Mark chapter five for just a few moments. Bud Robinson was one of the most quotable preachers who ever lived. He said, this wonderful stream of salvation never runs dry. For to be heaven born, heaven bound and heaven filled is the finest thing the human mind can conceive of. For getting saved beats gold mines, oil wells, Honey ponds, fritter trees, and diamond fields. Amen. I'm not sure what some of that is. He was from Texas, so maybe they have honey ponds in Texas. Amen. Brother Mays Jackson said when he was six years old, he was at school one day and a boy started picking on him. They were soon fighting until the boy hollered for his big brother. And the fight was soon over. So when you're fighting with the devil, Brother May said, be sure and call for your big brother. Amen. He'll help you every time. Amen. The Bible calls Jesus our elder brother. We can't whoop the devil, but Jesus can. Amen. Amen. All right, we'll finish this message. We started last week on the maid of the damsel arose, and I'll just read two verses. Mark 5, 41. And he, that's Jesus, took the damsel by the hand and said unto her, Talitha Kumai, which is being interpreted, damsel, I say unto thee, arise. And straightway the damsel arose and walked, for she was of the age of 12 years, and they were astonished with a great astonishment. The Bible says of this little girl that Jesus raised from the dead, that she arose and walked And last time we looked at a couple of practical lessons for servants of the Lord. In Mark's gospel, Jesus is the servant of the Lord. And the last truth we considered is that our Lord makes a personal touch here. He goes into the room where this little girl is, and he lays his hand upon her hand. And that's a personal touch, and that emphasizes the need of compassion, and the need of a personal touch in our lives and our witnessing especially. A lot of people somehow got the idea that if you just live in front of people, you never have to talk to them. Well, the truth is you need to talk to them and live right in front of them. And the two together are a powerful combination. This preacher years ago, he was in the company of somebody who was obviously well-known, and he was a bit hesitant, but he finally witnessed to that man. And a little bit later on, the preacher said, I hope I didn't needlessly offend you, And the man said, of course not. He said, I've been waiting 20 years for somebody to tell me what you told me tonight. So don't let anything put you off. Sometimes we say, I can't witness to him, he's too rich. Or we say, I can't witness to him, he's too poor. Or all manner of excuses, you know. So use that personal touch when you witnessed people. Another preacher was in a home witnessing to the dad. And before the preacher left, this man took the preacher upstairs and the man said, these are my three little children sleeping in the bed. And the preacher dared to say, well, are you leading them to heaven or are you leading them to hell, your little children? And that era hit its mark. Guess who got saved? So we ought to challenge people. We ought to tell them the truth. We ought to say to people, are you leading your family to heaven or hell? That's a fair question. And everybody is doing one or the other. One or the other. Personal touch. This lady was an invalid. She couldn't go anywhere, couldn't get out of the house, but she could write letters. And she laid in a sickbed for 17 years, but she did what she could do. And she made a list of 57 people she knew that were not saved. She wrote every one of them. She prayed for them three times a day by name. And she got other people to go visit them. And she didn't give up till all 57 got saved. Amen. Yeah. She didn't major on what she couldn't do. She did what she could do. Amen. You're not responsible for what you can't do. Amen. This is what you can. So a personal touch is of the utmost importance. I wanna emphasize first of all tonight, the power of the words of Jesus. Our Lord simply says to her, damsel, I say unto thee, arise, and that's all it took. Life came back into that lifeless form and she sat up and got up and walked around and as far as we know, lived a long and fruitful life. Folks, that's power. That's the power, that's the word of the creator. No man can do that or had better even, had not even dare try to do such a thing, has raised the dead. Only Jesus can do that. So this reminds us as the servants of the Lord, where the power is. The power is in the words of Jesus. Amen. There's enough power in John 3, 16 to save the whole world. That's right. Thank God there's a whole lot more in there, but just that would be enough. And we've got to be fully