Eternal Misery or Eternal Joy

Mosaic Boston - Sermons

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Heavenly Father, we are so thankful that you have chosen to make us yours. We are so thankful that you love us with a tender fatherly love. You are the absolute perfect Father, and we thank you for your loving kindness, and we thank you for your tenderness and, we thank you that you speak truth to us in love.

You sent the word of God, truth himself, Jesus Christ. And Jesus, you came because you were moved by love. When you saw our desperate state, our sin-sick souls, and our sick bodies, oppressed by the demonic and the evil one, living in a fallen world, Lord Jesus, you were moved by love to come and deal with the root of the issue, which is our sin. You came to heal our souls, and in the process you reveal yourself to us. You give us faith and the gift of repentance, and you command us to exercise our faith.

I pray today, strengthen our faith in who you are, and strengthen our faith in what you've said. And make us a people that believe no matter what. Even if things in our life occur that are against our will, make us a people that still cry out to you, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

Lord, as we look at this tremendous text, I pray that you reveal the truth to us and apply it to us. Most of all, I pray if anyone has not yet had a true saving salvific encounter with the living God, I pray they do so by meeting Jesus Christ, repenting of sin and turning to him. Lord, bless our time in the holy scriptures. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

The title of the sermon today is Eternal Misery or Eternal Joy. As many of you know, I've been dealing with a toothache this past month. I finally got it fixed this past Monday, praise be to God. As I was in the dental chair a couple of weeks ago, midway through the root canal, the dental assistant asks the endodontist, "Do you know why the next door dentist has been out the entire week?" She shook her head, and she said, "No." He responded. He said, "Because she had 10 family members who died in Palestine."

The jarring juxtaposition of my temporary pain and this woman's lasting pain made an impression. My pain was temporary because I'm blessed to live in a time where healing is available just by going down the street, thanks be to God, by providing medical professionals. Her pain is lasting because the forces of evil are still alive and treacherous. Despite all of our advances in medicine, technology, people continue to destroy each other.

Jesus Christ is the healing king who has come to heal our souls and restore our bodies. God loves life, and God loves people. He wants us as healthy as possible. But true health always begins at the level of the soul, and we've all come down with a terrible case of sin, and it's time to call Dr. Jesus.

The main subject of our text today is the miraculous healing of a sick woman and the miraculous resurrection of a girl. The text reveals a tender side of Jesus. It reveals Jesus who is most attentive, most sympathetic to the most hurting. He's presented as gentle, approachable, the healer of the brokenhearted, a sanctuary and a refuge for the weak and helpless. He is the great comforter of the distressed even in the present midst of suffering.

Sin makes our world a miserable place, and Jesus entered into this misery to save us from sin, to relieve the miserable consequences of sin in the world. And Jesus does bring a healing power, and we have access to his healing power by believing in him. When we believe in Christ, you have access to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit enters your body, and your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Christians are the third temple of God, and God wants your temple, your body to be healthy, strong, resilient, and effective. Whenever we read a passage, like this healing passage before us, when we read passage like this in scripture, we are to be reminded that human health is important to God, therefore it should be important to us. And the Holy Spirit... us holistically healthy.

With that said, would you look at our text today in Mark 5:21-43. Mark 5:21. "And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him, and he was beside the sea. Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet and implored him earnestly saying, 'My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and alive.' He went with him.

"And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. There was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment, for she said, 'If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.' Immediately, the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.

"Jesus perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, 'Who touched my garments?' His disciples said to him, 'You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, "Who touched me?" He looked around to see who had done it, but the woman knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. He said to her, 'Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease.'

"While he was still speaking there from the ruler's house, some who said, 'Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?' But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, 'Do not fear, only believe.' And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter, and James, and John the brother of James.

"They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he entered he said to them, 'Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.' They laughed at him, but he put them all outside and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was. Taking her by the hand, he said to her, "Talitha cumi," which means, 'Little girl, I say to you, arise.' Immediately the girl got up and began walking, for she was 12 years of age, and they were immediately overcome with amazement. And he strictly charged them that no one should know this, and he told them to give her something to eat."

