Well, hello everyone, and welcome back. This is our Daily Devotional for Wednesday, December 3rd, 2025, and I am delighted to be with you today. Now, realize I record this a day in advance, so it is a winter wonderland outside. Everything is frozen, but hopefully If any of you are out on the roads as I'm recording this, you're safe and hopefully things don't refreeze so that it's rough out there when this does come out on Wednesday, December the 3rd at 6 a.m. Sorry, I've been out in the rain. Just now, it's freezing rain and putting down ice melt and that kind of stuff. But it's good to be with you in my nice, warm, dry study in here. I hope, again, that this finds you doing well and enjoying your Christmas season. I've said it before. I'll say it again. Merry Christmas, everybody. Tis the season. Now, it's Wednesday. We would love to see you tonight. It's gonna be fantastic. I think that it's lasagna night, but not just regular lasagna. I believe also there's gonna be like an Alfredo lasagna. Y'all, it's gonna be spectacular. It always is. So we would love to see you tonight at six o'clock or get here whenever you can. And then we're gonna continue along with our topical times together as we look at who we are, why we do what we do, why we do things the way we do things. So I'm really looking forward to that tonight. Now, it's good to be back with you today as we continue to make our way through the gospel according to Matthew. We find ourselves in this section where Jesus is doing lots of different things. He's traveling throughout Galilee. And we're in kind of a vague spot here because it just talks about that region. In some instances, we just don't know where things happen, but we can go by church tradition, we can go by teaching. And again, this stuff is pretty solid in terms of what has been identified as the places where these sorts of things happen. For instance, today, as we continue going along, it says, while he was saying this, a ruler came and knelt before him and said, Now, we don't know exactly where he is at this point. We know that in verse 14, he's departed. He's somewhere thereabouts, but church tradition tells us that all that we're about to read about took place in a place called Magdala. And if that sounds familiar to you, that would be where Mary Magdalene or Magdalene is from, all right? And it's fascinating, I was just there a few weeks ago and saw some of the places where this took place. But nevertheless, what we see here yet again is Jesus's dominion. how he takes dominion over all things. Yesterday when we were together, we had him being questioned by John's disciples about why his own disciples don't fast. And then we heard this teaching on new wineskins, new faith being put into the old ways. It doesn't work, y'all. And so yet again, Jesus focuses on the heart. He focuses on devotion. But today we return, it's kind of like we had a little interlude from verses 14 to 17. And now once we get back to verse 18, we return to the signs, if you will, the wonders, the miracles. John exclusively uses the term sign to point to what these things really are that Jesus is doing, that they're pointing to a much deeper reality, a much more powerful thing, that he's not just doing miracles, that he's God. He's God the Son, taken on flesh, made His dwelling among them, and it's incredible the things that He is doing. Now, without any further delay, let's pray, and then we're gonna dig in and see what we're working with here. Our Father, would you be with us now and would you guide us in this time? As we come to your word, we need your help as we focus in and see the things that Jesus did, yes, but don't let us be so focused on the wonders, on the acts, that at the same time, we miss the deeper message. And that is the exclusivity of Jesus Christ. The fact that he is God in the flesh, made his dwelling in it. Father, all of these things point to his authenticity. So please guide us by your Holy Spirit that we would see Jesus and so that we would take heart. And we pray it all in Jesus name, amen. All right, so we got a two for one in this one little section that we come to today. Verse 18, or excuse me, yes, verse 18 says, while he was saying this, another came, or excuse me, a ruler came, can't read this morning. 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. Now, pausing right there for just a second, what we're seeing here, realize not only are we seeing wondrous things that Jesus is doing, we're also seeing remarkable faith from people. Take, for instance, what we saw with the centurion, right, back in Matthew chapter eight, beginning in verse five. The centurion came to Jesus and said, hey, this servant of mine is paralyzed, he's afflicted, we really, really need your help. And Jesus said, okay, I'm coming. He's like, no, no, no, no, listen. I'm a man in charge. I'm a man who gives orders. I said to this soldier, go there and he goes. I said to that soldier, come here and he comes. You can say but a word and she'll be healed. Now this was a Gentile. And Jesus said, I haven't found faith such as this in all of Israel. It's remarkable, y'all. It's amazing what Jesus is seeing here. And much the same, this ruler comes before him. Now, that's an interesting term, ruler. It can mean a lot of different things. It can mean someone who's over a family. It can mean someone who is a ruler in the temple. It may be a Sadducee. We don't know exactly what this means, but y'all, that term a lot of times is used for Sadducees, and that's remarkable because realize who the Sadducees were. Remember, I've been talking about this. Two main parties. The Pharisees are the conservative, every man's kind of thing. They're all over the place. The Sadducees are much more exclusive, but they're the ones in charge with Rome, that Rome puts them in charge. And the remarkable thing is, if this is indeed a Sadducee, a