This sermon from Luke chapter 8 highlights the authority of Jesus over nature, the demonic realm, disease, and death. It emphasizes the importance of faith and belief in Jesus, showcasing miracles like the healing of a woman with a 12-year issue of blood and the resurrection of Jairus' daughter. The message encourages believers to expect the power of Christ to be demonstrated in their lives and to pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the present day.

Let's open up our Bibles to Luke chapter 8. Luke chapter 8, and as we pick up the story here, Jesus had, Luke has recorded some of the teaching of Jesus again, and we looked last time at the parable of the sower, and then you remember as Jesus concluded the parable, he really exhorted them to take heed how you hear, and we talked about that a bit in our closing moments last time. Take heed how you hear. In other words, make sure you're not just a hearer of the word, but make sure you're a doer of the word. Make sure you're applying what you hear, is what Jesus is saying, and the promise is to the one who hears, in the sense of applies it, then more is going to be given. But to the one who doesn't hear it, in the sense of doesn't really apply it to their life, then even what they seem to have will ultimately be taken from them. And so with those words, as Jesus was finishing up the teaching there, it says in verse 19, then his mother and brothers came to him and could not approach him because of the crowd. And it was told him by some who said, your mother and your brothers are standing outside desiring to see you. But he answered and said to them, my mother and my brother, or brothers, are these who hear the word of God and do it. Now there have been attempts even from the earliest days, obviously, to take the natural family of Jesus, and particularly the mother of Jesus, and to sort of elevate her to a position that's beyond what would be right or appropriate. And Jesus was very good at making sure that people understood that his mother in one sense was no different than anybody else, was not to ever be elevated to a place of worship or anything like that. Even in his ministry, like we see here, when people were attempting to do that to some degree or another, Jesus always would take the attention off of his family and he would bring it back to the Lord. So my mother and my brothers. Now obviously the idea here is that your mother and your brothers, of course, they should have precedence. But Jesus says my mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it. So basically putting his natural family on the same level as everybody else, and bringing everybody else in on the basis of hearing the word of God, receiving the word of God. Matthew and Mark record similar kinds of incidents, and maybe you remember the one occasion where the person cried out, you know, blessed are the breasts that nursed you, the womb that bore you. And remember Jesus said rather blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it. If Jesus ever wanted to establish the idea that Mary had some sort of superiority over other human beings and should be exalted to a place of adoration or worship, he had plenty of opportunities to do it. But whenever those things occurred, he made it crystal clear that that was not the case. And so he does that again here. Now in verse 22 on through the end of the chapter, Luke is going to here now focus on the authority of Jesus Christ, and he's going to show the authority of Jesus in relation to nature, in relation to the demonic realm, in relation to disease, and ultimately in relation to death. He's going to show the authority of Jesus over all of those things, and he does so by recording for us a number of incidents in the life and ministry of Jesus where he exerted his authority over these things. Jesus, of course, you remember he would say later all authority, all power, all authority in heaven and earth have been given to me. You know, power or authority is the most dangerous thing in all the world. And there have been very few people in history that have really been able to handle power properly. But Jesus having all power and authority, it's amazing how he handles this power and authority. He never abuses it, he never uses it for any selfish means, he only exercises his authority and power for the benefit of others. And that's why he alone has the right to reign, because no one else has ever done that. Every human being, even the ones that have handled power fairly well, at some point that breaks down. And at some point you see an inconsistency, or at some point you see a failure, but you never see that with the Lord. There's never an abuse of his power, there's never in any way a use of his power for himself, it's always benevolent, it's always for the benefit of others. And that is such a beautiful thing. And so we pick up in verse 22, now it happened on a certain day that he got into a boat with his disciples and he said to them, let us cross over to the other side of the lake. And they launched out, but as they sailed, he fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake and they were filling with water and were in jeopardy. Now, the topographical situation of the Sea of Galilee, the Sea of Galilee is 680 feet below sea level. And being as it is in this valley, being surrounded by several smaller mountains, there are