Well, I would invite you all to turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 8 and verses 49 through 56. Just to remind you, You know that the center of Christ's ministry in Galilee was a city called Capernaum, a fishing village on the Sea of Galilee, today called the Sea of Tiberias in northern Israel, in Galilee. And he had just returned from the far side of the lake. On the other side, one side of the lake, you had the Jewish cities, such as Capernaum, for instance. But on the other side of the lake was what was called the Decapolis, the 10 cities. These were cities that had been established by Hellenists, that is Greeks who had moved into the area. They were non-Jewish. That's why you had pigs on the other side of the lake that ran down into it when they were seized by these demons. He has returned, and you remember he was met by a crowd, and two people in particular. There was Jairus, the synagogue ruler, whose little girl was at home and dying. And then there was this woman with the flow of blood. We saw last week how after 12 years of not being free from this awful flow of blood, of having no relief, Jesus had released this woman because of her faith in him. And now he is hurrying on with Jairus to the house, and we'll see what happens there when he reaches that destination. But before we go to the word of God, let us go to the God who has given us his word, and let's ask for his blessing. Please join me. Sovereign Lord, your word is a testimony of your power and your working. Truly, it is a history of your redeeming work, both before you created, while creation was unfolding, and then throughout human history. And we know that your word tells us the truth about Christ and his wonderful ministry. We pray now, Lord, that as we read these things, we remember that they weren't done long ago for an alien people, but they were done for our sakes as well, to remind us of spiritual truths and to know who to seek life from. I do pray, Lord, that you would seal these things to our hearts. As we prayed before we came into worship, Lord, we know that the devil loves to make us sleepy when the word is being preached. He wants to make us heavy and dull, to forget everything, to have our minds wander to and fro throughout the earth. and not to listen to the words of Jesus or learn anything from it. We pray, Lord, though, that you would hinder his efforts, that you would keep him out, Lord, and that we would be awake and vital and that we would be hearing. Help me now, Lord, to divide your word. I confess I can't do it without your assistance. And oh, Lord, I cannot bring that vitality that is so needed unless your Holy Spirit empowers the word. Lord, may you be glorified in what we do and we say in the next few minutes. And we pray this in Jesus' holy name, amen. Luke chapter eight, I'm gonna be starting reading at 49 and then on to the end of the chapter. Remind you, this is the word of the Lord. While he was still speaking, someone came from the ruler of the synagogue's house saying to him, your daughter is dead. Do not trouble the teacher. But when Jesus heard it, he answered him saying, do not be afraid. Only believe, and she will be made well. When he came into the house, he permitted no one to go in except Peter, James, and John, and the father and mother of the girl. Now all wept and mourned for her, but he said, do not weep. She is not dead, but sleeping. And they ridiculed him, knowing that she was dead. But he put them all outside, took her by the hand, and called, saying, little girl, arise. Then her spirit returned, and she arose immediately, and he commanded that she be given something to eat. And her parents were astonished, but he charged them to tell no one what had happened. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Ben Franklin said many profound things. He said that there were two things, and only two things, that were certain in this world. Does anybody know what they are? Death and taxes. Now, despite the fact that he engaged in a revolution to do away with taxes, he failed to get rid of them. And it seems like they will be with us till the end of the world. But is there anything stronger and more terrible than death? That is the one thing that we have been struggling against. We see all these millionaires hoping to create means of living forever, and yet they are no closer to their goal of finding immortality in the flesh. than when they started. In fact, in many countries, the average date of our death is actually going down rather than rising. We seem to be sicker than ever. But kings may escape taxes. But no one has ever been able to escape death. No mortal being, that is. Death is no respecter of persons. It takes the high and the low, the old and even, although we don't think about it, do we? It also takes the young, as we see in these cases. This little girl was only 12 years old. She had not yet even entered into her teen years, and yet here she is dying. As I reminded you when we left off reading last week, Jairus, the synagogue ruler, was desperately attempting to get Jesus through the crowd to his home in Capernaum. His beloved daughter, his only child, was deathly