion people throughout the earth, plus all of those that have lived before.

[8:35] So, God is doing something that simply pleased him. That's all we can say. There is a conflict that is taking place, and this conflict is going to be resolved by using a lesser order of beings, namely humans, to resolve the angelic conflict.

[8:57] Some of this is found in Hebrews, and 1 and 2 Peter, and so on. So, we won't have time to go there. So, all I'm saying is this. In connection with this conflict, it was pleased, it pleased our Father to send the Son to be the Savior of the world, and we do not understand that connection between them, except to say the plurality of persons provides for the ability of relationship and relatedness, and this relationship that existed and still exists in the triune Godhead is the sum and substance of all that is blessed and good.

[9:37] Therefore, relationships are the sum and substance of humanity as well, and we find our greatest joy and our greatest fulfillment in the relationships that we sustain.

[9:48] And as we've often said, God is so high on relationships that He sent His Son to this earth for the sole purpose of reconnecting a broken relationship between our first parents and all of the progeny, which includes us, and Himself.

[10:12] So, God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. And He is doing that through this one we are considering who came to work, manifested Himself through miraculous manifestations that we are now studying.

[10:31] And that is referred to as the miracles of Christ. So, what we have here is deity itself coming into this earth born of a human being, conceived in the womb of a virgin, and born for the express purpose of resolving that conflict, and He is going to be the basis for God reconnecting with the fallen humanity by substitutionally, what shall I say, substitutionally balancing the scales of heaven by paying the sin debt for all of humanity, thus throwing wide open the gates of heaven so that He can with justice and holiness still receive all who come to Him through the Son and His sacrifice that He provided.

[11:41] This is everything. This is the sum and substance of creation. This is where everything is focused. This is the angelic conflict.

[11:51] What is going on right now is this battle between good and evil, and God is going to resolve that angelic conflict and He is going to use a lesser state of beings with which to do it.

[12:05] And it started with Jesus. And He was made lower than the angels because in His humanity, that's what He is, lower than the angels, but in His humanity, He never sacrificed or left behind His deity, thus Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us in the flesh.

[12:29] And in that theanthropic person, He accomplished what needed to be done to satisfy the holiness of God. And when He came to this earth to present Himself, He had to be identified as such.

[12:44] And the chief way with which He was identified is what we are studying. And it's called the miracles of Christ. Christ. So these are going to be a manifestation that will reveal His person.

[12:58] And as He lives here on this earth for three years, He went about performing these miracles, which, by the way, were never challenged. They were never challenged and they were never denied, even by those who wanted to deny them but couldn't.

[13:16] So they were ironclad evidences as to His identity and His power and His purpose for coming. And we are going to look at the miracles that are continuing and let us go to Mark's Gospel, chapter 5.

[13:33] He gives us a more complete revelation of it. Mark's Gospel, chapter 5. We'll continue with the healing of Jairus' daughter and the woman who had touched Christ's garment.

[13:48] This is the woman with an issue of blood. And we'll see if we can get both of these in this morning. We'll begin with Mark, chapter 5, and verse 21. We've considered in our last get-together the stilling of the storm and the confrontation with the demoniacs in the land of the Gerasenes.

[14:06] We talked a little bit about that. And that was the one where the demons were permitted to go into the swine and they all ran headlong and then the people, of course, besought Jesus to leave the place because he was bad for business.

[14:22] And you've got to remember that the land of the Gerasenes was Gentile territory and that's why they had swine. You would not find that in Israel where there were Jews because the swine are off limits for them.

[14:35] But in the land of the Gerasenes or the Gadarenes, why that's what was calm and fair. And they asked Jesus to leave because, well, I think the answer is obvious.

[14:48] So let's look, if we may, at verse 21 of Mark, chapter 5. And when Jesus had crossed over again in the boat unto the other side, a great multitude was gathered unto him.

[15:03] and this great multitude is something that has been building by way of word of mouth. That's the only way they had to communicate anything. But as these people traveled between small towns and small villages, most of whom had relatives in different places, the word would get around and everybody was saying the same thing.

