An Issue Of Blood

Evangelist Carolyn Malaika Foster-Brooks

The Ministry of S.A.R.A.H. in Lyons, Georgia

PRAYER:

O Heavenly father, my God above

Thank you for your undying love-

Lord, I stand humbly before your people to proclaim your Divine Word as it has been revealed to me. I ask right now God, that you remove me from the sight of those around me, and allow them to see You who dwells in me. Liberate us Lord from the various forms of enslavement so we can experience Your everlasting truth, love and mercy in tough and troubled times.

God use me as your prophetic messenger so the church can celebrate life through Your son Jesus Christ.

Bless us right now God and forever.

Amen.

SCRIPTURE READING:

Mark 5:25-34 and Ephesians 6:10-13(nlv)

(25) In the crowd was a woman who had been sick for 12 years with a bleeding(26)She had suffered much from many doctors over the years and had become poor from paying them, and was no better, but in fact, was worse.(27)She had heard all about the wonderful miracles Jesus did, and that is why she came up behind Him through the crowd and touched His clothes(28)For she thought to herself, "If I can just touch His clothing(29)I will be healed." And sure enough,as soon as she had touched Him, the bleeding stopped and she knew she was well!(30)Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from Him, so He turned in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"(31)His disciples said to Him, "All this crowd pressing around You, and You ask who touched You?"(32)But He kept on looking around to see who it was, who had done it.(33)Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell at His feet and told Him what she had done.(34)And He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, healed of your disease."

Last of all,I want to remind you that your strength must come from the Lord’s mighty power within you. Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand against all strategies and tricks of Satan. For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against persons without bodies-the evil rulers of the unseen world, those mighty, satanic beings and great evil princes of darkness who rule the world; and against huge numbers of wicked spirits in the spirit world.

So use every piece of God’s armor to resist the enemy whenever he attacks, and whenever it is all over, you will be standing up! Talitha Cumi.

TEXT:

Before I really began to study the Word of God, whenever I heard a sermon preached about the woman with the issue of blood, the magnitude of her situation, the probable cause of her problem was never fully addressed! It was always the end result of her strong faith that prevailed.

From a female point of view, I could naturally realize the misery of 12 straight years of bleeding, but how could a man, preaching God’s Word, identify with that?? But then I had to go back to the beginning and remember Genesis 2:27- So God created people in His own image; God patterned them after Himself; male and female He created them.

So, that let’s us know that in order to know where we are going, we must know from whence we came. Amen?

....this woman was in the village of Capernaum or Nahum as it was called. Located on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. Nahum was a community where many of the followers of Jesus Christ were women.

You see, women’s status and freedoms were severely limited by Jewish law and custom in Palestine. Scripture tells us that they were restricted to roles of little or no authority; they were largely confined to their father’s or husbands home; they were considered to be inferior to men and under the authority of men. But, thank God for Christ who overthrew many centuries of Jewish law and custom.

Jesus Christ consistently treated women and men as equals and refused to follow the behavioral rules established by the Essenes, Pharisees and the Sadducees. The actions of Jesus of Nazareth towards women were therefore revolutionary! In Matthew 28:1-7 we have proof that the two Mary’s were the first Apostles after Jesus’ resurrection.

Mary Magdalene was sent by Jesus to evangelize about the resurrection to the Disciples. Therefore these women of Capernaum were faithful followers and assisted Jesus at His headquarters where He preached and recruited His Disciples.

Who is this woman that touched his robe?

Her name was not important, but the fact that she suffered for 12 years with an internal bleeding was a major event. (I’m talking about longsuffering!) Certainly God will never put more on us than we can bear, but why did He put this burden on the woman? There was no outward evidence or no outside show of what was going on with her. In other words, you couldn’t simply look at her and tell she suffered inwardly. (Just like people we know today.)