The Healing at the PoolFitchburg Nazarene Church

September 24, 2017

by

Rev. Charles W. Pendleton, Jr.

(These are the Pastor’s notes. He may have said more which is not noted here. He could have ignored certain portions of these notes in our actual

service.)

The Healing at the Pool1Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the

lame, the paralyzed. 4Some manuscripts include here, wholly or in part, paralyzed—and they waited for the moving of the waters.4From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had.

5One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”7“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

8Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”11But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”12So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”13The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

14Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 15The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.

PRAYER

1Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals.

What Would Jesus Do?

I am touching on this once more because I can.

Here is Jesus, at the prescribed time for his being in Jerusalem for one of their religious festivals – and where is he?

In Jerusalem.

So, where are we on the prescribed days for religious celebrations? Are we with the people of God, or are we at home, or elsewhere?

Okay, I’ll stop beating that dead horse!

2Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades.

In verse 2 we see where Jesus goes. Our text does not tell us if Jesus had already “gone to church”, or if this is before the prescribed festival attendance at the Temple, but we see Jesus – on the Sabbath – (we read that later in our text), going to the Pool of Bethesda.

I bring this up because, for Jesus, it wasn’t enough just to attend to the services of the

Temple – he had other good things to accomplish during his Sabbath.

It seems from our scriptures that Jesus was always doing something to help people on the Sabbath – which infuriated the Religious Leaders.

What do you know about the Sheep Gate?

Gates in the Bible

Gates of Jerusalem, Part 3: The Sheep Gate

By Sue Ramsey and Lyn Chaffart

In 2014 we studied the book of Nehemiah. There, we learned about the rebuilding of Jerusalem in B.C. 466, under the leadership of Nehemiah.

In that study, we read that the Sheep Gate was the very first of the Gates of Jerusalem to be rebuilt.

"Eliashib the high priest and his fellow priests went to work and rebuilt the SHEEP GATE. They dedicated it and set its doors in place, building as far as the Tower of the Hundred, which they

dedicated, and as far as the Tower of Hananel." (Neh 3:1 NIV)

The first gate mentioned in the rebuilding of Jerusalem was known as the Sheep Gate. It is believed to have been a gate in the eastern wall, near the pool of Bethesda [1], and it is believed that this was the gate by which the offerings or sacrifices were brought into the temple. In fact, it is suggested that this was the first gate rebuilt BECAUSE it was used for this purpose! [2]

Interestingly, the Sheep Gate is also the LAST gate mentioned in the list: "and between the room above the corner and the

Sheep Gate the goldsmiths and merchants made repairs." (Neh 3:32 NIV) This means that the Sheep Gate was not only the starting point, but it was also the ending point of the wall!

So what, then, is the significance for us today of a gate where sheep entered into the temple area for slaughter? What is the significance of a gate mentioned both first and last in a list?

Sheep and lambs are used in the Bible as symbols of Christ: remember (John 1:29-30 NIV)

"The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, 'Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!'"

Friends, Jesus is the Lamb of God.

Jesus is the one who takes away the sin of the world!

The Sheep Gate, then, speaks of the very first experience we come into in our Christian life - the realization that Jesus, the Lamb of God, takes away the sins of the world! The Sheep Gate speaks to us of the cross and the sacrifice that was made for our sins!

Jesus' death on the cross is the starting point of everything, and it is also the end of everything. Everything begins and ends with Jesus' sacrifice!

Have you passed through the "Sheep Gate"? If you have, then you've taken the first, most necessary step to a Christian life.

If you have not, why not do so today? It is what He died for you to do! It is His greatest anticipation! Do it today, friend! Make Him happy by putting His sacrifice to work in YOUR life!

Enough to ponder, friends, but do ponder this: The Sheep Gate speaks to us of the cross and the sacrifice that Jesus made for our sins. It is the starting point and also the end of everything. If you haven't already done so, don't wait! Pass through the Sheep Gate today!

God bless each of you abundantly.

Sue Ramsey & Lyn Chaffart Volunteers, Answers2Prayer Ministries, www.Answers2Prayer.org

[1] from Barnes' Notes, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1997 by Biblesoft [2] from Adam Clarke's Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1996 by Biblesoft

3Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed — and they waited for the moving of the waters.

Does it surprise any of us that Jesus would go where a great number of disabled people used to lie???

It shouldn’t!

—and they waited for the moving of the waters.

I think oftentimes, it is imperative that we go to where the hurting people are.

It appears that Jesus was not content to always let the hurting come to him (and scripture has plenty of examples of where the hurting came to Jesus – remember our example from last week where the royal official from Capernaum travelled to Cana in order to see Jesus).

4From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had.

I don’t know why it is that some of our manuscripts include this verse and others do not, but let’s treat our time together as if this verse is here.

It makes perfect sense to me that people would gather at this pool in Bethesda.

People who are hurting are always clamoring after something that will ease their pain – be it physical, spiritual, emotional, or financial.

Think of all the people who have purchased Ab Rollers, or Bow-flex machines – their all looking for something

– but how many of them actually find what it is they are looking for.

Look at the number of people who will sign up for one financial panacea or another because they heard the testimonial from others that “This is what helped me become financially independent!”

And yet, it rarely seems to work for anyone we now.

Our text tells us…5One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.

And Jesus had compassion on him.

6When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

Now here is a question that many have thought through the years, was a naïve question – perhaps even a mean question.

“Do you want to get well?”