these times when the wind will rush into this valley and churn up the sea in a way that is, I mean, in a sense it's unbelievable. If you were to be right there on the seashore on a calm day, and you're basically just looking at a lake. And it's hard to imagine how this body of water could become so agitated that seasoned fishermen might be fearing for their life, but it actually happens. And it still happens to this day. Some years ago when we were in Israel, a storm hit the Galilee and there were waves on the Galilee that were three to four meters high. Now, three to four meters for your, in case you don't know what the breakdown is on that, that's nine to 12 feet. I mean, those are big waves in the ocean. We're talking about nine to 12 foot waves in a relatively small body of water. So you could see under those kinds of circumstances how these guys would have been absolutely fearing for their lives. And this must have been a storm that was more intense than perhaps any ever. Some have suggested that it could have been even a satanically orchestrated storm. It might very well be the case. The term that's used when Jesus deals with it finally, it says that He rebuked the wind and the waves, and it's the same term that's used when He's dealing with the demonic. And again, if you think of the fact that these men were seasoned fishermen, they'd grown up on this lake, you would imagine that they'd probably seen every imaginable condition, but to have them as frightened as they were would indicate that this was probably something radically out of the ordinary. So this little boat that they're in is filling with water, and they're in jeopardy of drowning. And so they came to Him and awoke Him. Many writers have commented on the fact that Jesus was evidently in a very deep sleep. These guys are fearing for their lives, and they've got to actually wake Jesus up. And the comment that is generally made is in reference to the humanity of Jesus. Here we see the humanity of Jesus. Here we see that Jesus was probably exhausted from all of the ministry that He was engaged in, so much so that this boat is about to go under, and He's sound asleep. So they awaken Him, crying out to Him, Master, Master, we are perishing. Then He arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water, and they ceased and there was a calm. But He said to them, where is your faith? And they were afraid and marveled, saying to one another, who can this be? For He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey Him. So they're desperate. They awaken the Lord. Now Matthew and Mark record the same story, and each one of them put it just a little bit differently. With Matthew, Jesus awakens, and before He calms the storm, He gives them a mild rebuke. He says, what are you so afraid of? And then with Mark, it's a similar sort of a thing. So it seems that the moment they awoke Jesus, He sort of mildly rebuked them, then He calmed the wind and the waves, and then He went on to say to them again, where is your faith? Now here's the question. Wasn't it legitimate the concern that these guys had? I mean, after all, I have to confess, if I would have been on the boat, I would have done the same thing. So, and isn't this what you would expect under these kinds of conditions? But Jesus kind of rebukes them. So the question is why? It was understandable that they were as frightened as they were. But we've got to remember this. We've got to remember all that Jesus had already done in the presence of these men. You see, this wasn't their first encounter with Him. It wasn't that they didn't really know much about Him. It wasn't that they hadn't yet seen the demonstration of His power. They had seen with their own eyes. They'd seen Him deal with the demoniacs. They'd seen Him heal people instantly. They had been with Him when He raised that young man from the dead. And so where others might have had a basis for being frightened and crying out for fear of their lives, these guys didn't. And that's why Jesus rebukes them. And the point is this. The Lord expects us to grow. And the longer we walk with Him and the more we get to know Him, He expects an increase in our faith. So where at a certain point in our lives something might really rattle us, something might really shake us, at another point in our life after a long season of walking with the Lord and experiencing His goodness, His faithfulness, His power and those things, He expects us at a certain point to sort of rise to this occasion and demonstrate a greater amount of faith. He wants us to be growing in our faith. And that's the reason I think why He rebuked these guys here. Because their faith should have been stronger based upon all of the experience they had had with the Lord up until this point. But there's a process that's going on here with these guys. And as we follow the story, just like we saw with the Old Testament saints, they're growing, they're developing. The Lord's patiently dealing with them and occasionally rebuking them and occasionally, you know, sort of verbally chastising them. But all to bring them on in the development of their faith. But this is something, and of course as we could all understand, this was something that just absolutely blew their minds. You know, remember they had seen where, you remember the story where they had fished all night and they hadn't caught anything. The