The Touch

DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 4, 1877,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"She said, If I may touch but His clothes, I shall be whole." Mark
5:28.

THE miracle of the healing of this woman occurred while our Savior was
on the road to the house of Jairus to raise his daughter and I have not
much doubt that although, in itself, it was a very remarkable miracle,
it was not meant to stand quite alone, but had a relation to the Lord's
dealings with Jairus. If I read the narrative rightly, the ruler of the
synagogue was about to have his faith severely tried. He had come to
the Savior saying that his daughter was lying at the point of death. He
beseeched Jesus to come and heal her, but before He had reached the
house, other messengers came to say, "Your daughter is dead; why do you
trouble the Master any further?"

Now, in order that the faith of Jairus might be prepared for that
shock, our Lord had afforded him the sight of a special miracle worked
upon this woman. Our Lord had said to him, "Fear not; only believe, and
she shall be made whole," and as old Bishop Hall says, "to make this
good, by the touch of the hem of His garment He revived a woman from
the verge of death." It is amazing that the case of his little daughter
of 12 years of age was here placed within the region of hope by our
Lord's healing a woman who had been exactly the same time subject to a
grievous and incurable malady. A woman who led a living death is healed
that Jairus may believe that his dead daughter may be raised to life!

Brethren, we never know, when God blesses us, how much blessing He is
incidentally bestowing upon others. It may be that even our conversion
had a far-reaching but very distinct connection with the conversion of
others. Grace smiles upon its personal subject, but its object reaches
beyond the private benefit of the individual. The Lord is strengthening
the faith of another of His children, or it may be He is actually
working faith in a convicted soul when He is accepting and honoring our
faith and saving us!

We speak of killing two birds with one stone, but our Savior knows how
to bless two souls, no, 2,000 souls, with one single touch of His hand!
I will not, however, detain you in the throng of thoughts with which I
might preface my discourse upon this interesting narrative, for I long
to bring you near to the glorious Person of the great Healer of men!
Our Lord worked this miracle while moving on to work another–like the
sun, He shines while He pursues His course and every beam is full of
Grace. Not only what He does with full purpose is glorious, but He is
so full of power and Grace that even what He does incidentally by the
way is marvelous!

The main course and design of His life must ever engross our most
earnest thoughts, but even the minor episodes of His life are rich
beyond expression. Nor is there ever a point of detail which is without
instruction. We cannot exhaust the subject, but must be satisfied to
leave out many interesting matters and come at once to the heart of the
story. First, I invite you to look at this woman as a patient. Secondly
to observe the great difficulties with which her faith was surrounded.
Thirdly, we will come to the vanishing point and see how all her
difficulties fled like the mists of the morning when she thought of
Christ. And, lastly, we will dwell upon her grand success.

It may be the Lord will help us to attain some greater blessing by
enabling us to follow her example. Come, Holy Spirit, and aid our faith
that it may bring us into closer and yet closer contact with our Divine
Lord!

I. First, then, look at THE PATIENT. She was a woman who had suffered
from a very grievous malady which had drained away her life. Her
constitution had been sapped and undermined–her very existence had
become one of constant suffering and weakness–yet what courage and
spirit she displayed! She was ready to go through fire and through
water to obtain health! She must have had a wonderful amount of
vitality in her, for where others would have been lying upon the bed of
sickness and long ago despairing, she still, for 12 years continued to
seek after a cure from one physician after another. Nothing dampened or
daunted her–she would not give up so long as breath remained!

When at last she had found the true Physician, she plunged into the
thick of the crowd to touch Him by some means or other. She asked
nobody to intercede for her, but with a dauntless courage worthy to be
associated with her deep humility, she forced her way through the crowd
to reach the healing Christ. She displayed intense energy and
unconquerable spirit in pursuit of health. O that men were a tenth as
much alive to the salvation of their souls! Note, also, her resolute
determination. She would die hard, if die she must. She would not
resign herself to the inevitable till she had used every effort to
preserve life and to regain health.

