Our last paper on this subject closed with the commission given by our blessed Lord to the rescued demoniac; “Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.” Such was the commission, but mark how it was executed. “And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis, how great things Jesus had done for him.” This is a very fine moral lesson for each one who knows Jesus, a Deliverer. This man knew Jesus as his Lord, and hence, when called to tell what the Lord had done for him, he could own no other Lord but Jesus. He associated with that most precious and honored name all that had been done for him, and all the deep compassion that had flowed down to him in his misery. To him there was but one Lord, Jesus Christ, who had delivered him from the power of Satan, and translated him from amongst the tombs, to make him the happy subject of His delivering grace, and the honored witness thereof to all around.
Now, this is precisely what we want to see in ourselves, and in all who profess to know the saving power of the Name of Jesus. We want to see plain decision for the Lord Christ, the positive owning of Him in all things, the linking on of everything to Him who is our Savior and Lord, so that He may be glorified, and all men constrained to see that there is, after all, unmistakable reality in having to do with the Name of Jesus. We have little idea of the effect which would he produced on the minds of men, were all Christians only led to connect all they do, and all they do not do, with the Name of Jesus, and with His authority as Lord. Generally speaking, people will resolve all questions of religious associations, social habits, and domestic concerns, into a simple matter of opinion, taste, prejudice, or predilection. Hence the importance of being able to refer all to a “Thus saith the Lord.” We have no right to have an opinion or a will of our own. The word of the Lord is to be our opinion, His authority our will, His will our rule. A man may say, “You have your opinion, and I have mine.” We answer, “Νo;” but the grand question is, “What saith the Scripture?” We ought to be able to refer all our ways, our habits, and our associations to Jesus as Lord — to His authority — and to His example.
Yes, christian reader, we repeat the word “all.” It is not merely the weighty matters connected with our religious associations, but all our little matters should be regulated by the sense — the deep, abiding, influential sense of the Lordship of our Savior Christ. If we but gather up a shovelful of cinders from the hearth, or lift a crumb of bread from the floor, we should give as our reason for so doing, the blessed Masters words, “Let nothing be lost.” “Thus saith the Lord” should be the great regulating and governing motto in everything, be it great or small. We should not go on, for one hour, in anything, no matter how attractive, how plausible, or how expedient it may be, for which we have not authority in the revealed will of God. Alas! alas! in many things we fail; again and again, we prove forgetful and unfaithful; our lusts, our tempers, and our vanities betray us, at unguarded moments, and cut out sad work for the heart and conscience; but for one who has tasted the delivering grace of Jesus, to go, deliberately into, or deliberately on in, a thing that denies the authority of Jesus as Lord, argues a very hardened and dangerous condition of soul, from which may the good Lord deliver all who call themselves by His Holy Name.
We may, if the Lord will, have occasion to dwell at more length upon this great practical theme, and shall now proceed with the other cases presented to our notice in this fifth chapter of Mark. We have considered the demoniac, let us now look at
THE DISEASED ONE.
This case rather presents the Lord as a Healer, than as a Deliverer; but it is a hallowed and edifying exercise to trace Him in all His ways down here; and happy, too, to remember that He is everything to us. We have all we want in Him. Are we held in the terrible grasp of Satan? He is a Deliverer. Are we burdened with a sense of guilt upon the conscience? He is a Justifier. Are we conscious of having backslidden and fallen? He is a Restorer. Are we bowed down under the weight of disease and infirmity? He is a Healer.
“Jesus, my all in all thou art:
My rest in toil, my ease in pain;
The medicine of my broken heart;
‘Mid storms, my peace; in loss, my gain;
My smile beneath the tyrant’s frown;
In shame, my glory and my crown.”
“And when Jesus was passed over again, by ship unto the other side, much people gathered unto him; and he was nigh unto the sea. And, behold, there cometh one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name; and when he saw him, he fell at his feet, and besought him greatly, saying, ‘My little daughter lieth at the point of death: I pray thee come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed; and she shall live. And Jesus went with him; and much people followed him and thronged him. And a certain woman which had an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse; when she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment: for she said, If I may but touch his clothes, I shall be whole.’”
Here, then, we have another, and a distinct phase of the sinner’s condition illustrated. We see him here, not as in the giant grasp of Satan, led captive by him at his will, but as one having in himself the spring and source of a weakening and a defiling malady. Here, too, human efforts are in vain. This poor woman had tried human physicians; she had spent all her living in searching for health, but instead of any improvement, she grew worse and worse. How like this case is to the case of many of us, we need hardly say. We felt the sad disease of sin working in us; and not only working in us, but sending forth a defiling influence from us. We tried to better ourselves. We went from physician to physician, from remedy to remedy, from scheme to scheme; but all in vain. Year after year rolled on, and still we fondly hoped that some relief would come, some improvement show itself; but no, “worse and worse” was the sad and disappointing experience, day after day, year after year. Thus it was with this poor diseased one her case was beyond all human aid.