Lord said, cast your net on the other side of the boat. Then they brought in that great catch of fish that they couldn't even drag the nets to the shore. You know, so they had seen these things, but now for Him to stand up in the midst of this little boat and to speak to the wind and the waves and to commend them to be calm and for that to happen, that was just unbelievable. Who can this be that even the wind and the waves obey Him? And so for these guys, you know, it was a rather lengthy process of having these things really sink down into their hearts. And it just kind of shows that, you know, we as people, we just have a tendency to be spiritually dull and the Lord has to, you know, kind of over and over again come back to us with similar kinds of things to just show Himself over and over again, faithful, to show Himself over and over again, gracious. And that's happening here. So who can this be? And so His humanity was displayed in that weariness that caused Him to be able to sleep during the intensity of the storm. But His deity now is displayed as He stands and He commands the winds and the waves and they obey Him. And so they sailed to the country of the Gadarenes which is opposite Galilee. So they left the western shore and headed across the Sea of Galilee and when He stepped out on the land there met Him a certain man from the city who had demons for a long time and He wore no clothes nor did He live in a house but in the tombs. Now this fellow here, you know, when you think about this, you can't get anything any worse than this. Here's a man who is possessed by demons and he's, the other gospels tell us that they tried to control Him. They even bound Him with chains but He was so fierce He would break the chains and He would gravitate toward the tombs. He was living in a graveyard and there He was naked and tormented. I mean, you know, can you think of a more pathetic picture than that? And in that you see what Satan does to people. How he comes and if he gets control in their lives, how he just destroys them and brings them into a state of torment. And you know, a lot of times we say and it is true to some extent, we say, well, you know, demon possession is something that we don't find so much in our culture but we find it in other places which is true to some extent. Places where the gospel hasn't really had a strong impact or maybe not for a long time. The devil's got a strong grip on the culture, on the people. You do find a lot more overt demon activity. But listen, I think there's a lot more of it in our culture than we realize. And you know, some of these people that we maybe even come across at times, you know, you see some of these people on the street that are, you know, similar to this kind of a thing. You pass by somebody and you see that they're, you know, they're just shouting into the air obscenities and things like that. And they're, you know, basically, you know, living on the streets and they have no relationship with anybody and, you know, they're untamable, so to speak. And of course they've been declared mentally ill and the, you know, the different facilities and all are no longer capable of the large numbers of people that need to be in there. So they just let them back out on the streets. You know, a lot of these people, I think more than we would realize are demonized. And it's always amazing to me to find that so often these people, if you have encounters with them, you find that they are very blasphemous, extraordinarily blasphemous. And they have obsessions about God, about Christ, and just all kinds of weird religious kinds of things going on in their heads. And that's what's, you know, spewing out of their mouths a lot of times. And for the most part, they're just sort of written off as, you know, they're burned out on drugs or whatever the case. You know, they're nuts, they're crazy, they're, you know, whatever the politically correct term is these days. But the fact of the matter is, I think several of them are just flat out demonized, just like this fellow was here. It's a very similar description. Notice to his gravitation toward the tombs. You know, we find among our culture today with a lot of the younger people, we find an obsession with death. We find a lot of young people today being drawn toward that kind of darkness and, you know, interested in things that are dark and, you know, a lot of, you know, a lot of suicide happening today with young people. People making packs together to, you know, a group of people committing suicide together, things like that. And when you see these kinds of things, you know, we tend to, in our modern culture, we tend to look at that and say, oh man, those guys need counseling. You know, wow, they need a therapist, they need some psychologist, and, you know, those things might be helpful to some degree, but the bottom line is they need Christ. They need to be saved. They need to be delivered from the grip of the devil, because that's really what's happening. The enemies got a hold of these lives. But the beautiful thing is that the Lord is able to take the most hopeless case. And in this particular fellow's situation, you know, there was nothing that anybody could do for him humanly. He was beyond help. The best they could do is just try to, you know, incarcerate him and prevent him from probably hurting himself and other people. But