Jean Ross: Good morning, everyone. Welcome again to "Sabbath School Study Hour" at the Granite Bay Seventh-day Adventist Church in Sacramento, California. I'd like to welcome those who are joining us across the country and around the world. I know we have a number of online Sabbath school members who tune in every week to study the lesson with us. A very special welcome to you and also to our regular church members here and the visitors who have come for Sabbath school today. As many of you know, we've been studying through our lesson quarterly entitled, "The Least of These." For those of you who are here, hopefully you have a copy of the lesson quarterly. For our friends who are joining us, if you don't have a copy of the lesson, and we encourage you to take a look at the lesson and you can study along with us, just go to the website, lesson.aftv.org, and you'll be able to download the lesson right there. And we're looking at lesson number seven today, entitled, "Jesus and Those in Need." That's lesson number seven, and you want to download that and you can study along with us.
We also have a free offer called, A Love that Transforms." It's part of the Amazing Facts Study Guide series. And if you'd like to receive the lesson, all you'll need to do is call 866-788-3966 and ask for offer number 710. Or if you'd like, you can text the code "SH003" to the number 40544, and you'll be able to receive a digital copy of the lesson titled, "A Love that Transforms," part of the Amazing Facts Study Guide series. Well, before we get to our lesson today, I'd like to invite our song leaders to come out and they'll be leading us in our song of worship for Sabbath school.
♪ The church has one foundation. ♪
♪ 'Tis Jesus Christ her Lord. ♪
♪ She is His new creation by water and the Word. ♪
♪ From heaven He came ♪
♪ and sought her to be His holy bride. ♪
♪ With His own blood He bought her, ♪
♪ and for her life He died. ♪
♪ Though with a scornful wonder ♪
♪ men see her sore oppressed, ♪
♪ though foes would rend asunder the rock ♪
♪ where she doth rest, ♪
♪ yet saints their faith are keeping. ♪
♪ Their cry goes up, "How long?" ♪
♪ And soon the night of weeping ♪
♪ will be the morn of song. ♪
♪ 'Mid toil and tribulation and tumult of her war, ♪
♪ she waits the consummation of peace forevermore. ♪
♪ Till with the vision glorious, ♪
♪ her longing eyes are blest, ♪
♪ and the great church victorious ♪
♪ shall be the church at rest. ♪♪
Jean: Dear Father in heaven, we thank You that we can gather together on this, Your special day, the Sabbath, and open up our--Your Word and study together. Father, we ask Your blessing upon our lesson. Very important theme, talking about how we are to minister to those around us, looking at the example given to us by Jesus. So please, bless our time this morning, for we ask this in Jesus's name, amen. Our lesson today is going to be brought to us by Pastor Doug.
Doug Batchelor: Good to be with you and be studying God's Word. We're talking today about lesson number seven that is dealing with those in need. And this has been a great quarterly talking about just some of the basic ministry of Christ and describing--helps us better understand the character of God. You know, I was thinking as I was just sitting there, it might be worth mentioning to our viewers--and we know that we've got, you know, people around the world that study with us each week, some are watching online, Facebook, various satellite networks--that a lot of churches have more than one adult class. And sometimes when people are new members and after they've been grounded in the faith, they might want to do something to study, "How do I bring others to Christ?"
And you know, I thought it'd be good to just mention that Amazing Facts developed a 13-part study series called, "Amazing Doctrines," that helps you take people through the basic doctrines and talks to them about how to share their faith with them as well. You might want to take a look at that also. It just makes a great Sabbath school study program. So, we have a memory verse. Our lesson today is talking about the least of these, lesson number seven. The least of these, "Jesus and Those in Need." And our memory verse is Luke 4:18-19. Are you ready? Say it with me. This is from the New King James Version. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." It's like, here's where Jesus gets up in His home church, and He turns to Isaiah 61, which we will read later, and He announces the summary of His mission statement that is given from an Old Testament prophecy.
Now, well, as I said, this same verse comes up later in the study, so I won't go there right now. Now, in a moment, I'm going to have some of you help me read a few verses. Someone's going to read for me Luke--is that you Hafdis? Luke chapter 1, verse 1--verse 41 and 42. But I'm going to read a Luke 1:70-71 to start with. "As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets, Who have been since the world began, That we should be saved from our enemies And from the hand of all of those who hate us." In a moment, we're going to look at three prophetic declarations. These three given by women actually, that talked about the ministry of Christ. And it's interesting that Zechariah, when he's talking about the ministry of John the Baptist, he said, "The holy prophets who spoke since the world began." So, who are some of the prophets that spoke since the world began? Who's the first prophet? Well, Jesus. He makes a prophecy in Genesis chapter 3, verse 15 to Adam and Eve. You've got a prophecy, I would think, that the first one would be Enoch. You read, it says, "Enoch prophesied of these saying, 'The Lord comes with ten thousand of His Saints.'" Noah was a prophet and who foretold the coming. But you know, prophets go all the way back is what Zechariah is saying. All right, read for us please Luke 1:41.