But, then, a report reached her ears. She heard of Jesus. When all her living was gone, and her malady had increased as her means diminished, the testimony concerning Jesus of Nazareth was brought home to her weary and disappointed heart. No doubt the selfsame record had fallen upon the ears of thousands needing it just as much as she; but ah é reader, remember this, there is such a thing as “The hearing of faith.” It is one thing to hear with the ear, and quite another thing to hear with the heart. It is “with the heart man believeth unto righteousness.” Now our poor diseased one heard with the heart—she heard and believed. Believed what? She believed that Jesus was able and willing to do the part of a healer to her. She said, “If I may touch but his clothes I shall be whole.” In a word, she believed that contact with Jesus—was the only thing for her, and hence she might have been seen, notwithstanding all her weakness and disease, making her way through the crowd to get to Jesus. Unbelief would suggest difficulties, but faith surmounts all difficulties, it can take the roofs off houses, and force its way through the greatest crowd that ever surrounded its object.
Now nothing can be more interesting or instructive than to mark the course of this woman from first to last. She stands out in striking contrast with the whole multitude that thronged around our blessed Lord. Many in that crowd, no doubt, touched Him —could not help touching Him because of the crush; but, in the midst of all, there was one touch of faith, and that mysterious touch, as is ever the case, drew forth divine virtue from Jesus, the Healer of His people’s diseases. It is impossible to touch Jesus, by faith, and not get blessing. The moment the poor diseased one came in contact with the Divine Healer, she was healed. How could it be otherwise? The two were fitted for one another, and when they met, all was settled. “Straightway, the fountain was dried.” This is the way in which Jesus ever does His work. He reaches the very source of the malady, and that “immediately.” There was nothing to wait for, nothing to be added, no need for a finishing touch from a human hand, no occasion for any further application to human physicians; contact with Jesus settled everything.
Header, have you ever felt the power of contact with the Divine Healer? Have you ever touched Jesus by faith? Have you ever felt yourself to be a poor diseased one, having within you a sore malady from which no human hand can deliver you? Have you been seeking relief in the various appliances of formal religiousness? Have you proved them all to be physicians of no value? Do you find yourself no better, but rather worse? Do you feel yourself, at this moment, sick at heart, weary of yourself and of all around you? If so, let us entreat you, at once, to follow the example of the diseased one — come to Jesus. Nothing can ever avail you but contact with Him. One touch, one look of faith, is all you want to meet the deep source of your malady — a source far too deep to be reached by any human hand.
Do you reply, “I cannot come of myself; I cannot believe, I cannot give that touch, that look of faith, until I get power. I long to do so, but I must wait until the Holy Spirit enables me.” Do you mean, then, to say that you are in no wise responsible to receive the record of God? Are you, so far as the truth of God is concerned, wholly irresponsible? Will there be no guilt attaching to you for your refusal to accept God’s proffered mercy, Christ’s free salvation, and the Spirit’s faithful record? If you should die in your sins, think you that you will be able, before the judgment-seat of Christ, to cast upon God the blame of your not having believed the gracious message of salvation? What mean these words, “The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire,, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints and admired in all them that believe, in that day — because our testimony among you was believed?” And again, “In all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause, God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness?”
We faithfully urge upon your attention these solemn and. weighty words. Be assured of it, you cannot, by any possibility, get rid of your responsibility before God, nor can any system of divinity be wholly correct, or sound, which so presents God’s sovereignty as to do away with man’s responsibility. We must ever remember that there are two sides to every question, and it is of all importance to take both sides into consideration, and turn each side in. the right direction. This is exactly what human systems of divinity fail to do. But the word of God puts everything into its right place. Throughout the Gospels and the Acts, we hearken to such words as these, “Ye will not come to me that ye might have life.” “How often would I have gathered your children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not,” “Repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out.” “Seeing ye put it from you, and deem yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo! we turn to the Gentiles.” “God commandeth all men, everywhere, to repent.” “Your blood be upon your own heads: I am clean.”