they couldn't even do that. They couldn't even keep him chained. But I love what happens as he meets Jesus face to face. And so when he saw Jesus, he cried out, fell down before him, and with a loud voice said, what have I to do with you, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me. For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man, for it had often seized him. And he was kept under guard, bound with chains and shackles, and he broke the bonds and was driven by the demon into the wilderness. So Luke tells us the same thing Matthew and Mark does, that the demons drove him into the wilderness. And Jesus asked him saying, what is your name? And listen to this. He said, legion, because many demons had entered him. A Roman legion was made up of literally thousands of soldiers. Anywhere from five to six thousand soldiers made up a Roman legion. Jesus says, what is your name? And this one entity, this one demonic entity speaking on behalf of every other one of them says, we are legion. Now how this can be, who knows? I mean, remember we read about Mary Magdalene, she was possessed of seven devils or demons. These are things that we really don't understand. And again, I want to say, I think, you know, the world of psychiatry, the world of psychology, and I'm not saying that those things are not beneficial at times, and psychiatry can be beneficial, psychology is questionable, but you know, once in a while you get a psychologist who's really biblically oriented and they can be very helpful. But you know, the thing is, these people are completely, in many ways, they're out of their league, because they're dealing with things that they don't even understand. They're attributing all of the problems that people are having to, in the case of a psychologist, they're attributing them to, you know, issues from their past or whatever that, you know, need to be dealt with in some way. Of course, the psychiatrist would look at it more from the standpoint of brain chemistry or chemical imbalances and things like that. But rarely, even among Christians, rarely do you find any emphasis on the demonic. And I think that's the missing component so often. Because I believe that in every single case of a psychological mental disorder, there is a demonic element to it. Now, I'm not saying that everybody is possessed, but I'm saying there's a demonic element, because certainly Satan is going to take advantage of any weakness that a person has, and if they have a mental weakness, he's going to take advantage of that, and he's going to try to infiltrate into that area where there's that break. And so the problem is, though, again, we have a lot of these people in a position of trying to help, but they don't take into consideration this huge factor in these kinds of conditions. I remember years ago talking to a psychologist, and I was talking to him about some of these kinds of things, and I was suggesting to him, as we were discussing back and forth, some of these different syndromes or whatever they're called, disorders or whatever. And I said to him, I said, you know, I think there's a strong demonic element there. And, you know, the guy was a Christian psychologist, but when I said that, he really sort of just smugly dismissed what I said, and sort of blew that off as, oh, well, no, you know, that's ridiculous, and we don't believe in that stuff today, and no, we know what's really going on. I thought, wow, you know, sad, unfortunate. So, you know, these are things that are relevant today, and I think we're seeing more of an increase in demonic activity in these days than we've seen in a long, long time. I mean, look at, you know, just look around the world. I mean, the crisis is just crazy stuff that's going on. We see it on the level of false religion, we see the rise of particularly, of course, Islam, and its murderous spirit. We know where that comes from, because Satan, we're told in the scripture, he is, he was the original murderer from the beginning, and so when you find this murderous spirit, you know that Satan is behind this, and so you see it on that level, but you see it also on the level of different philosophies and things, but you see it more on the popular level with what's going on in the culture, with all of the just giving over of people's lives to the flesh, and then, of course, when you introduce the drug element, you know, there was a period of time where it seemed like, to some degree, maybe we got a little bit of a handle on the drug issue in the culture. Of course, anyone here that's my age, or maybe a little younger or older, you remember, you know, kind of from the mid-60s all the way through the 70s, a lot of drug activity in the culture, and it seemed like the 80s things changed a little bit. I just remember back during the 80s, it didn't, you know, I was dealing with a lot of young people at the time and stuff, and there just didn't seem to be as much drug activity as there was when I was in my teens. Everybody was doing drugs when I was a teenager, and it sort of seemed like it, you know, subsided for a season, but man, you know, it's just come all the way back around, and it's probably even, to some degree, going beyond where it was before. But you look at the numbers of kids today who are just spending their lives getting stoned, you know, smoking dope and smoking, you know, not just