This is the reading of God's holy, inerrant, fallible, authoritative word. May he write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Jesus has presented the gospel of Mark as the king of all kings above all kings, king with ultimate authority. He has ultimate authority over God's word. He has authority over nature. He has authority over Satan and the demonic. And in our text today, reveals that he has absolute authority even over humanity's greatest enemy, death itself. He's not merely just a prophet or a miracle worker, he's the very son of God, the one promised through the pages of the Old Testament.

Note the similarities between the two miracles. Both the petitioner here desires to be made well, and the word that's used in the Greek is salvation, to be saved. Both the petitioner falls at Jesus' feet, and both the person who is healed is called daughter.

In the case of the daughter, the little girl had... In the case of the woman, she's been ill for 12 years, and the other, the girl, is 12 years old. The condition of the two female sufferers render them ceremonially unclean, the woman with her menstrual disorder and the other girl by death. In both cases, the uncleanness is boldly ignored, and in both cases, both the case of the woman who touches the garment of Jesus and when Jesus touches the girl's corpse, fear is mentioned in both and faith is a factor in both.

Three points to frame up our time, or three sections. First, 12 years of misery end in eternal joy. Then, 12 years of joy end in temporary misery. Then, the question before us is eternal misery or eternal joy.

First, 12 years of misery end in eternal joy. This is verse 21. "Jesus crossed again on the boat to the other side and a great crowd gathered about him. He was beside the sea. Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name. And seeing him, he fell at his feet and implored him earnestly saying, 'My little daughter's at the point of death. Come, lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and live,' and he came with him."

Jesus left the shores of Capernaum to escape the crowds. In the interval, he calmed a raging storm and delivered a man from the grasp of a legion of demons. That was last week. Now he returns, and the swarm is there to greet him. We meet Jairus, who's one of the rulers of the synagogue. It's an honorific type bestowed on someone who has been distinguished through their service to the synagogue. This is a person who is respectable, substantial, of good... prominent, and moral.

We see that not all the Jewish authorities were opposed to Jesus. In his homeland, this person's one of the Jewish leaders, and he has particular insight in who Jesus is. He's heard of Jesus' miracles. He sees Jesus. But he's not here as a spiritual leader, he's here as a desperate father. He's heard that Jesus can heal, and he comes to Jesus asking for healing. He's interceding for his daughter.

Despite his high rank and his prestige in the community, he falls humbly at Jesus' feet, prostrated before the king, acknowledging, "Jesus, I'm helpless. I don't have the power that I need. I need your authority, and authority and a power greater than mine." He's probably taken significant risk to his reputation, but his desperation brings him to his knees. There was no other option.

C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain, his famous quote is... He says, "We can ignore even pleasure, but pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasure, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world."

His little daughter is quite ill, at death's door with an unspecified malady. The father here is the first of three parents in the Gospel of Mark coming to Jesus, begging and imploring for healing. In all three cases, the sick can't do it for themselves, and it's a parent that steps up. It's a parent that intercedes.

This is a reminder for every parent. Parents, one of our main jobs is to intercede for our children, to stand on our knees before the Lord and beg for their souls, and beg for their bodies, beg for their minds and ask the Lord to protect and bless. Jesus here listens to Jairus's plea and immediately goes to heal the daughter. As he went, the excited crowd goes with him, surrounds him, making it hard to walk.

Verse 24: "A great crowd followed him, and thronged about him. There was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for 12 years and who had suffered much under many physicians and spent all that she had and was no better but rather grew worse." Instead of alleviating her suffering, the doctors had only made it worse. It was a chronic bleeding that she experienced. Despite all of her most persistent efforts, she didn't get better. The illness became increasingly debilitating as she grew older and she spent all her money on a cure to know avail.

Also, this illness makes her ceremonially unclean. She's in a perpetual state of uncleanness, meaning she is virtually ostracized from the community. She can't go to the temple. She can't go to the synagogue. Even being around her meant people were considered ceremonially unclean. It was a miserable condition.

