We'll go back now to John 5 with
me, please. I chose that hymn this morning.
I did not remember that third verse, take my life and make
it. holy thine. And the title of this message,
of the text is, the Lord said, Wilt thou be made whole? Wilt thou be made whole? We just sang that. Lord, make
it holy thine. Make me. This story begins with
the words, after this, verse 1, after this, the Lord Jesus
Christ had just walked many miles. He walked everywhere, unless
he was in a boat or a ship. But he had just walked many miles
from Jerusalem. I just thought of the verse,
how beautiful are the feet. His blessed feet more callous
than anyone else's, perhaps more dirty, and none purer like his. He just walked from Jerusalem
to Samaria, a little town called Sychar in Samaria. He must, needs
go to Samaria. There was a certain woman there
that he met at a well, and he had mercy on. Then he went up
to Cana. He walked several more miles
up to Cana. But he went up to Cana in Galilee
to heal a nobleman's son. Then he walked back all the way
to Jerusalem, 35 or 40 miles. What I'm trying to show you is
what great lengths the Lord goes to to show mercy. And if He doesn't,
we won't come to Him. If He doesn't go after His sheep.
This is Jehovah-Raha, the shepherd, the great shepherd who said,
I will both search my sheep and I will seek them out. I'll find
them. He'll leave the ninety and nine, What a shepherd. What a great
shepherd. He said, I am come to seek and
to save that which was lost. And he finds them, every one.
After this, every waking hour of his day, every step he took,
every word he spoke, every gesture he made, every act of his hands,
Every step he took was in the direction of saving his people,
of showing mercy. This is the merciful Lord. He's
come to show mercy. He's come to save sinners. People
that don't even know they need saving and don't want to be. Verse 2, now he was at Jerusalem
by the sheep market incidentally. The reason he went there at this
feast is because this is the law keeper. This is the Lord
who came to fulfill the law for us, and he must fulfill all righteousness. It was required of the Jews to
keep every feast, and he did. He did. That's just a footnote.
You see how everything testifies of him? that he came to Jerusalem. There was at Jerusalem by the
sheep gate, the place where the sheep were brought into Jerusalem
to be sacrificed. There was a pool. Who is this? Who is this that's walking up
to Jerusalem? Who is this? John came and preached
and said, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin
of the world. Every one of us must have a lamb. Every man must
have a lamb. Without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission of sin. Unless we have a lamb, a substitute
for our sins, we'll die in our sin. John said, Behold the Lamb
of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Not die for everybody
in the world, but dies for every tribe, nation, kindred, and tongue,
and people in the world. Shed his precious blood for everyone
the Father gave him. This is the Lamb of God. So he
went in the sheep gate. There were several gates around
Jerusalem. He went in the sheep gate. He
said in John 10, he said, He that entereth in by the door
is the shepherd of the sheep. There was a pool. There was a
pool of water there, a pool at Bethesda. In the Hebrew tongue,
it's called Bethesda, which means a house of mercy. A house of mercy. Now, this house,
this place, this pool we're going to see had no magical powers. It had no ability whatsoever
to heal anybody. You're going to say, well, doesn't
it say that The fact of the matter is, the Lord is the one who heals. The Lord is the one who saves.
Not things. Not men. Not thing. But the Lord
does it. This house of mercy was a place
of mercy because the Lord was there. This man found mercy this
day because the Lord was there. Christ is the mercy of God. Christ
is the pool. The fountain. in which we plunge
and are made clean of all our diseases. He is the mercy of
God. Mercy. He went up to a well and
sat on a well, Jacob's well. Jacob's well. Well, that well
is dry now. It's not there anymore. And he
said to a woman as he sat on the well, he said, you drink
this water and you'll thirst again. But the water I give you,
It'll be a well spring of water springing up. You'll never thirst
again. He is the water of life. He is the mercy of God. He is
the well. All our springs are in Him. He
never runs dry. He is the pool of water. He is
the water of life. He is the mercy of God, the house,
the place we find mercy. Well, look at verse 2. It says
there were five porches. And in these porches, verse 3,
lay a great multitude of impotent folk, powerless folk. They were
blind, they couldn't see. They were halt, they couldn't
walk. They were withered. Everything about them was twisted,
and they couldn't do anything as they would or should. And
there were all of them, a vast multitude, many people, waiting
for the moving of the water. Now, I'm not going to try to
explain this, but just read it to you. This is what it says.
