Healing Body and Soul

A glass of water.

So.

I invite you to turn in your Bibles to, um, the Gospel of John. After more than a year hiatus, I'm finally getting back, uh, to, uh, John's Gospel. Uh, turn your, uh, to John chapter 4. And.

Beginning at verse 43, and I want to read, uh, to, uh, chapter 5, verse 15. And the title of my message this morning is "Healing Body and Soul." Healing Body and Soul. John 4:43 to 5:15. "Now after the two days, he departed from there and went to Galilee.

For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans received him, having seen all the things he did in Jerusalem at the feast, for they also had gone to the feast.

So Jesus came again to Cana of Galilee, where he had made the water into wine, and there was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum." Thank you. "When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to him and implored him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.

Then Jesus said to him, 'Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.' The nobleman said to him, 'Sir, come down before my child dies.' So Jesus said to him, 'Go your way. Your son lives.' So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way.

And as he was now going down, his servants met him and told him, saying, 'Your son lives.' And then he inquired them the hour when he got better, and they said to him, 'Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.'

So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said to him, 'Your son lives.' And he himself believed, and his whole household.'" This again is the second sign Jesus did when he had come out of Judea into Galilee. "After this, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

Now there is in Jerusalem, by the sheep gate, a pool, which is called in the Hebrew Bethesda, having five porches. And these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lamed, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at certain times into the pool and stirred up the water. Then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had.

Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been in that condition a long time, he said to him, 'Do you want to be made well?'

The sick man answered him, 'Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred. But while I'm coming, another steps down before me.' Jesus said to him, 'Rise. Take up your mat and walk.'

And immediately the bed man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. And that day was the Sabbath. The Jews said to him, who was cured, 'It is the Sabbath. It is not lawful for you to carry your bed.'

And he answered them, 'He who made me well said to me, 'Take up your bed and walk.' Then they asked him, 'Who is the man who said to you, 'Take up your bed and walk?' But the one who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, a multitude being in the place.

Afterwards Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, 'See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.' The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.'" Now, this, uh, first, uh, this, um, this section of scripture is part of, of, um, a larger section that I have entitled, uh, "Seven Signs and Seven Sermons."

Um, and that covers chapters 2 through 12. And of course, we had the first sign, which was changing the water into wine. We had the first sermon, which was Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus. The second sermon was his conversation with the Samaritan woman.

Um, and now we are, uh, looking here at the second and the third sign that Jesus performed. And Lord willing, in the next in the next, uh, message, we'll, I'll be looking at the, uh, next sermon that Jesus, uh, shares. Again, I think I had mentioned back at my first sermon this was back in 2018, so I don't expect you to remember, that one could also call this large section from chapter 2 to 12 seven seven wonders and seven si seven words, okay? And the reason why I like that kind of terminology is it really it really ties into, um, the first chapter of John, where Jesus is identified as the word that became flesh.

I want you to, to pay attention to what Jesus is saying here and what are the impact of his words, okay? Um, and because y one of the things we have to keep in mind is that whenever God speaks, it's an act of creation. It's an act it's an action that produces something. It's just not empty words, but it's actually something that gets something accom his words are th are words that accomplishes things.

So he has just finished talking to the Samaritans, visiting them for about two days. And you remember, their response to him was really great. They believed. And you know what? He performed no sign there. He performed no sign among the Samaritans. They simply believed him by the words that he spoke. Other than, perhaps, you might want to think that what he told the lady about her condition, able to be able to look into her heart and see what was going in a sense, that was a sign. But it's not this quite miraculous sort of healing that he's doing or what he did with the, the, um, the, um, uh, turning the water into wine. It's not quite as spectacular that.

But it did cut that woman to the heart. And she realized that she was dealing with somebody greater than than her, um, her father, um, um, who, uh, Abraham.

The Samaritans believed in Jesus. But there's an element that Jesus encounters who do not believe. In chapter 4 at the beginning of chapter 4, in the first through verses, he's down in Jerusalem after he's had his conversation with Nicodemus, and talks there about the Jews. And, and when it's using that term, it seems to be referring to the Jewish rulers, perhaps the Sanhedrin. Certainly, it's the Pharisees because they are mentioned. The it the in chapter 4, it's hinted at the resistance that this group of people have to what Jesus has to say and what he is doing. They're resistant to it. They don't believe, okay? And to see that in comparison to how the Samaritans, who are despised, um, by the Jews, uh, who do believe, and then says here in verse, uh, 44, "For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country."