pot, but they're smoking, ultimately, heroin, and, you know, crystal meth, and LSD made a big comeback, and all of these things. And, you know, with all of this, you see the devils, the devil is on the warpath. He's, you know, he's back with a vengeance, and we're seeing this happen with, you know, these kids just being swept up in this stuff, and man, we have got to, we've got to pray that God will pour out His Spirit and deliver these young people from these things, and thank God He's able to do it, and here we have an extreme situation, and we see as we go on that Jesus deals with it quite simply. He deals with it very easily. And, of course, this is what we've seen in the past, isn't it? We have seen the Lord take somebody who was so in the grip of Satan, and just release them in an instant. And, you know, I want to see myself, I'm praying, Lord, we need to see more of that. We need to have a whole new, you know, crop of people getting saved and hearing the testimonies about how God delivered them from this grip that the devil had on their lives, and the Lord, I believe, wants to do that in these days. But back to the story, verse 31, so they said they are legion because there are many, they begged Him that He would not command them to go into the abyss. So the demons are begging the Lord not to send them into the place of kind of a permanent incarceration. And now a herd of many swine was feeding there on the mountain. So they begged Him that He would permit them to enter them, and He permitted them. So this is all very strange, you know, demons begging the Lord to be allowed to go into this herd of swine. So He permitted that, then the demons went out of the man, entered the swine, and ran violently down the steep place into the lake and drowned. Now some have astoundingly criticized Jesus here, for Jesus had no right messing with other people's private property, those were not His pigs, He had no right to send those demons into those pigs. That's what some of the skeptics have said. Well you know the fact of the matter is they were His pigs, He created them, they were His pigs. And those pigs were also trespassing on His land, because that of course was His land, and pigs were not supposed to be there in His land. But you know this is the nonsense that people come up with. So when those who fed them saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country, and they went out to see what had happened and came to Jesus and found the man, now listen to this, they found the man from whom the demons had departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in His right mind, and they were afraid. Wow. But look at this beautiful picture, the man, look at the before and after. He's completely uncontrollable, driven by the demons, tormented by the demons, out of His mind, and now there He is sitting at the feet of Jesus, He's clothed and He's in His right mind. Praise the Lord, what a great testimony, what a great story. And how many, I was thinking as I was just looking at this passage today, I was thinking of how many people does this description fit? People who were one time just so bound up by the devil, but now they're, so to speak, they're clothed, they're sitting at the feet of Jesus, they're in their right mind, they're worshiping the Lord, there's nothing more beautiful than that. And we see it here, but the reaction of the people is really amazing, they were afraid, they also who had seen it told them by what means He had been demon possessed was healed, then the whole multitude of the surrounding region of the Gadarenes, listen, they asked Him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear and He got into the boat and returned. Amazing. They asked Him to depart, they saw the power of God deliver this man, and amazingly they didn't want any part of it. Now this is something that I think you would probably agree with me, it's just, it's so hard to comprehend that, but we have to keep a biblical view of things. I said this, I think I said it Sunday morning. We tend a lot of times to think that the reason people aren't believers is because of some failure on the part of the church, or we've not really been the best witnesses we possibly could be, or they haven't really clearly heard the gospel, and of course in some instances that is the case, but we also have to remember that there are those who have heard the gospel, who know the gospel, who understand the gospel, and who reject the gospel. They don't want anything to do with it. They don't want God in their lives, because the Bible tells us that men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. And Jesus just came and He shined a big giant light into this region of Gadara, and the people said we don't want that light, because that light is exposing the darkness we live in, and we want to stay in the darkness, so Jesus you just take your friends and you go away. That for me, and I think for many of you as well, that is a hard thing to understand. It's a hard thing to comprehend. Now I know it a little bit, and maybe you do too, because probably most of us, we have memories of resisting the Lord. I definitely resisted the Lord for a period of time, but thank God He was persistent, and He continued to pursue me, and I finally, and likewise with you, we finally surrendered. But for those that just continue to harden their hearts, and you