There was an angel who went down at a certain season into the
pool and troubled the water, and whosoever first got in, the
first person in after the troubling of the water that stepped in
was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. See, it wasn't
the water then at all. It was the angel. who is surely
a picture of the Spirit of God. Nevertheless, this really happened,
and a true story, or it wouldn't be written. The Lord wouldn't
have written this if it were not so. But that pool is not
there anymore, and nor is there anything any place that we can
go and get in a pool or any place we can go to receive a miracle
from a certain place. There are no magical, mysterious,
miraculous places on earth where you can go and get a miracle
from the Lord and be healed. No, sir. No more. Not since Jesus
Christ came. And that's the reason for that.
There are no more. There were. This is a true story.
But since Christ came, we don't need those places. Nobody needs
to go anywhere. You sit right where you are and
call upon Him who's in heaven, who is the Lord that heals us. He's the one. Christ is all.
He's the angel of mercy. Christ is the angel of mercy.
He's the Lord that heals us. Like in this story, it says there
were a vast multitude of people laying on these porches waiting
on this miracle to happen. Waiting on the moving of the
water. Vast multitude. And this is a picture of humanity
right here. Of man, mankind. Everybody's
waiting on a miracle to happen. Everybody's going places, visiting
various places to try to find a miracle. There are people over
in the Far East that journey every year. Mohammed told them
to go to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, where supposedly Abraham lived
or whatever, where the Prophet rose up. And so by the millions,
they go over to Mecca and sit around this black box, waiting
on a miracle. There are just as many people
who travel to the Holy Land, they call it, to Jerusalem, to
Israel, and they go into an empty tomb. the supposed to be the
tomb of Christ, when the angel said long time ago, don't seek
the living among the dead. He's not here. He's not in Jerusalem. Don't say he's here. He's there.
No, I'll tell you where he is. He's seated at the right hand
of the majesty on high. You don't need to go to the Holy
Land. It's not holy. It's just dirt. Had a man The
other day I was over at somebody's house and this man was there
and they introduced me as a preacher. I always hate that, but they
do. And that man immediately told
me, first thing out of his mouth was, I've been to the Holy Land
five times. Big deal. What good did it do
you? You can go there 5,000 times
and it won't do you any good. It's no more holy than Franklin
County. But people are ignorant. That's
where they go. They're blind. Why do people
do that? They're blind. Why don't we go there? To see Christ is all. Why are they listening to people?
You need to do this. You need to do that. They're deaf. Why do we not hear a stranger's
voice? We don't hear what Christ said. Whatever He says, that's
what we do. Because He's given us ears. There are people that
travel places, they're waiting on shrines, sitting at shrines. There are people all over, even
right now, sitting below a statue of a woman. And some of them,
they say, cries at certain seasons. You've read this story. Bleeds,
you know. Why aren't we sitting at those
places? These people won't do that anymore.
This man won't go to this pool anymore. After this is over,
you won't find him laying on the porch waiting on the water
to move. People lying in the plaza of
St. Peter's Basilica waiting on some papa to come bless them.
He can't bless. No man can bless us. They were impotent, it says.
Impotent. This is a picture of humanity.
We're all impotent. Powerless, that's what that means.
Powerless to do anything for ourselves. We're powerless, especially
to save our souls, but we're actually powerless to do anything. Our Lord said, without me you
can do nothing. We don't provide for ourselves.
We don't feed ourselves. We don't clothe ourselves. We
don't keep ourselves. We don't do any of that. The
Lord does these things. He gets all the glory, but men
don't give him that. I didn't. And even worse than
that, people take credit for and are proud of and take the
glory for what the Lord does. That's the worst thing of all. They were impotent. They were
powerless, as are we. We can't know God. We can't know
the way to God. We can't see God. We can't hear
God. We can't understand His word.
We can't repent. We can't believe. We can't walk
by faith. We can't see the truth. We can't
hear it. We're powerless. God is Spirit. We can't see Spirit.