persuaded as we live our lives, as we seek to be a light and a witness and to be a Christian in every possible way, we need to be fully persuaded that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. I really believe you can hand somebody a Bible and say, read that Bible. You'll find out how to be saved. You'll find out what God says about it. And if you'll believe the gospel, you'll be saved. Amen. You won't have to have any intermediaries. You won't have to have any denomination. Just you and Jesus and the Bible can get the job done. Amen. We are born again by the Word of God. 1 Peter 1.23, the incorruptible seed of the Word of God. And over and over again, the seed is the Word, Jesus said in one of the parables. And our Lord also said that the Word would not return void, but would accomplish what He sent it to do. So it encourages my heart as a servant of the Lord and all of us as a servants of the Lord that we have this magnificent treasure. We have this gospel dynamite that can change people's lives and it is sufficient. It's not just true. It's enough. Amen. It's enough. So Jesus spoke the word and it was done. Amen. and that's still all that's needed. You see, salvation is a resurrection. This girl got, you wouldn't call it a resurrection perhaps in one sense because she died again, but she is brought back to life. And our Lord didn't do that very much. He raised the daughter, the widow of Nain, her son, and then Lazarus, and then this Jairus daughter, and we have no other records. So our Lord did not raise many that we have any record of, but it was a great miracle. And I'll tell you something greater than a physical miracle. And that's when somebody gets saved, brother. I knew of this guy, he would go to faith healers. And they would pay him because he could take his ear, fold it, put it inside his head, and it looked like he didn't have an ear. And the faith healers would bump him on the head and his ear would pop out and they'd say, well, look at that miracle. A bunch of charlatans, liars and lunatics. Yeah, people thought that was great. Folks, let me tell you a real miracle. When somebody bows at this altar and gets up with a new heart, that's a miracle. Starts loving what they always hated and hating what they always loved. Walking a new road, singing a new song with new desires, a new master, a new family, and a new destiny, and new spiritual appetites. Now, that's a miracle. Amen. You can't fake that. You can't fake that. And by the way, Jesus can heal anybody, but he don't need Benny Hinn. Amen. He don't need Benny Hinn. So that's the greatest miracle. Wasn't it a happy day for mom and dad here? Amen. Don't you think they turned cartwheels and hugged necks and this little girl was happy Everybody went home that day saying, what a powerful miracle worker this Jesus is. Amen. He got all the glory, all because of Jesus. Happy day, happy day. The second truth that I see in this passage is that everybody needs Jesus, even the kids. Most, I don't, there's, you know this, don't you? It's not an age of accountability. It's a point of accountability. Some are ready to be saved at seven, and some are ready to be saved at five, and some are not ready till they're 10. Amen. Don't say, well, it's his birthday, he's 12, he can be saved. No, that ain't it. If you've ever, you go out there and deal with a thousand people and then come back and tell me and you'll say what I just said. When the Lord's dealing with you, that's when you can get saved. Amen. He's drawing you because He wants you. He's drawing you because He's ready. Amen. And when fruit is ready and ripe, you just touch it and it'll drop. Amen? You ever picked apples? Brother, when that fruit is ripe, just touch it and it'll fall. And when somebody is good and lost and the Holy Ghost is drawing them and working on them, they're ready. Amen? They don't have to have 45 verses of just as I am. Amen? That's right. So everybody needs to be safe, even the kids. We had a Bible club at Sugarloaf for years and it always, it never failed. I'd say to the kindergartners, how many of you want to be saved? Every one of them. First graders, how many want to be saved one day and live for Jesus? Every one of them. One day I said, this was dumb on me. I said, how many of y'all been to Ur of the Chaldees? I guess I was talking about Abraham. Half the class had been to Iraq. First graders, so they're liars, okay? First graders are liars. Second graders, how many of y'all won't be saved? Every one of them. Third graders, how many of y'all want to be saved? Most of them, not all of them. Fourth graders, about half. Fifth graders, how many want to be saved? A third of them. Already by the age of 11, half of them said, not so sure about that. And you just keep going on up, brother. That's how it works. Every time, there are a few exceptions. A few exceptions. A 16-year-old, they ain't got time for Jesus. 