John chapter 5 and I want to
read the first 16 verses. After this there was a feast
of the Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is at
Jerusalem by the sheep gate or sheep market a pool which is
called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda having five porches. In these
lay a great multitude of impotent, sick people, sick folk, blind,
halt, lame, withered, waiting for the moving of the water.
For an angel went down at a certain season, a certain time, unto
the pool, and troubled the waters. Whosoever then first, after the
troubling of the water, stepped in, was made whole of whatsoever
disease he had. And a certain man was there which
had not an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lie
and knew that he had been a long time in that case, he said unto
him, Will thou be made whole? The impotent man answered him,
Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me
into the pool. But while I am coming, another
steppeth down before me. Jesus said unto him, Rise, take
up thy bed, and walk. And immediately the man was made
whole, and took up his bed, and walked. And on the same day was
the Sabbath. The Jews therefore said unto
him that was cured, It is the Sabbath day. It is not lawful
for thee to carry thy bed. He answered them, He that made
me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed, and walk. Then asked they him, What man
is it that which said unto thee, Take up thy bed, and walk? And
he that was healed knew not who it was. For Jesus had conveyed
himself away, a multitude being in that place. Afterward Jesus
findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art
made whole. Sin no more, lest a worse thing
come unto thee. The man departed and told the
Jews that it was Jesus which had made him whole. And therefore
did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay Him, because
He had done these things on the Sabbath day. We are not for sure here in verse
1 what feast this was. Nobody knows. We speculate, but
nobody really knows. In the second chapter of this
book, John talked about it being the time of the Passover. And
if that feast in chapter 2 was the time of the Passover, then
this could have been the Pentecost. The feast of Pentecost was 50
days after the Passover. The Lord Jesus had left Jerusalem,
went up into Galilee, and came back down again. This may have
been the feast of the Pentecost. But we don't know. But one of
the things that I noticed as John was writing here, he made
this peculiar statement, and nobody else takes notice of this
but John. And he mentions this several
times. And I want to mention this to
you. I think there's a message here behind this. You notice
how he says this here in verse 1, a feast of the Jews. Whichever
feast it was, he calls it a feast of the Jews. And John does this
in different passages. Listen to what he said in chapter
2 verse 13, And the Jews' Passover was at hand. The Jews' Passover.
And then again in chapter 6 verse 4, And the Passover, a feast
of the Jews, was nigh. And then in chapter 11 and verse
55, the Jews' Passover was at hand. And then in chapter 7,
verse 2, he says, Now the Jews' feast of tabernacles was at hand. The Jews' feast. He continually
addressed this as that which belonged to the Jews. Now why
did I make mention of this? Well, I want you to turn to the
23rd chapter of Leviticus. Put you a little marker in our
text because we'll come back to that. But I want you to look
when all of these feasts were first given. And you find them
in so many places in the book of Moses. But in the 23rd chapter
of Leviticus, He gives all the feasts. In this one chapter,
He gives all of the feasts that the children of Israel were to
keep within the year. You can read these for yourself,
the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of the Firstfruits,
when they brought in their firstfruits just to give praise and thanksgiving,
Pentecost, the Feast of Trumpets, the Feast of the Atonement, the
Feast of Tabernacles. All of these feast days are listed
in the 23rd chapter of Leviticus, but I want you to notice how
Moses, how the Lord, what He says about these feasts. Look
in the 23rd chapter and look here in verses 1 and verse 2. Notice this. And the Lord spake
unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say
unto them concerning the feast of the Lord. See that? the Feast of the Lord, which
ye shall proclaim to be holy confiscations, even these are
My Feast." Notice how he says that? And look in verse 4 and
look in verse 5. And these are the Feast of the
Lord, even holy confiscations, which ye shall proclaim in their
seasons. in the fourteenth day of the
first month at evening is the Lord's Passover." Now see the
distinction? John says these are the Jewish
Feast. But when they were first given,
the Lord says, these are My Feast. It's My Passover. It's My Pentecost. It's My Feast of Engathering. They are my feasts. Why is that
important? There were no more of the Jews'
feasts than there were your feasts. Or my feasts. These were feasts
of the Lord. And He calls them His feasts
because they were symbolic of something. They were pictures
of something to teach you and me of spiritual lessons. What were these feasts? They are symbols of who? Of Jesus Christ, the Son of God
and that redemption which was by Him. For instance, what was
the Day of Atonement? What happened on the Day of Atonement?