And that ties into what, uh, John has written at the very beginning of the Gospel, that he came to his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, he gave them the power to become the sons of God.

All right. "As many as believed in him, he gave the power for them to become the sons of God." And if you remember, going back to the end of the Gospel, where John writes, why is he writing these things? He says, "Truly, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have have life in his name." That's the reason Jesus is doing these signs. It's to provoke or it's to elicit faith. It's to it's to press home to his hearers that what he has to say, the words that he has to speak, are words of life.

And if they put their trust in him, okay, they will have this eternal life. And here we're going to see, in this passage, a person a person who believed, okay, and a group of people who not only did not believe, but Jesus the performance of Jesus' of the of Jesus' signs actually provoked in them resistance to what he was about. All right?

So he comes down to Galilee, and the Galileans receive him having seen the things he'd done in Jerusalem, which indicates that he had been he must have been performing some signs that are not recorded, um, uh, certainly refers to his speaking and so on. And it's interesting 'cause the Galileans seem to be receptive to it.

All right? That's why I think when he's talking here about those who, uh about those who about not having a prophet, that he's talking in general about coming to his people and them not receiving him, particularly the Jewish rulers.

So he comes into Cana of Galilee, where he where he had turned the water into wine, and it says here, "A nobleman came to him." Now, that term "nobleman" actually, um, is a Greek, uh, word that, uh, can be also it can be, uh, probably, uh, also translated as a royal official. Well, who is the quote-unquote "king" of Galilee? Well, it's, um, Herod Antipatus, who is the techarch of Galilee. Not technically a king, okay? Not technically a king. Um, but he is a ruler, and he is sometimes referred to as a king, though he wa he was actually a a he was under he held this position under the, um, Roman Empire, and he and he ruled Galilee.

So this is a man of some importance. But, you know, um, I think, as we have learned, uh, sickness is not a respecter of persons. He had his boy, who was nigh unto death. And he was desperate. And here Jesus is in Galilee. He, uh in Cana. He, uh apparently, the the word had gotten around not only what he did and Cana was turning the wine into what the, um, um, the water into wine, but also what he what had happened in Jerusalem. I think the the news of that had circulated around. He finds Jesus is here in in in, um, in, uh, C uh, Cana, and he leaves Capernaum.

It's about a 25, 30-mile trip, um, that he has to make down there, which, you know, in our day is no big deal, okay? Takes us, what, about a half an hour or 40 minutes to get 25. But then but it's it's a day's walk, at least, okay? Now, maybe being maybe being a royal official, he had a chariot to ride in. Uh, I would that wouldn't be s uh, surprised. But nonetheless, uh, it's not something you can get there in just a little bit.

It takes a little bit while to get there. Um, and he came and he went to Jesus, and he implored him. He begged him, okay? Now, you think about this. This royal official, a man of high status, coming to this Ju this, uh, Galilean carpenter, okay, who is an ord as far as his status goes, he's an ordinary person, okay? He's part of the peasantry and so on. But he's coming to Jesus, imploring him to do something for him.

And he wants him to heal his son. All right? And Jesus said to him, "You people see signs and wonders. Unless you see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe." In in, um I think it's in Matthew's Gospel where Jesus talks about that, uh, a, um, a crooked and perverse generation seeks after a sign.

All right? And that, you know, you won't believe unless you see this sign. Now, one of the interesting things is is that the Jewish leaders tell Jesus at one particular point in one of the other Gospels that, "What sign are you gonna perform to prove to me to prove to us that you are who you say you are?" And here we see an incident in which Jesus performs a sign, and they refuse to believe who he was.

All right? And you remember, uh, at the end of the Gospels, which of the Gospel of John, we'll get to, and Thomas having not been there when Jesus first appeared to his to the disciples, and the disciples told him, "Yes, he's risen from the dead," uh, Thomas said, "I will not believe until I touch the wounds in his hands and in his side.