21, 30, too busy. I'll think about that when I get everything else done. That's why Jesus said, let the children come, forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. So don't overlook the children. Somebody asked D.L. Moody one time, do you have any saved last night? He said, three and a half. They said, three and a half? You mean three adults and one child? Counting the child a half? He said, oh no. He said, three children and one adult. I'm just counting that adult as a half. He's only got half of his life left to live for Jesus. See, it's the children that have the most to offer. Some of us only have five years left, 10, 15. That's why children are the tallest candle in the church, because they've got the most to offer. Amen. But they're widely neglected, overlooked. I preached at the High Point cat meeting several years ago. There wasn't a child in the whole cat meeting. There wasn't one teenager in the whole cat meeting. Not one. You could see, if you went there today, you can see where the chairs used to be. And they quit coming, and they took all those chairs out. And now it's the High Point Baptist Gap Meeting. I preached one night on the family, and they all came to me and said, Come back! Tell us something! We're losing this thing! We've lost our kids! So it ain't automatic, brother. It ain't automatic. Don't forget the kids. In fact, every child you know, you ought to quote John 3, 16, every day of their life. Amen. If you forget everything else I said, remember that right there. Amen. Doing more good than everything else put together. So let them come. Let them come. I see another wonderful truth in this passage, and that is, thank God, nothing's too hard for the Lord. Amen. No case too difficult. The apostle Paul got saved. He was Saul of Tarsus. He's one of the meanest men in the world. He called himself the chief of sinners. So thank God, if God can save the chief, he can save the rest of the Indians, amen? I'm saying to you, God doesn't save the worst sinner there's ever been, so he can obviously save everybody else. Yeah. So don't ever give up on anybody. Andrew Fuller was preaching. There's a very wicked lady there that night. Andrew Fuller preached, don't look unto me and be saved, all the ends of the earth, Isaiah 45, 22. That lady came and got saved. She said, I know I'm a notoriously wicked woman, but according to that verse, the Lord can save even to the ends of the earth and I'm not beyond the ends of the earth and where sin abounds, grace super abounds. So I'm glad to tell you God can save anybody. Yeah, nothing's too hard. Nothing's too hard. Amen. I've seen them saved at 80 and One fellow was almost 90. You say, I don't believe you can get saved when you're that old. Well, I know a man in the Bible who got saved on the cross on the day he died. Don't tell me Jesus can't save you. Amen. That's just His mercy. Don't presume, but don't give up either. Don't give up. You know what I tell every Mormon and Jehovah Witness? even the older ones that are mean as the devil. I say, when you get saved, come back and tell me, I want to rejoice with you. Amen. You don't know what grace is or you'd quit working for salvation. God can save them. I have books, people's testimonies, former Mormons, former everything. We were all former sinners. Nothing's too hard. The last truth I want to emphasize from this passage is that after the Lord raised this little girl back to life and brought such joy to this home again and showed who He was and how He loved people is He said, folks, fix this little girl something to eat. She's been to heaven and back. She's probably wore out. She's been 45 million miles. Amen. You know what I'm saying? He commanded them to give her something to eat. You know what you do after Jesus raises the dead? You feed them. You take care of them. When somebody gets saved, that's not the end. That's the birth. That's the beginning! How much help did you need as a young Christian? Huh? You needed all the prayer, instruction, encouragement that you could get for the first ten years at least. Didn't you? And so do they. And so do they. So we gotta care for them, we gotta feed them. That's what the church does. Teach, nourish, equip, edify. Not entertain. Yeah. Feed. Feed. You just wouldn't believe the conversations People come to me and say, what do you do at church on Wednesday night? I say, I preach. What? You preach the Bible on Wednesday night? That's just