Female: "And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, 'Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!'"
Doug: So right there, they knew there was something that was going to be special or blessed about this baby that Mary was carrying, and you have that testimony of Elizabeth. Now, you go to Mary in her declaration and you look in Luke chapter 1, go to verse 46, and this is during that same meeting between Mary and her older cousin Elizabeth. And she said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed. For He who is mighty has done great things for me, And holy is His name. And His mercy is on those who fear Him From generation to generation. He has shown strength with His arm; And He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts."
Now, I want to just pause here. Is this declaration of Mary just a prophecy about what God has done for Mary or is Mary recognizing that she in a way, as this virgin--you know, the bride of Christ is called a virgin--is a type of the church, and that God now has visited His people the church? You know, our Catholic brothers and sisters, they do their best to say that the woman that you see in Revelation 12 that brings forth the man child that's got the 12 stars above her head, this is Mary. Now, we think, no, this is--there's some similarities in that Mary's a type of the church who brings forth Christ to the world, but that woman in Revelation 12, it says she flees into the wilderness and is persecuted for three and a half years. It's not Mary. It's talking about the church. But Mary is a type of the church and that's why they're sometimes confused. You know, the 12 stars above the head, sign of the 12 apostles of leadership. And so, Mary is not just talking about her being blessed Mary, because everyone's going to think of me, but God has visited His people Israel, and who is a type of the bride of Christ. Verse 52, "He has put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted the lowly."
Now, you're going to see right here I'm going to read something from both Mary, we already read Elizabeth, we'll go to Hannah in just a moment. A common theme is a reversal of roles. You'll see how God often passes by the proud, goes to the lowly. He passes by the rich, He goes to the poor. He passes by the well, He goes to the sick. And so, this is a theme that's going through these declarations that we're going to read. "He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts." Verse 52, "He's put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, And the rich He has sent away empty. He has helped His servant Israel, In remembrance of His mercy, As He spoke to our father Abraham and to his seed forever."
Now, there's a very similar declaration that is made in the Old Testament that Mary knew. Keep in mind the book of Samuel was written long before Mary had her experience. What happened to Hannah? First of all, Mary has a miracle birth, right? She's conceived miraculously. It's a boy. How many other miracle births are there in the Bible? Well, there's I think seven miracle births where someone was barren. Now, Mary was not barren that we know of. She was a virgin. That's a little different, but it's still a miracle birth. But you have got the miracle birth of Elizabeth, Hannah, Samson's wife, or no, Samson's mother, Menoah's wife. We don't know what her name was. We also don't know the name of the Shunammite woman who had a miracle birth, of Elizabeth who had a miracle birth, and I think I've got most of them there. John the Baptist's Elizabeth, and you've got Sarah is the one I'm leaving out. And so, you've got these miracle births in the Bible. Each one of those miracle births brings forth a baby boy, and all of these baby boys are types of Christ and something in their lives mirror the ministry or the life of Jesus. For example, Isaac. How does he mirror Christ? Was Isaac a willing sacrifice? And did he put the wood on his back as Christ had the cross on His back and He went to the place of sacrifice? And Isaac's name means good news or laughter, and so you'd see a lot of parallels for Isaac. What about Hannah? She has a miracle boy. How is Samuel a type of Christ? Is Jesus our High Priest? Was Samuel also a judge? He was one of the judges of Israel. Jesus is our Judge. And was Samuel a prophet? Is Jesus our prophet? You know what the word "Samuel" means? Hannah had prayed that God would give her a son. God heard her. "Samuel" means God hears. Did Jesus always listen to the Father and did Samuel always listen to God? Do you know, there's no record in the Bible of Samuel disobeying God. He always listened. He said, "Speak, Lord. Your servant listens," right? And so, in all of these, and you know, Sampson, he's a type of Christ. He lays down his life to defeat the enemies of God. The Shunammite woman has a boy. He's a type of Christ. He dies working with his father in the field and he's resurrected. That's a type of Christ. And so, in all of these you'll see the typology of Jesus in these miracle baby boys.
All right, Hannah now, you read in 1 Samuel. You'll want to go there because I'm going to read quite a bit, and I'll pause along the way and do a little expository sharing on this. 1 Samuel 2, this is after Samuel was born. She brings him to Eli in the temple and she praises God. She makes this incredible sacrifice of her firstborn. You know what God does for her? He gives her five more children because she gave her best to God. 1 Samuel 2, verse 1, "And Hannah prayed and said: 'My heart rejoices in the Lord; My horn is exalted in the Lord. I smile at my enemies, Because I rejoice in Your salvation.'" You remember, who was Hannah's enemy? Penina, and matter of fact, she's called her adversary. That'd be terrible to have a sister wife that was your adversary, have to live in the same house. "I smile at my enemies." No, why did--Penina was always putting her down, said, "Well, I guess God doesn't love you. Look how many children He's given me. He hasn't give you anything. You've probably done something wrong. "Because I rejoice in Your salvation. No one is holy like the Lord, For there is none besides You, Nor is there any rock like our God. Talk no more very proudly; Let no arrogance come out of your mouth, For the Lord is the God of knowledge; And by Him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty are broken, And those who stumbled are girded with strength."