For 12 years it appears she had persevered in different ways and in the
teeth of terrible agonies. We are told that she had suffered many
things of many physicians. It is bad enough to suffer many things of
one surgeon, but she had suffered many things from many practitioners.
The physicians of those days were a great deal more to be dreaded than
the worst diseases. If I were, now, to read to you even a brief account
of the surgery practiced in olden times, you would shudder and beg me
to close the book. Any reasonable person might prefer to suffer from
any form of natural disorder rather than submit himself to the hands of
the doctors of those days!

As for their prescriptions, they were horrible! Even those of a couple
hundred years ago, found in such books as "Culpepper's Herbal," are
such a mess and mass of all manner of abominations that it would surely
be better to die than to be drenched with such detestable concoctions.
What with cupping, leeching and cutting–cauterizing, blistering and
incision–strapping, puncturing and putting in set-ons, patients were
made to undergo all manner of unimaginable tortures. The physicians of
her day were worthy to have been administrators of the Inquisition, for
they had reached perfection in the arts of torment.

Yet the heroic woman before us endured every process which was supposed
to have virtue in it. I know not how many operations she had endured,
nor how many gallons of nauseous drugs she had swallowed, but they had
certainly caused her a vast amount of suffering and bitter
disappointment. Meanwhile her money had been paid away freely till she
had nothing left to procure her comforts when she most needed them. As
long as her money lasted, she never held back a single penny of it. The
resolution of the woman is well worthy of being observed. She is
determined that if beneath the sky there is a cure, that cure she will
have–and as long as there is life left in her, that life shall be
spent somehow or other seeking to baffle Death of his immediate prey.

I am glad, when I see such resolution in an awakened soul, but how
seldom is it to be seen! I am happy when a man, however ignorant of the
way of salvation, nevertheless resolves, "I will be saved if salvation
is obtainable. Whatever is to be suffered, whatever is to be given up,
whatever is to be done, if there is any way of salvation procurable by
any means, I will have it. The whole world shall not be reckoned too
great an expense! Self-denial of the most arduous kind shall be a
trifle to me if I may but be saved." Surely, Brothers and Sisters, the
salvation of our immortal soul is worthy of all the intensity of zeal,
constancy of purpose and resoluteness of determination of which we are
capable! Who shall count its worth? Against what shall we weigh the
soul?

Fine gold of the merchants is as dross compared with our undying
spirit! The diamond and the costly crystal are not to be named in
comparison with it! Job said, "Skin for skin, yes, all that a man has
will he give for his life." And truly the ransom of the soul is
precious. It is a hopeful sign, a gracious token when there is a
determination worked in men that, if saved they can be, saved they will
be! I admire, also, this woman's marvelous hopefulness. She still
believes that she can be cured. She ought to have given up the idea
long ago, according to the ordinary processes of reasoning, for
generally we put several instances together and from these several
instances we deduce a certain inference.

She might have put the many physicians together, and their many
failures, and have rationally inferred that her case was hopeless. She
might have said, "My disease is incurable. I must ask for patience to
bear it till I die, but no longer dream of a cure." But no, bright-eyed
woman as I have no doubt she was, she saw hope where others would have
despaired! Something within her buoyed her up and she still had hopes
of better days! And so when she heard of Jesus, her heart leaped within
her. Her hope said, "The blessing has come at last! I have long waited
for it and now God has sent it to me! Here it is and I will seize it at
once. Now has the Sun of Righteousness arisen upon me with healing
beneath His wings and I will bathe in His sunlight. Now I have escaped
from mere pretenders and have found One who has real power

to heal!"

You see, then, the patient. A woman of spirit, of resolution and of
hopefulness. Such persons make grand workers when they are converted!
May God grant that I may have many such men and women before me and may
the Master come, this morning, by His Spirit, and do His healing work
upon them!