[15:25] I'm telling you, it's real. It's true. I saw it with my own eyes. So and so, he's been deaf for years and he's opened his ears and he's hearing and blind or seeing and it's just absolute.

[15:39] Well, this word just spread like wildfire and wherever Jesus is, the crowd begins to gather. And you can imagine what would be taking place today, wouldn't you? By the way, there isn't any indication that Jesus was going to hold a healing meeting and invite people to come in and have special music and take up a big offering and all the rest and heal one or two people.

[16:03] Nonsense. This, what we're talking about is a real McCoy. This is not the nonsensical faith healers that go about today. And by the way, let me just inject this.

[16:14] One reason that these people proliferate is because they either know nothing or they refuse to engage in the right division of Scripture and see the Bible progressively unfolding.

[16:30] And if they ever did, they would know that yes, God can and does heal any time He pleases, but healing today, physical healing, is not God's standard operation.

[16:45] It is today by faith as opposed to by sight. And we're not limiting God in any way. He can heal anyone He wants to of anything that He wants to, but we do know that in this dispensation, the dispensation of the grace of God, where we walk by faith, not by sight, when the doctor says it's terminal and you've got six months to live, that's usually pretty accurate.

[17:12] And despite all of the faith healers that there are, the death rate is still one per person for all of us. And we need to keep that in mind. That's the norm.

[17:24] And we're not limiting God in any way. So, we read that in verse 22, there cometh one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and of course this man is fully Jewish, that's why he's in the synagogue and a ruler thereof, and seeing him, seeing Jesus, he falleth at his feet and beseeches him.

[17:46] And the only reason he did that is simply because of what he has heard. This is his first encounter with Jesus, but he has heard enough from reputable, reliable people who have seen Jesus in action and they have told Jairus about this man, Jesus, and what he has done.

[18:06] And his confidence in him builds to the place that when he is confronting Jesus, he immediately gets where he belongs. He falls before him and we are told that he beseeches him much saying, my little daughter is at the point of death.

[18:27] Now, some of you, like I have, a daughter, have a couple daughters, and daughters are intended to be daddy's girls.

[18:39] They just are, that's all. And it doesn't mean that they're not mommy's girls all, but they're daddy's girls in a special way. And you know what I'm talking about, those of you who haven't. She's at the point of death.

[18:51] I pray thee that thou would come and lay thy hands on her that she may be made whole and live. He's not asking Jesus if he can do that.

[19:04] He is assuming that he can do it. And he is asking him to stop by the house and lay his hands on her that she may be made whole and live.

[19:15] And he went with him. And this is just another indication of the variety that we find here in the scriptures. Jesus could have just as easily said, Go home to his health.

[19:29] Jesus could have easily said, Well, actually, I don't need to go home with you. You go home and your daughter is just fine. Because Jesus could heal by remote control just as easily as being there.

[19:40] But there are times that he does different things. Sometimes he touches someone's eyes. Sometimes he simply says, Be open. Sometimes he mixes spittle with clay and anoints the eyes.

[19:54] And that simply indicates that he is not limited by anything that he does. So, we are told that he went with him. A great multitude followed him and thronged him.

[20:05] And a woman which had an issue of blood twelve years. An issue, of course, simply means she was secreting. She was bleeding.

[20:17] This probably would indicate what do I know about obstetrics? Next to nothing. But it probably indicates that this woman had some kind of a female problem with her cycle or with a cycle that wouldn't quit.

[20:38] At any rate, she did not have what you would call a normal menstrual cycle. She was probably menstruating or at least had the effects of it perpetually. And no man can understand how inconvenient and how potentially embarrassing that could be.

[20:56] But I'm sure every woman could identify with it. And this was something that simply could not be controlled. She had gone to one physician after another and they no doubt gave her different medications and different things and nothing had worked.

[21:10] So, this has gone on for twelve years. She had suffered many things of many physicians. Now, you ordinarily don't think of physicians making people suffer.

[21:21] but if it's a physician who is on the wrong trail with the wrong medication with a bad diagnosis, he's contributing to the problem, he's not solving it.