Here's that theme again. The high are brought down. The low are lifted up. What did Jesus say in His ministry? "Blessed are the poor in spirit." The Bible says that in Luke's version of the Beatitudes, he says, "Blessed are those who mourn and those who laugh now will weep." So, he shows this reversal. "Those who stumbled are girded with strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, And the hungry have ceased to hunger. Even the barren has borne seven." Now, how many barren women were there in the Bible that gave birth? Seven, and here you see that even in Hannah's prayer. "Even the barren has borne seven. And she who has many children has become feeble." She's talking about Penina again. "The Lord kills and makes alive; He brings down to the grave and brings up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich; He brings low and lifts up. He raises the poor from the dust." There again, blessed are the poor in spirit. "And lifts the beggar from the ash heap, To set them among princes." Job went from the ash heap to be doubly blessed. "He makes them inherit the throne of glory. He will guard the feet of His saints, But the wicked shall be silent in darkness. For by strength no man shall prevail. The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken in pieces; From heaven He will thunder against them. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth. He will give strength to His king, And exalt the horn of His anointed."
Now, this is very interesting. She says, "Strength to His king and His anointed." Who's she talking about? When Hannah said this, did Israel have a king? Not yet. Samuel, it was later they asked Samuel, you know, "Get us a king." They had no king. She's making a prophecy about the Messiah here, the Anointed. So, it's a beautiful statement that Mary kind of alludes to in her declaration.
All right, enough about that. Jesus's mission statement. Now, we started with a memory verse. Jesus gets up in His home church and He reads from Isaiah 61. Let's go to Isaiah 61 and read verses 1 and 2. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, Because the Lord has anointed Me." Now, what does the word "Christ" mean? You ever seen them christen a ship? They anoint it, usually with champagne, not olive oil. It's something that's named or it's christened. The word "Messiah" means anointed. When the high priest was chosen, they took a horn of oil and they poured it down over the priest. When a king was chosen, he was anointed. Jesus is the anointed of God, our Priest, our King, our Prophet, our Judge. And so, these are references to the ministry of Jesus. "The Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor." What's the gospel called? Good news. "He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted."
Now, I don't know about you, but aren't you glad that God can heal broken hearts? Have you ever had your heart broken? Doesn't mean because you had a crush or you were infatuated and you got spurned. There's a lot of ways people get broken hearts. A person can be brokenhearted because they fail a test and can't pursue their career. A person can be brokenhearted because they lose a family member. A person can be brokenhearted because they get really bad news from the doctor. There's all kinds of things that can give you a broken heart. It's not just romance that derails. And Jesus came to heal the brokenhearted. "To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of prison to those that are bound."
Now, after Jesus makes this statement, He says, "Today this is fulfilled in your years." How does Jesus proclaim liberty to the captives? What's the story of the gospel? How many captives does the Lord get out of prison? Children of Israel, what were they? Weren't they captives? And then He sets them free. The the story of the gospel is the story of liberation of those who are enslaved. Does the Lord save Joseph from prison? Isn't it interesting, He takes Joseph from prison to the palace in one day. Does the Lord save Manasseh from prison? You read it. He was in--He prayed repentant. Even as wicked as he was, God saved Manasseh from prison. How about King Jehoiakim who was 37 years in a Babylonian jail? Did He save him from prison and set him with the kings? It's the last chapter in Jeremiah. He does. How about the apostles. Were they imprisoned by the Pharisees? Uh-huh, angel said, "Go out to the house of the Lord and preach." They went from the prison to the house of the Lord. Does He save Peter from prison? He does. Did Jesus break the chains of the demoniac? And then He gave him a clear mind. He set the captives free.
So, when He saves us from sin, when He saves you from any sin, bad habit, oh praise God, He broke the chains for me of smoking. I mean, that was tough but I am so thankful. You've heard my testimony called, "Cold Confession." I was an ice cream addict. I'm not condemning you if you're--you got it under control, but I was an ice cream addict and He broke the chains and set me free. I was really tempted a few weeks ago, but praise the Lord, I still haven't backslidden. I do have the soy every now and then, just in full disclosure. But Jesus, He sets the captives free. And so--and not only that, Paul was in prison and the Lord brought him out of prison on a number of occasions. So, this is the ministry of Jesus. So, when we are preaching, we are liberating people from the prisons.