know there's something very frightening when a person says to us, to Jesus, go away. And you know what the frightening thing is? He will do it. He will go away. And man, when the Lord goes away, you know you've just opened yourself up for trouble like you've never seen. But some people, they persevere through the trouble to just continue to go on in their sin. And so as we go through life, and as we go through ministry, and as we attempt to reach the world, I think sometimes, you know by the way some people talk, the idea is that if the church was just doing it right, the whole world would be saved. No, that's never going to be the case. The church is always going to be a minority. Jesus said it, the road to destruction is wide, multitudes are on it, the path to life is narrow. So we need to remember that. And I think a lot of times we sort of unnecessarily condemn ourselves thinking well you know we failed so desperately, but what can you do? Look at Jesus. You think he didn't do a good job of witnessing there? You know you think he maybe blew it in some way so they got turned off? No, he did exactly what needed to be done, but they still said go away. We don't want you here. Sad, sad situation. I was talking to somebody the other day who was telling me about their relative that passed away recently, and in a conversation where they were attempting at a point to share with them, the person just said you know I don't want you to talk to me about this, and you've got your opinion and I've got mine, and that was the state that they died in. And boy that's a frightening thing, but it happens, it happens all the time. So as we carry on here, now the man from whom the demons had departed, departed, begged him that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away saying return to your own house and tell what great things God has done for you. This is an interesting one isn't it? I mean what is this guy saying? Lord I want to get in the boat, I want to go with you guys. I want to be part of this. Jesus is there with his disciples. Jesus says no, this is what I want you to do. I want you to go back to your home, and that's where I want you to be a witness. And you know, it just reminds us that the Lord has a different calling for all of us. Sometimes I think we tend to think that unless we're an apostle, unless we're right there in the boat with Jesus, maybe we're not where we should be. But Jesus, he's got us all situated in all kinds of different places. And so for this man, he wanted to go with the Lord, but the Lord says no, that's not what I have for you, but I want you to go back to your family. I want you to go back to your home. I want you to go back to the people who have known you, and saw you in the condition that you were in, and I want you to testify to them of the great things that God has done for you. And you know, I think in all of our lives to some extent, there is that, you know, our witness starts right where we're at. We don't necessarily have to think in terms of, okay, now I'm a Christian, I've got to go over here and do this. We need to realize, okay, the Lord has saved me, and now right where I'm at, he wants me to be a witness. He wants me to be a testimony. And so for this man, tell what great things God has done for you. And he went his way and proclaimed throughout the whole city, what great things Jesus had done for him. And so it was when Jesus returned that the multitude welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him. So boy, this is one of those kinds of things where wouldn't you have loved to have been there watching that when this guy comes back into town. And the last time most people had seen him was when he was in that state of total insanity and torment. And you know, he was vicious and violent. And I would imagine everybody was absolutely frightened to death of this guy. But now they've heard the stories about the visit of Jesus and what's happened. And now they see him clothed in his right mind, praising God, telling the people the things that God had done for him. Oh man, those, you know, like I was saying the other day, testimonies are so powerful. You might not have all of your theology sorted out yet. You might not have, you know, a ton of verses committed to memory. But if you've got a testimony, you've got something powerful. You just tell people what the Lord's done for you. And that's a great place to start. And that's pretty much where, you know, most of us start. You just start by telling people what the Lord has done for you. And I know that that's where I started. And I know that that's where many of you started. And of course, through time, you know, we gather knowledge and we grow in our understanding. And so we're able to add to that. But a testimony is a very powerful thing. And so I think sometimes people get sort of hung up because they think, Oh, well, what am I going to say this? I don't even know it. I don't really know the Bible that well. What verses? And, you know, just tell them what the Lord's done. Tell them how God set you free. Tell them how He saved you. Tell them how He changed your life. Tell them where you were at and what you were doing and what's happened to you today. And that's powerful. That's awesome. And that's what this guy did. And so as we go on, behold, there came a man, verse 41, named Jairus. And he was a ruler of the