A priest took blood from an animal and he went into the holiest
of all and he sprinkled the blood on the mercy seat. And by doing
so, he obtained an atonement for the children of Israel. And
the Scripture says that on the Day of Atonement, nobody was
to do any work. They were to be careful to do
no work at all while the priest by himself went into the most
holy place and obtained that atonement before God. Now what
does that symbolize? But Jesus Christ upon the cross
obtaining eternal redemption, Wayne, for His people. Day of atonement. The feast day. What was the Passover? What was
the Passover anyway? We know when the Lord first instituted
the Passover, it was down in Egypt. Remember that? They were
ready to come out of Egypt and the Lord appeared to Moses and
said, Go tell the people that at midnight I'm going to pass
through the land of Egypt and I'm going to destroy every firstborn.
And here's the way I'm going to save you. This is the way
I'm going to pass over you. That's why it's called the Passover.
He said take the blood of a lamb and sprinkle it over the door
post and on the side post. And when I see the blood, I will
pass over you. What does this Passover symbolize? Jesus Christ and His blood. That when God looks upon His
children, He passes over them. His wrath does not come upon
them to crush them and kill them. When I see the blood, when He
sees me, He sees the blood of the Lamb. He sees me as worthy
and not as I am. See why He called it My Feast. This is My Passover. This Pentecost that we read about
in this chapter took place 50 days after the Passover. You remember what Pentecost is,
don't you? What happened 50 days after the Lord Jesus Christ said
it's finished? 50 days after that, the Holy
Spirit of promise came. The Holy Spirit of promise came.
That's what happened at the day of Pentecost. the Spirit of promise
to regenerate us, to reveal Christ to us, to seal us. This is my
feast. This is not your feast. This
is my feast. Why did John then call it the
Feast of the Jews? The Feast of the Jews Passover.
The Feast of the Jews Pentecost. Could it be that they never saw
Christ in these feasts? Could it be that they had so
left the Lord Jesus Christ, they had so lost the knowledge of
the Son of God, that when they kept these feasts, they never
saw Him in it at all? They just kept the feasts to
be keeping them. They never saw Christ there.
They never believed in Christ. And when we've lost Christ, it
becomes our feast, doesn't it? Without Him, it's something of
our own doing, something of our own making. Sometimes when we
talk about the Jewish Sabbath, that's what we call it, the Jewish
Sabbath. But look here in verse 3 of chapter
23. It wasn't the Jewish Sabbath
at all. Look in verse 3, 6 days shall work be done, but the seventh
day is the sabbath of rest. Now holy convocation, ye shall
do no work therein, it is the sabbath of the Lord in all your
dwelling. It's not the Jewish sabbath.
That's what they called it. But it was the sabbath of the
Lord. We read about three Sabbaths
in the Scriptures and they're so important. What is a Sabbath? What was it? It was rest, wasn't
it? It's when people rested. Do you
remember who first rested? God rested, didn't He? Remember
when He made the heavens and made the earth and everything
in it? In six days it comes the seventh day and God sanctified. He set apart the seventh day
and He rested from all His works. And then you don't hear anything
else about a Sabbath until he revealed it to the children of
Israel by Moses and said, listen, from now on, you're going to
work six days, you're going to rest your mind, you're going
to rest your body on the Sabbath day. So they did that. They practiced
that. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
come, there was another Sabbath institution. A Sabbath of rest. And here's what he says about
that in Hebrews chapter 4. Listen to this. Let us fear,
lest the promise be left to us of entering into His rest. His rest. Any of you should seem
to come short of it, for we which have believed do enter unto rest. As He said, I have sworn in My
wrath, if they shall enter unto My rest." Just as God finished
His work of creation and rested, and the Jews worked six days
and rested on the cross of Calvary, the Son of God finished Atonement
for sin. He put it away and said, It's
finished. Ain't that what He said? And
the Bible says He raised from the dead and He sat down on the
right hand of God. He has entered unto His rest. Sabbath. And He says, Come unto
Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest. That's the Sabbath. It's not
a Jewish Sabbath any more than it's our Sabbath.
