Sunday 26 March 2017

What you Believe; Faith & the woman with the Issue of Blood. ~ Ganeida

Hebrews 11:6 says: No one can please
God without faith. Whoever goes to God must believe that God exists and that He rewards those who seek Him. ?

Romans 10:17 informs us that faith comes by hearing, & hearing by the word of God.

So there are two things we are going to look @ over the next few weeks as we study what God says about healing us.

The First is the theory & theology undergirding the principles of healing.  The 2nd is the practical application. Today I am going to show you how these 2 things worked together for the woman with the issue of blood.  Her story is recorded in Luke8: 43:48,  Matthew 9:20~22 & Mark 5:25–34.

You will find that the fundamentals of receiving healing are exactly the same as for everything else we teach.  It is word based.  "He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions" (Ps 107:20).

Know the word of God.  Believe the word of God.  Speak the word of God.  Do the word of God. Why?  Because faith comes by hearing & hearing by the word of God [Romans 10:17] & the word of God is Truth. [John 17:17]

Mark 5 has the most detailed description of what happened24 Jesus went with him, and all the people followed, crowding around him. 25 A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding. 26 She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse. 27 She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. 28 For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition.
30 Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my robe?”

31 His disciples said to him, “Look at this crowd pressing around you. How can you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”

32 But he kept on looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done. 34
And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.”

The first thing I want to highlight are the facts of this case.  It was a fact that this woman had an issue of blood.  It was a fact she had had the problem for 12 years. It was a fact that she was considered spiritually & ceremonially unclean. Mark tells us she had spent everything she had on physicians to no avail, growing worse not better. It is a fact she was healed.  It is a fact that it was her faith that made her well.

What was it about this woman’s faith that enabled her to believe for her healing?  She knew who Jesus was!

When I say that she knew who Jesus was I mean that she understood what God had said about Himself in the scriptures & she applied that word to her situation.

So you have to read this passage with a Hebrew mindset & you can’t do that unless you understand what this woman is saying & why she believed it.

Jesus, like most Jewish men of His time would have worn a long robe over which He would have worn an outer garment. This outer garment would have been seamless with 4 corners known as a tallit.  On each of those four corners there was a knotted cord made of 4 white threads & a blue thread known as the Tzizizt.

The tzizizt were knotted in such a way as to remind the Jewish people of God’s law.  It was a constant visible reminder of their covenant with God. The whole purpose of the Tallit (prayer shawl) was a reminder to God’s people that they had been set aside, sanctified and made Holy unto God.

The 4 tzizizt represented ties to family, status within the community ~ a problem in Jesus day with some Pharisees wearing long, ostentatious tassels as a way of expressing their spiritual superiority~ authority & the priesthood with its emphasis on power & personal holiness. It also alludes to the four expressions of redemption associated with  Exodus: 6:6~7

Therefore, say to the people of Israel: ‘I am the Lord. I will free you from your oppression and will rescue you from your slavery in Egypt. I will redeem you with a powerful arm and great acts of judgment. I will claim you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God who has freed you from your oppression in Egypt.

The last thing, that will help tie all this together, is a word.  The word used when giving instructions for the tallit is the word kanaf, “wing,” which can also mean “corner”.

So Exodus 19:4 , for example, has a broader interpretation, because the tallit [prayer shawl] had *wings* & prayer carries us to God.

You have seen what I did to the Egyptians. You know how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself.

These are verses the woman with the issue of blood would have known, just as she would have known Malachi 4:2…
"But for you who fear my name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. And you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture.”
The woman’s thinking goes like this…
“If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed”.
Some translations render this verse as ..touch the hem of his garment…     So just stop & think for a moment.  The crowd is so thick Jesus is being pressed about on all sides ~ so much so when Jesus queries who touched him Peter goes… Look at this crowd!  What do you mean, who touched you?

So what is this woman thinking?