for Sunday. Hey, we all need all the preaching we can get. Amen. Amen. If we don't come to church to open the Bible, what are we doing here? I did not come for the weather report, the political report, or the mere social interaction. I came to learn something or be reminded of something from God's book, the Bible. Amen. Some of us need to go on a Bible diet. Somebody said to a sheep farmer, how do you have such a healthy sheep? He said, I take good care of them when they're lambs. So you get you a good foundation in your Christian life. Thank God. And you can stand on it and you can grow and you can serve and you can help somebody else. Feed the little girl, Jesus said. I think our Lord is like mamas are. I've watched mamas, you know, they fix the meal and they watch their children. They get a lot of delight. I've just seen mothers take delight in their children eating. I believe God is that way. He likes to feed us body and soul. Amen. My great grandma lived on the end of the Hammer Road. And the only thing I ever remember her saying was if, this is what she said, the only thing I ever remember her saying, She said, if you're hungry, get you a little bite to eat. You'll feel better. Amen. So I put that into spiritual practice. When you're feeling just a little bit weak, get you a little bite to eat and you'll feel better. Amen. The Bible is enough. I mean, one verse can Send the devil packing. Yeah, that's right. That's power enough in one verse. Yeah. So we got to feed them, especially new believers. They need the milk and the meat and the instruction. So as I close, there's not just a miracle here. There's lessons for you and me. that it's a world of sorrow and suffering. What you gonna do about it? You gonna pass by on the other side of the street like those fellows did in the parable of the good Samaritan? Or are you gonna be the good Samaritan that went to where the fellow was and made a personal touch? And it costs him. Do you know it'll cost you something? Sure it will. It might cost you a little bit of time. Aren't you glad somebody was willing to be inconvenienced at one point over you? You were the prayer burden on their heart. Yeah, it was you. So it's a world of suffering and we're called to love and share and give them Jesus. Just give them Jesus. What will happen? Same thing that happened here. The dead will be raised to life spiritually. Amen. Somebody will be saved and there'll be joy. And the church will be edified. and Jesus will be glorified. Amen. Nobody got any credit this day but Jesus. We shouldn't want any credit. Shame on anybody that wants any credit. Your spirit is wrong. Amen. It's all to Him. Amen. He deserves the credit. Amen. What kind of servants of the Lord are we? Are we following the footsteps of Jesus? He showed us how to serve the Lord. I'm almost done. I went to school with this boy. I hesitated to witness to him. He was the meanest boy in the whole school. And I finally got up enough nerve one day to witness to him. And he said, oh, Alan, I'm a Christian. I thought you are a Christian. You're the closest thing to Hitler I've ever seen. You ain't no Christian. You ain't no Christian. Do you know what that reminded me? I was 17 years old. A lot of people say, I am a Christian. But living it is a different matter. Amen. So go ahead and say it, but be sure you're living it too. Yeah. Because if you ain't living it, I don't believe it. I don't believe it. It is a privilege to be a servant of the Lord. Amen. David said in the Psalms, I'd rather be a doorkeeper than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. What he said. I'd rather be the man that opens the door and shakes hands and says, hello, than to be on the front page of the Charlotte Observer for whatever. I'll be done in one minute. How many times I've sat on an airplane, and when you're on an airplane, you have to hear everything that people say in front of you, behind you, beside of you, because you ain't but three inches away. These guys in front of me one day, well to do, talking about everything that people of the world talk about. And the longer they talked, the more my heart was broken and grieved that immortal souls headed for heaven or hell have nothing but feathers and dross The beans that the devil puts out and you... Just like my family had a slaughterhouse down here. You know how to make a pig go in the slaughterhouse? Just drop some beans and he'll eat them and walk right in there to his slaughter. That's the way people are doing. The devil's dropping them a few beans and they're going blindly to destruction. That's where you come in. That's where you come in with the gospel. Amen. Amen. Don't be ashamed.