Here we have one side of this great question, and moreover, the side which is turned toward the sinner as he approaches the sacred volume. It is well to see this clearly. If I, as a poor, helpless, guilty sinner, take up the New Testament and read it throughout, what do I find? Am I seared away by discouraging statements as to my total inability to come to Jesus, my utter incompetency to receive His precious message? Am I taught that it is of no use my trying to come to Jesus? That all my efforts are in vain? That I must only wait, no one knows how long, until the divine influence comes upon me? Nothing of the sort. What then? I find God revealed in the Person of Christ, as one come down into this world, in perfect grace, to seek and save the lost; and when I track the footsteps of that blessed One, when I mark His ways and His works, I find Him meeting man, in all his varied need and misery, with the varied resources of grace that were in His overflowing heart. I do not find Him repulsing any needy applicant. “Come unto me, and I will give” was ever the motto of Him who came into the world “to serve and to give”
But, we may be asked, “What do you make of John 6:44: No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him?” Well, it is not our business to make anything of this or of any other passage of Holy Scripture, but simply to take it as it stands. But what is it? Is it Christ’s word to anxious enquirers? Ah! no; it is His silencing reply to murmuring Jews—to caviling religionists. Let this be duly weighed. And let the reader also note, carefully, the contrast between our Lord’s answer to the murmuring Jews, and His answer to those who said, “Lord, evermore give us this bread.” To these latter He said, “I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you, that ye also have seen me, and believe not. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me: and him that cometh to me I will in nowise cast out.” The use that is frequently made of John 6:4444No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6:44) is directly opposed to the spirit of the whole context, as well as to the spirit and character of our Lord’s ministry from first to last.
Do we then deny God’s sovereignty on the one hand, or man’s utter impotency on the other. By no means; we believe both, because Scripture teaches both. The epistles give us the other side of this question; but this is the side which is turned toward the believer, for the epistles, as we know, are addressed to those who have believed through grace. The fact is this, we are not called to frame systems of divinity. The Holy Spirit in Scripture is not so occupied. His object is to unfold Christ, as Christ’s object was to unfold the Father; and we look in vain from cover to cover of the New Testament, for a single instance in which an anxious enquirer was ever discouraged or repulsed by the one-sided dogmas of theology, or in which the moral responsibility of the sinner is ever ignored. Each truth gets its proper place, because Christ is the center of all truth. He is the central Sun from whence the rays of light emanate in all directions. Nothing can be more disastrous, both to the integrity of divine truth on the one hand, or the interest of souls on the other, than the framing of one-sided theological systems. So, also, when the evangelist abandons his proper line and intrudes upon the domain of the teacher — when, instead of preaching Christ, and beseeching sinners, he commences to unfold doctrine, he will find himself cramped and hindered, and the souls of his hearers stumbled and perplexed. The evangelist has to do with the love of God to a lost world, with the wide aspect of the work of Christ, as the expression of that love, and the glad tidings of full and free salvation as the fruit of both. The teacher has to do with the counsels of God, with the love of Christ to His Church, the operations of the Spirit of God, and all the varied results of accomplished redemption, in heaven and on earth, here and hereafter. Would that these distinctions were more faithfully attended to!
But we must return to our immediate theme, and, in so doing, we call attention to a very important fact. No sooner had the diseased one given the touch of simple, artless, unquestioning faith, than “she felt in her body that she was healed.” She was not hoping about it; she felt she was healed. There was no question about it. True, there was “fearing and trembling;” but it was not the fearing of one not knowing what was done in her. Quite the reverse. She knew what was done for her and in her, but trembled at the thought of having to come forward in confession or testimony. “And Jesus immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes?” How wonderful! The very moment the mysterious link of faith was formed, between the diseased one and the Divine Healer, the former felt that virtue had entered into her, and the latter that virtue had gone out. Thus it is always. The moment a lost sinner comes in contact with the Divine Savior, he is saved — saved forever — “Saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation.”
And should not this be felt? Yes, assuredly, felt and owned. “And Jesus looked round about to see her that had done this thing. But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her (not doubting it) came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth. And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole: go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.” Here then we have confession made unto salvation. Had this woman walked away, as soon as she got the blessing — had she refused to come forward in testimony, what would have been the consequence? Why she would have lost the immense privilege of hearing these words of comfort and consolation from the lips of Jesus, “Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole: go in peace.” It is of the utmost importance for the saved sinner to be able to make a full confession unto salvation. It leads to an enlargement of the soul’s knowledge, and a strengthening of the foundations of faith. Perhaps if anyone had asked this woman, when on her way to Jesus, “Have you faith?”—she might have been staggered by the question, and have begun to look in at herself, and to raise all manner of questions. But if asked, “ Do you believe that Jesus is able and willing to heal you?” her answer would have been clear and decided enough. True faith is never occupied with itself, but with its object, Christ, Thus it grows. This woman’s faith was strengthened and her range of intelligence greatly enlarged by her full and clear confession of all that Jesus had done for her.