We're flesh. And no man can make us do that
either. No man. Nobody can convince us. You cannot convince anyone. Only the Lord. and reveal the
truth. You know, most people don't believe
this story. Most people don't believe the
Bible. Most people have no use for this book. Most people believe
this is just a bunch of Jewish fables. They think Jesus of Nazareth
was a good man, a healer, a prophet of some kind. They like some
of the things he said. Not all of them, mind you. But
they don't believe the miracles. I told you about Thomas Jefferson,
whom everyone honored so highly. He did not believe in the miracles
of our Lord, and he cut them all out of the Bible. He didn't
like them. He took them out. That's nothing new under the
sun. Jehoiakim the king did that too. But people all over don't believe
this story, they don't believe this Bible, and they certainly
don't believe when a man stands up and says, you are powerless,
you are impotent, you are blind, you are halt, you are lame, you
are nothing and nobody, you are evil. Your heart is evil and
desperately wicked. Can the Ethiopian change his
skin? Can the leper change his spot? Neither can you. The preacher
said, do evil or do good which are accustomed to do evil. People
sure don't believe that. Oh no, not me. Powerless? Well, I'll have you know. And the fact that they don't
believe this is proof that they are. The fact that they don't
see the truth proves that they are blind. In every congregation
and every time people meet together under the sound of the truth,
there is someone in there that's blind and halt and lame. We're all looking at this book,
but some even here right now look at these words and don't
see it. Don't see it. There are some
that do not walk by faith, do not walk with God, do not walk
with the people of God. You won't find them with the
people of God. You'll find them out in the world.
There are some who have a mind, but it doesn't work right. It
doesn't think on God. They have a heart, but it's not
set on things above, as our brother prayed. They have a heart, but
it's not for God who made it. No, it's withered. It's dead,
it's deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. In every
congregation, like here, it was full of impotent folk, blind,
halt, withered, waiting. They had eyes, but they couldn't
see. They had ears, but they couldn't
hear. They had feet, but they couldn't walk. And a mind and
a heart, but they just didn't know Jesus Christ. didn't know
their need of Him at all. I think about myself, and Lord's
mercy to me. You didn't know me when I was
a young man. The only ones in here who knew
me when I was a teenager and a young man in my early twenties
were my parents and my wife and maybe Tammy Jo there. No one
else knew me or saw me then. Most people look at me and see
me and they think I've been like this all my life. A preacher. Well, you don't realize I was
just like the youth in our generation now. Just like them. I was born in the 50s. I was
raised in the 60s, which was one of the most turbulent times
in the history of this world. as much so, maybe more so, than
now. It opened the floodgate to what's
happening now. The Sixties. Child of the Seventies. A full-blown wild man. I looked the part. I acted the
part. And the amazing thing is, I thought
I looked okay. I thought that I was doing all
right. I thought I was wise. I thought that I understood things
that my parents did. I thought I was too smart for
this old gospel that my father preached. I thought that I had
risen above that, that he couldn't teach me anything. I now am an
enlightened person. I couldn't see that I was following
the crowd over the cliff. I was blind. I could not see
that what I thought made me an individual actually made me just
like everybody else. That I couldn't do what I wanted
for wanting to please everybody else, to not be different. I couldn't see what I was doing
to myself. I was so blind. I was so maimed,
I was so withered, I couldn't see that I had dug a pit and
I was in it. And I'm telling you right now,
the only reason I'm standing here and not in that pit is because
this same Lord came by one day to this certain man, certain
rebel and rotten, filthy, vile, And it was a time of love. And
he said, live, rise, walk. Come with me. I'm going to get
you out of this muck and this mire. I'm going to get you out
of this pit that you dug and put yourself in. Verse 5 says, there was a certain
man, and I just told the whole story. But verse 5, there's a
certain man was there. There's a whole crowd of people,
a vast multitude, but it says a certain man there. You know,
this is the heart and soul of the truth. The truth begins with
God's sovereign electing grace. The gospel, the Bible, begins
with God before the world began choosing a people to save out
of this This pit of corruption calls humanity, this present
evil world, the Lord in mercy and love and grace, setting His
love upon some of these unlovely creatures and choosing to save
them. For whom He did for them, no,
He predestinated. Whom He predestinated, He called. Whom He called, He justified.
