Study inMark’s Gospel

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The Delays Of God

Chap 5v21-43Presentation 16

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IntroductionOne of the most difficult things we have to grapple with in life is God's delay in dealing with us. How we would love to be able to organise God and present him with a timetable of when and how he should do certain things in our lives.

At times people can become angry or resentful if God does not provide the instant solution to their difficulty. They simply cannot understand why God does not share their concern for haste.

With this in mind, we turn back to Jairus in order to discover how delay was used constructively and beneficially in his life.

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The Cost Of A ConsultationLife was quickly ebbing out of Jairus' twelve year old daughter. He burrowed his way through the crowd to Jesus who never charges for his services, though meeting with him does cost some people dearly. And it certainly cost Jairus.

First, he had to abandon his prejudice. He was a one of the rulers of the Synagogue v22 . He belonged to a group who were openly hostile to Jesus and his teaching. No matter how clearly persuasive, or powerfully effective Jesus’ message was, they refused to change their position. That's prejudice! It makes a man narrow-minded. Nothing appeals to him but his own ideas. He is closed to any influence unless it fits his scheme of thinking.

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The Cost Of A ConsultationYou may have heard of the student who said to the minister, ‘I've made up my mind don't confuse me with the facts’. Such people pull down the blinds and close the windows of their soul to God's truth.

Well a domestic emergency had caused Jairus to open the shutters and raise the blind and allow the light of truth to vanquish his cherished beliefs. And that was costly. For a man of his rank and position to say, "I've been wrong, and I have believed the wrong things," is not easy. And if we are to enjoy God's blessing we must allow his truth to challenge our prejudice.

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The Cost Of A ConsultationSecondly, coming to Jesus would have cost Jairus his popularity, Unlike Nicodemus, he had no time to arrange a secret meeting to ensure he would not be recognised. The broad sunlight would not disguise his mission. He would be called a religious defector, a betrayer of the party. Worker who have crossed picket lines during a strike know what its like to be ostracised by colleagues and can understand what it cost Jairus to come to Jesus. We value the security of belonging to a group, of having their approval and respect whether at work or at home. A desire for popularity has held back many from keeping company with Jesus. Popularity that has been purchased at the sacrifice of truth. Jairus refused to trample on the convictions that were growing in his heart.

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The Cost Of A ConsultationFinally it cost Jairus his pride to come to Jesus. By crossing the religious picket he was openly admitting the inadequacy of his belief system. His pride must have screaming, "Jairus, think of your status, don't demean yourself’. Pride denies many God's blessing. ‘God scatters the proud but draws up the humble to himself.’ Lk.1v51-52 Thomas Brooks sums this up quaintly saying:"Here is a wonder, God is on high and yet the higher a man lifts himself, the further he is from God; the lower a man humbles himself: the nearer he is to God."

But not even pride could Jairus from Jesus. He would not be disappointed or dissatisfied because he came with the right heart-attitude.

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The Purpose Of A PostponementJairus' success with Jesus and the attendant relief, which flooded his heart, must have seemed short-lived. Jesus stopped in his tracks and asked, 'who touched me'. This was an unscheduled stop, and one Jairus had not planned for. Valuable time was ticking away. He must have wondered if he had paid the terrible cost of coming to Jesus for nothing? If he thought that then how little he knew Jesus or understood God's delays.

The delay taught Jairus that he was not alone in the business of suffering. We can become so obsessed by our own trial or tragedy, thinking ourselves to be the only ones hurting inside, that we become callous or insensitive to the need of others. This in turn can cause us to think that we have exclusive claims on Jesus’ ministry.

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The Purpose Of A PostponementNow Jairus is obliged to wait as Jesus draws back the curtain on an unknown woman's suffering. As we saw in our previous study the whole story came spilling out. Mark tells us that she told Jesus, ‘the whole truth’, she held nothing back. It was a lengthy medical history! During the whole of Jairus’ daughter’s life [12 years] which was marked with carefree enjoyment, this woman had known unrelieved discomfort.

Jairus’ heart may have been aching for a few hours or, days but this woman had little conscious memory of anything other than suffering! Jairus was learning that God will often delay his intervention in our lives in order that we might see beyond our own immediate needs.

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The Purpose Of A PostponementThis delay also tested Jairus' professed confidence in Jesus. God allows situations to develop or deteriorate in order to ask, "Do you think I'm capable of handling this?" When things go well we easily sing; “A Sovereign Protector I have... Almighty to rule and command”. But let God introduce delay into our lives, and our confidence in his rule can wane! Our patience or lack of it identifies our estimate of God's control. Ps.130 was written when the writer was in deep distress. Conscious of his sin, he cried to God for mercy but had no sense of pardon. He experienced the delay of God. But in the darkness his faith in God shines. He was not tempted to give up on God. Delay must have caused Jairus to experience great anxiety of mind nevertheless he waits in submission.

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The Purpose Of A PostponementThe delay was also used to strengthen Jairus’ faith. His faith, which found its first expression in v22ff. after emerging from a cocoon of prejudice, needed strengthening for the trial that lay ahead. And so Jairus was the principal spectator as Jesus’ miraculously transformed the life of a woman in great need.

While exposure to miracle, seldom leads us from a position of unbelief to one of faith, it certainly has a capacity for strengthening faith. Of course, the miracles Jesus uses to create faith are not always this dramatic.

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The Purpose Of A PostponementRemember, for example, the impact made on the Samaritan population by the woman at the well, whose character Jesus miraculously transformed! They clearly reasoned, “If Jesus can do this for such a woman what might he do for us”.Luther, knew the effect of the miracle of the transformed life. He writes; “Conversion is the greatest of all miracles. Everyday witnesses miracle after miracle… to which healing the sick or raising the dead is a mere trifle". We must not underestimate the value of seeing Christ miraculously at work in the lives of others!

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The Making Of A MiracleAs we read this incident our interest can easily race on to its conclusion. But the build up is vitally important. Look at v35 where Jairus is challenged to unbelief. The sinister implication of the words of the well-meaning messenger was that there now exists a new situation over which Jesus would have no control. News of his daughter’s death must have had the effect of a battering ram crashing into his faith.

However, now we begin to understand the value of the delay. Surely Jairus would have been pressed over the precipice of unbelief if the memory of Christ’s power were not still fresh in his mind?

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The Making Of A MiracleIn addition, and of equal importance, Jesus intervenes to strengthen faith in v36. John Bunyan illustrates this principle wonderfully in Pilgrim’s Progress. At Interpreter’s house Christian is shown a fireplace set in a wall. On one side Satan throws water on the fire of faith trying to put it out. But in the adjacent room we see the other side of the fire place where the oil of God’s Spirit is poured upon the fire keeping it alight. Jairus survived the bucket of cold water attack because Jesus immediately poured on the oil of encouragement. When the battering ram of discouragement appears to have delivered a knockout blow in your life, learn to look to God to strengthen faith by his Spirit, and through his Word.

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The Making Of A MiracleArriving home a further difficulty awaits Jairus. The professional mourners have moved in and the situation was pronounced ‘irreversible’. And woe betide anyone who challenged their understanding of the situation.

Men are always ready to mock what they do not understand and what fails to conform to their experience or belief. Feeling threatened and insecure, they bolster their insecurity through mockery v40... That reaction has not changed over the centuries.

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The Making Of A MiracleLet a man entertain the suggestion that Jesus can do something remarkable in his life and the taunting propaganda begins, "Your committing intellectual suicide, your being sucked into an emotional con, you'll turn into a religious maniac, you’re out of fashion believing that stuff!” And very soon, because our emotions have been thrashed into submission by these accusing voices our feelings take sides with them and we can find ourselves persuaded to conclude that it is futile to follow Jesus. Jairus allowed Jesus to silence the opposition by putting it out. Similarly, we too must allow Jesus to put out the opposition, and determine to give it no houseroom.

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The Making Of A MiracleThe climax of the whole incident appears to be the restoration of the little girl. Two tender authoritative words of Jesus were all that was necessary to release the girl from death. The whole thing takes place in private! Jesus will not have an unbelieving, goggling crowd intrude on this tender family scene.

Nor is Jesus a showman who lives for the gasps and applause of the crowd. He doesn't court the sensational. He doesn't make a drama out of a crisis. We see something of the tremendous humanity of Jesus in the situation as he voices his concern that this little girl so obviously weakened by her illness might now be given something to eat, that she might be nourished and strengthened.

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The Making Of A MiracleNow you may think the incident pretty low-key, a bit of an anti-climax but perhaps that's because a greater miracle had already taken place in the life of Jairus! Yes his daughter had been brought back to the life, the life she had previously enjoyed but Jairus is now a new man, a changed man. When he had left his sick daughter in order to seek out Jesus his world had been falling apart and he had made a costly trip to Jesus. He had waited in silent submission before the delays of God. He had become a man of faith. He had learned to exercise that faith to enable him to surmount difficulties and secure the blessing of Christ. That is more than restoration, that is transformation!

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ConclusionWe so often ask, “Why doesn't God do something in our sore situation?”

Is he waiting for us to make the right approach, abandon our prejudice, popularity and pride? Has he introduced delays to instruct and strengthen us with regard to his ability? Is he calling us to exercise faith in the face of discouragements? When at last God does do something in our situation might we not discover that he has done much more than we originally bargained for by the silent operation of his transforming grace in our hearts? God grant it to be so.