Pastor Victor Tafoya Stale Faith
Devotion In Motion
John 5:1-14
“After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” John doesn’t tell us which feast. He only tells us it was one of the feasts. “Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches.” “Bethesda” or “house of grace.” The sheep gate was inside the northeast wall of the city of Jerusalem. The area consisted of two pools built over some hot springs. The pools were surrounded by a colonnade and were actually the site of a public bath. But a spiritual phenomenon had changed the pool’s use…
“In these (five porches) lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time 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.”
Whenever a chronically ill person was released by the doctors – when all that could be done had been done – they came to the pools. What the Romans built for relaxation and pleasure became an infirmary for the hopeless… And there must’ve been some truth to their expectations. Healings had to have occurred. How else did the pool gain its reputation? John speaks as if this was more than a legend. It was rare, but at times the angel was present.
Verse 5, “Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity 38 years.” He suffered from some illness probably at an early age, even maybe his teens. It was an illness that eventually crippled him and he has now been in that condition for 38 years. He’d been crippled long enough to forget what it was like to run around Jerusalem, to run with his friends and family, or take a walk, or even push a plough over a field. “When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”
John said in Chapter 1 about Jesus “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made” The word made is the greek word “Ginomai” which is the same word that David used in Psalm 139:15 “My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. (ASA}–they both mean the same (to do, fashion, accomplish, make) Only the one who made him could make him whole.
There are so many people who are walking around today who are only half a person, this man who had this illness was. What about you, You see only the one who created you, can make you whole! And his name is Jesus. The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”
Notice, He doesn’t even answer Jesus’s question; instead he makes excuses. Do you realize that it’s possible to get so use to a plague or an infirmity or some sin, that we become reluctant to turn it loose. Think of the alcoholic, or a prostitute or a drug addict or an adulterrer or adulteress or an abuser. He’s destroying his life and maybe the lives of others, but the stronghold of his habit is greater than his desire to change. After 38 years it’s easy to lie down and give in. It seems like it’s so easy to capitulate to your condition, and give up the dream of a different kind of life. This man by the pool blamed everyone else for beating him out of his miracle, but the real problem was he had lost faith! He was waiting on the waters to be stirred… Well, Here comes Jesus and stirs up this man’s Stale faith! “Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked.” Here’s a man, bedridden for 38 years, yet Jesus tells him to get up and walk. We need to Understand,
“All God’s miracles begin with impossible commands”
But remember that what seems impossible to us is the everyday move of God
This is always God’s way. He asks us to believe the unbelievable… and as soon as we do He’ll release the power in us to effect the change. In a micro-millisecond – between the time this man’s faith prompted the nerve impulse from his brain to his legs – God supplied the strength he previously lacked. The lame man who needed help just to crawl into the pool, now puts his faith in Jesus, and suddenly this once crippled man is able to walk all the way home!
Something very important and It’s also interesting to note, That there were other needy people scattered around the pool that day, but Jesus didn’t heal any of them. John tells us He healed only one. And the question is “why?”…The health and prosperity teachers would have us believe that if you are one of the chosen people, if you really believe in Jesus, you will be blessed with health, wealth. And when they are not healed or someone in their life isn’t healed they begin to turn away from God. But here is the real answer that the others were not healed that day. The answer, “we don’t know.” You see Beloved When we talk about healing we come face to face with God’s sovereignty. God heals one person and allows the other more godly and holy person to die. Why? The bottom line is that healing is God’s prerogative. We have no right to question His purpose.
Notice the last line of verse 9, “And that day was the Sabbath.” Jesus could have healed this lame man six other days of the week, but He chose Shabbat. In verse 8 when Jesus tells the lame man “Take up your bed and walk” He uses an interesting Greek word for “walk.” It means “to walk around, take a stroll.” Jesus wanted the man to show off his new legs. Apparently, Jesus wanted everybody to see this miracle and to take notice that it was done on the Sabbath. Verse 10 tells us Jesus got the attention He desired. “The Jews therefore said to him who was cured, “It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed.”
You see, According to the Talmud, the rabbinical commentary on the law, there were 39 tasks that were prohibited on the Sabbath. Here is religion in a nutshell. A miracle gets ignored, while the guy who was healed is criticized for carrying a bedroll on the wrong day. Legalism is sad. In a person’s zeal to keep the rules they can become irrational, even contradictory. A legalist often keeps a rule that’s in conflict with that rule’s real intention.
And we don’t need to go any further than our own political system where politicians twist what laws were meant to be.
The Jews questioned the formerly lame man, and he reported what happened, “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 that place.” Notice that the Religious leaders should have rushed him to the temple and offered the right sacrifice of thanksgiving that this man had been healed but instead it says nothing.
They left him there all alone but notice, the most fantastic thing about Jesus.
Jesus sought him out.
“Afterward 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.”
Jesus went to find him, and he found him, and he revealed himself to him.
Interestingly, Jesus returns to finish what He started in this man’s life. He didn’t heal his lame legs so those legs could return to sin. The man’s healing was only the first step in His cleansing. Jesus tells this man to “sin no more.” Also Notice, with the command to pick up his bed and walk, Jesus also gave him the power to do so and now as he commands him to “Sin no more”
He also will give him the power to turn away from that which kept him in chains for so long.
Jesus would say to you and he would say to me
Pick up your bed and walk—Its a choice–are you in sin right now , let Jesus take that burden from you today, Call on him and he will come, turn from your sin and sin no more and ask Jesus into your heart and believe that he has cleansed you and made you whole.
All he had to do was to hear Jesus voice
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God
Amen
Victor Tafoya
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