I won't believe it 'cause I saw him crucified, and I won't believe he's raised from the dead until I touch him. Not only see him, but I touch him." All right? And Jesus appears to Thomas and invites him, "Touch my hands. Touch my si side. I'm alive." And then he says, "You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who have no who belie who have not seen me and yet believe." And, you know, that includes all of us here.

All of us here. And seeing Jesus is no seeing Jesus in the flesh is no guarantee that we will believe in him. Seeing Jesus perform miracles is no guarantee that we will put our trust in him, though that is the purpose of that was the purpose of the signs and miracles. It was to provoke faith. But nonetheless, Jesus wants us to believe in him not for the miracles that he's done, but for whom he is himself.

All right?

The nobleman is not to be dissuaded. He is not to be put aside by that. And I am amazed at various times at the persistence of some of the people who come to Jesus. You remember the Syrophoenician woman. Jesus gives her a rather, I would say, a response that would put a lot of people off. He says, "It's not right for me to give the bread that's meant to children to dogs." And she says, "Yes, Lord, but even the dogs can have the crumbs that are swept under the table."

And you remember, he heals her because of her faith. She believed he could do it. I think she was also desperate, okay? She was desperate, and she believed he could do this. This man, even though Jesus somewhat scolds him, all right, I think we could say this is a bit of a scolding here, um, and, uh, he says, "The nobleman said to him, 'Sir, come down before my child dies.'" Okay?

He does think Jesus can heal his son. All right? Now, what he does not expect, however, is that Jesus is not limited by time and space. All right? And he says, "Go your way. Your son lives." All right? Jesus did miracles in many different ways. I think about the time where he's, uh, he spit on the ground, and he took a little made a little mud with the spit and put it on the guy's eyes and told him to go wash, and he did and so on. He, um, he talks I mean, he lays hands on people at various points in time. Um, he he does these miracles in very various kinds of ways. You remember, there's another case in which the cent a centurion came to him and asked him to heal his son.

And interestingly enough, this centurion did not believe Jesus had to be there to heal this to heal this, um heal heal heal his, uh, serp no, it wasn't his son. It was his servant. Um, he believed Jesus had the authority that transcended time and space.

And Jesus could Jesus did not have to physically be there to do the healing. All right? I think if I was going to do some, some, um, uh, comparison or sort of maybe a typology here is, you know, Jesus does not have to physically be here to communicate with us, to perform his work, and so on. He is not limited by time and space. He is present even though he's not here physically because we know that physically, he's sitting at the right hand of the Father on high.

All right. So the the, uh, nobleman says, "When did he get better?" And they said, "Yesterday at the seventh hour. The fever broke, and he got better." He knew at that particular point that Jesus wasn't just simply a prophet who could foretell what was going to happen, but that the the cure or the healing of his son was the direct result of what Jesus said.

All right? It wasn't just a prophecy, "Oh, yes, your son's gonna get better," but it was actually an action that Jesus performed by speaking his word. All right? And again, when God speaks something speaks, something is accomplished. When Jesus spoke, something was accomplished. All right? And the man, you noticed, beforehand, when when he when Jesus said that, he believed his word. He believed his word. He believed the word of him who was the living word. And he went on his way expecting that his son would be healed. And when he got there and he found out he was healed, and he was healed on the very hour that Jesus spoke, he believed. I think it meant he believed more.

His faith was confirmed. It became stronger. And not only that, but his whole household believed. His whole household believed. Okay? Why? They weren't there when Jesus spoke the word, but they heard the testimony of their master. This is what Jesus did, and this is what you're telling me, and they were able to put two and two together and figure out what was going on. And their response was to believe, to put their trust and their faith in Jesus.

All right? This is the second sign that Jesus did when he had come out of Judea into Galilee. And then we move down to Jerusalem again. There's a feast. It's not actually indicated which feast it is. Um, commentators spill a lot of ink trying to figure this out. And you know what they all say after they spill all the ink? And they say, "Well, maybe it was this one because of this. Maybe it was this one because of this. Maybe it was the Pa Passover, tabernacles, all various feasts and so on. Maybe it was the New Year and so on." You know what then they all conclude after they say that? "Really can't tell for sure."

All right? So 'cause it simply says a feast. There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went out to Jerusalem. Now, there in Jerusalem, by the sheep gate, is a pool, which is called in the Hebrew Bethesda. And that term Bethesda, um, means, um, the place of twin outpourings, the place of twin outpourings.

