Mark 5:25 “And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years,”

Mark 5:26 “And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse,”

Mark 5:27 “When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment.”

Mark 5:28 “For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.”

Mark 5:29 “And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague.”

Hello readers, thank you for reading, and today this blog is called “stop the bleeding”. Most likely you’ve heard or used this phrase before in a figurative sense. “Stop the bleeding” means “to prevent further damage, loss, negative effects during a problematic situation”.

Of course, the figurative use of this saying comes from its literal sense. If you get cut for instance, and start bleeding and continue to bleed, you will eventually die from blood loss, hence why you need to “stop the bleeding” quite literally.

“Stop the bleeding” can be used figuratively in many different ways, such as say you’re playing football and you keep giving up goal after goal, you might “stop the bleeding” by putting an extra defender in defense to break the run of scoring.

We all need to stop the bleeding. Christendom is bleeding at the moment, taking immense losses as people across the board who call themselves Christians have departed from the Bible and anything and everything that is foundation, fundamental, non negotiable, true and right. Maybe personally you need to stop the bleeding.

To stop the bleeding, you need something to stop the bleeding… if you’ve got a wound, maybe you stop the bleeding with a bandage or a dressing or stitches. We meet a woman in Mark 5 from the story quoted above who stopped the bleeding by touching the hem of Jesus Christ’s garment. We must get to Jesus at all costs.

If you’ve read your Bible, you would know that “blood” is a very common word throughout, because the Bible says that “the life of the flesh is in the blood”. And because the life is in the blood, it is blood that makes the atonement. That’s why salvation centers on blood. It is only through the cleansing of the blood of Christ that you can be saved “and when I see the blood, I will pass over you”.

The truth is, we’ve all got an issue of blood, not just this woman here. Sin is an issue of blood. We are all partakers of flesh and blood. We all bleed. We are all “one blood” in fact, because we all come from Adam and share in his condition of sin. It’s in our blood. There is no difference between our blood, and there is no difference in our need for Christ’s blood.

Sin isn’t just a boo boo. It’s not just an oops and a slap on the hand. Sin is a serious issue that draws blood. Think of Abel lying dead in a pool of his own blood. From that to now, think of how much blood has been shed. Think of all the blood that’s run. It’s been ugly. Because sin is ugly. Sin brought death. We have come to somehow reconcile death as part of life, but we were not created to die. That was not God’s creative design, but an issue created by the actions of one man.

So with that backdrop, today when we think about “stop the bleeding”, let’s think about the fact we all share the same issue of blood, and we all face the hemorrhaging in our lives that sin has brought us all. Which of us do not have issues? And just consider the deep wounds and issues that sin has brought, the damage and the loss. But you can stop the losses. You can stop the flow. You can stop LOSING!

So in Mark 5 we meet this unnamed “certain” woman who had an issue of blood. She was bleeding for twelve years. That’s gotta be an absolute devastating condition to have, and no doubt it was ruining her life… which was why she had been seeking help and spending everything she had on physicians in the hope they could cure her.

The Bible says she had a “plague”. There was a serious problem, to say the least. And we know from Levitical law that this issue of blood made her “unclean”. “We are all as an unclean thing” As a consequence of her uncleanness, this woman was separated from others, she was an “untouchable”. That’s a tough sentence to be serving for twelve years isn’t it. If people knew her problem, they would avoid her. And she would avoid them.

Was it her fault? No. You know what, you won’t go to hell because you were born a sinner, because you didn’t have a say in that. You go to hell because you reject Christ, something this woman did not do. We are all sinners, we have all sinned, and we all do sin. That’s who Jesus Christ came to seek and save.

This story has immense spiritual significance, and if you read Leviticus 15 for instance, and then this story, God will educate us about sin and the Saviour. The law sure identified and sentenced sin, but the law could not cure this woman. She would remain unclean, separated from God and others until she died. But one day she touched someone that changed her life.

What really amazed me thinking about this story is that I’d never really grasped what was going on her in the context of those Levitical laws. We often think of “touching the hem of the garment” in terms of just getting a small touch of Jesus is enough kinda thing, but I believe she mainly touched his hem because she was sure he wouldn’t feel it. Remember, she was meant to be separate, not going around touching other people. And so she went to touch him where nobody including him would know what she had done.

By the way, when we focus on that word “plague”, think about this, the issues that we have because of sin literally “plague” our life. What are you plagued by? Doubt? Unbelief? Lust? If you have a problem with lust, it plagues your life. It’s everywhere and in everything, it just keeps popping up. It doesn’t go away on it’s own. Same with pride, envy, jealousy, bitterness, hatred and so on, these issues can plague our lives.

Being made whole means you don’t have those issues anymore. Think about it, our issues come from not being “whole”, that is complete and satisfied. Because in this world in sin, you’re never whole, that’s why people are seeking more to complete them all the time. “But ye are complete in him”

When this woman was healed, we find out the “fountain of her blood” was dried up. And she knew it because she felt “in her body” that she had been healed. Stop blaming, justifying and excusing… the problem is in us. Nobody else makes us proud and lustful… that comes from within. And we need IN us healed long before we need the outside fixed. That’s why the Bible can say “godliness with contentment is great gain”. You may not have money and cars and everything or anything for that matter, but being clean and whole within yourself is infinitely more than all of that combined.

God can dry the problem up. Imagine drying up that pornography. Imagine drying up that drug use. Imagine drying up that adultery. Imagine drying up being that person you don’t want to be but you’ve somehow become. Imagine drying up that alcoholism. Why do they call getting out of addictions “drying out”. Because you have that drink because you NEED it, but God can take you to a state where you don’t need it and don’t want it. We need that drying up power of God. Let’s dry up all this doubt and disobedience to God, let’s stop the bleeding!

Notice how before this woman was healed, despite all the physicians she was seeing and the money she was spending on them… that all that was happening was she was growing worse. Her condition was aggravated, not alleviated. You’ll make your state worse when you go looking for fixes to your issues in people and places that can never fix you. None of them have virtue to help you. There’s no strength to produce the effect of forgiveness and eternal life. What other man can purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? What other man can give you the water of life that you never thirst again? He’s the wine, the water, the bread… the way, the truth and the life. Then I thought about how Christ’s virtue changed this woman’s life, and how I, as a professing Christian have lacked the virtue to help others on many occasions.

Virtue isn’t the easiest word for me to grasp for some reason. Webster’s 1828 dictionary has the primary definition of virtue as “Strength; that substance or quality of physical bodies, by which they act and produce effects on other bodies.” Often we think of virtue as “moral goodness” or a “good moral quality in a person” but Christ’s goodness wasn’t just for himself, but for others. Christ’s goodness had the power to heal this woman and make her clean and whole. What virtue the Son of God had and has for you today!

Jesus Christ could forgive and heal people because of who he was and is. We know that there is strength to a virtuous life, and virtues are known as our “strengths”, and just look at the virtuous woman of Proverbs, she’s quite the person. But how much moreso the Son of God who did no sin? When she touched him in faith, he felt the virtue go out of him. That speaks volumes to us. Only he has the virtue to save your soul from hell. Only he has the virtue to change your sinful life and stop those issues which nobody and nothing else can fix. Noone else has those virtues, or any virtue for that matter, it is all Christ.

I was struck by Christ’s willingness to heal and save. He’s not against you, he’s for you. God’s not up there waiting for a chance to make you pay. He’s more for you than you! None of us have gotten what we deserve, how many times he’s spared us and shown mercy to us when we did not deserve it. He will have mercy. He will have compassion. He will have grace. If you can just touch the hem of his garment and not even physically him, it says something about how willing he is to make you whole. There were a lot of people there, but they didn’t have what this woman had. A need. A need which she recognized. A simple faith to reach out. Until you need to be saved and reach out in desperation, he can’t save you.

So we know that the problem was that this woman had been going to other sinners like herself to fix a problem that had come from sin. It’s like a leper trying to heal another leper. Sure, the problem didn’t come from her sinning directly, like she didn’t get the issue because she did something bad. But the fact is, all these issues in life are a result of sin. This world is like it is because of sin. And sinners can’t save sinners, it took the sinless to save sinners. And there’s only one man to have ever lived to qualify. “Worthy is the Lamb”

This world is looking for fixes, but they’re looking in and to the wrong people, places, programs… the lot. And they get worse and worse. Look at our society, the broken are trying to fix what’s broken, and it’s getting worse. They’re trying to “stop the bleeding” with their methods, and the blood and death is even worse. Maybe you’ve personally been trying to overhaul your life, you’re trying better, doing better, you’ve reformed, you’re trying to be positive… but how much better is your issue really… aren’t you just one day closer to hell? You’re wasting time, time that you don’t have, time which will run out you don’t know when. Your condition is not actually fixed. It’s worse. You’re still a sinner, just a sinner with less time.

Without Christ, you are not healed, you are not whole. The issue hasn’t been stopped. Your issue is still open and ongoing. That sin problem remains “open” until Jesus Christ closes your account. That debt that you keep adding to is “outstanding” you must settle it before you die. You may apply some bandages, you might have jammed the gauze of religion in there, you may have sewn the stitches of self-righteousness and self-justification, but that blood will eventually get through, and be on you. Yeah, you may cover the problem up or pretend it’s not that bad… but all the while it’s still bleeding. Isn’t it great when our bodies heal up a problem? Well our sinful spiritual problem is an ugly bloody mess, an open wound, and only Jesus Christ can stop the bleeding.

Don’t you think it’s time to stop the bleeding? Isn’t it time to stop the loss and damage that sin is causing to your life? It’s not going to go away on it’s own. And it’s getting worse! Evolution is a lie, your sin condition won’t get better on it’s own or you trying to evolve past sin and death and hell on your own. You need Christ, who has the virtue to heal you. Jesus’ virtue isn’t just for himself, it will go out to you. You can be healed, you can be made whole. Through Jesus Christ, through simple faith as a nobody just reaching out for a touch… you can stop the bleeding.

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