Well, here I am the man answers; sitting in the place where it has been proven that “some people” find help!

Isn’t that proof enough!

Don’t you see that it’s not my fault this isn’t working for me – DUDE I’m trying.

But Jesus knew that many people, who are locked into patterns of pain and suffering, remain there because there is some mental assent they have given to their condition (Spurgeon).

They’ve tried this and they’ve tried that, and Nothing Seems to Work!!!

So a mental paralysis (as well as a physical one) has dried up the spirit of this person, and he scarcely cared anymore whether he was made whole or not. He had pretty much determined in his thinking already, that healing would never come for him.

Jesus touched a chord that needed to vibrate; He aroused a dormant faculty whose exercise was essential to the cure.

There are many who have waited so long for “the cure” that they are paralyzed in their once earnest desire to find healing.

We still need the question to be asked today, because IT IS NOT ALWAYS UNDERSTOOD.

1. It is not the same as "Wilt thou be saved from going to hell?" — every one answers "Aye" to that; but "Wilt thou be saved from sin?"

(Ibid)

There are a large number of different replies that we get from that question.

For some – they don’t answer the call to being saved from sin because they don’t truly want to consider anything of the sort.

Either their thinking is:

I’m young and I have plenty of time for that, or

I’m really too busy to put the time into doing all that moving away from sin would involve, or

I don’t want to look lie some religious nutcase to my family, friends, or workmates.

(Some will even say) I’m way too much of a sinner to ever really change anyway –

God hasn’t got the power to make a change lie that in someone like me anyway. (Ibid)

There are a large number of folks who say, “Yes, I want to be free from sin,” but then they are right back into the thick of it, days after supposedly making a decision to let Christ reign in their hearts.

Some say yes to Christ’s salvation, but say no to attending church and becoming students of His Word and of being discipled into holy ways of being and thinking, and living. (Ibid)

Others give an initial assent to being saved from sin, and yet they fear losing social position in their network of friends, so they quickly stop doing the things which make for Christian living.

8Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”

Having jarred the man’s thinking, Jesus now challenges him to receive the help he said he wants… “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”

9At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”

To things are amazing in those verses.

The first of course, is that the man is immediately healed and begins to do something he either had never done before, or that he at least hadn’t done in 38 years.

The second amazing thing is that some people are never happy when something wonderful happens to us.

There is always a reason that the change in us bothers someone else.

Perhaps it’s a spouse who is convicted by our newfound walk with God.

Perhaps it is old friends or workmates who think that we are trying to be “better than them.”

“Oh sure, you find Jesus as your savior and all of a sudden we’re not good enough for you to be hanging around with.”

In the case of our text it is the Religious Leaders who give the former paralytic a hard time.

It saddens me that this happens so much within the church today.

Someone comes to Christ and instead of working to bring people along in their new walk – the “religious folk” start picking on their feeble attempts to begin again. Something is always wrong with what they’re doing.

Spiritual giants seeking to be the Holy Spirit in other people’s lives.

There are likely those who don’t understand why I have interpreted this text as being about coming to faith in Christ.

Listen to our text again.

13The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.14Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”

Now here is this man at the Temple (doing what he should be doing, right!).

And Jesus makes the case that sin is a polluter of good things.

He doesn’t say that the man’s paralysis was because of sin – although it may have been.

But he does make the claim that if this man (who by the way, Jesus finds in the temple) doesn’t stop sinning, then worse things than the paralysis he suffered with for 38 years may befall him.

Our paralysis in life – especially the Christian life – is always about sin!

I am intrigued by the last line of our text this morning – verse 15.

15The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.

You know that I have an overactive imagination – right??

But why does this man go and seek out the ear of the Jewish leaders?

Scripture never out and out tells us why.

But of course my imagination has an idea.

I confess that my idea is not truly, fully biblical – it’s just my thoughts.

15The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.

To me, this is an inkling that the paralytic has allowed the thinking of men to influence his heart.

To me: He is scared of the Jewish leaders!

He is more interested in the good graces of those who gave him a hard time about carrying his mat on the Sabbath, than he is about the one who healed him.

The bible never says that this man loses his salvation. I just wonder, why did Jesus words to him about continuing to sin even have to be spoken?

Did Jesus see something in him that even the healed man didn’t see?

What about you?

Have you been paralyzed with something that has kept you from giving full ascent to the work that God desire to do in you?

Is it possible that you are sitting here this morning, paralyzed in life in some way, and you have been unable to receive victory over that situation in your life.

Here the words of Jesus one more time:

“Do you want to get well?”

“Do you want to get well?”

“Do you want to get well?”

Perhaps the question should be asked, “Do you want to be saved from sin?”

I like the question the way Ralph Carmichael posed it in his song…

THE SAVIOR IS WAITING 

The Savior is waiting to enter your heart Why don’t you let Him come in? There’s nothing in this world to keep you apart What is your answer to Him? 

Chorus

Time after time He has waited before And now He is waiting again To see if you’re willing to open the door Oh, how He wants to come in 

If you’ll take one step toward the Savior, my friend You’ll find His arms open wide Receive Him, and all of your darkness will end Within your heart He’ll abide 

ChorusTime after time He has waited before And now He is waiting again To see if you’re willing to open the door 

Oh, how He wants to come in 

Oh, how He wants to come in © 2017 Heritage Singers. All Rights Reserved. Gospel Heritage Foundation is a non-profit organization sharing the gospel through the Heritage Singers.

Closing Prayer