It's actually two pools that are together, and those two pools are still there today. You can go visit those pools in Jerusalem. All right? They're still there. They're next to something called the Church of Saint Anne. Uh, Anne is the is reported to be the mother of Mary. Yeah. I think that's, uh, that's tribu and by legend and so on.

All right? Um, and we have this really interesting situation in which, uh, an angel comes down, stirs the waters of these pool, and if whoever gets there first and touches it, gets in, dips into it, they're healed of whatever disease they have. And so people bring sick people there, lame people, paralyzed people, um, and so on. They bring them whatever disease they have and with the hope that they'll be the first ones to get there. Can you imagine the scramble? Can you imagine it?

Um, the the water stirs, and they and they notice it and the scramb the mad scramble there is. But can you also imagine the fact that these are sick people? And so these are sick people scrambling. The man who was who was who was paralyzed for 38 years it doesn't say he was at the pool for 38 years. It says he was parallel paralyzed for 38 years. I and I don't know if I I don't know if they, you know, maybe people brought him there for a period of time, took him home at night and so on. I'm you know, we're not giving those details. You guess you can use your imagination to think about all that kind of stuff and speculate, and that's what it would be: imagination and speculation.

But I think it's not unwarranted to think that this paralyzed man who has no one to carry him to the water when the water is stirred, when he sees the water stirring, what does he do? Well, I imagine and I think this probably is, uh, realistic. I imagine he starts crawling to toward that pool, but somebody beats him first to the pool.

And so he's there, and he's hoping that he can be healed. All right? And Jesus comes to the pool. And when Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been in that condition a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to be made well?"

Well, I think that might be a rhetorical question.

All right? And the man says, "Well, yeah, but I have no way to get into the pool. How am I going to be made well?" And Jesus says to him, "Rise. Take up your your bed and walk." Now, somebody who has been paralyzed for paralyzed for 38 years, what are their limbs like? They're probably shrunken.

Okay? He probably doesn't have feeling in them. All right? He certainly can't walk. And so Jesus is telling him to telling him, "Rise. Take up your bed and walk."

I think in some degree, responding to that instruction is an act of faith. It's an act of faith, the decision to follow through with what Jesus says. And at the same time, there has to be something miraculous happening to his legs and to his body. Strength has to come into it that he did not have before. So he responds by rising.

Strength comes into his legs, and he's able to stand up. He's able to roll up his bed, and he's able to walk out. It's just like that. Just like that. All right? Now, if we were going to make some kind of parallel here to the response that Jesus asks of us when he speaks to us, okay, and he says, "Be healed.

Your sins are washed away. Your sins are taken care of." Okay? "You can walk in newness of life." We, just like this man, need to rise up, believe in it, experience experience the strengthening that comes to our souls, and roll up our bed and walk, start our way, start on our pilgrimage, on our way in in our life with Christ.

Now, there is a problem with what Jesus did. It's the Sabbath day. It's the Sabbath. And here's this man walking around carrying his bed, which is a thing you are not to do on the Sabbath. You weren't to carry things on the Sabbath.

And the Jews saw it and said to him, "It is the Sabbath. It is not lawful for you to carry your bed. What are you doing? You're violating the law." All right? Now, if you turn your Bibles to Jeremiah 17, all right, uh, verses, um, 19 to 27, of course, we have the the, uh, instruction in the Torah about keeping the Sabbath day holy, not working on the Sabbath and everything like that. There's the account also about the man who was out picking up sticks, and he was which was a violation of God's instruction not to do work. Um, and so he was he was actually stoned to death. There's also, uh, the account where he God told the children of Israel, "You're not to go out and collect manna, uh, on the Sabbath."

And, um, so, um, there are various instructions here. But in Jeremiah chapter, um, 17, verses 19 through 27, "Thus the Lord said to me," Jeremiah says, "Go and stand in the gate of the children of the people by which the kings of Judah come in and by which they go out and all the gates of Jerusalem. And say to them, 'Hear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah and all Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem who enter by these gates.