II. But now, secondly, I beg you to join with me in considering THE
DIFFICULTIES OF THIS WOMAN'S FAITH. They must be weighed in order to
show its strength. The difficulties of her faith must have been as
follows. First, she could hardly forget that the disease was, in
itself, incurable, and that she had long suffered from it. Taken early,
many maladies may be greatly mitigated, if not altogether removed. But
it was now very late in the day with this poor sufferer. Twelve
years–it is a long, long portion of human life during which to have
been continually drained of the very sustenance of that life. To pine
and bleed for 12 years is enough to render one hopeless.

Can a cure be possible? Can the disease which has taken root in the
body for 12 years be eradicated? Can the incurable be healed, after
all? Her heart would naturally enquire, how can this thing be? Do you
wonder that after being so long weakened by her complaint and rendered
more and more infirm by its long continuance–do you wonder, I say, if
it looked to her to be an utter impossibility that she should be
healed? Yet observe her conduct and admire it! She staggered not, but
believed in Jesus!

But then, again, she had endured frequent disappointments. And all
these must have supplied her with terrible reasons for doubting. "Yes,"
she might have said, "I remember the first physician I applied to, how
he told me it was a very small matter and that if I would purchase a
bottle of the large size of his Egyptian elixir, which he had imported
from the tombs of the Pharaohs at enormous expense, I should speedily
be well. Alas, he only relieved me of my gold. Then another famous
professor assured me that his pills would do the work if I took them
some three hundred times and was careful to purchase them only from
him, as he, alone, possessed the secret, and no one else could prepare
the genuine article. He had no doubt that I should be greatly improved
after the three hundredth box. But, alas, after tedious delay, I was no
better."

She remembered how, under each new treatment, she interpreted every
little change in herself into a hopeful sign, but soon found herself
rudely shaken out of her dream by an increase of the evil. Her
adventures were many, but all alike sad in their end. She remembered
the grave old physician to whom she went some years ago, who shook his
learned head and assured her that he had scarcely ever met with a more
terrible case. It was a great mercy for her that she had come to him,
for there was not another man in Palestine who understood the disease.
He believed that he could certainly stop the issue of blood by the
daily use of his Balm of Lebanon, prepared from the best gums of the
cedar and the richest juices of odoriferous herbs and mixed in an
extraordinary manner in accordance with the suggestions of the ancients
and the observations of many years of practice.

It was a mercy, indeed, that he had a little left of this matchless
balm which she could have at a very moderate price considering how much
expense it was to him. She had taken it, but it had made her feel a new
pain and had brought on a fresh disease. She had paid heavily to endure
two maladies instead of one! She had changed her doctor and this time
engaged a Greek physician who heartily condemned all his predecessors
as fools! He taught a system so profound that the poor woman could not
understand him at all, but believed in him, none the less, for she set
it down to her own ignorance and his deep learning. He failed, however,
and she then tried a Roman doctor, a plain, blunt, practical man who
talked no Greek, but was greatly skilled in the rough and ready
treatment of wounded soldiers.

After trying medicines for a very considerable time, he informed her
that hers was a very suitable case for a famous operation which he had,
himself, first practiced–a beautiful operation, indeed! He had tried
it on scores of soldiers and although none had recovered, he believed
that his treatment was the best known. She had declined that heroic
operation, but she had endured another and another, until she moved
about painfully, with the scars in her flesh of wounds which she had
received in the house of her medical friends.

When we consider the long story of which I have thus tried to make a
rough draft, it would not have been at all extraordinary if she had
said, "I cannot trust anybody else! Now I give it up. I would sooner
die than be tortured any more. Better to let Nature alone than that I
should put myself into the hands of any more of these infallible
deceivers." Yet she was not dismayed–her faith rose superior to her
bitter experience and she believed in the Lord. It is easier for me to
tell this to you than it is for any of us to realize what her
difficulty really must have been. If you, too, have tried by good
works, by ceremonies, by prayers and tears to obtain salvation and have
been defeated at all points–it is not a

mystery that you should be slow to believe that you can ever be saved.
May your faith, also, like hers, swim over the crests of the billows of
disappointment and may you hope in the Almighty Savior!