synagogue. And he fell down at Jesus' feet and begged Him to come to his house, for he had an only daughter, about 12 years of age, and she was dying. And she was dying. You know, we read over these things and it's good to pause and to ponder and to think about where this man was at this moment. A place of utter and complete desperation. His daughter was dying. And when your 12 year old daughter is dying, oh God, what can you do? Is there anything that you can do? You'll do anything. And so this man, now notice, he is a ruler of the synagogue. Jesus was, as you know, He was already seen as a dangerous person in the eyes of the religious elite. The religious rulers of the nation had already labeled Jesus as a dangerous person. He was a false prophet in their estimation. He was a blasphemer. And so for this ruler of the synagogue, now remember, as a ruler of the synagogue, he would have been to some degree subject to the authority of these rulers. But of course, he knew that they couldn't do anything for him. What were they going to do? But he knows that Jesus has power, so he comes to Jesus in hope that something might be done for his daughter who is dying. But as he went, the multitude stronged him. Now a woman having a flow of blood for 12 years who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any, came from behind and touched the border of his garment, and immediately her flow of blood stopped. So the picture here, of course, is Jairus has informed Jesus of the situation, and now he's seeking to bring Jesus to his daughter. But as he's doing that, suddenly everything is halted. And Luke tells us about this woman who had been 12 years. A 12 year old girl on the verge of death, a woman who had been suffering, hemorrhaging for 12 years. And so she came up behind him. In her mind, she just had this conviction, if I could just touch the hem of his garment. Now in those days, Jews had around the hem of their garment, they had different things woven that were symbolic spiritually. Back actually, Moses had told the children of Israel to do that. And it could be that Jesus had something like that around the hem of his garment. But this woman just had the sense that if I can just get close enough to touch him, she believed that she would be healed. And so it was just as she thought. Immediately, the moment she touched him, the flow of blood stopped, and Jesus said, who touched me? Now the other gospels tell us that he turned and he looked at the crowd and he said, who touched me? And as we see here, Peter and those with him said, Master, the multitude strong impress you. And you say, who touched me? The better question would be, who didn't touch me? Because everybody was touching him. But Jesus is saying that he was touched in a special way. Jesus said, somebody touched me, for I perceived power going out from me. Now, of course, Jesus knew exactly who it was who had done this. But Jesus is doing this intentionally to draw the faith out of this woman. But at the same time, he's being held up from getting to Jairus' daughter. Now, I'm sure Jairus was just like, Lord, can we just come on? Can you imagine the anxiety that he must have been under? I mean, he finally gets to Jesus and he's got him and he's going to get him to his house and maybe, just maybe something could happen, but now he's held up with this woman. And now he's asking, who touched me? All of this would have been very difficult. So the woman, when she saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling and falling down before him, she declared to him in the presence of all the people, the reason she had touched him and how she was healed immediately. And he said to her daughter, be of good cheer, your faith has made you well, go in peace. Now, on the one hand, he's being delayed and I think Jairus is probably like, oh, come on, Lord, come on, Lord. But I would imagine when Jesus said this to the woman, daughter, your faith has healed you. And when Jairus realizes this would have probably bolstered his faith. Okay, I've got the right person. He just healed this woman who's been suffering for these 12 years. And so while he was still speaking, someone came from the ruler of the synagogue's house saying to him, your daughter has died. Do not trouble the teacher. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? Your daughter is dead. Do not trouble the teacher. But listen, when Jesus heard it, he answered him saying, do not be afraid, only believe and she will be made well. So, here's Jairus, he just hears word his daughter is dead, but he's just seen Jesus heal a woman instantly who had an issue of blood for 12 years. Jesus says, don't worry, just believe, she'll be made well. I think Jairus was greatly bolstered in his faith at that moment. And so when he came into the house, he permitted no one to go in except Peter, James, and John, and the father and the mother of the girl. Now all wept and mourned for her. Now, in the Jewish culture, when a person dies, they go into a mourning immediately. And Jews still do this to this very day. And it's part of the tradition where there is this lamentation, and there's this deep mourning that the people enter into. And in some cases, people would even be sort of almost like hired to come in and mourn. So this was, the atmosphere would have been one of just utter grief and heaviness. This is the atmosphere