What a sad indictment against the Jewish nation that they had
so corrupted the Feast of the Lord that John now says, It's
yours. It's yours. You've so corrupted
it. You've so lost Christ out of
it. It's yours. It's yours. It ain't the Lord's anymore. I saw a sign just the other day
on a church and it said this, next Sunday is biker day. Next Sunday is biker day. No
it's not. Next Sunday is the Lord's day.
It's the Lord's day. You can change it to biker's
day if you please. It's your day. then, it's worthless
then, but this is the Lord's day, is it not? What are we doing
here? This is the Lord's day. This
is the day that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, raised from the
dead, the first day of the week. The day that He revealed Himself
to His apostles. And a week later, on a Sunday
morning, they were gathered just like we are, and he stuck out
his hands to Thomas and said, ìThomas, behold my hand, and
behold my side.î You know that was on the Lordís Day. And fifty days later, forty days
later, The blessed Holy Spirit came from heaven and filled all
of those 120 people. That's the Lord's Day. John was
in the Spirit on the Lord's Day. This is not backers' day. This
is the Lord's Day. Some of you tell me the other
night about they're going to have a cowboy church. Somebody's
telling me about a cowboy church. Ain't that awful? Cowboy church? Well, the true church is not
cowboy church. The true church is the church
that God purchased with His own blood. You got a cowboy church,
it's your church. It ain't His. You got a biker
day, it's your day. It's not His. He'll not own it.
He'll not own it. These things are symbolic. They represent Jesus Christ and
His redemption. And when the Jews took it and
made it their own and left Christ out of it, John said, It's yours. It's yours. Brother Mahan was telling us
about a fellow visiting one of the local congregations. And
they were coming to the Lord's table having communion. And he
was sitting there and one of the deacons brought back by the
bread and the cup. And the man, the visitor, reached
up to get the bread and the cup. And the guy pulled it back and
he said, You can't come to our table. You can't come to our
table. And the man said, I'm so sorry.
I didn't know it was yours. I didn't know it was yours. Brothers
and sisters, I appreciate anybody trying to guard the Lord's table.
But after all, it's not my table. It's not your table. It's not
the church's table. This is my body, which is broken
for you. This is my blood. Paul calls
it the table of the Lord. Does he not? When we miss Christ,
when we open the Bible anywhere and we miss Him, then we miss
everything. And all we're left with is what's
ours. It ain't fit for having, is it?
This ain't my church. How's Bruce's church doing? It
ain't going to do no good. I'm just telling you that right
now. But the Lord's church, doing very well. Thank you. Doing very
well. The feast of the Jews. What a
sad indictment against the Jewish nation. Look back over my text
now. Quickly, back in my text, in
John chapter 5. First of all, look at this in
verse 2. Now there is at Jerusalem by
the sheep market, sheep gate, a pool which is called in the
Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a
great multitude of impotent folk, blind, haunt, withered, waiting
for the movement of the water. First of all, I just want you
to consider this. It's said this so many times,
and I want to read a few verses of Scripture. It was amazing. If you read through the Gospels,
at the number of people who were sick in this nation, and the
number of people who were possessed of demons, The Lord Jesus spent
at least three years and almost daily He was healing diseases
and casting out devils. And when He finished His work,
there were still a lot of people sick and a lot of people possessed. Don't you wonder what was going
on? That's just a tiny place. Look at it on the map. And for
one man to spend three years healing people and casting out
devils. Ain't that amazing? Listen to
some of these passages. Let me read them to you and how
the Scriptures say it. A great multitude came unto Him,
having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, with
many others, and cast them down at Jesus' feet, and He healed
them. Great multitudes. Listen to this
place. For He had healed many inasmuch
that they pressed upon Him. For to touch Him, as many had
plagues, unclean spirits, when they saw Him, they fell down
before Him and cried out, Thou art the Son of God. And listen
to another place, And devils also came out of many, crying
out and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God. And he rebuked
them and commanded them to hold their peace. Listen to this.