And now, after Jesus says this, He had the audacity to say to those in Nazareth, "Today this prophecy is fulfilled in your hearing." And they got upset. They said, "Who does He think He is?" They went to throw Him off a cliff a little later because He basically said, "I am the one that Isaiah was preaching about, and today I'm beginning my ministry." But His ministry was to set the captives free. Go to--you know another verse. This is not in your lesson, but go with me to Matthew chapter 9. This is, I think, a great passage. We sort of use this as a summary for Amazing Facts. We look at what happens here in Matthew chapter 9 with the ministry of Jesus, and that's Matthew 9, verse 35. I wrote it in my notes but I did not mark it. "Then Jesus--" a great summary of His ministry. "Jesus went about all the cities." How many cities? Bible says He's not coming back until He's gone over all the cities of Israel. "Jesus went about all the cities and villages."
Did Jesus have a country ministry, or a city ministry, or both? We've got a lot of people on the church that says, "You know, we've got to flee from the cities and go to the country." And I believe there's a time for that, but if all of us flee from the cities, where do most people live? Did Jesus have a country ministry? He did. He went to the villages. And did He also have a city ministry? Last time we went to India, we did meetings in one of the biggest cities and had the opportunity I'll never forget to preach to 25,000 people. That was really exciting. That was just their evening service. And then we went out to a village and we preached to a few hundred people, and it was a very different group sitting on the floor on the dirt or tarps. And but it made me think about Jesus. He went to the cities and He went to the villages. He went to where the people were. And it says, "Teaching," where? "In their synagogues." He had--He worked with their worship, places of worship, preaching--now, is there a difference between teaching and preaching? Yeah, we're going to go in a minute from Sabbath school to church, from our worship service to our Sabbath school service. I mean there's two different--so He did teaching and He did preaching. "The gospel, the good news of the kingdom, and healing."
Did He also have a health ministry? What kind of healing? Every sickness and every disease, physical, mental, spiritual, demonic, among the people. So, Jesus had--this is a great verse that sort of summarizes His mission. He went everywhere, and when He got done, He said to the disciples, "I've got to continue going to other towns." He was an itinerate preacher. All right, in Matthew chapter 11, "And when Jesus heard in prison about the--" I'm sorry, "When John heard in prison about the works of Christ," Matthew 11, verse 2, "he sent two of his disciples and they said to Him, 'Are you the coming one or do we look for another?'"
Now, why did John the Baptist have his disciples asked Jesus that question? Who was it that first introduced Jesus? John the Baptist, "Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world." John said, "He must increase, I must decrease." But even John was influenced by the popular teaching of the day that when the Messiah came, that He would not only call people to holiness, but He was going to use His supernatural power to overthrow their enemies like David did. I mean, you know, David never lost a battle. David came into power, he was the anointed of the Lord, and they were oppressed by the Philistines, and the Moabites, and the Ammonites, and the Syrians, and the Edomites, and David defeated all of those groups I just mentioned. And they thought, "Praise the Lord, the Messiah is here. He's going to lead us to righteousness and he's going to defeat us from the Romans that have occupied our country." And here, John the Baptist is in jail by a quasi-Roman Jewish king, Herod, and he was basically a puppet for the Romans. And he's thinking, "Lord, here I am. Overthrow the Romans. This would be a good time. Are you the one we're waiting for?"
So, you can see even John's getting discouraged, and he sends some disciples to Jesus, and they say, "John sent us with a question. Are you the coming one?" Now, if you've got your Bibles and you read that, you'll notice it says a capital C, O-M-I-N-G, capital O, N-E. "Are you the Coming One, the Messiah, or do we look for another?" And Jesus answered and said to them, "Go and tell John the things that you hear and see. The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them," and then He says in closing, "Blessed is he who is not offended or confused," or doubts, is what He's saying, "who I am. Don't doubt who I am because I'm not delivering you from your government enemies right now." That happens when Jesus comes again, right?
First time Christ comes, He comes as a Lamb, the sacrifice. The next time He comes, He comes as a lion to liberate us from our political enemies. But that was not the purpose of Jesus's first coming, and so when John heard about the ministry of Jesus, and knowing the Old Testament Scriptures, he said, "Yeah, that's right, the Messiah was to do all of these things too," so that brought him some comfort. If you look, for instance, in, and I think John the Baptist read this, Isaiah 58, you know, the religious leaders--go to Isaiah 58, verse 6. They thought there was great virtue in fasting to afflict themselves, and the more they afflicted themselves. You know, in some churches they think if you go out and crawl on your knees to a cross and you beat yourself that you're going to get some kind of points with God for doing that, but Isaiah makes it clear that's not the fast that God's interested in. Here's the fast that He wants. "Is this not the fast that I've chosen," Isaiah 58:6, "To loose the bonds of wickedness," to turn from your sins, "To undo the heavy burdens," lighten the load of the oppressed, "Let the oppressed go free, That you break every yoke? Is it not--" Yoke means they had to enslave their brothers.
