Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2018
Delivered on Lord’s Day Morning, April 8, 1888
“And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, came behind Him and touched the border of His garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched.” Luke 8:43, 44.
THOUGH I take Luke’s statement as a text, I shall constantly refer to the version of the same story which we find in Mark 5:25 to 29. Here we have one of the Lord’s bid ones—a case not to be publicly described because of its secret sorrow. We have here a woman of few words and much shamefacedness. Her malady subjected her to grievous penalties according to the ceremonial Law. There is a terrible chapter in the Book of Leviticus concerning such a case as hers. She was unclean—everything that she sat upon and all who touched it—shared in the defilement. So that, in addition to her continual weakness, she was made to feel herself an outcast, under the ban of the Law.
This created, no doubt, great loneliness of spirit, and made her wish to hide herself out of sight. In the narrative before us she said not a word until the Savior drew it out of her, for her own lasting good. She acted very practically and promptly but she was a silent seeker—she would have preferred to have remained in obscurity, if so it could have been. Some here may belong to the great company of the timid and trembling ones. If courage before others is needed to secure salvation, matters will go hard with them. They shrink from notice and are ready to die of shame because of their secret grief.
Cowper’s hymn describes their inward feelings, when it says of the woman—
“Concealed amid the gathering throng She would have shunned your view, And if her faith was firm and strong, Had strong misgivings too.”
Such plants grow in the shade and shrink from the light of the sun. The nature of their sorrows forces them into solitary self-communion. Oh, that the Lord may heal such at this hour!
The immediate cure of this woman is the more remarkable because it was a wayside miracle. The Savior was on the road to restore the daughter of Jairus. This woman’s healing was an extra portion of Divine Grace, a sort of over-splash of the great fountain of mercy. The cup of our Lord’s power was full, full to the brim—and He was bearing it to the house of the ruler of the synagogue. This poor woman did but receive a drop which He spilt on the way. We do well if, when going upon some errand of love, we concentrate all our energy upon it and do it well in the end—but the Savior could not only perform one great marvel but He could work another as a sort of by-play incidentally—I almost said “accidentally,” on the road.
The episodes of the Lord Jesus are as beautiful as the main run of His life’s poem. Oh, that this day, while my sermon may seem meant for one and distinctly directed to his salvation, it may also, by the power of Jesus, save another not so clearly pointed at! While the Word is aimed at one particular character, may the Lord cause the very wind of the Gospel shot to overcome another—or, to change the figure for a better one, while we spread the table for some bid guest, may another hungry soul have Divine Grace given him to take his place at the banquet of Grace! May those who hide away and whom, therefore, we are not likely to discover, come forth to Jesus and touch Him and live!
Let us at once speak of this much-afflicted woman, for she is a typical character. While we describe her conduct and her cure, I trust she may serve as a mirror in which many tremblers may see themselves. We shall carefully note what she had done and then what came of it. This will lead us on to see what she did, at last, and what we, also, should do. May the
Holy Spirit make this a very practical discourse by causing you to follow her till you gain the blessing as she did! The preacher is very weak. And may the Lord, for this very reason, work by him to your salvation.
Consider, therefore, concerning this woman, WHAT SHE HAD DONE. She had been literally dying for twelve years. What had she been doing? Had she resigned herself to her fate, or treated her malady as a small matter? Far from it. Her conduct is highly instructive.
First, she had resolved not to die if a cure could be had. She was evidently a woman of great determination and hopefulness. She knew that this disease of hers would cause her life to ebb away and bring her to the grave. But she said within herself, “I will have a struggle for it. If there is a possibility of removing this plague it shall be removed, let it cost me what it may of pain or payment.” Oh, what a blessing it would be if unsaved ones here would say each one for himself, “I am a lost soul. But if a lost soul can be saved, I will be saved. I am guilty. But if guilt can be washed away, mine shall be washed away. I have a hard heart and I know it. But if a heart of stone can be turned into a heart of flesh, I long to have it so and I will never rest until this gracious work is worked in me!”