Let us now turn to the gospel according to Mark. Gospel according to Mark and chapter five. I'm centering your attention on words that we find Verse 22, And behold, there cometh one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name. And when he saw him, he fell at his feet and besought him greatly, saying, My little daughter lies at the point of death. I pray thee, come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed, and she shall live. There is an account on this incident given in the gospel according to Matthew, from which we took our reading, an account in the gospel according to Mark, from which we are taking our text, and an account in the gospel according to Luke chapter eight. And when we find accounts given like that in the gospel, we should read them all in order that we get the whole picture of what was happening. The gospel according to Matthew is particularly helpful for giving a chronology of the events that took place around the time of this incident. Let us first look at this portion in this order tonight, just the occasion of this miracle of the healing of Jairus' daughter, and then the faith of Jairus, and then the trial of Jairus' faith, and then the reward of Jairus' faith, and a word of application at the end. And in that order. First then, the occasion of this miracle. And the gospel according to Matthew is probably the best for giving us this It's after the return from Gadara. Remember that there then said to him, depart from us. And he went over the coast, over to the other side of the sea, over to the Western shore to Capernaum. And in Capernaum, following again what we have in gospel according to Matthew, Some of these following incidents seem to have taken place. The man sick of the palsy was healed. There was the call of Levi from the receipt of custom. There was the feast that Levi gave, which was attended by many publicans and Pharisees. and it seems to have been, we can only say that, it seems to have been at that feast, with all the discussion that took place about that time, around that incident, it seems to have been at that feast that Jairus came in and brought to the attention of the Saviour that his daughter, his little daughter, was sick at the point of death, he says, and he exhorts the Saviour to come with him to lay his hands upon her and he is convinced that this will be a healing attention. That's the occasion that we have here. And then we're going to look first then at the faith of Jairus, because we read, forget which of the Gospels it is, but the three accounts should be read by us, as I've said already. We read that when Jairus came into the presence of Jesus, he prostrated himself, he fell to the ground, and we're told further than that, that he worshipped him. So we must take it this man was a believer. And it's the nature of his faith that we want to look at a little bit, first of all. And this is what we can say, I think, about the nature of Jairus' faith. He was a secret disciple. What would it be that would make him a secret disciple? He seems to have been one who was a ruler of his synagogue, member of Sanhedrin, no doubt. And just in the same way as Nicodemus, who came to Jesus by night, and Joseph of Arimathea, these two were rulers of the synagogue. And they didn't come out in the open in their faith until, well, particularly came into the open when the body of Jesus had to be taken from the cross and entombed. And this man seems also, as a ruler of the synagogue, to have been of that same ilk, a secret disciple. What is it that would cause him to be a secret disciple of the Lord? Well, we can think of one or two things. As a member of the Sanhedrin, as a member of the synagogue, a ruler in the synagogue, he would have been subject to persecution. strong persecution if he were to come out openly as a follower of Christ. And that itself would make it difficult for such a man to make an open profession. He would be something like Obadiah in the Old Testament. We know that he was a disciple of the Lord. We know that he fed many of the Lord's people who were subject to persecution themselves, secretly taking care of them, but not coming out openly in his profession. And it may be that that was the case with this man. we might know we can regard that with sympathy, just as we must treat Obadiah in the Old Testament with sympathy, but sympathy that must be tempered with the thought that also there was another Elijah who came out very openly in his profession and the Lord upheld him. So yes, sympathy, but not without. gentler proof. Another possible cause was that as a person who belonged to Capernaum, the prevailing temper was against faith in Christ. They had had the presence of Christ with them. Nazareth was the city of his birth, as it were, town of his birth, but Capernaum was the place that he probably adopted as his town, and yet they were so spitterly opposed to him. You find that, and you look back, and gospel according to Matthew, that chapter 11, which ends with the words, come unto me all that labor and are heavy laden, We find reference there to Capernaum. I can't give you the exact words, but it goes something like this. O thou Capernaum, exalted unto heaven in our pride, no doubt. It were better for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for thee. Oh, how wicked must a Capernaum have been in their opposition to saviours. And again, in that sort of climate, in that sort of locality, it would be difficult. We can make that, if that excuse could be made for somebody who was not making open profession, a secret disciple. Or it may be another reason is that he was comparing himself to the Roman centurion who came to Christ regarding a child in the same sort of condition as his daughter. And he expressed strong faith that savior offered to go with him. Centurion, as you know, said, no, I myself and a man under authority, I go to say to this man, go and he goes. And he was prepared to take the order of Christ and not necessarily, he was to take Christ at his word, not necessarily to come to his home. Strong faith indeed. And you might have heard of that. and maybe comparing himself to that standard and saying, I don't reach up to that level. I wouldn't dare to profess that I have faith when I compare myself with such a one. And we know that argument. My father was a godly man. And oh, what the standard of godliness was, I remember. I can't match myself with that. And until I can match myself with that, I dare not make that open profession. Dangerous reasoning. Because what the Lord requires is that we come as sinners, casting ourselves in our nothingness upon Him. We bring nothing of our own. Salvation is all of him. But this man, it would seem, was of that ilk, a secret disciple. Man with true faith, and that can only be commended. But a man who, without profession, was putting many a sweet marshal past himself. This man could not say, my saviour, my beloved is mine and I am his, putting many, many a sweet marshal past himself. Secondly, the trier of Jairus' faith noticed that The Savior went with them. In one of the Gospels, it says the Savior arose, which makes me think that there's a connection there with the feast that was given in Levi's house, and that possibly that the Savior arose from that feast. It's only a possibility, but that's a reasonable line of reasoning. the Savior went with them. He didn't say, oh ye of little faith. He went with them. When the Lord has begun a good work, he will continue it. And he was going to continue that work in this man's