There was, also, another difficulty in her way and that was her vivid
sense of her unworthiness. When she thought of Jesus, she viewed Him as
a Person who was holy as well as powerful. She reverenced as well as
trusted Him. I am sure she did, for though she summoned courage enough
to touch Him, her modesty led her to go behind Him, as unworthy to be
seen. She was evidently afraid to face Him, lest He, knowing her
unworthiness, as she knew it, should spurn her and forbid her approach.
She was an unclean woman, according to the ceremonial Law, and the
shame of her disease prevented her venturing upon any verbal request or
open application. She had great confidence in His power and mercy, but
she had equal awe of His purity and, therefore, feared that He would be
angry if she touched Him.

This must have very much hampered her. "How shall I venture to draw
near to Him? The other physicians I could approach, for I knew them to
be like myself. But concerning Him I find that He is a Prophet mighty
in word and deed–a man of God–and something more. How shall I dare to
approach Mm?" The thought that she would go behind shows her ignorance
of the Lord's Divinity or her forgetfulness of the attribute of
Omniscience, but still, it proves that she labored under a sense of
unworthiness and yet she believed. Ah, dear Hearers, when you are bowed
down with a sense of your own sin and folly, may the Holy Spirit lead
you to believe that Jesus Christ is able to make you whole!

I do not know whether the other difficulty did occur to her at all, but
it would to me, namely, that she had, now, no money. She had spent all
her living, we are told–all her living. The physicians whom she had
previously consulted had all been great in the matter of fees–they
could diminish her wealth if they could not establish her health! She
had carefully approached them with promises of large reward, assuring
them that anything she could give would be freely rendered if she could
but be cured. But now she can offer nothing. Her disease remains, but
her estate is gone! She is reduced to poverty by her efforts after
health–how shall she come before the Great Physician of whom she has
heard so much?

I should not wonder but what the thought of His great-heartedness and
the many cures which He had worked gratuitously helped her to get over
that difficulty. But still, it occurs to many to dream of purchasing
salvation and to this day many need to be reminded that Jesus gives His
Grace to those who have no money nor any other price to offer Him! His
terms are–"without money and without price!" But many awakened
consciences forget this. Perhaps the worst difficulty of all was her
extreme sickness at that time. We read that she was not better, but
rather grew worse. She had been bad enough before, but the doctors had
aggravated the disease with their strong acrid medicines, sharp
incisions and fierce blisters. They had made her worse than Nature
would have left her if it had been let alone!

She had reached a frightful stage of the disease and was confessedly
beyond all human help. She was as bad as she could be to crawl about at
all. Usually such a sickness depresses the spirits, unnerves the mind
and makes the sufferer feel a lack of energy, so that, resolute woman
as she was, we should little have marveled if she had said, "No, I can
do no more. I must yield. There is nothing now but to lay down and die,
for I am in such a condition that all attempts to gain health are
futile."

What a grand faith was hers which made her rise above her weakness,
overcome her depression of spirit, throw aside the lethargy which was
creeping over her and believe that everything was altered, for she had
no longer to deal with a pretender who would fail her, but with One
sent of God and clothed with infinite power, who could meet her
case–even hers!

III. So now we come to our third point, which is THE VANISHING POINT OF
ALL HER DIFFICULTIES. We

read of her, first, that she had heard of Jesus. It is Mark who tells
us that, "When she had heard of Jesus." "Faith comes by hearing." What
had she heard of Him? Is it not more than probable that she had been
told of that scene which is pictured in Luke's Gospel, in the 6th
chapter and the 19th verse, when, "The whole multitude sought to touch
Him; for there went virtue out of Him, and healed them all." On one
special day great multitudes followed our Lord and pressed upon Him to
touch Him, for whoever touched Him was healed of whatever disease He
had! What a wonderful scene that must have been when men were so
enthusiastic to be blessed that they thronged the great Physician!