The secrecy with which she approaches Jesus shows that she knows that she shouldn't be out in public. She's violating a taboo. She too, like Jairus, believed that Jesus had the power to heal. And despite the crush of the crowd, she somehow manages to get close enough to reach out to him.

I do want you to notice that the woman is at the opposite end of Jairus, as opposite as you can be, socially speaking, economically, religiously speaking. He's a male leader, she's a nameless woman. He's a synagogue official, she's ritually unclean and excluded from religious community. He has a family with a large household, she has spent all of her money trying to find a cure, impoverished by doctor's fees. How their fortune seemed to be suddenly reversed, his loss of time becomes her gain. The same crowd that slowed Jesus down toward his progress to Jairus's daughter gives her an opportunity to be healed.

Verse 27, "She heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, 'If I touch even his garments, I will be made well." This moment of contact is grammatically highlighted here in the text. The verb "she touched" is the first finite verb after a series of seven participles. It's read, "And a woman being in a flow of blood for 12 years and having endured many treatments, having spent all her money on them, having not benefited but rather having gotten worse, having heard about Jesus," and then it says, "She touched his garment." The word touch here gains extraordinary intensity. This is the climax of the story.

Although her uncleanliness was supposed to transfer to Jesus, the opposite here happens. His purity overpowers the disease. The idea of healing to be brought about by contact with a holy man's garments, we see this idea in the Old Testament. We see this even in the apostles, and the idea's presented all throughout scripture. In one instant, 12 years of pain just disappeared. 12 years of suffering disappeared. 12 years of humiliation, everything just changed in a second. She's healed.

Verse 29, "Immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Jesus perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him immediately turned about in the crowd and said, 'Who touched my garments?'"

We know from text like Philippians 2 that Jesus' eternal glory and power were veiled in his human flesh. He did his earthly ministry not from his own power but from the power of the Holy Spirit. He voluntarily set aside divine attributes when he took upon himself the form of a servant. But despite his voluntary limitations, Jesus knew that God's power had gone out from him. He felt that this healing cost him something. It cost him some kind of power, some kind of spiritual energy, which is one of the reasons why we see him often escaping after a season of intense ministry where he loses spiritual power. He goes and he spends significant time with God, the Father, to recuperate in prayer.

At this crucial point in the narrative, the focus suddenly shifts from the human perception of Jesus to Jesus' perception of humans. It's a switch in perspective that's often used particularly in the Epistle Galatians 4:9. "But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God." From God's perspective, he does the knowing first.

In Mark 5:31, "his disciples said to him, 'You see the crowd pressing around, and yet you say, "Who touched me?"'" Are the disciples being dense or sarcastic? I think they're just focused on the mission in front of him. "Jesus, we have to get to this girl. Jesus, you see how important it is that Jairus's daughter gets healed. We know that delay can be fatal. So why are you asking this seemingly silly question?" Since the crowd was so large and people thronged from all sides, the disciples here are perplexed by the question.

But Jesus won't let the woman just touch him and leave. Here you have to pause and say why. She had great faith. She got the miracle that she needed. But Jesus pauses everything and in a very public way has her speak. He wants to speak with her, and he wants her to confess the power of God that she just experienced.

It's not enough for a believer to just believe in your heart. There's no such thing as an anonymous Christian. If you believe that Jesus Christ is Lord in your heart, the next step is you have to confess that he's Lord with your mouth, and this is what Jesus is doing. He doesn't just want to heal her body, he wants to heal her soul, so he says, "Who touched my garments?" Whenever Jesus asks a question, he's not looking for information. He's looking to elicit a confession. He wants her to speak.

In verse 32, "He looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth." She comes in fear and trembling. Her heart was throbbing. Her eyes are tearing up. Would he take the cure away? Will she be punished for breaking the ceremonial law? Would he be angry that she made him unclean or that she tried to steal healing?