ill and Jesus is the only person who can heal her. He is literally her only hope. Think about it, here is a man who is a ruler of a synagogue. That's roughly equivalent to what we Presbyterians would call the clerk of a session today. So a younger version, slightly, of Charlie King, our beloved elder and clerk of our session. Undoubtedly, like Charlie King, he was also one of the respected elders, a highly esteemed individual as well, somebody everybody in the town would have looked up to. And yet, here we see this man, so respected. A man who had quite a good deal of civil power, utterly desperate. He has no resources in this case to draw on. Death is creeping closer and closer and he can't do anything. Death is coming for his daughter and there is nothing in this world he can do to stop him. His only hope, therefore, is to get Jesus to his house before the grim reaper arrives, and for a moment, it seems he might succeed. He's hurrying through the crowd, and then he turns to see that Jesus has stopped, and his heart must have sunk in that moment. It's like the ambulance stopping at a red light, and it's just down the road, and you can see it, and your loved one is in cardiac arrest. We need to get there, come on! But then we have this interlude with the woman whom Jesus healed. Now, we aren't told this, but I hope and I believe that Jairus was given renewed confidence by what happened with this woman. We remember that Jesus, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, completely heals a woman afflicted with a flow of blood for 12 years. That's one year of affliction for every year of his daughter's life, and yet this woman was marvelously delivered. And surely, therefore, his faith in his Master's ability to heal is well placed. I have the right man. This man is a healer, nothing is impossible for him. Hope springs up and then, of course, a messenger comes along to crush it. A man comes to tell Jairus in this amazingly brisk way that his daughter is dead. Your daughter is dead, do not trouble the teacher. I mean, how much more direct and feeling could you possibly be? I've seen, incidentally, in the last 20 plus years of pastoral ministry, I have seen a lot of grieving at the death of loved ones. Death is the one constant that you deal with in ministry as well. But the worst times of grieving for members of the church, and for me, empathically experiencing it, have been parents grieving for their children. losing a child is a terrible thing. I can only imagine the terrible anguish that Jairus must have experienced on receiving that amazingly callously delivered message about his daughter. Suddenly, the one whom you loved is gone. You see these, and it's, here, I'm sorry. It's one thing to be obviously part of an honor guard or something and watch the coffin of a loved one roll off a plane and so on. But it's an entirely different experience, obviously, if you're the parent of the person in the coffin that's rolling off the plane. Because it's not, you know, just a member of America's Armed Forces or something like that. It is the little one whose diapers you changed, who was running around in the sprinkler in the front yard, who you rocked to sleep, whose fevers you dealt with, who you were hoping would be at your bedside when you were dying, and everything is reversed. And it is an anguish that is, it is terrible. It's something, therefore, when a parent loses a child, let's just say that's not the time to check your watch and wonder what's next. It is something where we should grieve with the grieving. He is in terrible anguish, and so we ask the question with this man, why bother the rabbi any further? All is lost. Shouldn't you just turn aside? But then he hears these amazing words from Jesus. He says, do not be afraid, only believe, and she will be made well. Just as her faith in Jesus was the key to the salvation of that woman with the flow of blood, Jesus says to Jairus, that if he will but believe in Him, then his faith will be the key to his daughter's resurrection. And at this point, faith is critical. To believe that Jesus could heal is one thing. You'd already seen evidence as they were headed to the house, Jesus can heal. But to believe that he could raise the dead, that's something else. The reaction of the faithless skeptic here would be the reaction of the crowd of mourners that had gathered around that disbelief. That's impossible. Maybe, I don't know, somehow he could have healed her while she was still alive, but now she's dead. It's impossible. But that, brothers and sisters, is where we need to remember our God is the God of the impossible. The children of Israel, remember, they stood between the Egyptian army and the Red Sea in the midst of the exodus. And for them, hope was lost. They're thinking escape is impossible. Pharaoh and his chariots are bearing down upon us. And what have we got in front of us? A giant body of water. But then what happens? God makes a way for them through the midst of the water so that they can cross over in dry land. And then of course he closes the water on the Egyptian army. Impossible! And yet it was possible for God. We've been going through