Gooding, David: 3 - Salvation From ...

Let's orientate ourselves and read for that purpose from the Gospel of Luke, and chapter eight, Beginning to read there in verse sixteen. And no man, when he has lighted a lamp, covereth it with a vessel or putteth it under a bed, but putteth it on a stand that they which enter in may see the light. For nothing is hid that shall not be made manifest, nor anything secret that shall not be known and come to light. Take heed therefore how you hear, for whosoever hath to him shall be given, and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away, even that which he thinketh he hath. Hitherto, then, in our study, we have been considering chapters seven and eight of the gospel by Luke, and have reminded ourselves that in these two chapters that form the fourth part of the first section of his book, Luke is citing for us various examples of different aspects of salvation. We have already had the story of the centurion and the widow of Nain's son. I bring before us salvation in the sense of salvation from death and the gift of new life. We had also the story of the woman in Simon's house that told us very vividly of that aspect of salvation, which is forgiveness. This afternoon, we must move on hurriedly to consider the other ex- aspects and examples of salvation that Luke has recorded for us in this particular part of his work. As far as I am aware of them, uh, they are those. We start, as we say at the beginning, with salvation from death, which was said to be a gift to faith. Then we discuss together our Lord's conversation with the representatives of John Baptist, and then with the crowds, false expectations of salvation, and leading to, um, ultimately the rejection of the Savior. Then the story of the woman in Simon's house, plus those other noble women that followed the Lord and ministered to him, salvation, and the love and service of the forgiven. The story of the parables that then follows, the mysteries of the kingdom, as our Lord termed them, are a set of parables that emphasize that where the seed is good and is received in a good heart, it invariably brings forth fruit with endurance. Seed that does not bring forth fruit because it does not endure, because it has no root and never did have, that is no use whatsoever. Genuine faith exhibits and demonstrates and vindicates itself by its endurance, by its works and love, by the fruit that it will eventually bring forth. And we have to move on to the other examples this afternoon. Salvation from the physical elements, as represented by the story of the storm on the lake. Salvation from spirit powers, exemplified in the healing of the demoniac. Salvation from the waste of life's vital forces, as shown us with a woman who suffered from a hemorrhage. And finally, salvation and a secret raising of the dead. Secret, I mean that simply to, uh, refer to the fact that when our Lord raised Jairus' daughter from the dead, he told her parents not to tell anyone about it. But before we move on to consider these second groupings of examples of salvation, we have a little unfinished business over from yesterday that we ought to complete. For yesterday, we hurriedly looked at the parables of our Lord and proposed that they emphasized what the story of the, of the women folk had told us, that where there is forgiven it, forgiveness, it will result in love to the Savior, and not merely expressions of emotion, but hard, solid toil on his behalf in, uh, his work of the evangelization of the world. And the parables emphasize that because what they are stressing is that good seed will give evidence that it is good in the fruit that it bears. If there is not endurance, if people just believe for a while, and then in time of testing and persecution fall away because they have no root, then that kind of temporary faith is ultimately useless. It is not the genuine. The genuine thing are those who receive the word in an honest heart and bring forth fruit with endurance. Now, because I hasted in my presentation last night on these matters, I promised I would for a few moments come back to it this afternoon. Because in my experience, many believers are troubled by this side of our Lord's teaching. They will not always confess it to you, but there are many believers, as I have in my seventy years discovered, who underneath live in a certain fear that perhaps their lives have been substandard, and are they after all believers? And could it be that they could lose their salvation, and such like things. And I noticed that now in the semi-academic press, Christian scholars of immense qualification, uh, they are writing books again on this topic, as books used to be written some years ago on this particular topic. This matter of endurance, and this matter that God himself requires evidence. In technical terms, this is called justification by works, is it not? When I was a lad, I was taught, eh, by a simple little aphorism, the difference between justification by faith and justification by works. And I was informed that we are justified by faith before God. We are justified by works before men. And there's about seventy percent truth in it, but it won't quite do, will it? The standard example of justification by works as cited in the New