Jesus here, like a skillful doctor, wounds in order to heal, and he does it tenderly. This is a costly confession to her. That's why she comes with fear and trembling. To speak before a crowd above such personal matters would be incredibly humbling. But humility is an essential part of the kingdom of God.

She tells him the whole truth, a phrase that's used in judicial proceedings to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. She's not ashamed to publicly testify that Jesus Christ did heal her.

After her confession, Jesus turns to her in verse 34 and he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well go in peace and be healed of your disease." He calls her daughter. She's not related to him. Most likely we don't even know how much older he was than her, but he calls her daughter. He loves her with the heart of God, the Father.

What he's communicating to Jairus, who's here, Jairus, who's enjoyed his daughter for 12 years, just 12 years of bliss, he says, "Jairus, in the same way that you have loved your daughter, cared for your daughter, in the same way that you are in pain because of your daughter's pain, I have felt the same over this woman. She is my daughter."

The woman was healed because she touched Jesus with faith. She touched Jesus, believing that God could heal her, that this man wasn't just a man, that he was the son of God. For her, faith isn't just intellectual ascent. She knows that, "If I touch him, something will happen. I will be transformed."

It's faith in Jesus or is it faith in God? Well, that's a false dichotomy. They come to Jesus, both Jairus and this woman, knowing that the power of God comes through Christ. He says, "Your faith has made you well. Your faith has saved you." The Greek says... It's a Greek word "sozo". Her bodily healing is a good picture of the healing of her soul, and that's why Jesus stopped her. Then he says to her, "Go in peace," which in the English peace is just the absence of strife or the absence of hostility. In the Hebrew, it comes from the word "shalom", which just means wholeness or soundness, holistic health. He says, "Go in this peace." After receiving the benediction, she does.

The other reason why he has her publicly announced the healing is to welcome her back into the community. He announces this publicly so that the community knows she's no longer ceremonially unclean. She's been healed on a spiritual level, on a physical level. Now on a social level, he welcomes her back into the community.

This story of the woman is our story. We have been, as believers, touched by the power of God, and we've been separated from the faithless crowd by our fearful and wonderful knowledge that Jesus Christ is God, Jesus Christ is Lord, and he has the power to save our souls.

The second portion of our text is point two, 12 years of joy and in temporary misery. Verse 35, "And while he was still speaking, there came from the ruler's house some who said, "Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?" This is the most absolute heart-wrenching news that a parent can hear. What parent has not sat 3:00 AM with a sick child begging the Lord, praying over them, "Lord, remove the fever"? What parent has not driven anxiously to the emergency room with a wounded or severely sick child?

It's bad enough that she was sick, but now she's died. But knowing if Jesus had not been slowed down, he might've made it to the girl in time probably makes things worse. It seems like Jesus slowed down almost on purpose, almost like he did with Lazarus. He waited two days until Lazarus was surely dead before coming and resurrecting him. The time for emergency medical procedures passed. So why was Jesus wasting his time with this woman, having a conversation with her? Her illness wasn't life-threatening. Couldn't he just come back to her later as a sense of triage so amiss? Well, the answer to that is there's enough power of God to go around for all.

My daughters were yesterday arguing, quibbling, quibbling is the word, over which holiday is the best. All three of the youngest landed on Christmas. Christmas is my favorite. Then they got an argument of like, "No, Christmas is my favorite. No, Christmas is my favorite." My response was, "It can be all of our favorites."

This is access to the power of God. His power is not diminished by giving His power to one. It's not lessened to give it to another. Therefore, His timing is always contrary to our timing.

Verse 36, but overhearing what they said, "Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, 'Do not fear, only believe.'" Jairus at this point must've been reeling. He must've been thinking, "Lord, take my life, not hers. Let me die instead of her." But Jairus had witnessed a miracle. He had witnessed the testimony of this woman. He witnessed how tender and compassionate Jesus was with her, and he had witnessed her faith, and that faith most likely inspired his faith.

Jesus tells him, "Do not fear, only believe. Keep on believing." What he's saying is, "Ignore the reality that you're seeing. This isn't ultimate reality. This isn't all there is. What you see is not all there is. Ignore the |reality of death and clinging to Jesus' promise of resurrection."