second Kings in the evening and again and again in that historical testimony. We've seen God doing the impossible. in answer to his people's need. Food is miraculously provided, leprosy is healed, giant armies are vanquished, and yes, even a child is raised from the dead in that testimony as well. Again and again, in God's Word, we read accounts where God did the impossible for those who had faith in him. There's an old saying, when the need was highest, help was nighest. And now Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, the Father Almighty, reminds Jairus that he is and always will be the hope of the hopeless. No matter what our situation is, if we have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, if we know him by faith, we are not without hope. After all, what is impossible for God? What? Let me answer for you. The answer is nothing. Nothing is impossible. Sometimes the questions are not rhetorical. They're actually questions. Remember, Jesus said, with God, all things are possible. But I must admit, even as a Christian, I am so prone to forget that. Bad news comes suddenly, and although I should be confident, I am plunged into despair. We are men and women of faith. Therefore, why are we suddenly afraid of evil news? Why are we made so unhinged by it? We serve a savior for whom all things are possible, and who has told you that not some things, but all things work together for those who love God, those who are the called according to his purpose. All things. Even the things that seem to have no good in them at all, ultimately will be turned to good by Him. That knowledge should produce within us enormous peace and contentment, even in the midst of the storm. We should not fear. You remember, Jesus had already taught that lesson, literally, by stilling the storm. The apostles had thought, all is lost, we're going to drown, that's the end of the ministry. And then Jesus had said, why are you afraid? I'm with you. And now, even in the midst of the loss of this child, he reminds him, don't fear. Do not be afraid. The unbeliever, of course, has no reason to have that kind of confidence, that kind of peace. Even in the midst of a sunny day, everything could change for the worst and then not come back. The unbeliever has no assurances given to him. But you, You who believe, you who are men and women of faith, you are connected by that faith to a mighty God. You have no reason to fear. Psalm 112, seven says, he will not be afraid of evil tidings. His heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord. And then in Isaiah 26, three, you will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you. When your trust is stayed on God, what have you to fear ultimately? Your destiny is certain. You will reach the place that you long to be. And although the path there is sometimes difficult, what does it matter considering what you have that God has given you and can never be taken away from you? One of the Puritans, I've forgotten which one, says, what does it matter if it's raining when a man rides to be crowned as a king? Ultimately, be thinking of where you're going and who is overseeing your journey all the way there. So Jairus is reassured by his savior. He doesn't break down and fall to his knees and collapse. He believes, and together they go back to his home. And there's already this crowd of professional mourners gathered there. Death was something that was quickly followed by a burial. In Jewish custom, you were supposed to be buried within one day of your death, as quickly as possible. And they had these professional mourners. Even the poor were supposed to have, according to rabbinic lore, they were supposed to have at least two flute players for their funerals. And Matthew tells us in chapter nine, that amongst the mourners there were these people who did this for a living, the flute players, and people who literally were professional wailers. You know, they would receive money to go about going, that kind of thing, outside the house. Now, no doubt, rather, Many of the more unscrupulous among them had been rubbing their hands together when they heard that the daughter of one of the rulers was about to die. This is going to be a big funeral, lots of wailing, lots of flute playing, lots of people are going to make a lot of money out of it. And when Jesus commands them not to weep, for the little girl is only sleeping, You can read how many of them went immediately from mourning to laughter, which shows the sincerity of their grief, of course, at that point. Wailing to ridicule in a second. There is no faith in Christ in this assembly. It's something that came naturally to them. They knew this little girl was dead. Someone from within the house had come out and said, no, she's dead. She's not breathing anymore. People, even in the ancient world, knew what dead was. They could see the signs of it. and they were confident that this little girl was dead. Now, here I almost hate to do it, but I really need to deal with the ridiculous claims made by liberal Christians at this point. Happily, that particular group is dying out to be replaced by liberal non-believers, but there were a