Some of you remember the story in Ezra, Nehemiah, where you hear that the wealthy among the people had--because there was a famine, they had indebted all of their brothers. They had to sell everything just to get food and seed for their families, and a few rich people in the kingdom had enslaved their own brothers. And he said, "You need to set them free. Release the oppressed that you've enslaved, your own brothers." Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; When you see the naked, that you cover him, And that you not hide yourself from your own flesh?" I mean, we're all brothers and sisters. "Then," he says if you do this kind of fast--you think the fast is just to, you know, pray and not eat food. He says the thing that'll really please the Lord is when you care for the least of these. "Then your light shall break forth like the morning." How many of you would like that? "Your healing shall spring forth speedily."
Is it possible some are sick because they don't understand the biblical fast of loving their neighbor and caring for the poor? "Your light will break forth like the morning." Maybe people are depressed because they're only thinking about themself and not thinking about others. You get involved in ministry into others, the clouds will break for you and the light will spring forth. "Your healing will spring forth speedily, your righteousness will go before you; The glory of the Lord will be your rear guard." I think King James says, "Your read word," meaning your read guard. "Then you will call, and the Lord will answer."
Some people, maybe they're praying and God's not answering their prayers because the poor are praying to them and they're ignoring the poor. Did you get what He's saying? Then you'll call, and God will say, "Here I am, because you loved the least of these. In doing it to the least of these, you do it to me." "You'll call, and He'll say, 'Here I am.' You'll cry, and He'll say, 'I'm here.' If you take away the yoke from your midst, From the pointing of the finger, speaking wickedness." Now, well that's something.
One of the fasts that God has chosen, don't gossip and say anything negative, or derogatory, or undermining about a brother or sister. The pointing of the finger, sometimes we do it. Speaking wickedness. "If you extend your soul to the hungry And satisfy the afflicted soul, Then your light will dawn in the darkness, And your darkness will be like the noonday." Your darkest times will still be bright if we would live out the Christian virtues of caring for the poor. Isn't that a great passage? Can you say amen? You seem quiet. I thought that was exciting for me.
All right, now we're going to go to the section about Jesus healing. Mark chapter 5, verse 26, this is a great story. Mark 5, verse 20--matter of fact, now I'm going to turn to Mark and I think we might read this. Go to verse 25. You know, I really need to read starting with verse 21 if it's okay. Mark 5, let's start with verse 21. "Now when Jesus had crossed over again," and this is the Sea of Galilee, "by boat to the other side, a great multitude gathered to Him; and He was by the sea. And behold, one of the rulers of the synagogue came, Jairus by name. And when he saw Him, he fell at His feet and he begged Him earnestly, saying, 'My little daughter lies at the point of death. Come lay Your hand on her, and she will be healed, and she will live.' So Jesus went with him, and a great multitude followed Him and thronged Him.
Now a certain woman had a flow of blood for twelve years, and had suffered many things from many physicians." One thing I want you to notice, she's had this problem for how long? For 12 years. She is a woman. I mean, we don't know what her age is. She could be up there. She's probably under 50, for obvious reasons. And she probably started with the problem over 12, so she's somewhere there in her prime. And this problem has isolated her from society because according to this, she's unclean. What she sits on is unclean. She can't go to the house of the Lord. And it's been a sin, or a disease rather that is treated like sin and separates her. It's embarrassing. She suffered many things from many physicians, went through probably humiliating treatments and nothing got any better. She spent all that she had. It's cost her a lot, no better. You know what I think is interesting? This is Mark's version. Luke, when he reads the version, he leaves out the part about her wasting money on physicians. Why did Luke leave that out? Luke was a physician. You ever catch that? "And she was no better, but rather grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came behind Him in the crowd and touched His garment. For she said, 'If only I might touch His clothes, I might be made well.'"
We're going to talk a little bit about garments in our next message here, but it's interesting that they used to take handkerchiefs from Peter, and they'd say if they could even touch the hankie that Peter had blessed, people were healed. Did you know that ? Matter of fact, it alludes to that a couple of times in the Bible. And so she believed, "If I could even touch His garment." Faith in His clothes. This of course is a type of the righteousness of Christ. So, she reached out and touched him. Verse 29, "Immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction. And Jesus, immediately knowing in Himself that power," or virtue, "had gone out of Him, turned around in the crowd and said, 'Who touched My clothes?'"
That's interesting that Jesus would say that, because the disciples, you notice that it says there was a great multitude. The first story begins, "A great multitude met Him." And now Jairus said, "Please." Jairus, Jairus, I always say that wrong. He said, "Come, help my daughter." And He's on this way, He's making His way slowly through the crowd, and the girl is terminally ill. She's laboring for every breath, and the father is wanting Jesus to hurry and He's stopping. And then He stops from this woman touches Him. He says, "Oh, wait a second. All right, hold everything. Who touched me?" Now, the disciples are thinking Jesus at this point has finally cracked. He's been out in the sun too long. The strain has gotten to Him, because people are jostling Him on every side like He's a superstar. And He says, "Who touched me?"