Jairus had believed that Jesus could heal his daughter. That's why he came to Jesus. But a resurrection, could Jesus really resurrect her? Jesus is calling Jairus to an even greater level of faith. Often, we do experience delays in life. It feels like when we ask for something from the Lord and it's just delay, delay, delay, sometimes it's easy to sit back and say, "I don't think the Lord loves me anymore." Jesus here is showing that his love is compatible with delays. His grace doesn't come on our timetable, therefore we're not supposed to impose our timetable on the Lord.

For Jesus, there was no more problem to resurrect the girl than to cure the fever. Therefore, in times of delay, we are told to keep trusting. Do not fear, keep believing. We don't know all the facts. God does, therefore we are to trust him.

2 Corinthians 4:17 says, "For this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."

Teresa of Avila says, "From eternity, the most miserable life in the history of the earth will look like one night in a bad hotel." From God's perspective, 1,000 years is but a day.

Verse 37, "And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John the brother of James." Jesus dismisses the crowds and instructs them to stay behind. He takes his three most important disciples. I'm calling them the big three from now. The big three are Peter, James, and John. He welcomes them in to see the resurrection. These three will be given a foretaste of Jesus' glory at the transfiguration. These three will be welcomed to pray with Jesus and share in his suffering at Gethsemane, so he welcomes them to go with him.

Verse 38, "They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly, the families in shock." In Matthew's narrative, it's clear that professional mourners were hired and they were already brought in. In that context, you would hire mourners, wailers, and flute players who arrived. They communicated to the community of what had transpired.

Verse 39, "When he had entered, he said to them, 'Why are you making commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.' They laughed at him, but he put them all outside and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was."

The professional mourners, they know death. They're experts in death, therefore they laughed. "What are you talking about? Jesus, we know that she is dead." They laugh at Christ with derision. Jesus is using this metaphor of sleep to tell them that he is about to resurrect her. He is about to wake her up, so to speak. She's not dead but sleeping. Jesus is interpreting death from God's viewpoint.

The purpose of this declaration is that death will not have the last word for God's people. God's people do not die. Physically, yes. But we, our soul, we continue living. Jesus puts all the scoffers outside and enters the room only with Jairus, his wife, and the three disciples, and the existence of a separate bedroom, for the girl is testimony to Jairus's wealth. Most Palestinian dwellings from this time were poor, one-room affairs.

Verse 41, "In taking her by the ha nd, he said to her, "Talitha cumi," which means, 'Little girl, I say to you, arise.'" Jesus never hesitates to contract ritual defilement by touching a leper or touching a dead person. Why? Because he's holy, and his holiness is overpowering. It's more contagious. It's more transmitting than the sickness.

He says to her, "Talitha cumi," He speaks to her in Aramaic. This is interesting because Aramaic seems to have been the usual speech in the Jewish home, especially in Galilee. Greek was certainly the literary and cultural language. Hebrew was the religious language. But at home, the heart language was Aramaic. Aramaic was Jesus' heart language.

The command "ephphatha" given to the mute man or when Christ was on the cross, he says, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" which is Aramaic, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He addresses God as Abba, father.

The risen Lord spoke to Mary in her own language, in Aramaic, and that she turned and spoke to him in Aramaic, "raboni" , which means teacher. Jesus here speaks to this little girl in her heart language. "Talitha cumi." Little girl, wake up. Little girl, arise."

Verse 42, "And immediately the girl got up and began walking, for she was 12 years of age, and they were immediately overcome with amazement. He strictly charged that no one should know this and told them to give her something to eat."

Everyone was overcome with amazement. It was one thing for Jesus to calm the storm, it was something else for Jesus to cast out a legion of demons from the poor man in the text last week, but it's something altogether different for Jesus to resurrect this little girl. And he does so just by speaking. He's demonstrating that he is Lord of all, even death itself.