that Jesus comes into. They're all weeping and mourning, but he said, do not weep, she is not dead, but sleeping. And they ridiculed him, they mocked him knowing that she was dead. But he put them all outside, took her by the hand, and called saying, little girl arise. You know literally he called her little lamb arise. Little lamb arise, then her spirit returned and she arose immediately. Now it's interesting, you know there's actually a debate among some commentators as to whether or not the girl was really dead. They said she was dead, Jesus said she wasn't dead. Some commentators say she wasn't actually dead. They thought she was dead, but she was sort of in a coma, you know, kind of a deep comatose state. But if you just read verse 55, she was dead. Because her spirit had departed from her, 55 says, and her spirit returned. But you see from the standpoint of Jesus of course, she was no more dead than Lazarus was. Remember what Jesus said about Lazarus? Jesus said, Lazarus is asleep and I'm going to wake him up. They said, oh well if he's asleep he's going to be fine. Jesus said, okay, he's died. You guys aren't getting the code, I'll just tell you plainly, he's dead. And so in the case here she was dead. But from the standpoint of Jesus, she wasn't dead. Because he was about to resurrect her. And from his standpoint she would have been sleeping. And so she arose immediately, he commanded that she should be given something to eat and her parents were astonished. But he charged them to tell no one what had happened. And so, in closing, here's the thing that I think is just the thing that we want to just take home with us tonight is the power of Christ over all of these things. The power of Christ over nature. The power of Christ over Satan. The power of Christ over disease. The power of Christ over death. And you know, I don't want to be trying to hype anything up or get anybody emotional or any of that, but I just think we have got to get our minds back into the place of realizing that this same Jesus is with us today. And that these kinds of things are things that we need to be expecting to see the Lord do in the days to come. You know, because I think it would stand to reason as the days get darker, the light will get brighter. And as the enemy comes in like a flood, the Lord raises up a standard against him. And the promise of the day of Pentecost is that the spirit would be poured out in the last days, and that outpouring would continue until the Lord returned. So if we have in our minds at all the idea that, you know, all of those great things happened, of course, back in the biblical times, and they happened at various times in history, and they happened back in the Jesus movement, they happened back in the 60s and 70s with the hippies, that's all fine and good, they did, but let's believe they're going to happen again in our day. Let's believe they're going to happen again for the next generation. Because the generation that's today with us of young people, they're as lost as any generation's ever been. There may be more loss than any generation's ever been, and we need to expect the power of Christ to be demonstrated among them as well. So we're the ones who know the Lord. We're the ones who believe in Christ, and therefore we're the ones to pray and call upon God and ask Him to do this, and we're the ones to take steps of faith and say, you know what, the Lord is going to work, and we're not just going to sit on our hands, you know, worried about what's happening with the next election or whatever, we're going to keep moving forward in the power of the Spirit of God, and we're going to see Jesus do things, and we're going to see people who were once out of their mind and in chains, and under the complete and total authority of the devil, we're going to see them sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed and in their right mind, and that's what we're praying about, and that's what we're believing God to do in the days to come. Amen? Let's pray. Father, we thank You that we serve a risen Savior, and He's in the world today, and Lord, we know You live because You live within our hearts, and You've transformed our lives, and Lord, we believe that even though the world is in darkness, and even though men love darkness rather than light, and even though there are those that will resist You right to the grave, we know also, Lord, that You have many people yet to draw to Yourself, just as You told Paul when he was in that ancient city of Corinth, that city that would be comparable to the most wicked cities in the world today, You said to him, Lord, You had many people in that city, and Lord, we believe that You have many people in Orange County still that You want to draw to Yourself, and all over this country, and all around this world, so Lord, fill us with faith, and Lord, may we see You move in power, and may we see, Lord, many brought to salvation. We thank You in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Alright. So, got your guitar sorted out there, buddy? We'll see how it goes this time around. Alright. So, the guys are up front. If you need some prayer afterwards, come on up, and let's just finish up tonight. Dan's sharing with us here. This song's called Waiting in the Quiet. It's just about longing to hear from the Lord. Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus