Good morning, brothers and sisters.
For our call to worship today will be in Revelation chapter
21. Revelation chapter 21. And I saw a new heaven and a
new earth. For the first heaven and the
first earth were passed away, and there was no more seed. And
I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God
out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And
I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, behold, the tabernacle
of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall
be his people, and God himself shall be with them and be their
God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and
there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying. Neither shall there be any more
pain, for the former things are passed away. And he that sat
upon the throne said, behold, I make all things new. And he
said unto me, write, for these words are true and faithful.
And he said unto me, it is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning
and the end. I will give unto him that is
a thirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that
overcometh shall inherit all things, and I will be his God,
and he shall be my son. O most holy, perfect Heavenly
Father, we thank you, Lord, for raising the candlestick here
all these years, for giving us a faithful pastor, Lord, to give
forth your message. We'd ask you bless the words
we'd heard this morning to our hearts, open our ears, Lord,
soften our hearts that we might be able to see through a glass
darkly. Be with our brother as he brings forth a second message
this morning, Lord, cause it to go forth with power and truth.
We'd ask, Lord, you be with us all that struggle, have infirmities. Enter indeed, Lord, we're in
need of the mercy that only you can provide. We know that all
your promises are yea and amen, Lord. You said, I'll never leave
you, I'll never forsake you. Cause us, Lord, to believe this
in our hearts. We thank you for all these things,
thou most holy and perfect name, amen. Number 11 in your Gospel Hymn,
Spiral Hymnbook, and let's stand together once again. Number 11. ? With broken heart and contrite
side ? ? A trembling sinner, Lord, I cry ? ? Thy pardoning
grace is rich and free ? ? O God, be merciful to me ? ? I smite upon my troubled breast
? ? With deep and conscious guilt oppressed ? ? Christ and his
cross my only plea ? ? O God be merciful to me ? ? No works
nor deeds that I have done ? Can for a single sin atone ? To Christ
the Lord alone I flee ? O God be merciful to me And when redeemed
from sin and hell, with all the ransomed throng I dwell, my raptured
song shall ever be, God has been merciful to me. Please be seated. Let's open our Bibles to John
chapter 5. John chapter 5. Our Lord asks, A crippled man at the pool of
Bethesda, wilt thou be made whole? And my hope and prayer this morning
is that the Lord would drive that question home. to each one
of our hearts. Wilt thou be made whole? Will you be made whole? John chapter five, verse one. After this, there was a feast
of the Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And we know that there's much
symbolism in the Bible. And though we don't know which
one of these feasts, it was an Old Testament feast that the
Lord went to Jerusalem faithfully, as the law required, he came
in order to fulfill the law. But we don't know which feast
this was. The feast of Passover, was it the feast of Pentecost?
We don't know. But the symbolism of this is that he is not a Jew
which is one outwardly. And circumcision is not that
which is of the flesh. But he is a Jew which is one
inwardly. And circumcision is that which
is done in the heart by the Spirit of God. So we read here of an
event that took place where our Lord goes up to Jerusalem and
he attends an Old Testament feast. Everything about that feast,
whichever one it was, pointed to him. And here's our comfort. Mark, you just read it in Revelation
that Jerusalem, the city of peace, is the church. John saw that
new Jerusalem coming down from heaven. And I'm reminded of what
the Jews said when they said, we be the children of Abraham.
What did the Lord Jesus say? God can raise up from these stones,
children of Abraham. And that's exactly what he did
in the new birth. When he took Gentiles who by
nature had a heart of stone and he made them the children of
Abraham. True Jews are believers. True Jerusalem is the church. And whenever the Jews go up to
Jerusalem to meet together, the Lord Jesus said, where two or
three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst
of them. So here's the symbolism of this
miracle. the Lord Jesus attends all the
feast of the Jews. And he's among us. And his promise is to do for
us what he did for this man who laid cripple for 38 years. 38 years, another symbolic thing
in this story. If you read the Old Testament
account of the children of Israel from the time that Moses sent
Joshua and Caleb and the other 10 spies in to spy out the promised
land from Kadesh Barnea. You remember they came back and
10 of the spies said, no, we can't do it. And Joshua and Caleb
said, God promised, let's go. And for the next 38 years, the
children of Israel, the scripture tells us, 38 years exactly, they
wandered in the wilderness before they all died off. All the adults
from that day, they were 20 years and older, died in the wilderness. And Joshua, brought them across
the Jordan into the promised land. Oh, what glorious symbolism
we have. This world in which we live is
a dying world. Our flesh is dying. There's nothing
here but death. How we are dependent upon our
Joshua, the Lord Jesus, to take us across that Jordan River,
the river of death, And we will lay here and wander here in this
world for 38 years. 38 years, just like they did. Unless the Lord comes and in
the power of his Holy Spirit says to our hearts, will thou
be made whole? The Jerusalem that is from above
is free, is free. Free to believe God, free to
worship him, free from the condemnation of the law, free to love. free from death. After this, there was a feast
of the Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. It didn't matter
Southeast, North or West, what direction you were traveling
from. And Jerusalem was not the highest elevation of all the
land in the area. But in the Bible, anytime someone
traveled to Jerusalem, they always went up. They always went up. And so it is today. There's no
higher ground than the ground that we're standing on right
now. There's no greater place of hope and peace, Jerusalem. The city of peace. And we have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. He came to make
peace. We can't make peace with God
for ourselves. We can't atone for our sins.