And in that same hour He cured many of their infirmities and
plagues and evil spirits, and to them which were blind He gave
sight. But when Jesus knew it, He withdrew
Himself from thence, and great multitudes followed Him, and
He healed them all." Now that's just a few Scriptures, and I
don't want to worry you with them, but we could go page after
page after page that said multitude and many. were sick, and he names
all sorts of diseases, and they were possessed with devils. What
in the world was going on in this little country? Well, I
want to show you one more verse of Scripture. I want you to look
with me over what we've been studying on Wednesday night.
Look over in Deuteronomy chapter 28. Look at this, because this
is important. This is important. a country
or an individual that thinks they can go on in
habitual, open, and profane sin against the Lord and disobedience
to Him and prosper, it ain't going to happen. It ain't going
to happen. I was down in Tennessee this
week. I have a sister that's in awful mental and physical
condition. They're in the nursing home.
And I went into that nursing home. I mean, there was wings
going everywhere over that place, a huge nursing home. And as I
walked down them halls, down that hallway, I was reminded
what I'm reminded up here when I go to the hospital is some
of these nursing homes. I've never in my life seen so many
sick people. I mean, people laying on their
beds don't know a thing. Have to dope them up for pain.
You see them laying out in the hallways on the little cot with
their mouths wide open. Don't even know where they're
at. Some of them laying there almost naked. They've lost their
dignity. And I told my sisters, I said,
what's taking place in this huge nursing home right here is taking
place in all over our nation. We're plagued, aren't we? with
all kinds of sickness. What happened to this Jewish
nation? Look here what the Lord tells us. Look here in Deuteronomy
chapter 28 and look in verse 58. If thou observe
to do all the words of this law that are written in this book,
that thou mayest fear his glorious and fearful name, the Lord thy
God, Then the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful. If you
fear Him not, you don't reverence Him, you don't obey Him, then
the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful, extraordinary. And the plagues of thy seed,
even great plagues, and of long continuance, and sore sicknesses,
and of long continuance. Moreover, he shall bring upon
thee all the diseases of Egypt, which thou wast afraid of, and
they shall cleave unto thee. Also every sickness and every
plague that is not written in the book of this law Then will
the Lord bring upon thee until thou be destroyed. And ye shall be left few in number
wherein ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude, because
thou wouldest not obey the voice of the Lord thy God." This is
exactly what happened. This is a fulfillment of this
prediction. When the Lord Jesus come, the
nation was filled with all kinds of loathsome diseases. And the
one that they feared more than any other was the worst disease
that God ever sent upon Egypt, and that was evil spirits. Psalms
chapter 78 and verse 16. He sent among them evil spirits. That's what had happened. That's
what had happened. It's happening today, is it not?
Boy, there's a consequence to sin, is there not? Is there not? We think as a country, as a nation,
and I'm not trying to talk about Christian nation, but you know
what the scripture says? The nation that forgets God will
be turned into hell. There's consequences, isn't it?