Thus says the Lord, take heed to yourselves and bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem, nor carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day, nor do you any work but hallow the Sabbath day as I commanded your fathers.' But they did not obey, nor incline their ear, but made their necks stiff that they may not hear nor receive instruction. And it shall be, if you heed me carefully, says the Lord, to bring no burden through the gates of the city on the Sabbath day, but hallow the Sabbath day to do no work in it. Then shall enter the gates of the city kings and princes sitting on the throne of David, riding in chariots and horses, they and their princes accompanied by men of Judah, inhabitants of Jerusalem, and this city shall remain forever.

And they shall come from the cities of Judah and from the places around Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin and from the lowland, from the mountains, from the south, bringing burnt offerings and sacrifices, grain offerings and incense, bringing sacrifices of praise to the house of the Lord. But if you will not heed me to hallow the Sabbath day, such as not to carry a burden when entering the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched."

Now, that's pretty heavy. All right? And I would imagine that these Jews were thinking of Jeremiah and what Jeremiah is saying here. And I mean, Jeremiah says, "Don't carry any burdens into the city and don't carry any burdens out of the city."

And one can understand that as being kind of a general sort of thing. You don't do this. And one would have to admit that this man is carrying a bed, which is probably not a heavy burden, but it's nonetheless a burden of some sort.

Okay? Now, uh, I looked I looked this passage up in Jeremiah, and it was interesting. I actually looked up what a Jewish rabbi had to say.

And he made the comment that it seems to be, uh, referring to the whole that that Israel is being chastised here I mean, Judah's being chastised here because they were actually doing commerce on the Sabbath. They were bringing goods into the city, and they were trading with people in the city who were bringing goods out of their houses, out of their places of business. And so there was actually merchandising going on on the Sabbath day, and it was a day that that was not supposed to be happening.

All right? But as time went on, okay, as time went on, this this prohibition against merchandising, against working and so on, began to be, how shall we say, carried on further. And the rabbis began to talk about and define and and, um, explain what working on the Sabbath was. And it it got down to the place where almost carrying anything almost carrying anything was considered to be work. All right?

Um, in the Mishnah, which is the collection of the rabbis, some of these rabbis actually go back to the time of Jesus, a little bit before. Some of them are later on. And so the Mishnah, it's always a little hard when you're talking about the Mishnah to say, uh, uh, say exactly, um, what it represents, what time frame it represents. But according to the Mishnah, which is an explanation of many of the laws, and there's a whole section on how to keep the Sabbath, and it's rather detailed, uh, so it does. But the Mishnah defines 39 types of work, 39 types of work, which you cannot do on the Sabbath. I'm gonna read them to you.

All right? "The main classes of work are 40 save one: sewing, plowing, reaping, binding sheaves, threshing, winnowing, cleansing crops, grinding, sifting, kneading, baking, shearing wool, washing or beading or dyeing wool, spinning, weaving, making two loops, weaving two threads, separating two threads, tying a knot, loosening a knot, sewing two stitches, lear um, tearing in order to sew two stitches, hunting a gazelle, slaughtering or flaying or salting or curing its skin, scraping it or cutting it up, writing two letters." I think it means two, um, not two letters in the sense of you're writing two letters, but actually two individual letters. "Erasing in order to write two letters, building, pulling down, putting out a fire, lighting a fire, striking with a hammer, and taking out ought from one's domain and to another."

These are the main classes of work, 40 save one, which are not to be done on the Sabbath according to the Mishnah. And then it says elsewhere, "A man may not shift about the straw on the bed with his hand, but he may shift it about with his body."

And so if you're lying there on your bed on the Sabbath day and your straw bed is lumpy, you can't get it and and work out the lumps with your hand, but you can kind of reach around on it and get it smoothed out that way.

All right? All right. The other thing that's really interesting is that it was okay to carry a person out to carry a person on his bed, okay, but it was not okay to carry the bed by itself. Carrying a person on his bed was not considered work, but carrying a person just carrying the bed was considered to be work. All right?

The other thing that's interesting is that one of the Missionist stricters say that they may not straighten a child's body or set a broken limb. So if you broke your arm on the Sabbath, you had to wait till the next day before it could be set.

All right? And that reminds me of another incident in which Jesus healed another healed a woman on the Sabbath day, and the ruler of the synagogue rebuked him by saying, "You know, there are six other days of the week that you can heal. You don't need to heal on the Sabbath."