Testament, is the case of Abraham. Was not our father Abraham justified by his works, says James, when he offered up his son Isaac upon the altar? And you will remember the details of that story enough to know that when Abraham bound his son and placed him on the altar and lifted the knife to slay him as a sacrifice to God, the angel of the Lord appeared out of heaven and said to Abram, lay not thy hand upon the child, for now I know that thou fearest me. Not for now the Philistines will be convinced, or Sarah has at last tumbled to it, that you fear me. She didn't know before. Now I know that thou fearest me. The demonstration of Abram's faith by his works was in the first instance carried out at God's request and for God's benefit. Now I know. People will quarrel with that and say, well, that's silly. God knew all the time. Doesn't he know all things from the very beginning? Well, of course he did. But there would seem to be two different kinds of knowledge in the Almighty. There's the knowledge that he has by foreknowledge. There's the knowledge he has by actual experience. You know, he knew long before nineteen twenty five that a certain gooding would be born upon this planet. I'm glad he wasn't content with his foreknowledge. But insisted on knowing it by experience. Thank the Lord. You'll say, I know that it is a- awful cold at the South Pole. I know it because I've read it in books. And I, in my limited way, can anticipate what it would be like to stand at the North or the South poles. I don't know it by experience. When God requires of us to justify our faith, it is in the first instance because God demands from us that experience of us, in our actual works, that we are believers. That, of course, was the issue at stake, was it not, in the offering of Isaac upon the altar. You will see, in early days, so Genesis fifteen six says, Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. He was a true believer, but after that, for some years, his faith was distinctly wobbly. He listened to Sarah with her interpretation of God's promise, namely that God, when he promised them a son, didn't mean just like that, I'm going to give you a son, said Sarah. Abijah, when God said he's going to give us a son, he means God helps those who help themselves, and we must use our own resources and, uh, and produce a son. And Abram, who perhaps was a little slower in these things than Sarah, said, but my dear, we haven't got any resources. Have we? And she said, well, what about Hagar, you say? Oh, I hadn't thought of that, said Abram. Well, I suppose, uh, well, I suppose we have to do our part to fulfill the promise of God. And so, uh, Ishmael was born. Nice enough lad. God said he would bless him, but no, that is not what God meant when he promised Abram and Sarah a son. His promise, as Paul would say, was in theological language a promise of God, utterly unconditional. And what God promised he would perform. So he left Sarah, she was already barren, and he left Abram until he was decrepit, and then he fulfilled his promise. It was a miracle. So now Abram's faith was in the Lord. He got over that wobbly stage of faith. Till one day God came to him. Now all the promises were bound up in Isaac. And if I may paraphrase, paraphrase God's demand, it would go like this, Abram. Now when it comes to the future, Abram, in whom is your faith? In me or in Isaac? Oh, and Isaac said, and you said to Abraham, being a very godly man, in you, Lord. Not in Isaac? No, Lord. Well, said Lord the Lord, we'd better demonstrate that, hadn't we, Abraham? That your faith is in me and not in Isaac. And so Abraham walked to the mountaintop, hoping there would be a substitute at hand so he hadn't to offer his son upon the altar. But when no substitute was yet found, took the knife and raised it to demonstrate to God that his faith was real, and his faith was in God and in nothing else, and no one else. He wasn't carried thither by a fit of emotion, but by sheer logic. For logic is a better guide and strength than emotion in such trials. He reasoned that God had made the promise in Isaac, God would not break his word. If, therefore, the promises were in Isaac and God were now a- asking Abraham to offer Isaac upon the altar, then Abraham worked it out that God would have to raise him from the dead, that's all, and proceeded in his estimate of the character of God and the reliability of his promises, and was prepared to offer his son to demonstrate before God that his faith was genuine. It casts a serious light on this matter of evidence, doesn't it? Surely we are justified by faith, as Abraham was, and justification is a once and for all thing. It is not a, a temporary statement by God that could later on be revised. It is a once and for all statement. He that believeth is justified from all things. But where just a faith is true and genuine, where the seed has genuinely been received, remains that there will be evidence, and God himself requires the evidence. So here, in the other two parables that we had no time to mention last night. No one lights a lamp, says our Lord, and and hides it under a bushel or under a bed, but puts it on a lampstand, for the whole purpose of a light is to give light to other people. Beware, said our Lord, you'll see he that