I love this little detail at the end that he tells them, "Hey, feed her something," which for me shows... This is eyewitness account. Why in the world would you include that little detail that adds nothing to the progression of the narrative? Because it happened. Because Jesus doesn't even overlook, despite the commotion or practical need for food.

That brings us to point three, eternal misery or eternal joy. Jesus here is more than a prophet. He's more than even Moses or Elijah. He's Lord of all creation. He speaks. He commands the winds and the seas. They all obey him. He is Lord even over Satan and his whole dominion. And now the people of Israel see that Jesus is Lord even over death. He is the one who has come to reverse, overturn the curse, undo the effects of the fall of Adam upon the human race.

Jesus' mission wasn't just to come feed people, wasn't just to come teach people, wasn't just to come heal people. No. Jesus has come to deal with the root of all human suffering. He's doing things that the crowd does not understand. They're blinded by their immediate needs. They only see what Jesus can do for them.

Jairus and the woman here are the exception. They approach Jesus not just with demands, but with faith, humble faith. They seek healing, but they also exercise faith in God. Jairus seeks help from Jesus. And when help does not come how he wants it to, he keeps trusting, he keeps believing. They come to him with faith that he is who he said he was.

Even if the woman had not been healed, and even if Jairus' daughter had not been raised, they still would have believed that Jesus was sent by God and that God's will had been done even if the outcome was not what they wanted. This is the difference between faith and unbelief. Faith accepts the outcome regardless. Regardless of what happens, thy will be done, Lord.

The great Bible teacher, G. Campbell Morgan, lost his firstborn daughter. Then 40 years later, preaching on the story of Jairus, he writes this: "I can hardly speak of this matter without becoming personal and reminiscent, remembering a time 40 years ago when my own first lassie lay at the point of death dying. I called for him then, and he came, and surely said to our troubled hearts, 'Fear not. Believe only.' He did not say she shall be made whole. She was not made whole on the earthly plane. She passed away into the life beyond.

"He did say to her, "Talitha cumi," little lamb, arise.' But in her case, that did not mean stay on the earth level. It meant that he needed her, and he took her to be with himself. She has been with him for all those years as we measure time here, and I've missed her every day. But his word, believe only, has been the strength of the passing years."

Like Jairus and the woman who comes to Christ, we must also come to Christ in faith, faith that God is good and that God is loving, faith that he is the one whom God sent, Christ is. And he answers all of our prayers not necessarily according to our desires, and not necessarily according to our timing, but according to God's perfect and holy will.

At times we may hear the glorious words, "The child is not dead," or we may hear the tragic words, "The child has died." But no matter what, faith accepts the will of God. Why? Because true saving, living faith understands that when Jesus raised Jairus' daughter from the dead, he's pointing ahead to the end of the age when Jesus himself will heal all of our diseases and raise all of God's people from the dead.

What happened would soon become common knowledge, but Jesus strictly charges them not to tell anyone. He is managing the messianic expectations of the crowds. There was much yet for Christ to do, and we see that the raucous crowd was already interfering in some ways.

The word here when Jesus says arise is the same word that Christ uses talk about his own death, that Jesus was buried, that Jesus was dead, and he did rise from the dead. This right here is one of the greatest truths about Christianity, that we will all die. And if the Lord should tarry, after that comes the judgment. And we need someone to raise us from the dead, and we need someone to bring us through the judgment that we deserve.

This little girl, she died twice, as did Lazarus. Then what? Then comes the judgment. Then we stand before God. God at that moment is going to tell us either you go into eternal joy, eternal bliss, or into eternal punishment. This is Matthew 25:46: "And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." I wonder when's the last time you meditated on eternity. It just does not end. It's eternity. It's not a hundred years. It's not a thousand. It's not 10,000. It just does not end. It's either eternal life or eternal punishment.

2 Thessalonians 1:5-10, "This is the evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God for which you are also suffering, since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us. When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed."

Jesus Christ came because he understands that there is eternal suffering in the future of those who would turn from him. That's what every single one of us deserves. But Jesus came in order to provide salvation. He endured infinite misery to save us from eternal misery. Jesus doesn't suffer for all eternity because he is fully God with infinite glory and power. Jesus overcame eternal suffering by overpowering it with his infinite glory.