All right? And what is Jesus's response to that? He said, "The Sabbath was not made for man." But I mean, man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for man. Okay? And he talks about the fact that how many of you, if you have a donkey that falls into a pit, won't take that donkey out of the pit on the Sabbath? And if you're gonna be that merciful to a donkey and rescue it in its affliction, you certainly want to help this woman who's been afflicted for many, many years. Now, one of the things that's really interesting among the Essenes who lived in the Qumran communities out in the desert of Judea, in one of their documents, uh, I think it's referred to the Damascus document, in which it has a whole series of how they understood the Old Testament law, they wouldn't even allow that.

If your donkey fell into a ditch, you let it stay there until the next day. If a man fell into a ditch, you let him stay there till the next day. You didn't absolutely they were really thoroughgoing about this.

Okay? They would have felt the Pharisees were really namby-pambies and and, um, and, um, liberals for how they approached the Sabbath. Okay? So these people these guys, though, what are they seeing? They're seeing a man carrying his mat, and they ask, "What are you doing? You shouldn't be doing that." And he says, "Well, the man who made me well told me to do this."

Okay? He told me to pick it up and take up my bed and walk. And they said, "Well, who is this guy?"

Now, I wonder if in doubt they knew who he was because Jesus had already been doing miracles. I don't think there were very many people in Jerusalem at that particular time doing things like this.

I think they knew already, right? But they had not believed in what they had seen, and they weren't responding here by faith. Okay? They were not responding by faith. They, in this particular case, not even a miracle provoked faith. You remember the story that Jesus tells about the rich man in Lazareth? And Lazareth is in the bosom of Abraham, and, um, and the rich man is in is in Sheol, and he asked, uh, he asked, um, Abraham, "Could Lazareth just take a drop of water and put it on my tongue?" And and Abraham says, "You know, there's a great divide between us and you."

Okay? "You had things good in your in your life, and you ignored Lazareth, and now he has his reward, and you have yours, and you're in two different places." And then the rich man says, "Well, Abraham, would you send somebody to my brothers and and let them know about this so that they can avoid this?" And what does Abraham say? "They had Moses and the prophets. And if Moses if Moses and the prophets do not convince them as to what they need to do and how they need to live and how they need to regard their fellow man, sending an angel, sending an angelic messenger, a messenger from heaven, is not going to convince them.

It's not going to convince them." And I think that points to the fact that that what people see, they can explain away.

Okay? What they see, they can explain away if it does not fit into what they want. All right? And it's very hard to crack that that shell that they've created where they refuse to believe. And the Jews did not see this miracle as an indication that Jesus was who he said he was.

They didn't see it that way. They saw him doing things that they felt he should not be able to he should not be doing. All right?

So seeing a miracle is not always is not always, um, an answer.

But he didn't know who Jesus was. That was interesting. This man didn't know who had healed him, so he couldn't actually tell them because Jesus had after he healed him and it must have did it, you know, he must have he must have, uh, told the men, "The rise up and walk," and got out of there.

Okay? Because it says he he was he had gotten out he had he had withdrawn a moment to being in that place, and later on, Jesus found him in the temple. Now, I think it's significant that this man was in the temple. What do you think he was doing there?

I think he was giving thanks to God. He had been healed. He'd been lame and paralyzed for 38 years, and now he could walk. What is the natural response to that? It's to thank God. It's to be grateful for God's goodness to him. And I think he was in the temple, which is the place where where they go where they went to pray and to and to praise God and to thank God.

Okay? I think that's what and that's where Jesus met him. Okay? And he said to him, "See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you." What does that remind you of? There was another time in which Jesus healed a paralytic man, but you know what he said to him? The first thing he said to him? "Your sins are forgiven." He didn't say, "Take up your mat and walk," to start off with. He said, "Your sins are forgiven, you."

Now, that caused some consternation among the Pharisees. Who's this man who says he can forgive sins? And as we will see in the next message, there's a similar kind of there's a similar kind of response on the part of the Pharisees to what Jesus is doing here when they engage him in that.