Whom He justified, He lifted them out of the pit and glorified
them. He was like everybody else, wasn't
he? There was nothing good in him.
There was nothing about him that made him to differ than the others.
But the Lord saw him. A certain man was there. It says
he had an infirmity 38 years. 38 years. He was impotent, lying. How many years did he come and
lie on those porches waiting on the water? You know, sitting in the pew,
religion is just as lost as people out in the world. People in the
pew, so many people in the pew are just as blind and just as
hot and just as withered as people lying in the ditch. There are
people just as lost in religion today as those out there, homeless
people, lying on a steam grate in New York. It's true. Can't see. They can't see. They need mercy.
They can't see Christ. They just can't see themselves
for what they are, think they're this way and think they're that
way. Thirty-eight years this man had
this infirmity. How long were you in religion?
How long were some of you in religion? Huh? When the Lord
came in the gospel and saw you. How long? Some of you, a long
time. Thirty-eight years? Forty? Fifty?
I was in my twenties, laying in my filth for twenty-some years. A long time. Thirty-eight years.
When will a man be saved? That's what we heard this morning,
when it pleases the Lord. And no case is too long. No one's
too old. No one is too filthy. They can lie a long time in the
pit. When the Lord says it's time,
they're coming out. Oh, they say he's stinking now.
You'll never raise him. A certain man was there 38 years,
a certain chosen man. The foundation of God stands
sure having this seal. The Lord knows them that are
His. He is my choice. He is my gift. Oh, the Father
giveth me. He is my purchase, redemption's
price. He is my covenant made with the
Father. They are mine. Mine are thine,
and thine are mine, and they are all coming. These are things Luke said most
surely believed among us, and we know it's so because we know
if he hadn't chosen us. Those who have been brought out
of the pit know if he hadn't come to us, we wouldn't have
come to him. If he hadn't chosen us, we wouldn't
have chosen him. If he hadn't opened our eyes,
we'd still be just as blind as we were. If he hadn't opened
our ears, we wouldn't want to hear the truth. We'd turn away
our ears from it. We know this is so. And this
is the first thing we heard, wasn't it, Brother Henry? God
chose a people. It's a good thing He did. To
the praise of the glory of His grace, because they won't choose
Him. This young fellow didn't want. I wish you'd have seen me so
you can appreciate it now. What happened? It says, when
Jesus saw him lying there. Who saw who? This man is laying on a porch,
and there are people all around him, laying all around him, a
vast multitude of people. There are people standing all
around. There's a pool of water. He's lying there. He can't see
anything. He can't see the pool. If the
water starts moving, he couldn't see it. Somebody had to tell
him, the water's moving, hurry! But he's impotent. He can't get
in it if he could. If he would, he can't see it.
There are blind people laying there. They can't see it. The
water starts moving. They can't see it. They're maimed. If they could
see it, they can't get in it. Do you hear me? What's their hope? Jesus Christ came by and saw
this man lying there, helpless, hopeless, impotent. Christ saw
him first. Christ laid His eyes on him first. Christ looked on him in mercy
and love and grace first. The man didn't see him. If he
did see him, he didn't know who he was. If he saw the Lord come,
and the Lord... Man, the vast multitude of people. And this is me. This is you. The Lord and this vast multitude
of people passed by this person, passed by that person, passed
by this person, passed by that person, came right up to this
man. To this man. Why that man? He's better than the rest of
them. No! Later on, this man is going
to be shouting Praise. Why me? Out of this mass of humanity. Why did he come up to me? Is that you? Passed by them all,
came up to this man and set his love and his affection, his eyes
on this man. This man's going to rise. This
certain man. I saw him, the man, if the man
had looked up and saw Christ standing there, he didn't see
anything in him. He didn't know who he was. He
didn't know why he was there. The Lord knows him very well.
Aren't you glad? No, it undergone all his work.
We don't know. Oh, my. He saw him lie, and it
says in verse 6, it says, he saw him lie and knew he'd been
that way a long time in that case. He knew his case. He knew him a long time ago,
and he knew his case. You see, this is the great position.