Jesus, when the woman touched him, perceived that power had gone out from him. Well, that was a foretaste. It's a foreshadowing of what happened on the cross. The reason why this woman became clean and Jesus did not become unclean wasn't because the uncleanness disappeared in thin air. No, he took her uncleanness, and he took it upon himself to the cross. He bled like the woman. He came to become unclean in our place. He had to go into death like the girl so that she could be raised to life. He lost the father's hand on the cross. “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He lost the father's hand in order to be able to extend it to us.

2 Corinthians 13:4, "For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God." With his humanity, Jesus endured the crucifixion. With his divinity, he endured eternal sufferings, our eternal sufferings, the eternal sufferings that we deserve."

Jonathan Edwards in his 1729 sermon, The Sacrifice of Christ Acceptable, says this: "Though Christ's sufferings were but temporal, that is not eternal, yet they were equivalent to our eternal sufferings by reason of the infinite dignity of his person. Though it was not infinite suffering, yet it was equivalent to infinite suffering, for it was infinite expense. His blood which he spilled, his life, which he laid down was an infinite price because it was the blood of God, as it is expressly called."

Acts 20:28, "The Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. His life was the life of that person that was the eternal Son of God, though it was the life of the human nature. Now upon this account, the priced offered was equivalent to the demerit of the sins of all mankind, and his suffering's equivalent to the eternal sufferings of the whole world."

Christ suffered infinite suffering to save you, to save me from eternal suffering. How do we get that salvation? How do we get eternal life? How do we get our sins forgiven, the condemnation removed? All you have to do is reach out to Christ in faith. In faith, reach out, and touch him. Have that encounter. Believe that as you reach your hand is there, his hand is there grasp onto yours, and then his coursing healing power goes through your being.

Faith takes hold of the power of God, and faith takes hold of His transforming power. This is what saves us. It's faith in Christ. He says, "Don't be afraid, just believe." There is a purifying power in the blood of the lamb of God. No matter what we've done, no matter the uncleanness of our sin, the uncleanness of our lawbreaking, all you have to do is ask for the Lord to purify you, and He will, and He does. All you need is need. All you need is recognition of your need.

How much faith do you have to have in Jesus? Just enough to come, just enough to cry out to Christ, just enough to say, "Lord Jesus, have pity on me." The Lord is so gracious. He doesn't refuse anyone that comes to him and says, "Lord, help me."

Even if your faith isn't perfect, even if you're brand new to the faith... There's a guy in the scripture that says, "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief." Even that is enough. Even that is enough to come and to be safe. So, come to Christ wherever you are, doubts and all, and he will begin the process of healing.

At this point, I'm going to welcome a brother from the congregation, Brother Robert. Round of applause as he comes up. He's going to testify to the incredible work of God in his life and in his family's life, and just a testimony that God's power is real and he's still working amongst us today. Thank you, Robert.

Robert:

Morning, everyone. I'm here to share a testimony on behalf of my wife Carissa, my daughter Caitlin, and my son Thomas. For those who don't know me, my name is Robert. When I'm not here playing keyboard, I'm actually working in a biotech company. In fact, I have medical training as a surgeon. This is relevant because two years ago, the weekend of Thanksgiving, my daughter became very sick.

It started the weekend of Thanksgiving. She had a party with her friends on the Friday. Saturday, she was a little tired. We thought she was recovering from the party. And on Sunday morning, she refused to get out of bed. While that's normal for a lot of teenagers, it wasn't normal for her. She was highly irritable. She just wanted to curl up and sleep. We felt concerned enough that we manhandled her into the car, took her to the emergency room. And amongst other things, they put a needle into her spinal cord, take some fluid, and it was bad news. They found white blood cells in her cerebral spinal fluid, and these cells presumably were there because of an infection that was affecting her brain.