hath not shall have what he has taken away. It has come across my path at times to meet certain people that have recently got converted. And they have told me, you know, perhaps late teenagers or twenties, when I went home and told mother and dad that I was saved, mother has confessed, or dad perhaps, well, I too am saved. I was saved as a girl. And that was the first time they'd ever told their children. That's a curious thing, isn't it? To have the light of the gospel and of salvation in one's heart, and never to tell anybody. Not even to tell one's children. That's a very dangerous thing to do. You put a, a, a vessel or a bed over a lamp because you think the lamp was there burning bright. When you take the vessel away, you might find the lamp is not there. It's gone out. Faith that is genuine will tend to declare itself. In the end, it's useless trying to hide it, says Christ, for everything will come out anyway. Now be careful, lest you think you have salvation, but leaving it all covered up and never recurring to the experience that led you to the Lord or living in the light of it, lest in the end it prove that what you thought you had, you didn't have. And similarly, when the crowds came saying that his mother and brothers stood outside and wanted to see him, our Lord said, but who are my mother and my brothers? These are my mother and my brothers who do the will, which hear the word of God and do it. That is an important statement. It tells us who they are that are in the family of God. This is their description. The one verse in John chapter one tells us how we get into the family of God. As many as received him, to them gave he the power and authority to become children of God. We're born again into the family of God. That's how we get in. But once we're in, the mark of the family is, the family likeness, is that we hear the word of God and do it. There is a very common misinterpretation of the parable of the sheep and the goats that is common these days. One hears it at every time. That parable ends up, you know, about the dear sheep who are invited into eternal life with the Lord because they s- they visited him in prison and ministered to him in prison. And when they inquire, but Lord, we never saw you in prison, the Lord will reply, inasmuch as you did it to the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me. And the thing is commonly interpreted as though the Lord was saying that everybody on the face of the earth is a brother or sister of Christ. The biggest old murderer and systematic killer, the child molester, and all the rest of the gang are all brothers and sisters of Christ. That's absolutely nonsense. Not all are brothers of Christ. You have to be born again to be in the family of God. And secondly, the mark of the brothers and mother, and so to speak, the family of Christ. The mark of it, the indispensable mark of it, is that they hear the word of God and do it. Now are some Jews, according to John chapter eight that said to the Lord in high indignation and dungeon, they said it, we are Abraham's seed. We have one father, even God. That's very odd, said Christ, because if God were your father, you would inevitably love me. You don't seem to love me. Wasn't long before they were stoning him. The necessary, indispensable mark of the family of God, the brothers and sisters of Christ, so that they hear the word of God and do it. Well, now, what about this test then? If God demands evidence, and one of the parts of the evidence is that the good seed endures and brings forth fruit with perseverance. Sometimes people may well feel a little bit uncertain inside. Shall I endure? And when temptation has afflicted us and we have succumbed into temporary inconsistency, then doubts can afflict believers, can they not? Am I, after all, a genuine child of God, seeing what I have done? On this matter, therefore, of endurance, let me remind you of two of the statements, one by James and one by the Apostle Paul. Count it all joy, says James, rather curiously, when you fall into divers, uh, temptations. Divers testings would be a better translation. These are not temptations to eat too much ice cream and get too fat, anything like that. These are temptations, such as our Lord spoke of in this very passage in Luke, that will test whether we are true seed, whether we are true believers or not. They are serious tests. But count it all joy, says James, when you fall into such manifold tempti- tem- uh, trials, testings, knowing that. Oh, thank God for that word, knowing, not feeling that or hoping that, but knowing that. Knowing that the proving of your faith produces, worketh, worketh endurance, perseverance. If you are reading an old translation, it says patience, but the word means really endurance, not patience as distinct from impatience. Some dear Christians are very spiritual, I suppose, are highly impatient, but, um, this is not that kind of patience. This is the patience that endures, that perseveres. You are to know it, says James. Where there is genuine faith to start with, temptation will produce enduring. Paul says the same in Romans five, doesn't he? Being justified by faith, we have peace with God. We rejoice in hope of attaining the glory of God, as we certainly shall one day. And