What Was Done In Her

Here is a note of the hymns we shall read in our service tomorrow, God willing. There is a link to our YouTube channel here  You will find us broadcasting live from about five minutes before the start of the service (5:30pm BST, 10:30am MDT).

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New Focus Church Online 

This week is a time for change. My tenure as pastor of Sovereign Grace Church in Great Falls has ended and from now on I shall broadcast our services independently. Tomorrow you will see our YouTube channel has been rebranded New Focus Church Online. You can still use the same link above as usual, or go to YouTube and type in New Focus Church Online.

A New Effort

In the coming weeks we shall look for opportunities to expand our audience and make our online church services more available to listeners all over the world. To that end I have uploaded a number of recent sermons as podcasts on platforms such as Spotify, Google Podcasts and others. In the spirit of sowing the good seed widely we shall look for opportunities to reach many more listeners and ask the Lord to give that seed ‘root, shoot and fruit’ according to His sovereign good pleasure! We are seeking the Lord’s sheep and we shall do so energetically. We have a new website in the making and hope in time to provide a forum for church members to share together online.

Broadening Fellowship

Thank you to all who have been faithful and regular listeners to our broadcasts over the past few years, and especially during this last year when Gill and I were prevented from returning to our home in Montana. We hope that from these small beginnings the Lord will be pleased to send His gospel of free grace to more hearers and through it touch their hearts and lead them to a knowledge of the truth.

Thank you, SGCGF

I would like to thank the members and friends of Sovereign Grace Church Great Falls for all the help and encouragement you have provided to me for almost ten years. I hope to remain in contact with many of you at a personal level and look forward to seeing you in the future when circumstances allow. May the Lord bless you.

Our Bible passage, introduction to Sunday’s service, and hymns are below.

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Dear Friends,

As we prepare for tomorrow’s worship here are some thoughts that might help to open up the passage before us. In tomorrow’s service we will continue our series in Mark’s Gospel in chapter 5. Sunday’s hymns for reading are below. I hope you have opportunity to look at them beforehand. Our verses are:

Mar 5:25 And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years,

Mar 5:26 And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse,

Mar 5:27 When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment.

Mar 5:28 For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.

Mar 5:29 And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague.

Mar 5:30 And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes?

Mar 5:31 And his disciples said unto him, Thou seest the multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me?

Mar 5:32 And he looked round about to see her that had done this thing.

Mar 5:33 But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth.

Mar 5:34 And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.

 ‘What Was Done In Her’

The speed and pace with which the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ unfolds in the book of Mark is amazing. No sooner is the Lord returned from healing the Gadarene demoniac in Mark chapter 5 than He is met by Jairus, a leader of the synagogue, whose daughter is at death’s door. Jairus pleads for the Lord to help but as the pair travel together there is an interruption in the story and another person takes Jesus’ attention. It is this dear lady who will also have our attention tomorrow. 

Unnamed heirs

Have you ever noticed how often the Lord helps people who are unnamed in the Bible? Have you wondered why that might be? I feel sure it is to encourage us to see ourselves in these anonymous heirs of grace. In Mark 5 we have the Gadarene demoniac, Jairus’ daughter and the woman with the issue of blood. None named, all saved, all blessed with miracles at the Saviour’s hand. A man, a woman and a child each touched by the Master’s mercy. Why not me? Such passages give hope to us all that the same healing power might be mine.

Everyone’s need

But it is more, these individuals are every man, woman, and child. They speak of the ubiquity of sin, our universal enmity to God, our dead state without hope or help. They put us all under the condemnation of God’s holy law and describe the futility of every attempt to remedy our condition by ourselves. A man driven and possessed by devils, a woman twelve years under charlatan doctors, bankrupt and no better for it, a little girl dead in her mother’s arms. Do you see the picture and the importance; the necessity, of Jesus coming to save?

Who knew?

The healing of the lady with the issue of blood is unique amongst the Lord’s miracles, as far as I can think, for there not being done something immediately evident and obvious to those present and watching. The personal nature of this miracle meant that but for the Lord’s reaction upon being touched, and the woman’s testimony thereafter as to ‘what was done in her’ none watching would have known that anything had happened at all. But the Lord knew ‘virtue had gone out of Him’ and the woman knew ‘what was done in her’.

Grace that converts

This is a beautiful picture of God’s gracious dealings with a sinner in salvation. Grace is a secret, personal and hidden transformation that remains publicly unseen until confessed by the soul saved and converted under the gospel. Spiritual life comes powerfully, but it comes quietly, discreetly, and unannounced. So operates the quickening power of God on the soul of a dead sinner.

But grace does not and cannot remain hid. The effect of God’s grace and Christ’s healing power shall be made known. First by personal testimony, then by evident change. The woman coming and bowing to the Lord Jesus Christ ‘told Him all the truth’ and ‘what was done in her’. Just as God the Holy Spirit saves, God the Holy Spirit converts. Conversion is not a changed lifestyle because we have committed ourselves to Christ. Conversion is the alteration produced in a sinner by the indwelling Holy Spirit. It is the spontaneous outworking of an inward transformation. 

Proof of life

Note one final thing. This change in the woman though known to her and complete in her did not remove all fear and trembling. Blessed humility! She bowed to Jesus, fell before Him and acknowledged His power and glory. Divine healing makes humble. Despite what you may feel, this ‘fear and trembling’ before the Lord is not a feature of unbelief but an evidence of grace, and a witness of conversion. Do you feel your sin? Do you fear for your soul? Do you tremble in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ? Then you are a daughter of God, you are a son of the Father. Fear and trembling before the Lord is not a feature of the natural man. It is evidence of the spirit that wars with the flesh and a witness that we are truly saved. True believers approach God in awe and wonder, knowing what has been done in us.

Our hymns for tomorrow are below.

Hymn 1

Gadsby Selection 1087

“Thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.” Isa. 53. 10

A. Steele L.M.

1
Was it for sin, for mortal guilt,
The Saviour gave his vital blood;
For sin amazing anguish felt,
The wrath of an offended God?

2
And shall I harbour in my breast
(Tremble, my soul, at such a deed)
This dreadful foe, this fatal guest,
The sin that made the Saviour bleed?

3
Come, glorious Conqueror, gracious Lord,
Thy all-prevailing power employ;
O come, with thy resistless word,
These hateful enemies destroy.

4
My hope, my all is fixed on thee,
For thou alone hast power divine;
O come, and conquer, Lord, for me,
And all the glory shall be thine.

Hymn 2

Gadsby selection 731

“I am the Lord that healeth thee.” Exod. 15. 26

W. Cowper C.M.

1
Heal us, Immanuel, here we are,
Waiting to feel thy touch;
Deep-wounded souls to thee repair,
And, Saviour, we are such.

2
Our faith is feeble, we confess;
We faintly trust thy word;
But wilt thou pity us the less?
Be that far from thee, Lord.

3
Remember him who once applied,
With trembling for relief;
“Lord, I believe,” with tears he cried,
“O help my unbelief.”

4
She, too, who touched thee in the press,
And healing virtue stole,
Was answered, “Daughter, go in peace;
Thy faith hath made thee whole.”

5
Like her, with hopes and fears we come,
To touch thee, if we may;
O send us not despairing home;
Send none unhealed away.