And you know, I don't know if I even dare say this because it could be misunderstood, but it went through my mind it might be worth mentioning. But when Karen and I, with our evangelistic team, we went to New Guinea. We've never experienced anything like that before. There were 150,000 people that came to our meetings, 60,000 met us at the airport. This police escort, they actually had guards that were whacking people that wanted to touch the vehicle we drove through. It's one of the functions of a deacon, I guess. And but when I'd get done preaching, between where the cars could park, though it was terrible rain in the fields, you could not park near the stage. And so, between the stage and where our cars and the security was parked, there was--you know, you had to walk a couple hundred yards. And you'd walk through the sea of people, and they had kind of guards around you, but everybody was reaching out to see if they could touch you. They want to try--they just want to, "Can I touch you?" because they believe that, you know, if we could just touch the pastor that somehow we'll get a blessing. It was a very strange feeling. And a few people would grab us and they'd just hang on because they wanted a blessing.
But when I read about this story, I think about that and thought, "Oh man." And then He stops and He says, "Who touched me?" And they think, "What are you talking about? People are thronging you." He said, "No, someone touched me." And He looked around to see her, and well, she realized that the jig was up. "And the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth." The reason the story's in the Bible is because she shared her testimony. So, after you've been healed by the Lord, he wants you to share. He didn't want to embarrass her. He said, "You got a story to tell about what God has done for you. You need to tell it, amen?"
Some of you have had miracles you don't tell anybody. Share your testimony. "They overcome by the blood of the Lamb," and what? "The word of their testimony." And so, she shared. He said, "Daughter, don't be afraid, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, be healed of your affliction." He not only said, "You're healed because of your faith," but He declared, "You're healed." Now, He's on a mission to raise a girl. "While He was still speaking, some came from the ruler of the synagogue's house and said, 'Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any more?' As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken," you could see the downcast look on the face of the father, "He said to the ruler of the synagogue, 'Don't be afraid; only believe.' And He permitted no one to follow Him except Peter, James, and John the brother of James."
So, somehow He got rid of the crowd. "He came to the house of the ruler, and saw a tumult and those who wept and wailed loudly. And when He came in, He said to them, 'Why make this commotion and weep? The child is not dead, but sleeping.' And they ridiculed Him. But when He had put them all outside, He took the father and the mother of the child, and those who were with Him," Peter, James, and John, "and He entered where the child was lying. And He took the child by the hand, and said to her, 'Talitha, cumi,' which is translated, 'Little girl, get up.'" And it's kind of the way a mother would speak to their daughter, getting her up for school in the morning, "All right, honey, wake up," and it was a very tender way to say it. "Immediately the girl awoke, she arose, and she walked, for she was twelve years of age. And they were overcome with great amazement. But He commanded them strictly no one should know it," yeah, I got to keep that secret, "and said that someone should--something should be given her to eat."
Now, these stories of Jesus healing, He heals the young, He heals the old. There's two girls. What does a woman represent in Bible analogies often? Church. Is it interesting to you as it was to me that the one woman, same story, one has been bleeding for 12 years, the other one is a girl 12 years old? And they both touch Him that day. I've always seen this as really a pivotal point in the life of Christ, because by the way, this story is in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It was very important to the disciples. They made note of it that Jesus is on His way to raise a girl, and in route He touches a woman who's been bleeding for 12 years. I believe that woman, that first woman, represents the Old Testament church that was sacrificing lambs. A continual flow of blood went from the sanctuary, but no one is healed by the blood of goats, and bulls, and sheep. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. She'd spent much on physicians but was no better, only grew the worse. You cannot pay for the forgiveness of sin. But she touched Jesus that day and all that happened in the Old Testament dispensation met its fulfillment in Christ. It all pointed to Jesus. He goes immediately from that healing of the woman bleeding for 12 years and raises our girl who is 12 years old, which means a girl who is 12 years old was born at the same time the other woman started having her problem. Does that make sense? I believe she represents the New Testament church. She's raised, He says, "Give her something to eat."
After Jesus rose from the dead, He spent 40 days meeting with the church. Every time He met with them, He broke the bread of life to them. Matter of fact, He was first recognized by the two on the road to Emmaus in the breaking of bread. Isn't that right? So, it's a wonderful story about the ministry of Jesus and He healing all kinds of people. Now, someone's going to read for us John 5, verse 5 and 6, okay? Hopefully we got the camera ready for you. Why don't you go ahead and read that?
Male: John 5:5-6, "Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, 'Do you want to be made well?'"
Doug: Amen, thank you. This is the story of course where Jesus heals the man who has been at the pool waiting for the waters to be troubled, but he's an older man. Sometimes people think, "Well, you know, once I get older, God's not going to answer my prayer for healing because I'm just experiencing a natural course of aging." Sometimes that's true. You know, I remember a 90-something-year-old lady asking me if I could do an anointing for her. I said, "What's the problem?" She says, "My hearing's starting to go." I said, "I'll be happy to do that, but do you think there could be a connection between your hearing going and you're being 93?" So you know, usually you don't see God healing or reversing that process.