then not only so, but let us joy- rejoice in our tribulations, and once more we can do so, knowing, we are to know it as one of God's solid facts, knowing that where there is genuine faith to start with, that tribulation works endurance, and endurance therefore in turn works approvedness, demonstrates that this is the genuine thing, and approvedness generates a second ground for hope. How can God's word be so sure about this, that true believers starting will endure? Because of two things. We have a great high priest who, for us, intercedes as he interceded for Peter. And you'll remember what our Lord prayed for Peter was not that his testimony should not fail, that failed miserably. It wasn't that his courage shouldn't fail, that was blown sky high. He prayed for Peter that his faith should not fail, nor did it fail. Even in those horrible and ghastly moments when he was using every foul oath he knew to try and convince the bystander that he was not a believer in Christ, then thank God it was a lie, and underneath he was a believer, and Christ brought him through. His faith did not fail. We have a similar high priest, committed by his intercessions to bring every true child of God home to glory. In our moments, therefore, of inconsistency, let us take advantage of what John says in his first letter. We will be foolish to deny that we have sinned or that we still have sin about us. The true attitude is that if we sin, we may confess our sin, and he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We have a great high priest who said to Peter, and when not if you are restored, strengthen your brethren. In my small experience, it's been given to me to know of marvelous instances of that. Forgive an old man's reminiscences. Beware, when you get old, you'll start reminiscing. I, I do that in and out of it. It will say. I was in the Scottish town of Peebles not so many years ago for a Christian conference, and after the weekend of a su- of a Sunday evening, my host took me out for a walk in the leafy suburbs of Peebles, you'll see. We were joined by a man, I suppose, in his forties, vivi- vi- vigorous Christian he appeared to me to be, and when he had departed from us, my host told me the following story. He said that was a man who was not saved till middle life, and when he got saved, his joy was modified by the sense that he had wasted so many years of his life and felt so unprepared now to serve the Savior, you'll see. He pondered what he could do now to serve the Savior, and he hit upon an idea. It may sound a strange idea to you, but it was his idea anyway. He had some records of, uh, Christian hymn singing, and he liked them so much. He decided he would take these records round the houses of peoples, if you please. They are very gracious houses where he went. He would knock open the door, do you see, and when the occupant came, he could say, now I've got these beautiful, uh, uh, records of Christian hymns. I've enjoyed them so much. Would you like to borrow them? Not everybody's way of testifying. Anyway, he went to this first door to a rather large house, knocked upon it, and a gentleman came. He said, I've got these beautiful Christian records, you know, uh, and I've enjoyed them so much. Would you like to borrow them? The man said, you better come in. Took him into the sitting room and called his wife. He said, I want you to know that I and my wife were believers, but we've been away from the Lord forty years. Last night in this very room, we came back to the Lord, and we prayed the Lord, Lord, if you'll have us at this late stage, give us a sign tomorrow that you've been prepared to have us back. And we've been counting the hours today, all day long, and nothing happened. And now at nine o'clock plus at night, we were beginning to think that the Lord had said, no, I'm not prepared to have you back. When you knocked on the door. God's messenger to us. That our prayer was heard, and the Lord was prepared to receive us back. Superb example of the high priest, who will lose none that are committed to his task, and will bring them back. That does not do away with our duty in our turn. You give diligence as the writer to the Hebrews. God is not unrighteous to forget the evidence that came from the early part of your life when you were first converted, but do give diligence that you maintain that same evidence to the end. But with that little disquisition, let me now, uh, proceed to the last stories in this, uh, se- in this series. I shall not need to do much more than to mention them because you know them and doubtless have preached them or taught them to Sunday school or what have you many, many times. I'm suggesting then that, uh, five, though the word save is not used, five is an example of salvation from the physical powers of the universe. The wind, salvation from the physical elements. The demoniac, an example of salvation from demonic and satanic power. The woman with the issue of blood, I simply put it as salvation from the waste of life's vital sources, uh, uh, uh, forces. Though if I get time for questionings, I shall do the questioning, I shall question you, what you think the story is about and what aspect of salvation it represents, do you see? Hmm. And then finally, salvation and the raising