That's why Christ came. What a high and lofty place this
Jerusalem is. And we all came here today from
different directions, but spiritually speaking, we all traveled up.
to come from our homes to this place. And the Lord has promised to
be here and to meet with us. Now there is at Jerusalem a sheep. Now you see the word market is
in italics. because it's not in the original
text. The translators put the word
market there but I believe the word gate is the word that ought
to be there. Sheep gate. And even historically,
we have found a watering pool near the sheep gate. There were
gates going into the city of Jerusalem and the sheep gate
is the gate that they brought in the sacrificial lambs to be
sacrificed on the altar. And the sheep gate is the very
gate that the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, went out when
he went to Golgotha to be crucified. So here's the significance here.
By the sheep gate. And the Lord Jesus said, I am
not only the good shepherd, but I am the gate into the sheepfold. And any man that comes in any
other way is a thief and a robber. We must come in to Jerusalem
through Christ. When that new Jerusalem comes
down from heaven, we see it with 12 gates. Three pointing north, three south,
three east, three west. And the scripture says they're
all made of one pearl, the pearl of great price. Oh, God's word
is just full, isn't it? Everything about it points us
to him. And so now there is at Jerusalem
by the sheep gate a pool which is called in the Hebrew tongue,
Bethesda, the house of mercy, the house of mercy. Mercy, as
we saw in the previous hour by its very definition, means that I can't find any reason
in myself, why? you should have mercy upon me. Mercy is a confession. It is a dependence. It is an
acknowledgement of our need for him to find a reason in himself
to save us. And that's what the Lord said,
I will have mercy upon them for my namesake, for my namesake. So here we come. seeking mercy. And we sit here today in Jerusalem
at the Sheep Gate looking, well, look at what it says. And in
these lay a great multitude of impotent folk without power. Lord, I have no power to save
myself. I have no power to produce anything that would merit your
favor or obligate you in any way. I'm depending completely
on your mercy. I'm impotent, blind. Lord, I can't see. I can't see
myself for what I am. I can't see you for who you are. I can't see how you would save
me unless you open the eyes of my understanding. and reveal
to me in the light of the gospel what you have done to save your
people in Christ. And allow me, enable me to look
up and to set my affections on things above where Christ is
seated at the right hand of God. Lord, I've got to have spiritual
eyes. I can see physically. And if you leave me to myself,
I'll depend upon what I see physically for the hope of my salvation.
And I'll look to my good works and I'll look to my will and
I'll look to my wisdom. I'll look to those things that
the natural man looks to. Halt. Lord, I can't move. I can't move. I'm paralyzed. I'm paralyzed. You think about
that man at the gate called Beautiful in the early chapters of Acts
when Peter and John are going into the temple and they see
a man there begging for alms. He's halt, he's crippled, he
can't stand. He's paralyzed. And what did
Peter say? Silver and gold have we none
but such as we have. Give I unto thee in the name
of Jesus of Nazareth stand and walk. And he leaped to his feet.
And the first time he was able, if you were crippled, you couldn't
go into the temple. You had to stay outside. He was
lame. He was not fit for worship. You and I are not fit to come
into the presence of God unless the Lord speaks and says in the
name of Jesus of Nazareth, stand and walk. Then we can leap for
joy and go into the presence of God. You see, this is the miracle
that we need right now, isn't it? This is you and me. This is us. We're at the Pool
of Bethesda, withered. We saw in the previous hour that
when something's broken, it doesn't work. If a man has a withered
arm, he can't work with it. There we are Lord, we're just
withered up. We can't work. Waiting. Waiting for the moving of the
water. Now the next verse, you'll read commentators that will go
to great extent, great lengths to try to describe what's going
on here. We interpret the Bible by the
Bible. Just as we saw the 38 years parallels to the 38 years
in the wilderness, there is nothing in scripture beyond what the
Bible tells us in this one verse as to what was going on here.