The Bible does say that even Moses at 120, his eyes still sparkled and his natural strength had not abated, which is remarkable when you think about it. But God does--we got one sister who goes to church here, I'm not going to single her out, but she's old enough to be a great-grandmother. And she was on life support and it looked like there was no hope at all. This happened years ago, and we prayed for her at the hospital, and the Lord raised her back up and she went back to work, and it was a miraculous healing. So, even those who are up in years, like this man, Jesus can heal. So, He cares for the poor, and this man was just such a pitiful case. He was so weak, he couldn't get in the waters when they bubbled and troubled. And then you can see, Matthew 12, verse 14, "Then the Pharisees went out and plotted against Him, how they might destroy Him. But when Jesus knew it, He withdrew from there. And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all."
Can you imagine that? There were towns Jesus went through where the clinic closed. The pharmacy was out of business. He healed all of them. "Yet He warned them not to make Him known, that it might be fulfilled that was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: 'Behold! My Servant whom I have chosen, My Beloved in whom My soul is well pleased! I will put My Spirit upon Him, And He will declare justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel or cry out, Nor make His voice to be heard in the streets.'" Jesus did it meekly. "A bruised reed He will not break, And smoking flax He will not quench, Till He sends forth justice to victory; And in His name Gentiles will trust."
And not only does Jesus heal, you look in Matthew 10, verse 5, then He sends out others to heal. "These twelve Jesus sent out and he commanded them: 'Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.'" And here's what he said, "As you go, preach, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils. Freely you have received, freely give."
You know, some churches have only a social gospel. They are interested in meeting people's felt needs. They do feed the poor, and they give away clothes, and they have the soup kitchen, and they have a counseling ministry. That's wonderful. If you're doing that without preaching the gospel, it's incomplete. And then some people just preach the gospel and they don't do anything practical for their community to minister to people's needs. Jesus, when He sent out the Apostles, they did both, right? We need to be preaching the gospel, repentance from sin, confess your sins, come to Jesus, and then take care of people's physical needs.
All right, and then cleansing the temple here in Matthew chapter--Matthew chapter 21, verse 12, "Jesus went into the temple of God and he drove out all of those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He said, 'It is written, "My house shall be called a house of prayer," but you have made it a "den of thieves."' Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them." It's interesting that the religious leaders were intimidated and they fled, but the blind and the lame came to them, and even the children came in, and they were saying, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" And they said, "Tell them to be quiet. Don't they know what they're saying?"
All right, and then we're going to go to the last section here, which is the cross of Christ, and someone's going to read for me Philippians 2, verse 7 and 8. And I think you'll have that for us, Brian. And you got the microphone? Go ahead.
Brian: "But made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
Doug: You know, Jesus embodied coming to minister to the least of these in that He took the very lowest position when He took the cross. He was numbered with transgressors. He was numbered with thieves. He was numbered. He said though He was poor, you know, He made His grave with the rich. And you can read about this prophesied in Isaiah 53, a beautiful passage. "He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; We esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted."
But why was He smitten of God and afflicted? This is answered. "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him." You know, the princes in Europe, if they did something when they were young, you can't whip the prince, and so they had a friend that was called a whipping boy. And so, if the prince misbehaved, the prince would have to watch his whipping boy get whipped for him, and that was supposed to encourage empathy, and sympathy, and better behavior in the prince. You ever heard of a whipping boy? Yeah, and so how much would it hurt to know that someone's going to be beaten for you? And Christ, really, He took our punishment. "Bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." And so, this is just a beautiful lesson that you have in the cross of Christ, how He took--He took our punishment and traded places with us.
You know, we'd like to give you a free offer that helps highlight that. It's one of the Amazing Facts study guides, one of our best, and it's called, "A Love that Transforms." If you did not hear the announcement at the beginning, we just like to repeat it at the end. Some people tune in along the way. And you can call. You can get this for free simply by calling 866-788-3966. That's 866-STUDY-MORE. When you do that, ask for offer number 710, or you can even download it. Look at it online by texting. Here's what you text, "SH003" to 40544, and you can study that right now. Well friends, we are out of time for today's study. I think we covered the bulk of it. It's a good study. I want to thank you for joining us, and God willing, we'll do it again next week.
Announcer: Don't forget to request today's life-changing free resource. Not only can you receive this free gift in the mail, you can download a digital copy straight to your computer or mobile device. To get your digital copy of today's free gift, simply text the key word on your screen to 40544 or visit the web address shown on your screen, and be sure to select the digital download option on the request page. It's now easier than ever for you to study God's Word with Amazing Facts, wherever and whenever you want, and most important, to share it with others.