of the dead from the sleep of death. You will notice they are interesting from this point, that number five was acute danger. They were in danger of that moment going down, so the apostles thought, and had to rescue the Lord Jesus and themselves from that danger. So he was asleep in the boat, and they came and woke him, you'll see. Her, the last one, likewise, was a case of acute danger. The girl was on the point of death, and Jairus bes- besought the Lord, uh, to come to his home to save her from dying. But the Lord didn't immediately intervene, and the l- the girl died. But then he came and woke her from her sleep. Nice little strokes of the brush, aren't they, by artist Luke, you'll see. The Lord having to be woken from sleep in number five, and he's coming to wake up the girly from the sleep of death. Yeah, the middle two, as you see, are chronic cases. The demoniac had been like that for many years, and they had tried many methods to cure him, but they had been all in vain. He was a chronic case, and the woman with the hemorrhage was likewise a chronic case. She had been like that eighteen years, and in spite of all the doctors, she could not be healed of any of them. So there they are, the four other, uh, uh, aspects of salvation. They do not repeat the earlier ones, do they? So then the question of the, uh, uh, storm on the lake. What is it there to tell us? You will notice that the word salvation is not used, and of these gentlemen, it can certainly not be said, thy, your faith has saved you. Their faith was, uh, very small. Our Lord, in fact, had to rebuke them for being of such little, uh, faith. The story is not there, is it, to tell us that, uh, if we pray hard enough or something, our boat will never go down. This is not a guarantee that no missionary, for instance, will ever die in a plane crash. But no guarantee that no believer will ever drown, is it? I remember being, oh, here goes the old man again. I remember being, uh, in, uh, a town called Bury St Edmunds in England, and after the Lord's Supper, a good, uh, man got up and expounded, uh, this story of the storm on the lake and how our Lord delivered them and how needless our fears are, do they? And he sat down. When he sat down, another gentleman, a stranger to me, got up, tall, wiry gentleman with a very bronze face. I discovered it was Dr. Eglinton of Peru and Ecuador. This was middle fifties. He said, I have to tell you, my brothers and sisters, that sometimes the boat does go down. I just heard that my five fellow missionaries in Ecuador have been murdered by the Auca Indians. This is no guarantee that the boat never goes down. What does it demonstrate? It demonstrates who Jesus is. That he is the Lord of the universe. He is Lord of the wind and the waves. And no force in the whole of the universe will I destroy either him or his people because he happens to be a snake. This is what Romans eight says, doesn't it? It doesn't say that, that we shall never endure tribulation or the sword and death. We may experience all of them, but none of those powers, human belligerence, nor the powers of nature, height, depth, or any other thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. The demonstration, therefore, of who Jesus is, and that's what the apostles drew out of it, didn't they, in their comment. They said, you see, uh, who then is this that he commandeth in even the winds and the water, and they obey him? That's interesting, isn't it? Do you remember the first story? And that centurion? And what his faith consisted in? He said to the Lord Jesus, I also am a man under authority, and I say to this one, go and he goeth, and to another, come and he cometh. Lord, said he, all you have to do is to speak. Death will flee from you. I have perceived who Jesus is. Oh, that is the heart of faith. Now here are apostles and their good true blooded Jews hadn't yet discerned fully who the Lord Jesus was. They've heard him talk about forgiveness of sins, but Lord of nature, Lord of wind and waves, Lord of the atom, Lord of the molecules, Lord of electricity, the weak atomic power, the strong atomic power, electromagnetism, and all the rest. Lord of the universe. And if he steps into your boat, even though he should seem to be asleep, none of those powers are outside of his control. None shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. We need to challenge ourselves from time to time, don't we? We believe he's the Lord of our salvation, and by faith in him we're justified. But tell me, does your Jesus know anything about physics? Ah, some say he didn't when he was here on Earth. I was listening to, I can't tell you what particular Christian persuasion she was, but she was a good Oxford graduate, eh, and she was responsible for teaching the students in her, uh, college how to teach the Bible in schools. And when asked to say what she believes, uh, what happens after death, she said in the ears of all the assembled students, uh, you'll see, well, said she, we used to believe in the beatific vision and heaven and limbo and purgatory and the lake of fire and all that. Of course, we don't do that now, you see. Jesus Christ and his apostles, they did talk of these things, you see, but then they lived in the pre-scientific world, and they believed that heaven was aloft and the earth in the middle, and hell was somewhere beneath Australia, you see, and uh, uh, uh, uh, we know that isn't so, you see, in our scientific age. So all that Christ and his apostles said about what happens after death is, it's no use. They don't believe it. Now we know what we know nothing, and how wonderful that is. Your Lord, does he happen to know anything about cosmology? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him. It was that Word that became incarnate and demonstrated his lordship over the forces of nature in the boat on the Sea of Galilee. Oh, thank God. What tiny little straws in the wind are we faced with the mighty forces of our universe? When at last we struggle with the irresistible powers of decay and death, and appear to lose our last battle with nature. Oh, thank God for the confidence that we have in Him, who is not only the Jesus who died for us at Calvary, but the Lord of all the forces of nature, of death. That is a good salvation, that is. Then, of course, there was a demoniac, and as you know, men can see, and doubtless have often preached it, he was indwelt, tormented, a prisoner and slave of demonic powers. Huh? Yes, demon possession is real. No, believers don't get demon possessed. Yes, Satan himself can infiltrate thoughts into our mind, as they did into Peter's mind at one stage. We should not become obsessed, should we, by demon possession. European, East European countries once, just after the walls were taken down, and they invited me to conduct a week of serious Bible teaching with them, and they submitted the questions, and one of the major questions for them was, what about demon possession? I could scarce talk about anything else, that's what they wanted to hear about. Little curious, isn't it? Because I suppose the proportion of people on this earth that are demon possessed might be quite small. Every unregenerate person is under the power of the Prince of the Air, according to Ephesians chapter two. We shouldn't get things out of proportion, should we? You see, all of us needed at the start to be delivered from the power of darkness. We walked according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the, the, in the son, children of disobedience. We do need to be rescued out of Satan's dominion, even if we never came anywhere near being demon possessed, and we should remember it as our job in the world, not to get over obsessed with demons, but to remember that the, the big field, every unregenerate person has been blinded by the God of this world and lies in his power. However, here is a case of, of intense demon possession. How delightfully the Lord dealt with him, saying to him, what is your name? Don't know what his name was when his doting parents gave him his name, John or something. But now he'd given up being John. The demons had distorted his personality and controlled him. The Lord's delightful salvation doesn't destroy a person's personality, it renews it. What is your name? He began his glorious work of delivering that man from demonic, uh, possession and restoring to him a personality now redeemed and made whole. Lovely. But notice all the rest of the detail of the story, for it doesn't just end with the man's healing, does it? Uh, the demons requested permission to go into, uh, some pigs, and for his best known reasons, our Lord gave them permission, and the pigs ran down the, the, the hillside and drowned in the sea, as pigs will if you throw them in the sea. And, uh, I don't know where the demons went then, or why they even asked such a thing. But they that, uh, kept these pigs went and told the owners thereof in the city, and they came out to see. Huh, interesting that, isn't it? They came out to see. Do you remember those words from yesterday? That second, uh, paragraph where our Lord challenged the crowd about John the Baptist and said to them, what is it you go out into the wilderness to see? Yeah. Not a reed, was it, or a man in fine clothing? Of course not. You go out to see a prophet. He was the biggest of all prophets, wasn't he? The precursor of the Messiah. And so you thought to start with, but listen to you now what you're saying. When you find out what John Baptist's message would actually lead to, and the person to whom he pointed, you now beg po- uh, permission to believe that John had a demon, and of course you can't stick demons, can you? And so you reject both John and the Savior. Now listen to these fellows. They come out to see, and what do they see? They see the man who was formerly demon-possessed, clothed and in his right mind, and sitting at the Savior, and they said, hallelujah, we never could stick demons, you see. All this wonderful Savior that can get demons out of people and bring them back to sanity and save them. No, they didn't. I saw the man saying, oh, how many times they tried to, uh, contain him with their chains and so forth and so on. All to no avail. They would have used their natural methods to at least restrain him. When faced with salvation, with a man sane, they were afraid. Afraid of what? Well, many answers could be given, I suppose. Afraid for that pigs, I suppose. A little bit nervous case our Lord started, uh, healing a few more demoniacs, and a whole more