It is a great thing to make a bold confession. Many, we are aware, are deterred from so doing, by various reasons. Some are afraid to confess, lest they should lose caste. This is very poor indeed. If I have found Christ, I may well afford to lose caste. For what is caste? It is a certain standing, position, or rank in the world, and in nature. But the world is under judgment, and nature has been set aside by the death of Christ. Why, therefore, think of caste? My salvation rests upon that which has swept away forever all the pillars upon which caste, position, or rank can possibly repose. The death of Christ has not only’ put away my sins, but it has also removed the whole foundation of my standing as a man of the world. Hence, therefore, for me to talk about my position in the world, my standing in nature, my rank as a man, is to ignore the fact on which my salvation rests I am not merely dead to sin, but dead to all that pertained to my condition as a descendant from Adam the first. If I belong to the Second Man for one thing, I belong to Him for everything. I cannot go to the last Adam for life and righteousness, and come back to the first Adam for standing and position in the world. It is wholly cut of the question.
But, again, some are deterred from making a bold confession of Christ by the fear of breaking down. They have seen so much inconsistency and failure on the part, of many high professors, that, lest they, too, should fail and prove inconsistent, they deem it better to keep quiet. This is a mistake. True, it is a mistake which we can well understand; but it is a mistake all the while, and it robs the soul of a large amount of spiritual privilege. Where there has been contact with Christ, there ought to be the hold confession of Christ, and then there will, assuredly, be enlarged consolation from. Christ. We have only to confide in Jesus, and boldly tell out all the truth, then abounding peace and liberty will be the sure results.
But we must now, for a moment, accompany our blessed Lord and Savior into
THE CHAMBER OF DEATH
It is at once interesting and instructive to mark, that at the very moment in which the Lord was dismissing the poor woman with words of peace and consolation, a messenger arrived from the ruler’s house, saying, “Thy daughter is dead; why troublest thou the Master any further?” This was in reality, a fiery dart from the wicked one to shake the ruler’s confidence. He had come to Jesus in the confidence of His ability and readiness to heal the sick, but could he trust Him to raise the dead? Could his faith carry him into the dreary domain of death and there enable him to gaze upon the Son of God acting in His glorious capacity as the Quickener of the dead?
We are not told what passed through the ruler’s mind at the moment in which the depressing tidings of death fell upon his ear; but we can easily imagine a dark cloud passing over his spirit. But, ah! the tender, loving heart of Jesus was thinking of the poor, tried, and tempted one. His eye was upon him. He caught the earliest symptom of the gathering cloud: “And as soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, he saith unto the ruler of the synagogue, Be not afraid, only believe.” The Lord took no notice of the messenger. He thought only of the effect of the message upon the ruler’s heart, and in His infinite grace, He immediately covered him with the shield of faith. “Be not afraid, only believe.” Precious words! Words which can carry the soul through every difficulty and every danger —words for a sick bed or a chamber of death — words for all circumstances, all places, and all conditions — words of comfort and consolation for the poor sinking, fainting, tottering heart. “Be not afraid, only believe.”
Dear christian reader, are you assaulted by dark thoughts of unbelief? Have you arrived at a point in your earthly path at which you see graver difficulties before you than you ever anticipated? Do you feel the dark waters of sorrow, trial, and temptation deepening around you, and the heavy clouds of unbelief and despondency gathering more thickly above you? Then, remember, the loving heart of Jesus is occupied about you. His eye is resting solicitously upon you. He knows what you are feeling. He sees every fiery dart that the tempter is leveling at you, and He says to you, as He said to the ruler, “Be not afraid, only believe” — “Hold fast the beginning of your confidence firm unto the end” — “Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward” — “Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.” What we want is confidence in God, come what may. Simple faith can lift the head above the deepest waters, and pierce through the thickest gloom that ever enwrapped the soul. It assures the heart that Jesus can as easily raise the dead as heal the sick; all is alike to Him. He can deliver from Satan’s grasp, He can chase away disease, and He can gild the chamber of death with the bright and blessed beams of resurrection. He is a Deliverer, a Healer, and a Quickener, and surely He ought to be Lord. “Be not afraid, only believe.” May these words fall with power on every doubting, trembling heart!
The closing lines of our chapter display to us the moral glories of Christ as the Quickener of the dead. Death, disease, and Satan all flee before the Majesty of His presence. We can track His marvelous path from scene to scene of this sin-stricken world, and, in every act, in every word, in every look, we see divine perfection. “He hath done all things well” must ever be the adoring language of our hearts. Nothing is beyond His power. Nothing escapes His tender care. “Talitha cumi,” is the display of His Majesty; “Give her to eat,” exhibits His tender, thoughtful care. The former bows the soul in worship j the latter melts the heart in grateful love.