life. And there was this trial of his faith then. First of all, as the Savior went with them, the crowd found him. and it would be slow progress indeed. And each step, each step became slower as they made their progress towards Jairus' home. Tension would be increasing. Would we ever get there? Would my daughter be alive when he got there? Would my daughter ever, ever, ever be attended to? And not only was there this crowd thronging him, but there was this incident that occurred concerning the woman with the issue of blood, the one who came, you remember, wanting to touch but the hem of his garment. Jesus said, who touched me? And there would be some time passing before this woman came forward and confessed, and the miracle of her healing took place. But all this was time, time, time. And with each minute, the tension of waiting, the fire of his faith increased. And then there came a message from Jairus' house. And the message was, Not to trouble a master any further, the child was already dead. Now, this was a deep trial for the faith of this man, Jairus. Jesus had taken up the cause of his child. And having taken up the cause of his child, he's failed. Child is dead as it were in his arms. What a trial to any man's faith. And the language of those who came from the house to tell him that, there was no doubt the language of those who had probably tried to dissuade him from going to the master in the first place. And now, it's as in a gloating spirit that they say, your child is dead. It's the nature of unbelief, you see, always to triumph in its own apparent success. But that increased the tension on this man's faith. It's often like that in the trial of a man's faith, when you come with your petition to the Lord and it takes time for the petition to be attended to. Was it not like that with the Syro-Phoenician woman? The Lord, her child at the point of death. And he seemed to be putting her off. It seemed to be time, time, time again. Read something like that also. the incident that took place at the foot of the Transfiguration Mount. You remember the man who came concerning his child, some sort of demon possession, some nature there. When the petition was brought to the Lord, and the child with his son was coming. As he was coming, as the words put in scripture, the devil cast him down, falling to the ground. It seemed the partition was being, it was, It seemed to be faith that had been born there, it seemed, but just as that was happening, as that was coming to some fruition, the devil comes in and tries to make things more difficult. It's that often with people, secret disciples, for example, might find the difficulty there. As he was coming, all the devil says, not you, oh dear, you consider yourself a disciple of the Lord with all that is in your life and trying to put us off. That spirit will always be there with the evil one. He's a liar and a murderer from the beginning. Let's look finally at the reward of Jairus' faith. And I use the word reward, of course, in the biblical sense. It's not as if we earned something on the basis of merit on our part. It's what the Lord does for us. It has the appearance of reward, but it's not an earned reward on our part. It's all of his grace. The first part of this reward is in the words of the Savior to this man. He didn't say to him, oh ye of little faith. He didn't say anything of that nature to him. He probably saw a glum face on the part of this man. What he'd said was a word of encouragement. Only believe, only believe. But you might say, but how was that a word of encouragement? Well, it was a word of encouragement, I believe, because it was spoken just immediately after this man had seen what he had done, what Jesus had done with a woman with the issue of blood. Only believe, and what happened with her, as is implied, will certainly happen with you. Only believe. It was a word of strengthening. It was a word of encouragement. It was a word of reward. And then, of course, The reward particularly was in the restoration of this child by a word of power and love to life again. She had passed away, but the Savior speaks very gently. She's not dead, but sleepeth. Not going to go into that just now so much. But the Savior went up And he touched her, and he spoke these gentle words. Little maid, and I can't get the original words now. Tanitha cummi, were the words he used. Little maid arise, and she arose. You see, you have the same here as you have with Lazarus' tomb. He is the resurrection and the life. It's not just that he's going to be the resurrection on the day of judgment. He is the resurrection known to his own people. A word of application on this miracle. Before this little girl was 14, we know that she was 12 at the time of this incident. Before she was 14, the Savior died on the cross in the Roman place of sinners. And we don't know if she was one of those in this place, if she died or not. But if there is to be the word Charlitha Coomey spoken to you tonight, and I'm speaking to ones out of Christ, dead in trespasses and sins. It's going to have to be on the basis of that finished work of Calvary's cross that these words will be spoken to you. It's to that that you must pay your attention. the finished work of Calvary's cross. It's there that the secret disciple must find his strength. Nowhere else. It's there that every sinner seeking sinner must find his strength. Nowhere else. The fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness is there. It's an open fountain. And the words are there coming to me all at labor and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. These words were originally spoken to those who were under the burden of the ceremonial law that stood in their way of the true salvation that was in Christ, or what other substitutes and take the place of the ceremonial law in the life of the seeker, in the life of the secret disciple. The fountain is opened. The feast is open and yet there is room. Oh, to hear the words Talitha Kumi spoken by himself. because he delights in mercy and judgment is a strange work. And the prospect for the believer of that Talitha Cumie on the final day, we know that there's going to be a trumpet, it's going to sound, but there's going to be undoubtedly also a secret meeting. a secret talitha cummi to each soul that has died in Christ to rise unto glory with himself and to be brought with mirth on every side into his palace forevermore. Let us pray. Almighty God, our Saviour. We thank Thee, Thou art the Saviour that thou art. We thank Thee for the graciousness in which Thou dost say, I am come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly. We thank Thee that He is still saying unto us, come, let us reason together. And when we are bidden to reason with Him, we are to reason acknowledging that He is the Holy One and we are sinners, having nothing of our own but our undoneness. But nevertheless, on the basis of that once and for all sacrifice of Calvary's cross, come, let us reason together. and there, and there alone. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they be red as crimson, they shall be as wool. Oh, that we would believe, that we would hear the one who is truth, and who speaks nothing but truth, and that we would give no attention to the evil one who is a liar from the beginning, and who whole traders, as it were, to destroy the faith of the faithful and to prevent the seeker from coming to that well of salvation. We pray that they will draw near to us in thy covenant grace and mercy. For Jesus' sake. Amen.