This is Jehovah-Rapha, the Lord that healeth us. He knows our
case. Because presented to him before
the world began, the Great Physician was presented to him everyone's
case set before him. And he knew what he was going
to do. He knew when he was going to do it, how he was going to
do it. He knew everyone's infirmity. He knew how to deal with them
all. The Great Physician came to earth, and they were all brought
before him in that covenant of mercy determined by him as this
man, and he came to save him. all the way from glory, all the
way from heaven. He who was rich became poor. He who was magnified and honored
and glorified and loved became unloved, derided. Why? Why did He come here? To save that man? Now, that's
just the basis of it. That's just amazing. That's the Lord, isn't it? And
he asked this man one thing. Verse 6. He asked this man one
thing. Will thou be made whole? Holy. Will you be made without
infirmity? Will you Be made. You can't do it. You've got to
be made. Will you be made holy without
sin? Do you want to be made holy,
unblameable, unapprovable in God's sight? Do you want to be
without sin? Or do you want to lie there forever? Do you want to lie there in your
filth? Or will you be made holy? You can't do it. You've got to
be made that way. Well, what do you want? Will
you be made holy? What a question. Do you know
why I didn't come to church when I was a young teenager, a young
man? I didn't want to be made holy. I like this world and what I
was doing just fine. I don't want that. I don't need
that. Yes, you do. No, I don't. I don't
want that. Why don't people come to hear
the Gospel? Why don't people come? They don't
want it. I don't want that. The Lord has
to change, give us a new heart, doesn't He? The Lord has to give
us eyes to see ourselves for what we are. Look at, look at
this, look at me. The Lord has to give us a nose,
or that is, a savor to say, I'm filthy. Will you be made whole? God's
people will be made willing on the day of His power. What I'm
doing right now, this gospel, this man did it years ago, and
one day, I was sitting in the church house
with my wife-to-be and didn't necessarily want to be there. You're looking at somebody that's
real thankful for sovereign election, sovereign grace, sovereign mercy.
Real thankful that I wouldn't be here. Wilt thou be made whole? Do you want to be made well?
Do you want to walk? Do you want to rise up off this dirty porch?
Do you want to be brought out of this mass of sinful humanity,
be made whole, complete, sinless, holy, righteous? Do you want
to be like Jesus Christ? Or do you like lying there like
that? If you're lost, do you want to
be found? If you're blind, do you want to be made to see? If
you're a leper, that leper said, Lord, I want to be clean. If you're religious and in bondage,
do you want to be made free? Be made free? You've got to be
made that way. You've got to be set free. If
the Son sets you free, you're free indeed. The impotent man answered. Here's
his confession. And here's mine. Here's ours,
believers. Verse 7, the impotent man said,
the powerless man said, the man full of infirmity, lying there
in his filth, his pollution, says, Sir, I have no man. Nobody
can do anything for me. Nobody. I have no man, he said,
when the water is troubled to put me into the pool. And while
I'm coming, I'll try to crawl, I'll try to get there, but somebody
gets there before me. Every time. I can't do it. I can't make it. Nobody can help me. That's a
good place to be. You know? It's the only place
to be to find mercy. The only place. I have no man.
I can't. No man can help me. I can't get up. Can't get in
the water. If I try, Have you ever thought? Every one of God's people think
this sometimes. They think, oh, if anybody gets
in, everybody's going to get to glory but me. Everybody's going to get there
but me. I can't. I'm powerless. I'm impotent. No man can. You mean you can't
get up? You can't move, you can't see,
you can't help yourself and nobody else can help you? You've tried
and nobody can help you at all, huh? You're completely powerless? Yes, Lord. Yes, sir. That's me. No man. I can't do anything. Here's the
Lord's answer. Rise. Happy Quicken, who were what? Dead. Dead in trespassing sin. You, who walked according to
the course of His Word, were by nature children of wrath,
even as others. But God. He came by, through
the Gospel, one day, and it was a time of love, and He said,
Wrath. Live. You're coming out of this
pit. I've found a ransom. lifted me
up out of the miry clay. Rise. He raised us, quickened
us together with Christ. Oh, it's by grace you're saved.
He said, take up your bed. Verse 8, take up your bed. You
don't need that anymore. That thing he was lying on, that
old refuge, you know, lots of people looking back to the moving
of the water. You know how many Baptists there
are that look back on the moving of the water when they got in
the baptismal pool? Yep, I was baptized when I was
a kid. You know how many millions of people have been baptized
and are lost? I have real mixed emotions when I do that with
people. Sometimes it's a wonderful thing. Other times I think, boy,
I hope this is real. Like marriage. How long is this
going to last? It won't save a flea moving of
the water. You've got to look to Christ.