Not that our Lord was more able to save on one day than on another, but
there were certain days in which the power seemed to emanate from His
Person more mightily than at other times, always, as I judge, in
proportion to the faith of the people who surrounded Him. On that
occasion, being followed by a great company who believed in His healing

power, they saw such wonders worked that they made a general rush at
His blessed Person and all who touched obtained healing! Some conceive
that even the healthy touched Him and gained greater vigor from the
touch. I should not wonder! In spiritual things it is so. The woman had
heard of all the wondrous cures He had worked and she said to herself,
"Then I will touch Him and be healed! For if these reports are true,
then if I may but touch Him I, too, shall be made whole."

She seems to have believed Christ to be charged with marvelous power,
somewhat like a Leyden jar charged with electricity which gives forth
its power most freely. She was not a woman of any great wisdom. Her
chief quality was energy. She made a great blunder about our Lord and
His garments, but it did not touch the vital point–she so thought of
Him as to glorify His power–and it sufficed. She truly believed in
Him. And if you believe in Christ, though you are in the dark about a
thousand things, your faith will save you! If you do but really believe
in Jesus, all your mistakes about Him will not really destroy His power
to bless you, nor set His heart against you, nor destroy the value of
your faith. "If I touch but His clothes," she says, "He is so full of
power that He will heal me."

The point to notice most distinctly is this. The poor woman believed
that the faintest contact with Christ would heal her. Notice the words
of my text–"If I may touch but His clothes." It is not, "If I may but
touch His clothes"–no, the point does not lie in the touch, it lies in
what was touched. "If I may touch but His clothes. If I cannot get near
enough to Him to touch His flesh, if I may touch but His clothes. Such
is the power which dwells in Him that it overflows even into His
garments! And while He wears them they are charged with the virtue
which I need–it reaches even to the blue fringe which, as a Hebrew, He
wears upon the edge of His robe. I am sure if I touch but that fringe,
if I cannot do any more, there will be a connection between Him and me
and I shall be healed."

Splendid faith! It was not more than Christ deserved, but yet it was
remarkable! It was a kind of faith which I desire to possess! The
slenderest contact with Christ healed the body and will heal the
soul–yes, the faintest communication! Do but become united to Jesus
and the blessed work is done! Effect the junction and the virtue comes
to you. "If I touch but His clothes, I shall be made whole." I want you
carefully to observe that the woman did not seem to think anything
about herself. You could not lay the stress upon the pronoun, "If I
touch but His clothes, I shall be made whole." It would not be in
accordance with the context. No, it is, "If I touch but His clothes."
It does not matter who I may be, what my uncleanness may be, what my
character may be, what my state of mind may be–if I touch but His
clothes, contact being established–I shall be healed!

Every person who comes into contact with Jesus by the touch of faith
will partake of His healing power! She knew this and shut her eyes to
all other considerations. She lays no stress upon any mode of touching.
No. "If I touch but His clothes"–not embrace Him, nor grasp Him, hold
Him, wrestle with Him–no, she believes that any sort of contact will
answer the purpose. Now it is always a blessed thing when a man is
taught of God to forget himself–and even to forget his faith–and only
think upon the Lord Jesus who is the Object of our trust. I admire this
woman's resoluteness. She sees nothing but Jesus! Dear Heart, she felt
that the virtue to heal was all in Him and not in her, nor in her
touch. She knew that whatever she might be, His power could master
every difficulty of her case and that the result did not depend upon
the mode of her touch, nor the length during which it lasted, but on
Him alone!

It was from Him that the virtue was to come and come it would, however
slender the contact. This faith is worth cultivating. To forget
everything else and only to consider the Lord Jesus and His power to
bless is wisdom! Here am I, a poor lost sinner, but if I can only get
to Jesus I shall be forgiven and saved! Here am I, vexed with unruly
passions, diseased with this sin and that, but if I may only touch Him,
He is so full of healing power that, mass of spiritual disease though I
may have, the moment I touch Him, His virtue will battle with my
disease and vanquish it forever! Behold this woman! Again fix your eye
upon her till you have become like she is! All her thoughts have gone
towards the Lord Jesus. She has forgotten herself, forgotten the
rampant fury of her disease, forgotten her being behind and out of
sight–even her own touch of Him she has put into a secondary place.
Everything she looks for must come out of Him!