And so we just accept what God says. I don't understand it,
I don't know, but there it is. If it was something that was
superstitious, if it was something that had some other explanation,
we could find that in the Bible, there's no place. And so what
do we believe about this verse? We believe exactly what God said
about it. And we see even in this some
great symbolism. Let's read this verse together.
For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled
the water, wheresoever then first after the troubling of the water
stepped in, whosoever, I'm sorry, then first, after the troubling
of the water stepped in, was made whole of whatsoever disease
he had." So you have all these sick people. I mean, you can
just imagine. They didn't have the medical
care that we have. These people would have been
beggars, they would have been dirty, they would have been Smelly,
crippled, oozing sores. Spiritually speaking, it's us.
It's us. And they're waiting. They're
waiting for an angel to come down and stir the water. Now, I don't doubt that that's
exactly what was happening. And I don't know when it happened,
how often it happened. How it happened, except for what
God says here. An angel came down, stirred the
water, first one in was healed. But I know this symbolically,
it's what we're doing right now. For the water is the word of
God. And an angel is nothing but a
messenger. And what are we doing right now? We're trying to stir
the water. We're just trying to stir the
water. We're elaborating what God says
in his word in hopes that he would stir the water. The Lord would give us grace. And there were five porches in
this place. And the number five in the Bible
is a number for grace. And so here we are right now.
Lord, would you stir the water of your word in my heart? Would you cause me to see and
to believe what you have said here about Jerusalem? About Bethesda? About the feast
of the Jews? about what you promised to be
among us when we gather together. And Lord, that you would speak
truth and peace and hope and grace to my heart and enable
me to look to Christ and rest all my hope and salvation in
Him. Lord, would you do that? And a certain man, a certain
man, was there which had an infirmity 30 and eight years. Lord, I live
in a wilderness. I'm as unbelieving as those 10
spies were. Lord, if you leave me to myself,
if you leave me sitting here waiting, I'll wait until I die
in the wilderness. And when Jesus saw him lie, Now
there's no telling how many people were here. I'm sure the word
of this place and this miracle was broadcast and people came
from all over. What do we see here? Sovereign
election is what we see. Why didn't the Lord Jesus get
up on a pedestal As he did later in John chapter
7 when he cried to the whole crowd, if any man thirst, let
him come unto me and out of his belly shall flow rivers of living
water. But here he goes to one, all
these pitiful, miserable people and he didn't stand and announce
himself for who he was. He went quietly and privately
to one man, a certain man. Lord, I need to be that certain
man. I need you to single me out. Lord, I'm poor, I'm blind,
I'm hot, I'm needy, I'm sinful. And when Jesus saw him lie, and
knew that he had now been a long time in that case, he said unto
him, wilt thou be made whole? Are you willing to be made whole? Now, let's compare scripture
to scripture here when it comes to the willingness of the heart
to be made whole. Because the Bible is clear. When
God says, I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy. And on
whom I will, I will have compassion. And whom I will, I'll harden.
It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth. But
it is of God that showeth mercy. The Lord's not saying if you're
willing, If you can find it in your heart, a willingness to
be saved, then I'll save you. That would be contrary to everything
that we see in the scripture. Willingness is not a condition
for salvation. It is the evidence of it. It's the evidence of it. Turn with me to Revelation 22.
Verse 16. And I, Jesus, have sent mine
angel to testify unto you. Is this not the same miracle?
Stirring the water of God's word, waiting for the Lord to testify unto you these things
in the churches, Jerusalem, the holy city. And what are they
testifying? What does the angel testify?
What am I trying to testify? I am the root and the offspring
of David, the bright and morning star. I'm the cause of your salvation
and I am the result of your salvation. My glory is the result of your
salvation. And the Spirit and the Bride,
the Spirit of God and the Church, the Bride of Christ, what do
they say? Come, come. And let him that heareth say,
come. Let him who heareth say, come.
The one who has heard is saying to others, come. And let him that is a thirst,
come. You thirsty? You lead a horse to water but
you can't make him drink, right? Well, in another place, Believers and the gospel is called
salt of the earth. You feed a whore salt and they
get thirsty and they'll come drink. That what we're doing? That what we're hoping God will
do? Lord, feed me the salt of the gospel. Make me thirsty. And whosoever will, Let him take the water of life
freely. Freely. In Psalm 110 verse 3, God says,
and thy people shall be made willing in the day of thy power. If you're willing, come. If you're
thirsty, drink. But know that your willingness
to come and your thirst to drink is not a decision that you made.