You've got to live on Christ. You've got to walk with Him,
believe Him, trust Him. Move into water? No, that's not
it. Oh, my. Rise and walk. Take up that bed,
that refuge that you were lying on, that thing you were trusting
in. Take that and throw it away like a rag, a filthy rag, like
a blind barter mail. And he said, walk. And immediately,
verse 9, immediately it says the man was made whole. If someone
trusts Christ and believes Christ and looks to Christ and calls
on Christ and believes Christ, how long does it take for them
to be saved? Is it a progressive work? If
someone trusts Christ, they hear His Word, they hear His command,
and they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, then they've got
to go through this progressive sanctification or this progressive
walk that if they walk right enough, long enough, He'll finally
pronounce them whole? No. No. Immediately. You are complete in Him. Complete in Him. Whole. Holy, unblameable, and unreprovable
in God's sight. But, but, but, but God. No ifs, ands, and buts about
it. All the promises of God in Him are yay. Now you're clean,
the Lord said. Peter said, wash me all over.
He said, you're clean. Your feet need washing. You're
clean through the Word. I said, Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and thou shalt be saved. He that believeth on the Son
hath life and shall never perish. Never perish. Right now. Immediately. Believe.
Trust. Look to Him. Right now. Right
now. And be you saved. And walk. The man did. He couldn't. But he did. He walked. Where'd he go? Where'd he go? Look down at verse 14. Afterward,
Jesus finds him in the temple. The Lord left him. As soon as
the Lord healed him, there was this crowd of people, and the
Lord disappeared. Does that sound familiar? He
always did that. He had other people to tend to.
But as we said this morning, he didn't leave his man. Oh,
no. This man, he'll never leave him. But this man's got to walk. I bet the first thing he did
was went home and told his wife or whoever it was, look, look,
look. The Lord did this and went to
the temple. After that, the first place he
went was to the temple. What did he go there for? To
thank God. You'd never find him there before.
You'd never find him there before. When the Lord found him, that's
where you'll find him. The Lord makes a man walk with
Him. He'll walk with His people. He'll
walk into the house of the Lord. They saw me coming into God's
house and said, well, would you look at that? Last person I thought to sit
in here. That's a miracle. And then the Lord, I close with
this, the Lord said to the man, verse 14, He said, Behold, thou
art made whole. He confirms it, doesn't He? And
the Lord does that through His Word to His people. You're whole. You're whole. How? I made you
that way. You're complete in me. He keeps
confirming that. Aren't you glad, John? He keeps
confirming that. You're whole. But, hold on. Sin no more. Lest the worst thing come upon
you. The Lord doesn't condone sin. Save us in it and stay there. Save us from it. The woman, the
altruist woman, he said, I don't condemn you. No one said no more. He's predestinated people to
be holy, to be like him. That's why he came to save us
from sin. Not so we can still lie in it.
You think the man wanted to go lie on that porch again? No,
that's the last place he wanted to be seen. The last place. Did
he see Him? Did he? Do you? It's not what you want to do,
is it? That which I would, I do not. That which I would not,
that's what I do. And the Lord can't condone that.
Now, whose fault is it? It's not His. It's mine. But
listen, I'm not going to leave you there. Look, little children,
these things have I written unto you that you sin not. He said
the consequences, the guilt, the shame, that which comes upon
you is worse than it was before. You feel more guilt and shame.
You didn't have any before. Now you'll feel more than ever.
And the consequences, because of the reproach you bring on
your Lord, will be much, much greater. And the grief, much,
much deeper. The sorrow and the pain caused
to so many will be much, much, much harder than ever. But is
there forgiveness for them? Little children don't sin, they
say. But if any man sins, we have an answer. Can a man go
back and lie? Yeah. Will the Lord come back and get
him? Yes. Praise be His holy name. Yes,
He will. Come unto me. Come unto me. All right. All glory to the Lord
Jesus Christ. Let's sing number 235. 235. You know, each Lord said,
Will thou be made whole? And I chose all these hymns