lot of pigs were required, or something of the sort. Or perhaps it was the miraculous. There's many a person that would be kind to drunkards, but they're not too happy if a drunkard gets converted. They don't understand that last bit. And it makes unregenerate people feel afraid before what is to them a mysterious thing, salvation that can bring a man to sanity and personality health through faith in Christ. And they ask him to depart. I thought they didn't like demons. Yes, well, they they didn't, but they preferred their pigs to the Savior saving a man at the cost of these pigs. Interesting the value system, isn't it? But then there was this woman, and we hurry on. I shall say very little about her, because my task now in these closing minutes are to provoke you to love and good works, and to be ready on another occasion, maybe, to help me in my studies. What aspect of salvation would you say this woman was? So far, none of them have been just ditto repeato, have they? They're all different examples. I'm sorry, I'll stand still from now on. Um, they're all different examples of salvation. It is unlikely, therefore, that this one will just repeat, uh, what has gone before or what follows. So what particular example of salvation is it? Oh, I shall be all ears to hear when we get our question time. Give notice of it for tomorrow, or even tonight. Yeah. I just put up there a pro tem, it's salvation from the waste of life's vital forces, and mechanisms in the body that have gone wrong. There are, of course, all kinds of such mechanisms in the body, both physical and psychological, are there not? Fear is one of those things. It's a very good thing that the, the, the Lord himself put it within us, didn't he, fear? It's a preservative. I've known some preachers boldly preach that if you were really a believer, you wouldn't fear death at all. When I hear them preach, I think to myself, and it's a wicked thought, love to get the preacher and put him in the midst of a sixty-acre field with a raging bull a half a dozen yards behind him and coming in his direction to see whether he feared dying. Actually, the dear man wouldn't stop to think whether he feared dying or not. Nature would take over, and he would run for his life because God has put the fear mechanism in us, hasn't he? Uh, to preserve us. It is right that people fight death. But then fear can go wrong, can't it? And instead of preserving life, it can set all the systems are going, the immune systems, until that attacks the body and destroys one. There are several kinds of things like that in the human makeup that can waste our vital forces. Perhaps we ought to be content at this moment, uh, let me be so, saying, well, perhaps Romans eight, what the law could not do and that was weak through the flesh, but I shall be all ears to hear what you shall suggest to me. The interest lies, does it not, in what is said next. The woman came and up behind him, actually, and touched the hem of his garment. And, uh, our Lord said, who touched me? And Peter and Co., as usual, ready with their advice to correct the Savior where he needed correction. Uh, he said, Lord, that's very silly to say that. I mean, the crowds fawn you, don't they? I mean, it makes no sense. Who touched you? Well, that's a silly question. No, said our Lord. Someone touched me, for I perceive that power is gone out of me. What an interesting situation. Do you happen to remember the third story here? That was about a woman in Simon's house, wasn't it? And she came up behind him and touched him. And Simon said in his heart, now, if this man were a prophet, he would know who and what woman and kind of a woman it is that touches him. Did he know? Now here, Peter and Co. say, well, it's useless to ask who touched you. Well, he didn't know who, apparently. Well, if he did, he didn't say, but he knew that he had been touched by someone seeking his salvation and stayed still until the woman came and confessed. Interesting, isn't it, how those two stories balance each other, but they're not there to make God's word pretty, are they? They're there to help us do a little differential diagnosis. You know, doctors have to do that. They can get three fellows with a sore throat, but they don't just say, well, they've all got sore throats, so the same medicine. The doctor looks down one cavity and says, hmm, sore throat, have you been at a rugby match lately and shouting your head off? What you need to do is to go back home and and keep quiet for a while. And looks at the second man and says, ha ha, you've got laryngitis, you need some a penicillin or something. And the next man he looks at, ah, I'll just take a swab, says he, and uh, uh, just a little mm snippet here. It appears the man has got cancer of the throat. You get uh patients all coming together with similar diag- uh, uh, if, uh, uh, symptoms, then you have to do some differential diagnosis, don't you? You get two cases like that in scripture, uh, of women touching Christ, and the question raised, um, um, does he know? Well, there's similarities, aren't there? The more important question is, what are the differences? The stories are not repeating themselves. The first story is as a question if he knew the moral quality of the woman that was touching, touching