To not reverence God, not to own Him. This is what happened
to the Jewish nation. That's the first thing I want
to consider there. The second thing, and even in
the light of that, is this miracle here that we read of in verse
4. For when an angel went down at
a certain season, a certain time unto the pool, and troubled the
waters, and whosoever then first after the troubling of the water
stepped into was made whole of whatsoever plague they had. What an undeniable miracle this
was. Not just once. If it only happened
one time, you may explain it away. But it happened at different
times, different intervals. At certain seasons, the angel
went down and troubled the water. Not all the time. If it had been
all the time, you may have explained it away. Something about this
water. But at certain times, the angel went down and troubled
the water, and not everybody was healed. But the first one in that pool,
after the angel troubled the water, they were healed. And notice this, whatever disease
they had was healed. Now that's amazing. We've had
little springs of water in our country and other countries.
They said, if you'll come here and, you know, get in this water,
it'll heal certain skin diseases and that. Most times that don't
even work. But this healed a man of whatever diseases they had. Blindness? Get in a pool of water
and it healed your lameness? That's a miracle, is it not?
And you see all of these things taken together here, you'll say,
my goodness, this was a miracle, this was astonishing. And add to this the name of the
place, Bethesda. You know what that means? House
of kindness, house of mercies, Bethesda. All these sick folks,
multitudes of them, lay there. And an angel went down and he
stirred and troubled that water. And they watched for the trouble
of the water. And then the first one that got in there was healed. If he was blind, he could see.
If he was lame, he could walk. If he had leprosy, he was cleansed.
Whatever it was, a house of mercy. What can you and I learn from
this? We can learn this, that even in a time of wrath, There is mercy with the Lord.
A multitude afflicted under the judgment of sin, and yet there
is mercy. Multitudes lay dying, but some
were healed. We learn this, that if God was
willing and able to show mercy to such miserable folks who was
physically destitute, And He did it through the medium of
an angel. Is He not willing and is He not
able to show mercy to our poor souls through His darling Son? If He was able to heal the physical
plague through the means of water, is He not able to heal the plagues
of our hearts? by the means of His grace through
the Lord Jesus Christ. If this water healed their bodies,
how much more that fountain that's been opened will heal the plagues
of a man's soul. And listen to this, not just
for the first that comes, but for everybody that comes, from
the first to the last, Why would God even do such a thing as we
find in this passage? But to show us and encourage
us that He is willing to show mercy and is able to show mercy,
even miraculous mercy, even when it seems there is nothing but
judgment all around us. And when there is nobody that
can do us any good, not one man, This was a miracle, wasn't it?
But why was it even there? We don't even know anything else
about it. Some have even denied this even happened. They said,
well, it's not in some of the best manuscripts. I think we've
got a pretty good manuscript. It's in ours, ain't it? And they said, well, Josephus
never wrote about it. Josephus never wrote about a
lot of things in the Bible. I think if somebody would have
saw John have lied about this, when he wrote this in the first
century, they'd say, John, that never happened. They knew it
happened. They don't know when it started
happening. They don't know when it quit happening. But it happened.
And why did it happen? God showed us by this that He
is a God of mercy, even in the time of judgment. that God can
heal. He's a miraculous God. It took a miracle to hang the
stars in space. It took a miracle to put the
world in place. But when He saved my soul, cleansed
and made me whole, it took a miracle of love and grace. Bruce, you
just don't know what it's going to take to save me. Yes, I do.
I know absolutely what it's going to take to save you. It's going
to take God to save you. It's going to take mercy to save
you. It's going to take merit to save
you. It's going to take power to save you. It's going to take
a miracle to save you. That's what it's going to take.
I know that. But God does miracles. That's
what He's teaching us. He does miracles. even in the
most evil day, where so many are dying under the judgment
of God. Now look at verse 6. Ain't this
strange how the Lord asked these questions? It would be an interesting
study sometime if you and I went through the Scripture and just
looked at the questions the Lord asked. In verse 6, look what
He said. And when Jesus saw him lie and
knew that he had been a long time in that case, He said unto
him, Be made whole. Isn't that a strange question?