[21:33] And we've got a lot of physicians out there that probably shouldn't be practicing medicine. Joe? He says, you just got too much blood and let's cut your arm here and let a lot of blood out there and that'll fix you. Our first president died from the complications of bloodletting and the best physicians in the land were called in to attend to our president and they thought, well, he's suffering in part from bad blood so we need to take some of the blood out and they bled him.

[22:01] I don't know how much they took but they took some blood and he didn't get better, he got worse so they thought we didn't take enough. So they went back and took more blood and the father of our country passed on.

[22:16] And now today, any reputable doctor or any medical student, you wouldn't have to be a doctor, you could be a first degree, first year medical student, would know better but that's the progress that we've made in medicine.

[22:28] Now what are we doing? Now we're taking a heart out of somebody and putting somebody else's heart in. Is that progress or what? That is amazing. Well, let's get back to our story. This woman had suffered with this for 12 years and suffered many things from many physicians and she had spent all that she had, obviously, no Medicare and no insurance and she was nothing better but rather grew worse.

[22:57] Having heard the things concerning Jesus came in the crowd behind and touched his garment. Touched his garment.

[23:09] for she said, she was saying to herself, if I can just touch his garment, I shall be made whole.

[23:24] What was she basing that on? She had nothing to base it on but the testimony of other people. And yet, their testimony did not contradict one another but one testimony confirmed another.

[23:41] So, it became convincing to her that there has to be something to this. And, she obviously had heard that Jesus had never attempted to heal anyone unsuccessfully.

[24:00] You would think that out of all of the healings that he did, that there would have been some that he would have come up against and said, well, you know, this is out of my league.

[24:12] Well, nothing is out of his league. It's unthinkable that he should have, after all, who was it that breathed into the nostrils that first human being and Adam became a living soul?

[24:24] We're talking about the same person here. He has absolute, complete control and there was no suspicion of failure or inability on his part at all.

[24:35] and she obviously had considerable confidence in him that she didn't even have to be a direct recipient. She could just kind of sneak up behind him and quietly and obtrusively and just touch his garment and that would be all that would be needed.

[24:55] And that showed tremendous faith. I mean, faith. Oh, yeah. That's all I had to do. And faith is nothing more than confidence. It's trust. It's reliance.

[25:07] And this woman had that and it had to have been exclusively based on what she had heard. This, again, reveals the power of personal testimony.

[25:18] The power of people telling people what God has done for them. And that is powerful. The powerful testimony.

[25:28] testimony. So, we are told that straightway, that is, immediately, the fountain of her blood was dried up.

[25:42] Can you imagine this poor woman what she was contending with? I mean, she had to have some kind of a diaper apparatus that had to be changed regularly.

[25:53] She probably had to carry extras with her wherever she went. She had to sneak in someplace where she could privately change herself or change the diaper. And if the diaper got full of blood, think of it, fellas.

[26:06] Even though she's wearing this long gown that comes down to the ankles, think of this dear woman embarrassed to death and blood trickling down her leg because it is uncontrollable.

[26:21] It limits what she can do, where she goes, how long she's there. She has to guard against all of this embarrassing situation in every way that she can. And when Jesus, when she touched his garment, we are told the bleeding stopped.

[26:38] And we can assume she could feel it. She could feel it stopping. She could feel it in a way that she had hoped to and longed to feel it for a long time and hadn't for 12 years.

[26:55] Think of it. We men just cannot imagine an intolerable situation like this that this woman was dealing with. And this is just part of the hygienic burden that women have to bear that men know little or nothing of.

[27:15] So this lady and our wives, by the way, and daughters, need all of the sympathy and understanding that we can give them because it's a difficult situation that they are in in connection with this.

[27:32] Immediately, the fountain of her blood was dried up and she felt in her body that she was healed of her plague. Think of what that must have been like to her.

[27:46] Think of the sensation that she must have had realizing that it was over, that she was healed. It's just amazing.

[27:58] I know exactly how she felt. I've got to tell this. You've got to listen. You just said that witnessing about miracle things that happened in your life is a great testimony.

[28:11] When I got my pacemaker, I can tell you, there was miracles before that, but when I got my pacemaker, I was laying there, and they don't put you to sleep to put a pacemaker in here.