Her ventral diagnosis was something called viral encephalitis. This is where a random virus just affects your brain. It's random enough that it could be one of myriad viruses, and oftentimes you don't even detect which one. The most common viruses that cause this are the ones that cause mouth ulcers and chickenpox. But even then, it's incredibly uncommon. Happens to about one in a million people.

I had the experience of actually treating a patient early in my career who suffered from this. He was a 20-something-year-old PhD student. Came into the ER because he had a fever that was so high it was affecting his brain, something called malignant hypothermia. He was rushed to the ICU. The next thing I heard, two days later, he was dead. That was going through my head the entire time Caitlin was diagnosed.

Viral encephalitis has a mortality rate of about 30%. Of those people who don't make it, these patients who present late like Caitlin, because she was already quite symptomatic, that statistic gets even worse. The patients who actually do push through, the vast majority have lasting serious neurological issues. All these things were running through my mind as we were going through this.

She was rushed to the ICU, had a huge number of tubes and leads hooked up to her. She was comatose. She was looking a lot less like Caitlin, and her body and face were puffing up due to inflammation and fluid retention. I was also thinking, "Did I doom her because we brought her in too late from the hospital?"

At some level, I always thought through my training that I could deal with any medical situation with professionalism and dispassion. I now know I'm not able to do this. I was a broken man, devastated that my daughter was being stolen from me right in front of me and I was powerless to do anything about it.

Pastors Jan and Shane came quickly when we called them. I'm sure Pastor Jan has his own story about what happened. I distinctly remember them walking into the ICU with great gentleness, knowing how grave the situation was. They also told us they usually ask for God's will to be done, but this time their sense was to pray for God's miraculous healing. I don't remember everything that we prayed about, but I do remember a distinct feeling that God was in the room and in control regardless of the outcome.

A couple of hours after they left, Caitlin started discharging fluid like crazy. It was so sudden and so intense, the doctors worried about additional medical complications that could cause fluid imbalance. But her face started returning back to normal, and she showed the smallest hints of improvement, such as moaning a little when they were drawing blood.

There was one particular moment when we were changing her IV fluids, and she muttered something, and I shouted at her, "Caitlin, hi." Miraculously, she pried her eyes open and said back, "Hi." That was the sweetest greeting I've ever heard.

She spent four days in the ICU, another four days in the hospital ward. She missed over three weeks of school, but managed to return and still somehow managed a 4.0 GPA. She's now attending college. She's coming home next Tuesday for Thanksgiving. That will be celebrating two years since we almost lost her.

I don't know how much of this experience was medical versus spiritual, but I do know that every fiber of my being was that Pastors Jan and Shane were vessels of a true miracle that happened that day. In addition, there was an absolute army of people praying for her, our community group, many of you here, were praying for her. Friends, and family, and neighbors across the US, Asia, and Australia. Literally hundreds of people covering her in prayer 24 hours a day. Prayer is powerful. Her neurologist and infectious disease specialists said that her rapid and complete recovery were incompatible with her disease, and I call that a miracle.

One more thing. Caitlin liked to spend time in her room with the door just slightly ajar. When she was in the hospital, her door was open all the way, which was because we dragged her out of bed and got her to hospital. I was forced to close that door, since the open door reminded me that she was terribly sick and that she may not be able to come back home. Maybe that's similar to when Mary Magdalene saw the empty tomb, that someone took Jesus' body, which was an additional insult beyond his crucifixion. Right now, her room is wide open, and that's okay not necessarily because she returned to health. Her open door should symbolize God working for our good regardless of outcome.

Her open room door is also a reminder that as great as Caitlin's miracle was, and even greater miracle is the empty tomb, Caitlin's salvation is just a hint of Jesus' redeeming power dying for all our sins and the pain, sickness, and suffering which are consequences of that sin. And he rose again that we could have ultimate hope for our own deliverance.

The lesson in this storm is not just to appreciate God's ability to miraculously heal. The lesson is that whatever happened, it brought our family and this army of prayer warriors back to the heart of worship, and it helped us focus on God's sovereignty, provision, and redeeming power. Thanks for listening.