It is a work of grace that God did for you. It is the evidence
of your salvation, not the cause of it. There's a big difference here
because that gives to God all the glory, doesn't it? And what
the Lord's asking you and me and what He's asking this man,
wilt thou be made whole? Wilt thou be made whole? If you
make something, the materials from which you make it get no
credit for what's been made. It's the maker that gets all
the credit. If I go to my shop and I take some wood and I cut
it to shape and I put it together and I build something, that wood
didn't have a single thing to do with it. If you go into your
kitchen and you take eggs and flour and sugar and put them
together in the right formula, that cake didn't have, those
raw materials didn't have anything to do with the perfection of
that cake. That all is to the glory of and
the hands of the maker. Wilt thou be made whole? Will you be saved in such a way
that the maker gets all the glory? Will you be passive in your salvation? Will you see yourself as the
materials that the creator uses to bring about salvation? You
see, men don't want to be saved that way. Now I want to have
something to say about how much of this flower goes into the
bowl. I want to have something to say about how long this piece
of wood ought to be. I want some contribution to make
in my salvation. No! You can't be made whole. Willed, are you willing? Are
you willing to be saved in such a way that God gets all the glory? Wilt thou be made whole? Complete? Or are you going to wait? 38 years, you wait and life is over. You're still
waiting. Waiting for what? Waiting for the stirring of the
water. I'm waiting for a feeling. I'm waiting for an experience.
I'm waiting for more knowledge. I'm waiting for whatever. People wait. And then they die. Like all the
rest of these people that were right there at the pool of Bethesda,
the house of mercy. They came. The Lord Jesus was
there as he is among us right now. He promised to be, I believe
he is. We've asked Him to send His Spirit. He hears the prayers of His children.
And there are some here that are waiting for something other
than the Lord Jesus. He's already here. You're waiting
for an experience. Waiting for a feeling. Oh, you listen to people's religious
experiences. And you think, well, if I could
have an experience like that. Waiting for a miracle. Waiting
for a sign. Waiting for some proof. All the
proof that we have is right here in God's Word. All the proof
we need. Faith just believes God. And
faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the Word of God. Wilt thou personal be made Made
whole. Will you be saved in such a way
that God gets all the glory for it? Will you be saved in such
a way as to give Him all the glory for having elected you
and chosen you in the covenant of grace outside of anything?
Will you be saved in such a way that what Christ did 2,000 years
ago, long before you were ever thought of, accomplished what
God required for your redemption? Will you be saved in such a way
that God will have mercy upon whom he will have mercy? And that he'll come in the day
of his power and make you willing? The Lord, I am willing. Well,
the Lord's come. That's the evidence. You're willing to be made whole? What more evidence do you need?
God made you willing. Well, I'm not willing for that.
Well then, you're just waiting. Wait forever. Men hate God. They do. And you do too, by nature. That's how we come into this
world, God-haters. We come into this world wanting
some credit and some glory and some contribution to make. You realize how ridiculous the
theory of evolution is, don't you? You listen to these scientists
and how the thing made by God made itself. Oh, it took billions
of years but that little single-celled
organism somehow grew into a salamander that crawled out of the water
and somehow it grew wings and became a bird and then eventually
it became a monkey and finally, you know, it just, it made itself,
it evolved. Here we are. Oh, you look at
the details of creation and things as we, no way that made itself. God made every part of it. But
what is the testimony of? It's testimony of man's hatred
for creator. And just as they hate him in
creating physical life, so they hate him in creating spiritual
life. I want to evolve into this thing. I'm going to get a little better.
I'm going to do harder. I'm going to work harder. I'm
going to do better. And I'm going to evolve into a good Christian
one day. Well, then you won't be made
whole. That's why the Lord Jesus is
saying to you and to me right now, will, are you willing? If you are, God made you willing
to be made, created, Because you're without form and void,
and the darkness is upon the face of the deep. And God has
to say, let there be light. God has to intervene. God has
to make you, God has to do it all. And he gets all the glory. Well, I don't want anything to
do with that. Why? Because you hate God. Oh, we'll come back at a convenient
time. Isn't that what Felix said? Almost thou hath persuaded me
to become a Christian. I think I'll just wait a little
longer. Well, you wait 38 years and they
all died in the wilderness and Joshua and Caleb were the only
two adults. Moses didn't even make it into
the promised land. Moses is a picture of the law,
he died on the east side of Jordan. Joshua and Caleb, the Lord Jesus
and the faithful dog, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
only two adults that were there 38 years ago that were able to
come across the Jordan into the promised land. And Joshua, the
Lord Jesus and his bride, the church, Caleb, the faithful dogs,
faithful dogs. A faithful dog is right there
at the feet of its master. A faithful dog says, Lord, just
feed me the crumbs that come from the master's table. Truth,
Lord, I'm a dog. Truth, Lord, I can't do anything
for myself. Yes, Lord, I would be made whole,
whole, complete. Well, you know, I want the Lord
to fix this or that, you know, and I'd like to, I'd like to,
I'd like to make it to heaven when I die, but be made whole? What is it to be made whole?