She knows that connected with Him she will obtain the blessing, but
apart from Him she will abide in her misery. "If I may touch but His
clothes"–not because His garments are in themselves powerful, but
because they are, "His clothes"–the garments which He is wearing and
which, consequently, will be a medium of communication with Himself.
There is the vanishing point, then–she has come to think of Jesus and
of the certainty of cure through contact with Him. If you, seeking
Sinners, would but think more of Christ, all would be well. You who
cannot believe–if you would relinquish your perpetual thoughts about
your faith and even about your sin, and begin to think of Him–the

Son of God, exalted to be a Priest and a Savior, the Christ whose
finished work is all for sinners, the Christ of the Resurrection, Jesus
the Ever Living, Jesus in whom all power dwells–I think you would soon
obtain eternal salvation!

When your whole heart sets itself upon Him and no more upon itself, you
will enter into peace and enjoy rest for your souls.

IV. Fourthly, let us speak of HER GRAND SUCCESS. Let me remind you
again, however, of how she gained her end. She gave to the Lord Jesus
an intentional and voluntary touch. Upon the intentional character of
it, I must insist for a minute. She pressed into the crowd. She was
hustled about, I do not doubt, and in her weak state, ready to faint,
or even to die. In the midst of those rough men who pressed about the
Savior, she found no sympathy. But she is desperately bound, by hook or
by crook, to touch His clothes. She presses in behind, for she cares
not where she touches Him, but touch Him she must.

In the throng, the garments of Christ became entangled and at some
little distance from Him she perceives just a bit of the blue fringe
hanging out behind. Now is her time–she has only to touch that–so
strong is her faith that even the hem of His garment suffices her, for
it will make a connection between her and the Savior and that is all
she needs. Her finger is put out and the deed is done. Yet note that
she was not healed by a contact with the Lord or with His garment
against her will! She was not pushed against Him accidentally, but the
touch was active and not merely passive. "You see," said one of the
Apostles, "the multitude thronging You and pressing You." There was
nothing remarkable or efficacious about such unavoidable and
involuntary touches. Her touch was her own distinct, intentional,
voluntary act and it was done under the persuasion that it would bring
her a cure. Such is the faith which brings salvation.

It is not every contact with Christ that saves men. It is the awakening
of yourself to come near to Him, the determinate, the personal,
resolute, believing touch of Jesus Christ which saves! We must believe
for ourselves. The Spirit helps us, but we, ourselves, believe. Some of
you sit still and hope that the Lord will visit you. You wait by the
pool till an angel comes and stirs the water and all that kind of
thing. But that is not according to the tenor of the Gospel command.
The Gospel does not come to you and say, "Whoever waits for impressions
shall be saved." No, it says, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, for He
that believes and is baptized shall be saved." Exercise the personal,
voluntary, intentional act of faith and you shall be saved!

Oh, I would to God that some sinner here, deeply conscious of his
guilt, might be awakened to perform that act this morning! However
little your knowledge, believe in Jesus as far as you know Him. Though
you can only come into contact with that part of Christ which you have
learned from the Scriptures, that little of Christ is a part of Himself
and you will have touched Him! You may not be acquainted with the deep
things of God, nor with the high doctrines which honor our adorable
Lord, but what you do know will suffice for faith. If you say, "I will
trust the Lamb of God," and really do so, then you have come into
contact with Him and you are saved! Yes, though it is but a believing
prayer, a believing sigh, a believing tear–you have really reached Him
and you are made whole! But the touch of faith must be your own act and
deed. Nobody is saved in His sleep. Nobody may claim to have been
transformed into a living soul unless he can prove it by the living act
of trust. There must be this appropriating faith–and this the woman
had.