Where is the hem of Jesus garment? Near His feet. This woman is not down on the ground grovelling round, through different robes & people’s grubby feet, reaching between all those legs to try & grab hold of the bottom of Jesus’ garment.  It’s ridiculous. It would certainly have drawn attention to her before she got anywhere near Jesus. No.
Now when we look at the 3 different gospel versions we find our answer in the

Greek.  Mark uses the word himaton
, 
which means cloak or outer garment ie the

 tallit, or prayer shawl, while both Matthew

 & Luke use the word kraspedon, which

 means fringe or tassle & which were

 attached to the tallit.

Malachi 4:2…suddenly makes a lot more sense.
"But for you who fear my name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. And you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture.”

Immediately Jesus asks, “Who touched me?”

Peter, naturally, thinks this is an insane question. We’ve all been in crowds so dense you can barely move: at the Ekka, or a rock concert, maybe a dance or the world cup.  You know how it is: lots & lots of strangers pressing up against you constantly. This touch was different.

 Again we see different English words used to explain what happened. Some use power, some say healing power & some translate it as virtue but the Greek word is dynamis ~ power.  The root is the same word as in dunamis, which is the word used of the Holy Spirit. 

Now Jesus had the Spirit without measure & it was the Holy Spirit power Jesus realised had left Him. What draws the Holy Spirit? Recognition of who Jesus is!  That’s part of His job, to testify of Jesus.

This woman had heard of Jesus.  That’s why she was there in the crowd in the first place. She knew, according to scripture, that if Jesus was who He said He was there was *healing in His wings*, in the tzizizt of His prayer shawl. Her faith drew forth the power of God to heal.
There were lots & lots of other people in the crowd that day ~ including the leader of a synagogue whose daughter had just died & who wanted a miracle. The crowd was all agoggle to see what would happen.  They were hangers on.  They were curious by~standers.  They had nothing to lose & nothing to gain.

This woman, though, was outcaste.  Her position in society couldn’t get any worse. She had nothing to lose & everything to gain.  She was desperate.

Now I want to be as careful as possible as I say this next part because God is not a man that He should lie.  I don’t want anyone to leave here under condemnation because I know as well as you do, some of you have received a partial healing; some have received temporary healing & some are still waiting on healing. Whatever your circumstances, the Truth of God’s word does not change because of your circumstances. Over & over & over God says He is our healer. It is one of His names & we know the names of God describe attributes of His character. It is God’s character to heal.

Nowhere in scripture do I find it in God’s nature to inflict His children with sickness or disease. Indeed we find that is satan’s nature: to rob us of our health, to kill our bodies, to destroy our well being. His goal? To destroy the image of God we carry.  He doesn’t care how He does that, only that it happens.

I know it can be very hurtful when you have prayed for healing, when you have been prayed for, for healing & if you don’t receive your brothers & sisters in Christ start pointing fingers.  We are not to do that.

As your preacher I like to have answers for you. I will tell you what I believe the Holy Spirit said to me, over & over as I wrestled with this dilemma.  I believe He said: Thy word is Truth.

We live in a very noisy world; a world that has lots & lots of different information coming at us all the time & all of it is worldly. It presents worldly facts that this that or the other will cause something or other ~ & they are facts but…they are not the Truth. 

Jesus is the Truth. Jesus is Life. God’s word is the Truth. We need to renew our minds & replace the world’s information with God’s information.  We need a revelation deep in our spirit of the Truth of exactly who Jesus is; not who the church teaches He is; not who the traditions of men say He; not how we feel or what our body is telling us,  but who Jesus says He is & He said He came that we might have life & have it abundantly! Gratitude is a great starting point.  We can thank Jesus that He came to give us life.

I am going to give you 3 confessions that we will say together & then we will come together & pray for each other because where the Truth of God’s Word is preached He will confirm it with signs & wonders.

1. You are Jehovah Rophay, the God who heals me.

2. Thank you, Jesus, that you came to give me life & by your stripes, I am healed.


3. Your Holy Spirit in me testifies to these Truths: You are a healing God; He who is in me is greater than He who is in the world ; & by Jesus stripes I am healed.

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