temple ruler that comes to Jesus, the remarkable thing is, he said, hey, my daughter's just died, but come and put your hand on her and she will live. Y'all, Sadducees didn't believe in the resurrection. They didn't believe that people came back to life. This one sure did. It's remarkable here. what Jesus is doing. It shows that Jesus is no respecter of persons. Now, when it comes to Jesus, the conventional things of this world, worldly wisdom, worldly ideas, it is out the door. When confronted with real tragedy, when confronted with real faith, this ruler had faith. And so, we don't get any reply to him whatsoever. It just says, Jesus got up and went with him, and so did his disciples. And then starting in verse 20, we read, just then, a woman who had been subject to bleeding for 12 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. Now y'all, this is a remarkable moment for a few different reasons. Number one, I'm not trying to be crude. I'm not trying to be over the top in what I'm talking about here, but the understanding of this passage, when you look at the Greek and when you look how that's used elsewhere, this is not an example of somebody who scraped her knee and it just would never stop bleeding. This is not an example of a hemophiliac where somebody gets cut, some of the royal family were hemophiliacs, where they get cut and they just can't stop bleeding. The language points to this bleeding problem that the woman had was that she was menstruating for 12 years. That means no children, obviously. That means intense pain. It means all sorts of things. For 12 long years, she is producing blood in a feminine sense. Okay, I'm not gonna get any more graphic than that. If you have kids watching, don't worry. But y'all, so that's the surface level. The much deeper, deeper level of this is what that meant in Jewish society. Excuse me. Sorry, somebody's calling. Yeah, sorry about that. Yeah, sorry, I had to cut that out. Anyway, what this means on a much deeper level with Jewish society, realize that so much of Judaism was based on the idea of cleanliness, ceremonial cleanliness. And there were all sorts of things, like if you touched a dead body, you had to be cleansed. Before you went into the temple, you had to be cleansed. And y'all, I hate to say it, but there was really a lot of cleansing involved with a woman when it was time for her menstrual cycle. Okay, even the furniture that she sat on had to be baptized, had to be cleansed. And so when this woman who has this bleeding problem with 12 years, it's coming around. For her to even reach out to Jesus in itself is extremely bold. Realize the context of this. Now, if this took place in Magdala, it probably would have taken place right here. You'll notice the path right here. That's the ruins of the Magdala Temple or excuse me the Magdala synagogue right back here when it talks about Jesus opening the scroll of Isaiah It would have been right there from that dais, right? But this is the main street of Magdala This is the it's called the main street because that's the way that everybody went. It's called the cardo and Now realize this is the time of the Roman emperor, and in every town they had the Cardo Maximus. That meant the main street. If you're wondering what Cardo means, think cardio, right? The heart. In other words, the heart of any city was its main street that ran right through the middle. And the idea that we get is that it's so crowded there that Jesus is making his way through. He's on his way to raise this girl from the dead. And then this woman who has this bleeding problem, She looks and she says, if I can only touch his cloak, I'll be healed. Not even him. I don't want to make him unclean. It's fascinating. When I was at the temple complex, on the Temple Mount and we were waiting for the rest of our group to make it through customs. And yes, there is a customs thing where you have to go through with the Jordanian police because Muslims control the Temple Mount, not Israel, and they should fix that very, very quickly. But nevertheless, as they were coming through, we were waiting and I looked up and there were all these young men. And they were surrounding this really, really old rabbi that had the big hat on, and he had the curls and the tassels, all that kind of stuff. And you might think, wow, what an entourage. Well, y'all, it wasn't just an entourage. The reason that these young men were surrounding their rabbi was so that somebody like me wouldn't accidentally bump into him. I'm a Gentile. According to them, I'm unclean. If you're a Gentile, you're unclean, too. Actually, technically, I think that, you know, again, with that Jewish thing, I might have been okay, but you'd be cooked if you ran into that guy. But nevertheless, that's what they were doing. The idea that we get, and y'all, this is the same thing that has happened for thousands of years in Judaism. A rabbi, a teacher makes his way through and his disciples surround him. just to make sure that he remains ceremonially clean. Was that what happened? I don't know, but I know that when I was in Magdala, again, that's the main street right there, that's the synagogue. When you read about Jesus being in Magdala and preaching from the scroll of Isaiah, that's where he rolled out the scroll. That's the original dais. That's the stone tablet that they used to roll out the scroll. When we get to it, I'll show you the carvings on the side of it. They symbolize the Ark of the Covenant and the wagon. They viewed that stone as the same thing as the wagon that held the Ark of the Covenant. That's how highly they regarded the scripture. And we just throw them around. But all of that being said, If indeed this happened here, and I believe that it did Jesus is making his way down this street right outside of the synagogue the main street in order to go raise this girl from the dead and