lot of people who, at this point, made ridiculous claims. They say what happened to this girl was that she did not actually die, but was unconscious, and that Jesus, the wise wandering sage, realized that while everyone else in the village was an ignoramus, who was likely to bury you as soon as you passed out, she was not actually dead, and that he was literally going to go and merely wake her up. Now, why would someone make this claim? The answer is because they are aware that raising the dead is impossible. Only God can do it. And they, unlike Jairus, have no faith in Jesus. Therefore, what do they do? They have to alter the narrative to take out the miracle that proves Jesus was exactly who he said he was. i.e. the Son of God. When it comes to the storm on the Lake of Galilee, they're like, no, no, he was just a really good with weather. And unlike the fishermen, he could see that the storm was about to stop. Oh, the storm's already passing. Why are you afraid? So we have Jesus, the weatherman, Jesus, the doctor, Jesus, the, you know, anything, but Jesus, the Son of God, which is what he really is. Now here it should be obvious that the claim that she's literally asleep is utterly ridiculous. On the face of it, let me give you just a few reasons. One, if she was only asleep, how did Jesus know before he got to the house? To do that, he'd also need to be God. Secondly, the crowd all know that the little girl is dead. And sometimes ancient people got it wrong, but they saw death all the time. They were used to it. No, they knew she was dead. Luke actually confirms it in the way he writes it. But thirdly, Jesus and the New Testament frequently use the analogy of sleeping to describe the state of the believer who has died. Take a look with me, if you will, and we'll see another example of that, even more profound in John. Go turn in your Bibles, if you would, to John chapter 11. John chapter 11, and then starting with verse, These things he said, and after that he said to them, our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up. Then his disciples said, Lord, if he sleeps, he will get well. However, Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought he was speaking about taking rest and sleep. Then Jesus said to them plainly, Lazarus is dead, and I am glad for your sakes that I was not there that you may believe. Nevertheless, let us go to him. The little girl is dead, but Jesus speaks of her as resting. And Jesus is about to do an amazing miracle so that you and I might believe in him. Now, why is it that he only takes three apostles with him into the building? The reason for only three, one, if you've ever been to Capernaum, the buildings are actually really small. It's amazing that an entire family could fit into some of these very small walls. The reason for only three, first is compassion for the child. You have the compassion of Christ extending even to the fact that she knew she would be hungry, or he knew she would be hungry when she woke up. And the parents do not need to testify to what he did. He needs three witnesses. He needs the apostles to testify to what it was. They were brought along for that purpose, to proclaim what he had done to the entire world. They needed to see it as eyewitnesses. Mark records for us the further compassion of Christ in the fact that when he raised her, He speaks to her, note this, in her own native language, which is Aramaic, Mark 541. Then he took the girl, the child by the hand and said to her, Talitha Kumi, which is translated, little girl, I say to you, arise. And think about it. He uses the very words that her mother probably used in the morning to awaken her, Talitha Kumi. I have a friend who said two miracles occur in that moment. One, the child is brought back from the dead. And a little girl immediately gets up when she's told to get out of bed. So possibly the only time. But she arises from the dead. And think about it. It teaches us things that we need to know as well. The first is this. It's the necessity of bringing Jesus to our own home, that our own children may be raised from the dead. Notice in the first miracle he addresses the woman he cured as daughter, and here he addresses her, the little girl, as my child. How is this little girl Jesus' child? Well, she's his child because she's the daughter of believing parents. Do you think about your kids that way? These are, these little ones whom God gives you, they are Christ's children. They're His. In Luke 8, 15, you remember then, they also brought infants to Him that He might touch them, but when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called to them and said, let the little children come to me and do not forbid them, for such is the kingdom of God. Now, you cannot literally any longer go to the lakeside and fetch Jesus to your home as Jairus did, but you can make sure that you bring your children to Jesus. How? By teaching them about him, admonishing them, nurturing them, reminding them of all of the benefits that they have as being members of the covenant, pointing them back to their baptism and asking that critical question, child, you have the sign of the covenant upon