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THE KING’S BUSINESS
to Jesus with our need, and afterward de clare “in the presence of all the people,” our need and how He has completely met it, we also will hear that precious benediction, “Go into peace.” Thursday, November 25. Luke 8:49-56. Jesus had been delayed on His way to the house of Jairus; meantime the little girl died. To the friends of Jairus it seems that Jesus was now too late! It often seems so (cf. John 11:1)", but He never is. When those awful words, “Thy daughter is dead/’ words that have often fallen on a parent’s ears since and made his heart turn cold with horror, fell on the ears of Jairus, no wonder his faith wavered and that his heart sank and that fear seized him. But in stantly Jesus buoys; up his sinking faith with those glorious words, “Fear not; be lieve only; and she shall be made whole.” Jesus is saying the same “Fear hot; believe only” to every trembling heart. Our Lord has but one cure for fear; that is faith (cf. John 14:1, A. R. V.). All fear comes from unbelief. Fearlessness comes from faith (Isaiah 26:3; 50:10; 12:2). There is but one radical eure for fear, that is faith. Faith and fear cannot co-exist in the same heart.' Our Lord puts this promise under neath the sinking faith of Jairus, “She shall be made whole.” There was one condition and one only, “Believe only.” That is al ways the one condition to the blessing (cf. Mark 9:23; John 11:40). “Weep not,” says our Lord, “She is not dead, but sleepeth.” He is saying the same today as we weep over our loved ones who have fallen asleep. They seem dead but they are only sleeping (1 Thess. 4:13), and the sleep will soon be over. Jesus will come and they will arise. The statement of the Lord Jesus that she was not dead but sleeping was received with derisive laughter. There seemed to be good ground for the derision; so far as sense could see the maiden was dead indeed. The mourners had reason and common sense on their side, nevertheless they were wrong. On the other side was nothing but the word of the Son of God; that was the only ground
tain, Luke’s account of the woman who crept up behind our Lord, is given in very few words, ¡but it is very graphic and very complete; she has “spent all her living upon physicians ; she could not be helped of 'any,” She comes up behind Him, touches the bor der of His garment and immediately the in firmity of years is;at an end. If we stop and ponder we can See just how the woman looked, wasted away, white cheeks, dark cir cles Under her sunken eyes, the pinch of ^poverty manifest in her body and her clothes, penniless, despairing, then we see her hand come out and all is changed. She needed Jesus and Jesus came her way. He is always passing by when people need Him. In her condition, thoughtful students of the Word have seen a picture of the ever-flow ing and life-wasting fountains of sin, sep arating the sinner from the pure, and con taminating everything that it touches. In the baffled physicians we can' See the philoso phers of the world, who with all their lauded philosophies, and “data of ethics,” fail to staunch the flow of evil in the heart, and their deluded patients are never, better, but rather grow w.orse. In this woman we can see a type, not only of the sinner, but of all who have a sorrow the world cannot cure, or a burden the world cannot lift. One alone can help— J esus . Very tenderly but very insistently our Lord insists that she shall make an open confession of the blessing received, and when the confession is made, and not until then, He says, “Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole, go in peace,” or rather, “go into peace.” That is to say, peace was to be the realm which she now entered and in which she lived. But she did not “go into peace” until she had made the open confession. This is the only woman whom Jesus is recorded as having addressed as “daughter.” She needed that comforting word, and tenderly did it fall from the lips of the One who would not bruise the broken reed or quench the burn ing flax. The woman’s faith saved her, or made her whole, because it opened the gate for the healing faith of Jesus to flow into bodv and soul. If we do as she did and go
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