this woman who has this problem that has not only been Terrible for her physically speaking. She hasn't been able to have children. She's been seen as unclean as an outcast Probably the second worst thing to to being a leper She's cast out of society, and she thinks, if I can just touch the hem of his robe, I know I'll be healed. Y'all, I saw a lot of beautiful things, and you know that I am not a second, I'm not an images kind of guy, like pictures of Jesus, that kind of thing. I do make exceptions from time to time, because this is not something to be worshiped in the slightest bit. But when we went into the church that had been built at Magdala, An artist had done this rendering, and it's actually, I think it's one of the most spectacular paintings I've ever seen. Can you see what it is there? I'm trying to get the light. You see all the different feet surrounding him, right? The Hebrew colors, and then you see a hand right here, and then you see Jesus's robe, and you might be able to see just the touch, just the touch of light. as this woman, in all of her sorrow, just wanted to reach out and touch the Savior. And she knew she'd be healed. Now, she's unclean, ceremonially. There was a stigma attached to this. So how would Jesus react? It's interesting what Matthew says. We get other versions. I mean, it's not that they contradict each other, it's that they're bringing out different things. But all we get in Matthew is, verse 22, Jesus turned and saw her. You have to forgive me for getting so emotional. People ask me often, what's your favorite verse? And one of my standbys is Revelation 21, five, where Jesus said, behold, I'm making all things new. Another is in Jonah. I think it's in chapter three, verse one, where it says the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. Being one who is a pastor, that means a lot to me. But this right here, Mark 9, verse 22, Jesus turned and saw her. I don't know if you know this, we have all these things in our minds when we think about Jesus, certainly that he's seated at God's right hand. Sometimes people forget he's interceding on your behalf. He sees you. He knows what you are facing. He knows what you're going through. He sees you and His desire is that you would do what this woman has done to just, just reach out, just be with Him. And His message to her, not derision, not sending her away because she dared to touch Him and make Him unclean. No, no, no, no. Verse 22, Jesus turned and saw her take heart. and not just take heart. Take heart, daughter, he said. Y'all, I don't presume to speak with the mouth of God. Never have. If you want to hear God speak, open up his word and read it. But we just have. Jesus' message to you, no matter what you're facing, no matter how bleak, no matter how unsolvable the problem is that you have, Jesus' message to you is take heart, daughter. Take heart, son. But why is his message take heart for her? Continue the verse. He said, your faith has healed you. And the woman was healed from that moment. You know, the reason that this woman was to take heart was not just because of Jesus's power. The basis of her taking heart was the faith that God had given her. And I'm here to tell you today, if you know Jesus Christ, the message remains the same, take heart. Your faith will heal you. Now, it may be sooner, it may be later, it may be in eternity where your faith ultimately heals you. But as I said, Revelation 21 five, Jesus is gonna make all things new. That means you, that means me, that means whatever situation you are dealing with. We get nothing else from there except the scene switches. And what do we find? We find verse 23. 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 is 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. What do we make of this? What do we make of this merriment while this girl has died? I don't know. Flute players, noisy crowd, the sounds of celebration. I think the picture of this is to point to the world's mocking, to the world's disbelief in the supernatural, to the world's disbelief that Jesus really is who he said he is. Jesus says to him, go away, she's not dead, she's asleep. She was really dead. Jesus said that. Paint a picture and to make the point That what was asleep is about to wake up and we see him go in and we see your healer We see him heal her. We don't have her reaction. We don't have the rulers reaction. All we get It's the very end there again. It's first 26 news of this spread through all that region Y'all as I started out with that's the point of these things. It's not that the little girl didn't benefit from this It's not that the woman with the bleeding problem didn't benefit. Obviously they did but the point is the Dominion The point is the power the point is the message that is going out that Jesus isn't just a profit He's not just a man. He's God the Son and In the same way that he could do these things then he can do them now The question is do you have faith? Are you trusting in Him alone for your salvation, number one? And number two, are you trusting Him as you encounter your problems in life? If not, let me invite you to. He'll never disappoint. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank You for this time that You've given to us and for these two wonderful examples of not only Your Son's love and Your heart on display, but also His power and His dominion. Help us, Father, to trust in Him, increase our faith, Father, we know it takes but a mustard seed size to move mountains. And Father, I know that we all face mountains that need to be moved. So please work in our hearts to that end. And we pray it in Christ's name, amen. Well, I'd like to thank you all for being a part of this time. Lord willing, we'll be back tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. Hopefully we will see you tonight at 6 p.m., but until then or whenever, take care.