Doug: Among the people living in the tropics, for thousands of years the coconut has been a virtual tree of life. The people use it for food, for clothing, for water, for tools, for soap. It does just about everything. The coconut has also saved a lot of lives. During World War II, pilots that were shot down or sailors that were stranded on Pacific islands, they lived for many months on nothing other than the coconut trees that were on their islands. Yes sir, the coconut is a tree of life. One of the amazing things about the coconut is they're designed so they're actually able to float across oceans. Coconuts can go thousands of miles after many months, be washed up on some deserted, sandy beach, then they take root, sprout, come to life, and they'll develop a whole new ecosystem, holding islands in place through a hurricane. When the ancient Polynesian travelers crossing oceans saw an island with coconut trees, they knew there was hope.
It's amazing how, in virtually no time at all, those living on Pacific islands know how to make baskets and all kinds of tools from the leaves of the coconut tree. The coconuts even serve different purposes at different times in their development. The younger green coconut, they're full of water, and that'll keep you alive. Yum! You can even make your utensils from the coconut. My spoon is part of the green shell and here, this is a coconut jelly. It makes good for breakfast. The more mature coconuts, that's where you get the meat, but you wanna make sure that they're not bad. And the way you test this is you can hear the water inside. Bring that mic over here. Can you hear it? That's a good one. How about we take a bite? Now, that makes a meal that will really fill you up, and it cleans your teeth at the same time.
Throughout the Bible, Jesus uses a number of metaphors to remind us that everything we need to survive comes from him. He says that he's the living water. Jesus tells us he is the bread of life. His robe covers us with righteousness. He is our Good Shepherd that protects us. Jesus is the living vine through which we get our life and our nourishment. You might say Jesus is like the coconut tree, a tree of life. You know, the first few verses in the Bible tell that God provided a tree of life for man so he could live forever, but because of sin man was separated from that tree and from the garden. But through trusting in Jesus and trusting in his sacrifice on the cross, we once again will have access to the tree of life and have eternal life with Him in the kingdom. But this is all made possible because we trust in Jesus who is the real Tree of Life. Jesus said, "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you." But when we accept Christ as our sacrifice and we allow Him to cleanse us and fill us with His Spirit, we become new creatures and we can be with Him in sharing the gift of everlasting life with others. Matter of fact, we can do that right now by tossing a coconut out and praying that it lands on a deserted beach.
Announcer: Amazing Facts, changed lives.
Male: I'd have to say that I had a wonderful childhood growing up. I went to a private school up until the seventh grade, until junior high. I believe it was at that point in junior high that my life began to change. Going from a Christian education to a public school was a big difference. There was a lot of secular influence of peer pressure, and for me it was the music. I started listening to heavy metal music. Every concert that would come to town, I was there. It had a profound effect on me. I started using marijuana probably at the age of 14. I started drinking, using a lot of cocaine, and that led to methamphetamine, and that completely changed my life. I dropped out of high school my sophomore year and went to work. I would get off of work, and we'd go into the bar until 2 o'clock in the morning. I'd get back up at 5:00 and I'd go back at it again, six, seven days a week. At the age of 20, I lost my dad to a heart attack. I didn't know how to handle the loss, so I tried to mask my pain with alcohol and drugs.
I got three DUIs in one year, was arrested. They gave me a year in the county jail. And the moment I got out, I went back to doing the same thing, hanging with the same people, the same crowd. I was involved in a hit and run motorcycle accident and I was charged with a felony DUI. Even though at the time of the accident I was not under the influence, I still had methamphetamine in my system. At my sentencing date, I left the court room and I didn't come back, and that left me with a felony warrant. And I had fallen asleep at a park and I woke up to a park ranger knocking on my window. I knew I was wanted and I knew that I was not going to just turn myself in. I turned to him and I made the comment, "Not today," and I took off. I led five different agencies on about a 35-minute chase. And I realized at that point that I wasn't going to get away and that this was going to end up either me killing somebody or myself, and so I made a decision to pull over. At that point, everything that I had, I lost.
I was sentenced to two years in state prison, and it was there that God got ahold of me, and it was through Amazing Facts Ministries. I remember listening on my radio to Pastor Doug Batchelor. I wanted to get to know the Bible. I wanted to know God. And so, my Aunt Marilyn sent me the Amazing Facts study guides, and it was there that my relationship with Christ began. I had called home and I knew my mother wasn't doing well, but I didn't realize that she had cancer. She had about a 30% chance of making it through her surgery. She had told the doctors that she was not going to have chemo and that she was not going to have radiation, that if her God was going to save her, then he would save her. I remember hanging up the phone to what I thought was my last conversation with my mom. I turned around, I got down on my knees, and I prayed to God. And I said, "God, if you're there, please save my mother. Wherever you lead me in life, whatever you want me to do, I am yours." And I had a feeling of such peace that I knew that my mother was going to be okay and that my life was going to change.
There are no words that I can adequately express to Amazing Facts, and to Pastor Doug to say thank you to all those people who support the ministry. I am a product of your support. My life is changed because of this ministry and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.