A Second Touch
Wait for the second touch, wait for the extra blessing, wait for the penetration of the Spirit of God.
Transcript
Alright thank you very much, and hello again radio friends. How in the world are you? You doing alright today? Well, I trust so, bless your heart. Yes, this is your friend Dr. Cook and I’m glad to be back with you to share from the Word of God and try as we sometimes say, to put a handle on it, so that you can get hold of it for yourself. I’ve just been praying that God might put His love and His truth, His compassion and His understanding, His wisdom and His power into what yours truly has to say. May God grant that prayer for His name’s sake.
You and I are looking it the gospel of Mark. We’ve come now to verse 22. The Lord Jesus came to town called Bethsaida, “And they brought a blind man unto Him and besought Him to touch him, and He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town and when He had spit on His eyes and put His hands on him, He asked him if he saw ought” we would say anything. “He looked up and said, I see men as trees walking.” After that He put His hands again upon his eyes and made him look up and he was restored and saw every man clearly. He sent away to his house saying, ‘Neither go into the town nor tell it to any in the town”. Bethsaida. Why did all of this happen do you think? What is the, what is the point?
Well, the Lord Jesus has been rejected by people, and at this point He’s going to, He’s going to take care of the needs of the this blind man outside of that city, it appears. It was the original hometown of Philip, Andrew, and Peter, located on the Plain of Bateihah, east and north of where the Jordan River enters the Sea of Galilee. Bethsaida. Why would He do that? Well I don’t know to tell you the truth. If it was the hometown of Andrew and Simon Peter, then certainly the people knew about Him and certainly they had seen Him do these wonderful miracles and all of that. All that was true you know, but the same time, it was true that these people had not received Him. And they were… the crowds were following, but they weren’t believing. That was the score there, it seems to me. In any case it said, “He took him out of town and then He applied saliva to His eyes and put His hands on him”, and the first touch He said, “I see men as trees walking”, the second touch he was restored and saw every man clearly. What do you make of this? Number one; there are some times God has to take you away from the crowd in order to get His work done in your heart.
I’ve been greatly blessed in large meetings, I’ve been in big meetings most of my Christian ministry. Now and again you have some share in a large evangelistic effort or some good-sized Bible conference, or whatever. I’ve been greatly blessed by being in large rallies, large meetings, large evangelistic Crusades in various parts of the world. God does work in these mass movements of evangelism and Christian nurture. Yes He does. The fact is that as I look back on my life, the points of Christian growth have occurred not in large meetings, but in times when I was alone with God wrestling with some problem or some weakness or some failure on my part, some challenge that was facing me, too great for me to handle.
These have been the times when the Lord really touched me. I can remember very precious series of weeks actually, in the spring of 1944 and then again in 1948, both of those times my heart was especially burdened to get a touch from God, and I would get alone with God them and pray and seek His face and read the word, and wait on God for a special touch because the road of life seemed to be turning for me, and I can recall that there was a sense, as I day after day waited on God and prayed and wept before Him and and searched my own heart and my own motives, and asked the Holy Spirit of God to fill me and to guide me. I had a sense actually of growing up spiritually, during those days, and that same experience has happened again and again, as I faced either my own weakness or some challenge from without, and brought it to my blessed Lord alone, or in the company of one or two others with whom I might be sharing in prayer. Says, “He took him out of town”. God has to get you alone sometimes to talk to you.
I visited a person in that hospital room and after the usual greetings were over he said to me, “Ya know Doc”, he said, “I guess God had to get me here so He can get my attention”. Well there’s something to that, isn’t there? Have you spent, let me ask you this, have you spent any considerable amount of time with your Lord, just you and He? It’s amazing how things clear up if you’ll just take the time to wait on God and get, as we say, out of town. Get away from the crowd, get away from the hustle and the rush and just wait on your Lord. Well somebody says, “I’m a busy housewife Brother Cook, I don’t have time for my, I can’t even, I haven’t even got time to make up my face and get ready for the day, things just pile in on me”. I know, you’re busy. Mothers are far busier than fathers and children realize, most of the time. We never thank you for it either, except on Mother’s Day when we give you the privilege of cooking for us all day long. Well I know that, I know you’re busy and some businessman says, “Brother I can’t get away from my duties. If I left the shop for a week, I don’t know what would happen”. What if you died? What would happen then? It’d go on alright. I think when it comes right down to it we do the things we want to do, and if you and I really want to get some time alone with God, we’re going to find a way to do it. It may involve getting up a little earlier than the rest of the family, it may involve staying up later than the rest of the family, it may involve finding some place in the house where you can be alone by yourself, or it may involve, if you’re a busy executive, carving out a whole day for yourself and renting a motel room and just go and lock the door and throw the key away, and get down before God and wait on Him. I don’t know. You’ll find, if you really want to, you’ll find a way to get alone with God, and when you do, be sure you’re honest with Him. Don’t make any speeches to God. Just be honest with Him and tell Him who and what you are what your needs are, and what your weaknesses are, and where your failures lie, and what the hunger of your heart is. Be honest with God and you’ll find that you are the recipient of His blessed touch. Indeed you will.
I don’t know why I’ve often wondered about Christ’s use of saliva. In the case of the blind man whose story is found in John chapter 9, our Lord Jesus made clay out of the dust of the ground and His own saliva and He applied it to the man’s eyes. In this case he applied saliva directly to his eyes and then touched him. That’s something I would have to ask the Lord when I get there. In any case, the healing process came from the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Touched him, said, “Look up”, He said, well people look like trees walking around. The eyes hadn’t focused. Then He touched him again.
Now, the first point we made was, God oftentimes has to take you away from the crowd to get to you, and to deal with you. That’s a first point. The second point is there is benefit in waiting on God for the second touch. What do we mean by that? Well if you’re anything like me, and I think most of you are, I’m pretty normal, we tend in our praying, to pray until we feel pretty good about things. You follow me? You’re praying about a whole list of matters perhaps and you’ve made your prayer and in your own heart there is the stirrings of blessing and you say, well all right, Amen, and away you go. You feel good about things, you’ve been in the presence of the Lord, you feel blessed. Well, that’s good, but what would happen if you waited on your Lord, so that He can really deal with you, so that you could have the second touch? As a matter fact, anything I tell you, I’ve been there. As a matter of fact, if you will continue to pray and wait on God and worship Him and just open your heart to Him, after you begin to feel satisfied in your heart, feel blessed and normally you would say, come on let’s get out of here now, time to say Amen, if you wait on God, let’s say 30 minutes after that, you are going to be in for the surprise of your life. Your perspective will be cleared just as this dear man was. You’ll begin to see things and people and relationships more clearly than ever before. Wait for the second touch, wait for the extra blessing, wait for the penetration of the Spirit of God beneath the epidermis of your soul, wait until God gets to you, the second touch. Want to try that in your own life beloved? If you won’t try it, you can’t tell whether or not it’s true. The next time you set aside a time for prayer, you wait beyond the point where you begin to feel blessed and happy and where normally you would say Amen and get on out to other things. That extra 30 minutes spent in prayer, after the little mental moral monitor in your brain has said, say Amen, it’s time to quit. The extra 30 minutes spent in prayer after you would normally quit, will oftentimes bring you that second touch of God upon your life that clarifies things, that brings issues into their proper focus, and that gives you ideas as to what to do in the will of God. Would you try that for yourself?
Dear Father today, we ask that we may be given the good sense and the persistence to wait on Thee until Thou hast touched us again and again, in Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.
Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!
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