If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. Old things are
passed away. Yea, all things have become new. Everything in
your life is going to be changed. Everything in your life is going
to be affected. You're going to think different. You're going
to believe different. Oh, you're still going to be
a sinner. But I'm just telling you that to be made whole means
that nothing's the same anymore. Well, I don't want that. I want
to have some control over why you, well, then you're not willing
to be made whole and you'll die in the wilderness. Lord, I need you to take over
everything in my life. You see, this man had the pity
of others. He never had to work a day in
his life. He relied upon the other people given to him. You'll be made whole, that means
you're going to have to take responsibility for yourself. You don't have
to go to work. You're not going to have the
pity of other people for the rest of your life. You've never had to go to war.
I remember when I was a very young
man, a Vietnam draft, and my brother got his draft papers. He was two years older than me.
Mom's coming next. I joined before they drafted
me, so I didn't have to go to war. I'd get to go over there
and fight in that place. But my brother got a medical
deferment. and he didn't have to go. This man had a medical deferment.
He didn't have to go to war. You're willing to be made whole
and you realize that from this moment forward for the rest of
your life there's going to be a spiritual battle that you're
going to be engaged in. You've never had to fight that
war before. You've just given into your flesh and done what
you wanted and now you're going to have two natures. Now the
flesh is gonna war against the spirit and the spirit against
the flesh the rest of your life. You're gonna be in a spiritual
conflict with yourself. You're gonna be a contradiction
to yourself. I don't want that. All right. Die in the wilderness. Brethren, This is a high mountain
we're on right now. This is the city of peace. This is where we have peace with
God through the Lord Jesus Christ who's promised to be with us.
This is the pool of Bethesda, the house of mercy. This is where
mercy beggars come. Mercy means that I can't find
any reason in myself why you should have mercy upon me. I
just need your mercy. This is where the angel comes
and stirs the water. This is the place where God speaks
to the halt and the crippled and says to them, wilt thou be
made whole? Complete? Scripture says that the Lord
Jesus is the fullness of the Godhead bodily and you are complete
in Him. Complete, perfectly whole in
Him. So that as He is, so I don't
want that, I want to work for mine. I want it freely given
to me. I don't want to just be made
whole. I want to put some effort into
this thing. You die in the wilderness. You
die right at the Pool of Bethesda. Men die sitting right at the
House of Mercy in the city of Jerusalem. They die because they
will not be made That's a work of grace, isn't
it? You see, if you and I are willing
to be made whole, he gets all the glory for that. Our Heavenly Father, thank you
for the piercing questions that you have given us in your Word. And Lord, we ask that your Holy
Spirit would pierce our hearts and cause us to be made willing
and made whole. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. 168, let's stand together. Let's stand together for this
hymn and then we'll sing another hymn seated. 168. ? Lord, I hear of showers of blessing
? Thou art scattering full and free ? Showers the thirsty land
refreshing ? Let some drops now fall on me ? Even me, even me
? Let Thy blessing fall on me Bless me not, O tender Savior,
let me love and cling to Thee. I am longing for Thy favor, whilst
Thou art calling, O call me, even me. in me. Let thy blessing fall
on me. ? Pass me not, O mighty Spirit
? Thou canst make the blind to see ? Witnesser of Jesus' merit
? Speak the word of power to me ? Even me, even me ? Let thy
blessing fall on me ? Love of God so pure and changeless ?
Blood of Christ so rich and free ? Grace of God so strong and
boundless ? Magnify them all in me ? Even me ? Even me ? Let
thy blessing fall on me ? Pass me not thy lost one bringing
? Bind my heart O Lord to thee ? While the streams of life are
springing ? Blessing others O bless me Please be seated. For Lord's
Table, we'll sing hymn number 17 in your Spiral Gospel Hymns
hymn book. Number 17.