[28:22] They just numb this area, and out there's the technician that sold the pacemaker to the doctors that put it in. He's out there to help the doctor set the thing and so forth. And I'm laying there, and he's operating, he's putting this thing in me, and I'm laying there, and all of a sudden, I get this, oh, man.

[28:42] Wow. Oh, gosh, do I feel good. Oh, you know, I was thinking, it must be like people take narcotics or something.

[28:53] I mean, I didn't know, but oh, did I feel good. This, oh, and I, and this technician, or this salesman guy is out there, and I said to him, did he, did he put this thing in?

[29:06] And I said, yeah, he's got it working, it's working. Oh, gosh, man. And right away, God fixed me. God fixed me. I mean, wow.

[29:18] Now, I know, unless you experience something like that, I mean, you don't, the sensation of it. That was just the one miracle. The other miracle that happened before was that I could not have been operated on that morning.

[29:31] Two things had to happen. The surgeon had to move my date up a week to the next day to operate on me, and they just don't do that. They've got this schedule, and they don't put you ahead of somebody else, but he put me ahead up to the next day instead of a week.

[29:47] I was taken off on a bike ride, right from this Bible study, and I was going to keep my heart beating, because that was my problem. My heart beat when I'm resting was only 25, and that's not so good, and the doctor says, well, what you'll do, I says, what if I don't get this pacemaker, you'll just wake up some night, I mean, you won't wake up, you'll just be dead, you'll die in your sleep, just like that, and it can happen any time.

[30:08] So I'm worried about my heartbeat when I'm resting or something. It's good when you're exercising, you're all excited and everything, because you have adrenaline and all kinds of chemicals that keep your heart beating. It's because that first A node, or whatever it's called, that starts your heart beating, it was, Roger knows all this, because he's been through this, they've told him, but anyhow, it wasn't working, and I said, why isn't it working?

[30:32] He says, your heart is strong, you've got great valves, you've got muscles, you just wore out your electrical system, fella. You wore out your, and he says, we find this in athletes and runners, and people that are very high physical all the time, they find this in that person.

[30:48] Well, anyhow, that morning, in Bible study here, I'm taking this bike ride, because on bike rides, I don't sleep that good, and I get up a lot, and I stir so all my heart beat will be up and high, especially if you really work yourself hard, your heartbeat never goes down to normal, because that's how runners and stuff determine whether they're training too much or not.

[31:07] So I'm trying to take this bike ride right all day, be real hard as, you know, keep my heart working as high as I can until he can operate. But I'm thinking, no, when I do this, it's going to be a week down the road, see?

[31:20] I'm thinking. Well, I'm, so I'm taking off, but I have to tell you, well, before I take off, I got this big breakfast, but you can't take a long bike ride, you got to have a big breakfast.

[31:31] So I had eggs and pancakes and Russ, Russ, what's Russ's last name? Oh, that left here, went to Kentucky, Carol. Yeah, Ralph Campbell? Yeah, yeah. He was sitting right there.

[31:42] He's a witness to this, sitting right there. I said, I can't eat this breakfast. I'm not hungry. And I'd try and try because I knew I had to have energy to go on this ride. So I would dig in and I'd get another bite.

[31:56] I don't want this. What's wrong? And if you're like me, my folks taught me, you always clean up your plate when you get food. You always clean it up. So I had two reasons to eat that, not only because of that, and I always ate all the food I put on my plate, but I'm taking this bike trip.

[32:13] I have energy. But of course, I'm always prepared. I always have gorp. That's peanuts and dried fruit and stuff in my bag if I need something. So I said to myself, well, I can't eat it. I don't know what it is. Well, in the meantime, Karen had been trying to call me, but I turned my phone off because I'm here.

[32:27] I don't want to interrupt you. So I had my phone off. She even tried to call me because the doctor called and says, hey, they want you at the hospital right now to operate. This was the next day. Now he moved it up. See, that's the first miracle.

[32:38] Now the second one is I couldn't eat breakfast because when I finally did get a hold of Karen, I was on the other side of Springfield going south. I was going to Karen Lake State Park to camp down there.