you, but do you have the Lord of the covenant within you? Have you closed with the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you come to his table? Do you know the one to whom you have been bound with oaths? The one who loves you so much that he put you in this family. You could have been born in a family that knew nothing of him, but you were born here. And so parents, are you doing that? Are you bringing Christ into your household on a regular basis? Are you praying for your children? The most important thing that you can do in this world, apart from modeling what a Christian looks like before them, a Christian mother, a Christian father, is to pray on a regular basis for them and to speak the word of Christ to them. And fathers, that's your job, not your wife's job. So often, dads push that off. Well, Christian instruction, I'll leave that to my wife. No, that's your calling, morning and noon and evening, to be instructing your children from the word of God, every opportunity that you have. Second application. Resurrection is the central miracle of the Bible. And it must be the central fact of all true Christian life. You remember Jesus made that point to Martha. We read a little about what happened before Jesus got to his friend Lazarus' house. But if you'll turn with me back to John 11, where you were just a little while ago, I wanna point us to starting with verse 20. We read there, then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him, but Mary was sitting in the house. Now Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you. Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? She said to him, yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God, who has come into the world. Now, brothers and sisters, Jesus is still bringing the dead to life. And not as in the case of Lazarus and this child going into their homes and rising them up after they physically die, but he is still raising the spiritually dead to new life. And someday he will cause all the faithful to be raised up, and note this, in the selfsame bodies that they died in, bodies reconstituted, bodies made glorious, no longer subject to corruption. One of the things that has driven me crazy, many things apart from bad Christian movies, in the Christian life is when I go to a funeral and a preacher stands up and he says, now that's not our brother Ben over there pointing to his coffin. That's just his time in space suit that God gave him for a time. And I wanna, sometimes I wanna scream, no, that's really Ben. If that's not Ben, we're burying the wrong person, okay? It really is Ben in there. It's the mortal part of Ben. And Jesus doesn't simply dispense with it and say, eh, rubbish, go away. Not at all. Christians in the past had a better sense of this. In the Westminster Shorter Catechism, question 37, it says this. What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death? And the answer is, the souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness and do immediately pass into glory. And their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves until the resurrection. Did you know this? You are not merely a soul trapped in a body. That's a Greek idea. Okay, it's Eastern. That's why they burn their dead, because they were gonna free them from the prison house that has entrapped their soul for so long. No, you are body and soul. Had the fall not happened, those two parts of you would forever be knit together. When Jesus became man, he took to himself not merely a body, he took to himself a true body and a reasonable soul to become us. So those who die in Christ understand this are in a sense only sleeping. We used to know that. We see it even in the choice of words we once used for our burying places. I hate today that we have so many euphemisms surrounding death. Memorial garden and stuff like that. What did we used to call it? We used to call it a cemetery. There was a reason for that. Cemetery comes from the Greek for sleeping place. Christian dead are asleep in Jesus. And they're awaiting that day when he says to them, by name, arise. It's time to get up. And they will. The graveyards in which the Christian dead have been buried will someday be a place of joyous harvest. A place where so much grieving has happened will suddenly be a place where rejoicing takes place as the dead come forth at the word of Christ. It's one of the reasons why when we, it wasn't possible, but I had hoped that we would be able to actually have a cemetery attached to the church. And so you would have outside the building the church triumphant and inside the building the church militant and be reminded of two things. And it's a wonderful sermon illustration when you can say, As they are, you will be. Are you ready? So, third, we have to see the connection of faith to resurrection. And I need to ask the question, where do you stand today? Where do you stand? Do you stand with believing Jairus? Or do you stand with the mocking crowd? I ask you that because the promises of eternal life in Jesus are made to believers in Christ. Someday, when Jesus returns, all the dead will be raised. Those who are sleeping in Christ shall hear