MATTHEW 9:18-38

                                   (2 Kings 5:1-19)

- Do you remember Mikhail Gorbachev? He was President of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991.

- Gorbachev said this: 

“Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind.”

- Is that what Jesus was?

- We can understand the Secretary-General of the Soviet Communist Party saying this. Gorbachev was trying to claim that, in some way, Jesus was a Communist.

- But did Gorbachev get it right?

- If I say something about Communism, Gorbachev might quite rightly insist that I quote from Karl Marx or Vladimir Lenin.

- We really ought to direct Mikhail Gorbachev to the source of Christianity, the New Testament. And the same applies, of course, to people living in Australia today.

- I had contact with a woman on the Central Coast just about a week ago who said that although she was raised a Roman Catholic, she had her own religion now. She said that she accepted the good things that Jesus did, but not the things like the teaching that he was the Son of God.

- Next time that I see this lady, I pray for the opportunity to give her a New Testament so she can consider what the founder of Christianity, Jesus Christ, said about himself, and what his actions showed about him.

- Our passage for today holds some wonderful insights into who Jesus was and why he came.

- One thing that strikes all of us as we read this passage from Matthew’s Gospel ch. 9 are the healings.

- How many times have you read in the newspapers that such and such a disease is incurable?

- Ebola hemorrhagic fever,  for example, first described in Africa in 1976, and still feared today all over the world. There is a recent outbreak in Central Africa. There is no cure, no vaccine.

- In Jesus’ day, there were many, many illnesses which could not be cured, but then, along came Jesus.

Matthew ch. 9 vv. 18-19,

“While he was saying this, a ruler came and knelt before him and said, "My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live."   Jesus got up and went with him, and so did his disciples.”

- All of us who are parents know from the heart what this father was going through.

- The ultimate result of an incurable illness is death.

vv. 23-26,

“When Jesus entered the ruler's house and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd,  he said, "Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep." But they laughed at him.  After the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up.  News of this spread through all that region.

- She had been dead, of course, and Jesus brought her back to life.

- What power this person named Jesus had!

- But while he was on the way to the ruler’s house, he was approached by a woman with an incurable disease:

vv. 20-22,

“Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, "If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed."  Jesus turned and saw her. "Take heart, daughter," he said, "your faith has healed you." And the woman was healed from that moment.”