[32:50] She says, Joe, but there's one problem. He says, they can't operate if you ate breakfast. They can't operate if you ate. They can't operate if you ate. And I said to them, right away, my reaction was, oh, darn, darn.

[33:04] Then it hit me. I didn't eat this morning. I did not eat this morning, the breakfast, so I can be operated on. I said, I don't care. I'm heading to the hospital now.

[33:14] So I turned my bike around. She says, well, I'll meet you. Tell me where you're at. I'm fine. You won't get there before I can get. Let me come and get you. So she came and got me and took me to the hospital. And then, so then you know the rest of the story.

[33:25] I was operating on. And then I told you about the feeling when I got that done. And you know that's not all. I got this heart meter now here that only beats when my heart drops below 60.

[33:36] They got it set at 60, this pacemaker. So it works fine on its own if like now it's working fine. I don't need this pacemaker. But if it drops down, it kicks on.

[33:47] And it keeps me alive. So I got home. I mean, as soon as I got home and I have one of these wrist things that checks your blood pressure and you guys probably got them too and your heartbeat.

[34:00] And so I wanted to see for myself next morning because they had to keep me overnight. They had to keep me overnight and I went home and I looked at this thing here. And sure, my heartbeat was about 62, 63.

[34:10] See, that's okay. It's doing its job. But you know the thing that God did again? I have never had my blood pressure 120 over 80. Exactly what they say is normal.

[34:22] That's what everybody says is normal. 120 over 80 is normal. And I've never had to be that. You know, it's always off a little bit. The top numbers you never get exactly 120.

[34:32] But this time it was 120 over 80. Exactly. I won't care enough. You showed it to her. You've got to see this, Karen. It's 120 over 80. God told me he fixed me and he told me I was fixed.

[34:44] You know, at least for a while. You know. Okay. Like you said, it's one-on-one but we know that. But after you had an experience like that, you can be a great witness if people want to listen to you.

[34:55] You know, if they want to hear you. And of course, my family, the people do and, you know, what impact it's had or what influence it's had, what witness it's had, I don't know. Well, there are some people that would look at what happened and say, my, my, what an amazing coincidence.

[35:12] That's all they can think of. Well, see, your book you gave us, to read, you know, your miracle book you gave us, it told about two types of miracles in there. One is a kind I just explained.

[35:24] That's the miracle. The other miracle would be Jesus walking on the water. You know, it's not, it's walking on the water. There's two types of miracles. That's right. And I had the one kind of miracle. See, and not only one but I had three there.

[35:36] I had the him moving it up, me not eating breakfast and then, oh four, then that feeling which you just brought up there, quotes in here, she had some of this feeling.

[35:48] I mean, I had this sensational feeling. I can't believe how good. I felt, I mean, I felt, I mean, I just felt so good. I'll bet you're right. Well, Joe's, yeah, yeah, but that, I had to interrupt you, Marla.

[36:04] Well, that's okay, Joe. I appreciate, you're kind of like a living testimony to the immediate feel and the sensation of the healing and of the improvement right away.

[36:18] And even though your problem was considerably different from this woman with the issue of blood for 12 years, there was still that sensational release when the thing came through that you had this inexplicable feeling of relief and must have been similar to what she had.

[36:38] Could you imagine the testimony she could give to, she would give to. Oh, absolutely. And your book that you gave us says that 36% of Christians, I didn't know this, probably, maybe one or two, what Rogers probably want, can give a testimony of the miracle of God to, 36% have had an experience like I had.

[37:00] 36% of people have had a supernatural experience which they could testify to God. Now, some people probably had it that weren't Christians, I don't know, they've had a supernatural experience, you know, they just said it as luck or just one of those things.

[37:16] But Christians, what a testimony. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. The power of testimony is remarkable. And just thinking in terms of this woman, her family, neighbors, relatives, particularly other women, they all knew what was going on with her.

[37:35] They knew what she was struggling with and dealing with, and probably some of them had been praying for her too. And can you imagine how much this woman prayed herself about this condition for 12 years, and it seemed as if God was distant and never answered?

[37:48] she had no idea that she was going to be a testimony of the kind that would not be possible apart from what she had experienced with that and the encounter that she had with Jesus.