those gentle words, I say to you arise, or come forth if we're in a tomb, and so on, and we will rise up with joy. But those who did not believe, those who were not born again in this life, those who died in a condition of spiritual death will be raised to eternal death. They're not going to inherit heaven, they're going to inherit hell. And this I say because Jesus himself warned us again and again and again that there is a place called hell. You wanna know who spoke more about hell than anybody else in the Bible? It's not in the Old Testament, it's in the New Testament, it's Jesus. Christ warns us again and again and again. And if anybody was in a position to know whether there was a heaven and a hell, it's the Lord Jesus Christ. To say I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ but I don't believe in hell is ridiculous. It's saying I believe that Jesus is who he says he was and yet I believe he's wrong on that particular point. What foolishness. He said that hell is a place where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. The worm does not die. Eternal corruption but not dissolution. And the fire is not quenched. A warning that the punishment goes on forever. Just as heaven will be eternal glory, hell will be eternal damnation. And why does he mention it? He mentions it because of his great compassion. Today we're told, don't mention hell, you'll turn people off and drive them away. Quite the opposite. Why do we mention hell? Because we want people to understand that it's real. They don't gather you together on the cruise ship and go through the ridiculous safety thing. You've got to go to your lifeboat and so on because they hate the passengers. We're helping the boat sinks. No. It's because they want to keep the passengers alive and show them the way of escape in the event of a terrible maritime disaster occurring. And so, too, a pastor who loves your soul will warn you about hell. There's an old joke that goes, you know, fellow meets another fellow in the middle of the town, and he says, I hear you got a new pastor. He says, yep. He said, what was wrong with the old guy? He says, well, you know, our old pastor, he was always going on about hellfire and brimstone and eternal damnation and punishment and so on. And he says, oh yeah? So what's the new guy like? Well, he goes on a lot about hellfire and brimstone and eternal punishment and so on. And the guy says, well, what's the difference? He said, well, the new guy seems sad about it. And that truly is the case. Children, I want to ask you this day, have you grasped hold of Christ just as certainly as this little girl when she was raised up, she took hold of the hand of Christ? Have you done that? Do you have your assurance this day that a day is coming when Jesus will call you by name and he will raise you up just like this little girl? He'll say to you, I say to you, arise. Do you know him by faith? Are you believing in him this day? I'm not just saying that to the kids, obviously. I'm saying it to all of you. Do you know the Lord Jesus this way? Do you have absolute confidence that even after you die, the Lord will visit you and raise you from the dead? I pray that's the case. I pray that he's done that work of changing your heart, making you not like the crowd outside, but like the parents and the little girl and the apostles inside the house. I pray that you're part of the covenant community, that you have made that affirmation of your faith in the presence of many witnesses. If not, why do you linger? Why? Jonathan Edwards was not lying when he said that, you know, those who are unconverted are like spiders hanging by a thin thread over a fire. The day will come when the thread will snap and they will fall. The only way to be saved from that predicament is by going to Christ. He tells you this day, arise and come to him. And I pray that you'll do that. Let's go before him now. God, our gracious Father, Lord, I know there may be some listening to me this very day who have not yet surrendered, who have not yet given up their own self-serving, self-pleasing ways, who are yet thinking, I can change later on. There's so much sinning I've got to do first. Lord, what foolishness. We don't know. This little 12-year-old girl probably did not begin the preceding months thinking, I'm going to die in a little while. And yet, O Lord, she did, and that at the young age of 12. And yet, O Lord, our Savior Jesus raised her from the dead. He had that divine appointment with her that you had set before time began. And Lord, we know that the day will come when we will see you face to face. The question is, will we have our advocate? Will we have our Savior to stand beside us and say, this one is mine? I suffered and bled for him or her and plead for us before the Father. Will we be acquitted? Will we be proven righteous in Christ on that day? Or will we be condemned? Lord, I pray that those who are wavering between two opinions now will make up their mind and choose for Christ. But only you can do that work in their hearts. So please, Lord, do it. Change them. Open their eyes to see, Lord. And I pray all these things in Jesus' holy name. Amen.