And Jesus says, "So, so you know that the Son of Man can forgive sins." He says to the man, "Take up your mat and walk," and the man does. All right? Now, there are a couple different other places here. You remember, uh you remember later on we'll get to that eventually where Jesus encounters the woman caught in adultery, and he writes the things on the on the, um, ground, and the her, um, her accusers leave the scene, um, and so on. Years ago, when I was when I was a teenager, I remember watching a silent film about the life of Jesus, and this was like a film made back in 1915 or something like that, um, and it had it had it didn't they didn't it wasn't a it wasn't a talkie.

Okay? You remember, I can I can always anything I saw before 1978 is is something I saw before I was, um, a part of the church.

The rest of you are gonna have to repent, um, if you've seen anything. But one of the things and I can still see this. Actually, I tell you where I was. I was 18 years old. I was lying in the hospital bed after having, um, been hurt in a tractor accident, and this TV was on, and I was watching this silent film about the life of Jesus.

And it came to this scene in in John 8 where they're bringing this woman to Jesus caught in adultery, and Jesus stoops down, and he writes in the in the dust. Like, one person comes up, and he writes in the dust, "Fornicator," another one, "Murderer," "Extortioner." And one by one, as they see what Jesus is writing about them, they leave. That's kind of interesting. Maybe that's what happened.

We certainly know that whatever Jesus was doing there, they left. All right? But do you remember what he says to the woman? He asks her, "Woman, who's condemned you?" And her accusers have all left. Nobody's accusing her anymore.

And he says, "Neither do I condemn thee." But he also says to her, "Go sin no more." All right? "Go sin no more." He tells this man, "Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you." The point I want to make here is that Jesus caused this man enabled this man to rise up and walk. He healed him physically, but Jesus is concerned with more than just physical healing. You know, every person that Jesus ever healed, every person that Jesus raised from the dead, whether it was Lazareth, the widow of Nain's son, uh, Jairus's daughter, and so on, what happened to them in the end? They died.

Every person that's ever been healed by God has died. Okay? Every person who God raised from the dead has died again. All right? They're not with us today. All right? And so a physical healing, even when it's an act of God, is a temporary thing.

It doesn't last forever. What is God really concerned about? He's concerned about your eternal destiny. He's concerned about your soul. He's concerned about the fact that you are not going to be controlled by sin. He's concerned about the impact that sin has upon you.

And he has come not just to heal people of their sicknesses, but to heal people of their sin, to take care of the problem of sin. All right? Remember what John says at the end of the Gospel? Okay? He says, "These signs were done that you might believe in his name, that you might have" excuse me, "that you might believe that Jesus is the is the Son is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you might have life in his name."

Right? And having life in his name means sinning no more.

Just like this man experienced the strengthening of his limbs, the ability to rise and to walk.

When we receive Jesus, when we believe in him and we put our trust in him, something happens. A spiritual power is imparted to us. We are given strength to rise up and to walk in newness of life. I'm always I'm always just so, so touched and overpowered, and the tears come almost to my eyes every time at a baptism when Harvey reaches down, takes the person's hand, and says those words I think that all of us have heard at our baptism, "Even as Christ has risen from the dead, I bid thee rise, and even as Christ has risen from the dead, so walk you in newness of life."

I remember when those words were spoken to me at my baptism at the age of 17, and every time I hear them, a thrill just goes through my heart and my life. I feel I just feel this somebody is rising from the dead to walk in the newness of life, and that is what Jesus is really concerned about.

Anything else that he did okay, anything else that he did was to come to take care of the whole problem of our sin, to rescue us from the power of Satan, to pay the price of our redemption, to give us that spiritual power that we can walk in newness and life so that we are no longer objects of God's wrath.

Okay? And that's what Jesus and the response he has he wants from us is to believe in him, that he is the Christ, he is the Son of God, and that through him, we might have eternal life. Let us, those who have made that step, continue in it. Let us be faithful because we are told that that we must pay attention to that. We must sin no more. Okay? We must sin no more.

Um, and because our eternal destiny is all wrapped up in our response to Jesus and trusting in him to give us give us the power to walk in a way that is pleasing to him and which sin does not reign in our mortal flesh.

The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who made him well. When you encounter Jesus, and he brings healing in his wings, and he saves your soul, and he helps you to walk in that newness gives you that power to walk in that newness of life, are you telling people that he's the one who has made you well?

Are there any responses to the message?