And now see her grand success! She no sooner touched than she was
healed! In a moment, swift as electricity, the touch was given, the
contact was made, the fountain of her blood was dried up and health
beamed in her face immediately. Immediate salvation! I heard a person
say, the other day, that he had heard of immediate conversion, but he
did not know what to make of it. Now, herein is a marvelous thing, for
such cases are common enough among us! In every case spiritual
quickening must be instantaneous! However long the preparatory process
may be, there must be a time in which the dead soul begins to live!
There must be a time in which the babe is not born and a moment in
which it is born. We are pardoned, or else condemned!

There must be a moment in which the man is not pardoned, and another in
which he is–and that must be an inappreciable period of time! I grant
you that many workings of conscience, and so on, may go before and melt
into the actual reception of life, so as to make it appear a gradual
work. But the actual birth–the Divine quickening by which the man is
made to live in Christ–must be instantaneous in every case! A man is
brought by degrees to a deep sense of sin, to the renunciation of self
and so on–but there is no period in which a man lies between death and
life–he either is alive unto God or he is dead in sin! If he is dead,
he is dead! And if he is alive, he is alive–there is no state between
the two. A man is either regenerate or unregenerate! There is no
borderland or neutral territory between the two conditions.

This woman was healed in a moment and God can save you, my dear
Hearers, in an instant. May He do it now! If you now believe, it is
done! There may be cases in which a blessing comes to a man and he is
scarcely aware of it, but this woman knew that she was saved. She felt
in herself that she was whole of her plague. I do not say that I would
like to have undergone her 12 years of suffering for the sake of that
moment's joy, but I am sure she was quite content to have done so. The
joy of the first hour in which you know you are saved! It is almost too
much to live with! It is well that it does not continue in all its
vehemence and ecstasy! That flash of light, brighter than the sun! That
flush, that flood, that torrent of unutterable bliss which bears all
before it, when, at last, we can say, "My sins are assuredly removed
from me–I am saved and know it within myself!"–that joy, I say, is
beyond all description!

Blessed be God if we have known that bliss! Blessed be God, I say, and
I would repeat the thanks a thousand times! Oh, touch the Savior, poor
Sinner! The Lord deliver you from anything of your own and bring you,
now, to look for all to Jesus and you shall know in yourself that you
are whole of your plague! She had, next, the assurance from Christ
Himself that it was so, but she did not obtain that assurance till she
had made an open confession. She felt in herself that she was whole,
but there was more comfort in reserve for her. The Lord Jesus Christ
would have those who follow Him come forward and no longer hide in the
crowd. Those who believe ought to be baptized on confession of their
faith. He, who in His heart believes, should with His mouth make
confession of Him.

So Christ turned round and said, "Who touched My clothes?" At the
hearing of that enquiry the newly-kindled flame of her joy began to
dampen under the fear of losing what she had stolen. Down went her
spirits below zero! Then the officious disciples said, "You see the
multitude thronging You, and pressing You and You say, who touched Me?"
But Jesus said, as He looked around again, "Somebody has touched Me."
For not His clothes, alone, but He had been touched by somebody. That
poor "somebody" wanted to sink into the earth! I know she did! She
trembled as Jesus looked for her. Those blessed eyes looked around and,
by-and-by, they lighted upon her. And as she gazed upon them she did
not feel so much alarmed as before, but still afraid and trembling, she
came and fell down before Him and told Him the truth.

Then He gently raised her up and said, "Daughter, your faith has made
you whole. Go in peace and be whole of your plague." Now she knew her
cure from Christ's lips as well as from her own consciousness! She had,
now the, Divine Witness bearing witness with her spirit that she was,
indeed, a healed one! Mark then, that those of you who desire to obtain
the Witness of the Spirit should come forward and confess your faith
and tell what the Lord has done for you– then shall you receive the
sealing Witness of the Spirit with your spirit that you are, indeed,
born of God! God help you tremblers who have, at last touched my
Master's hem, to acknowledge it bravely before all and specially before
Him!