him, if he knew about her. The second one is, did he know about himself? Could this woman come to Christ, touch his garment, and receive salvation in her terms without his knowing? Oh, thank God, that is utterly impossible. Our Lord is not a magic machine. Yes, thank God her faith was honored, and when she touched his garment, she was made whole. But he insisted that it should be a personal relationship between him and her, and made him, made her come, poor trembling soul. How anguished that step must have been as she came in front of the crowd to confess that she had touched him for salvation, and why? And it set up a personal relation. Christ is not a magic machine. Salvation is not magic, somehow getting hold of mysterious forces in the universe, and if only it would tap them at the right place, they work. Christ is a personal savior, and he will insist that all salvation has to be by personal encounter and relationship with him. And the final story, Jairus's daughter. What a lovely, simple, but poignant story that is. Here comes Jairus, you see, to the Lord, and tells him that his daughter is at the point of death. Please come to my house, he says. And the Lord began to go. When he was surrounded by this crowd and Jairus, can you feel the impatience in him? And then there came this woman, stupid woman. I mean, she's had it for eighteen years. Why couldn't she wait another day, getting in the way like this and all this fast? Lord, my daughter is nearly dead. Come. But the Lord stayed. And if I'd have been there, I would think I would have given Jairus a little advice. I'd have said, now, my man, calm down, calm down. You'll see, don't you remember that he once upon a time healed the centurion's, uh, son, a trade. And the centurion saw that the Lord needn't go to his house. He could just stand there on the spot and say the word, and the man would be healed. So, Jairus, don't get upset at the delay. You'll find the Lord will just stay there, you'll see. At one of these moments, you'll just turn around where he is and speak the word, and your daughter away in your home will be healed. Hmm. The advice would have been false, wouldn't it? But he didn't heal the girl at a distance. Presently, the servants came and said, don't trouble the master, may skulu. This is the same verb as the centurion used. Lord, don't bother yourself to come to my house. Don't trouble the master anymore. Your girl is dead. She's gone too far. And the Lord said, only believe, and she shall be saved. And here come me again, clumsy me, and I say to Jais, you see, uh, uh, he doesn't need to come to your house to do that, you see. He can speak the word now, even though she's dead, and raise her from the dead without coming. I'd been wrong again, shouldn't I? Didn't attempt to raise the girl from the sleep of death, standing where he was and speaking a word into the distance. He didn't raise the girl from the sleep of death until he actually came to her house. Simple story. But let me ask you, if you're proposing one day to fall asleep, how do you expect the Lord to raise you from the dead? Will he stay at a distance and say the word? You say, no, no, he won't. No. If it's a question of raising me and all the believers who are asleep from the sleep of death, the promise is that the Savior will come. As we say unto you by the word of the Lord. For the dead, we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, twinkling of an eye, when the Lord comes. Why do you suppose that story stands at the end of Luke's election? Well, it is the consummation, isn't it? It points forward, at least, to the consummation, when the Lord shall come, and they that are asleep through Jesus shall be raised. What a lovely day it was for stricken parents and little girl, as the Lord took her by the hand and raised her up. I think sometimes of that little girl, twelve years old was she, old enough to understand and to wake up from the sleep of death. Who's that? That's, that's Jesus. And there's mum and dad. Is that, is that the Apostle Paul? No, that's Peter. And who's he? James. Oh, what a wakening up that was. And so will yours be one day. Whether like the girly you have fallen asleep and are raised at his coming, or among those that remain and are alive at his coming. Oh, for the glorious reunion. When we see the Lord and we say to ourselves, it's real. That is the Lord, look at him. Oh, look, that, that is Peter. Cool, my feet will itch. Well, perhaps in heaven you don't get itchy feet, but you know what I mean. Oh, when we said our thanks to the Lord and worshiped him, what a time that's going to be, uh, going around the apostles, if we can get anywhere near them. There'll be a lot of people there, won't there? But then we'd have all eternity to do it. Get around the redeemed and watch the converts from many a country put their heavenly arms round Paul's neck and thank him, lay their crown, his crown, and joy for eternity. Oh, what a gathering of the ransomed there shall be. So may God bless his word, these simple stories, to revive in our hearts the joy and wonder at salvation, both past and present and future. God forbid that we should ever get so used to salvation that it becomes an ordinary thing, and we cease to wonder at it. Shall we pray?