[38:02] Don? We all had our wives have gone through that, so you can imagine what happened here was that she recognized that yes, because I think, as you said, he takes care of everything when he gives the healing.

[38:14] Right. All right, she was all wet down there and suddenly all dry. Yeah. It's not a question of just stopping, it's a question of being clean. Oh. It makes a big difference. she had a feeling that she had not had probably for 12 years and she was absolutely enthralled and she was just beside herself with joy and celebration for what had happened and it's a beautiful thing and I don't understand what's taking place here with our Lord and he says, verse 30 says, straightway Jesus perceiving in himself that the power proceeding from him had gone forth.

[38:59] There was an element of healing ability vested in his person and it was flowing out of him to heal this woman and it obviously provided some kind of a sensation in his physical person because remember he isn't merely deity.

[39:23] he is human slash deity and he feels things in his humanity that he could not feel in his deity because deity is simply removed from this ability.

[39:39] God is not subject to that and that's one reason for the incarnation is so that he could identify with us in his humanity. Roger do you have something?

[39:49] King James says virtue went out of him. Yeah virtue went out of him. Virtue is a kind of what shall we say a kind of holy power a kind of divine imminence that went out of him and I don't understand that and neither do any of us but obviously he did.

[40:17] But you got to realize that also in doing that he did not control it it just happened. That's true. Yeah. He did not control it he didn't say you're healed it just happened. That's true.

[40:28] And yet it was connection and the text is saying that it was not only due to the power resident within Jesus but it was also due to the faith and confidence that was resident in this woman.

[40:47] And there is the divine cooperation the divine slash human cooperation that God condescends so often to allow to happen. And it is a beautiful thing and it's a very humbling thing to realize that God is willing to condescend to cooperate and to actually engage in situations like this utilizing human instrumentality as well as providing his own.

[41:17] That is a gracious loving condescension on the part of our heavenly father. It's just amazing. So when he asks about this power that perceived out of him he said who touched my garments?

[41:33] And his disciples said unto him well you see the multitude people thronging you people were confronting Jesus on every side and he scarcely could walk from one place to another but what they were walking with him hanging on him is everywhere and why not?

[41:54] Given the ability of this man to do what he was doing why not? They could not dissociate themselves from him they did not want to be separated from him they would follow him wherever he went for hours and sometimes it would be meal times and people hadn't hadn't eaten and they would be concerned about feeding the molt well you know about feeding the 5,000 and feeding the 4,000 and so on it just here here is a person that you do not want to leave alone if at all possible you want to be with him and one of the most beautiful things about and so shall we ever be with the Lord when that time comes boy so the multitude is saying everybody is pushing and rustling and trying to get your attention and so on and he looked around about to see her that had done this thing but the woman fearing and trembling knowing what had been done to her came and fell down before him and told him all the truth what what do you suppose her concern was she she's thinking he couldn't he couldn't possibly be angry with me could he couldn't be offended he couldn't be upset that I'd done this and of course

[43:32] Jesus says daughter daughter that term of real affection and acceptance and he called her daughter thy faith hath made thee whole well now wait a minute was it her faith that made her whole or was it his ability it was both but it was her faith that activated his ability and we see something working here in concert once again this comes out so many times in the old and the new testament where God is pleased to couple with to cooperate with humanity be advised and remember God does not need you but God is pleased to use you that in itself is a great blessing

[44:36] God is not dependent upon us human beings but he condescends to let us in and participate in the action and the blessing and the benefit and it's just absolutely remarkable just just amazing he said unto her daughter your faith hath made thee whole go in peace and be whole of thy plague and by the way there's no indication that anybody even told Jesus what her plague was there's no indication that she told him I was suffering from thus and so and so he knew that he knew that and when he said your plague he knew exactly what her plague was and he knew that it was gone and he knew that it was a combination cooperation of divinity and humanity that brought it about and it is a beautiful beautiful thing well breakfast is here and you're hungry and so am I so any thoughts anybody wants to add real quick anything okay thank you for being here enjoy your breakfast and thank you Cheryl we appreciate your service thank you thank you thank you