Brothers and Sisters, the wine which comes out of these grapes is
this–the slightest connection with Jesus will bless us! I desire to
send you away with this one Truth of God upon your minds. Whether you
are a child of God or not a child of God, hear this weighty doctrine!
This woman believed the matchless Truth that the least touch of Christ
will cure. "If I may touch but His clothes, I shall be made whole."
Believe this, I pray you, each one for himself. If you, dear child of
God, feel very depressed this morning–coldhearted, dead, sluggish–if
you touch but His clothes you shall become warm-hearted again! You
shall get all your life and vigor and enthusiasm back if you only draw
near to your Lord.

Do I hear you say "I seem so full of doubts, so depressed in spirits,
so unhappy. I trust I am converted, but I cannot rejoice." Then,
Brother, get a fresh hold of your Lord, for if you touch but His
clothes you shall be made whole of the plague of doubting! Only draw
near to Jesus, your risen Lord, by a prayer, or a believing thought and
it is done! Be it ever so slight a touch, you shall be made whole!
Perhaps you say, "I feel so discouraged in my Christian work and even
feel as if I must give it up. I have seen no conversions lately and,
therefore, I cannot go about my work with the spirit I once had."

Brother, you are falling into a spiritual lethargy! But if you but
touch your Lord, again, you shall be made whole! Did not the Lord Jesus
heal you at the first? He can heal still! He loses no virtue when He
gives forth His power. If a master takes a scholar and fills him full
of wisdom, the master is just as wise afterwards as he was at first.
And when our Lord grants us a fullness of Grace, He remains just as
full of Grace as He was originally. Come to Him, then, you downcast
saints. Come now! Come always! If any of you have backslidden. If you
have become altogether wrong and out of sorts. If your spiritual
digestion is bad. If your spiritual eyes are dim so that you cannot see
afar off. If your knees are

weak and if your hands hang down. If your whole head is sick and your
heart faint, yet still, if you touch but your Lord's garments you shall
be made whole!

This wonderful medicine has boundless power to restore from relapses as
well as to heal the first disease. I cannot help reminding you of the
Church at Laodicea, which was in so horrible a state that our Lord,
Himself, said He must spit it out of His mouth–and yet He
added–"Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear My
voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him,
and he with Me." Communion with our Master is the cure for
lukewarmness! When you have fallen so low that even Christ, Himself, is
sick of you–and it must be a very bad case when He becomes sick of a
Church–yet even then, if you but sup with Him and He with you, all
will be well! Only get into communion with Him who has life in Himself
and your own life shall become full of vigor. Oh, dear children of God,
if you have fallen into an unhappy state, put in practice the example
of the woman and see whether Jesus is not, still, the same! A touch is
a very simple matter, but do not, therefore, doubt its value.

As for you who fear that you are not His children, behold, I set before
you an open door, this morning, and I pray God that you may be enabled
to enter into it! If you touch but the Redeemer's clothes you shall be
made whole! Whatever the transgression, the iniquity, the sin of which
you have been guilty–come into contact with the bleeding Lamb and you
shall be forgiven! You need not even so much as touch, for there is
life in a look. A look will set up sufficient contact to bring
salvation! "Look unto Me and be you saved, all you ends of the earth."
"They looked unto Him and were lightened, and their faces were not
ashamed."

Do but look! Do but get out of yourself to Him, somehow or other, and
it is done! Though a glance will not carry a thread as thin as a
spider's cobweb, yet it will establish a connection! The ray of light
which comes from Jesus' wounds to your eyes will be link enough–and
along it eternal salvation will come to you! Get to Christ, Sinner! Get
to Christ at once! Have you come to Him? Then you are saved! Confess
your faith and give Jesus honor. Love Him with all your heart and while
angels are rejoicing over you, be glad, also! Christ has saved you!
Praise Him forever and ever! May the Lord add His blessing for Jesus'
sake. Amen.
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