Of course he would be made whole. That's why he was laying there.
Why does the Lord ask this question? Brother Henry Mahan had an interesting
comment on this. He said this, the question is
asked to focus the man's attention on his need. Will you be made
whole? Man, he was sick, wasn't he?
Look at yourself. Look at yourself. Do you want deliverance from
yourself, from your sickness? Will you be made whole? You're
dying! Do you want to be made whole? Henry said, number two,
he asked this question to focus this man's attention on his total
inability to make himself whole. Will you be made whole? When
the Lord asked him that, don't you think this despairing thought
went into his heart? I can't. I've tried. I've got nobody to help me. And then Henry said this thirdly,
to focus his attention on the Savior who addressed him. These are three important questions,
Henry said. These are three important things
that the Spirit brings every sinner to salvation. One, our
great need, our helpless state, and the power and presence of
the One who can save us. That's why he asked him that.
Let me ask you a question this morning, dear soul. Will you
be saved? Will you be saved? Will you be
made whole? That's a good question for you
to contemplate, is it not? Will you be delivered from the
kingdom of darkness? Do you want to be? Do you will
to be? Sir, I have no man. Boy, that's a true statement.
But who needs a man anyway? Who needs a man? We're talking
about salvation. Who needs a mere man? I don't
need a man to do anything for me. Do you? I don't need somebody
to get me to repeat a prayer after Him. What good is that
going to do me? I don't need a man to baptize
me. I don't need a church to join. I need a Savior to save
me. And that's what He said. Sir,
I have no man. You don't need a man. You need Me. He needs me to save
you. That's what you need. Every time
somebody gets under conviction, you know what the first thing
they do? Run to a man. That's the first thing they do.
I did it. I did it. Run to a man. Run to the pastor.
He couldn't help me, and I'm glad he didn't even think he
could help me. He said, you've got to go to
the Savior. He can save you. Old Bob Dylan. I can't understand
the thing anymore, Bob Dylan says. I can't hear it very well,
but he wrote a good song. This is what he said. Nobody
to rescue me, nobody to dare. I was going down for the last
time, but by His mercy I've been spared. Not by works, by faith
in Him is all. So long I've been hindered, for
so long I've been stalled. Now I'm saved. by the blood of
the Lamb. I have no man. He's the only
man you need. He's the only man you need. Find
yourself complete in Him, and you'll agree with that statement.
You don't need anybody else. It comes down to it, you can
walk along. You're going to die along. You're going to stand
before Him in the judgment along. He's all you need when it comes
to salvation. Ain't that so? Lord, I have no
man. Verses 8 and 9 right quickly,
look at this. And Jesus said unto him, Rise,
take up thy bed, and walk. And immediately the man was made
whole, and took up his bed, and walked. And on the same day was
the Sabbath. Jesus said unto him, Rise. Thirty-eight years this man lay
in there. What about his weakness? You
imagine his little tiny legs, He hadn't used them in 38 years.
And here He says, get up. And not only get up, when you
get up, reach back down, take your bed and carry it with you.
How can this be? No therapy? And He did it. Did He not? With a command comes grace to
do it. That's the difference, is it
not? I could have said, man, take up your bed and walk. He
couldn't have done it. But when the Lord comes to us
and says, get up and follow Me, you can get up and follow Him.
When He says, believe in Me, trust Me, you can do it. Because with the commandment
comes the grace to do it. We don't have to sit and wonder,
how am I going to come to Christ? How am I going to believe on
Him? How am I going to deny myself and follow Him? When He tells
us to do it with a grace, with that commandment that comes with
grace. Do it! And you'll discover the grace
and do it. Do it! Do it! I can't believe
Him. I can't repent. I can't follow
Him. I can't deny myself. I can't
resist evil, but I've done it for over 40 years because He said for me to do
it. And every time He tells you to do something, He gives you
grace to do it. Come to Me. Then come to Him. You're going
to prove when you come to Him that He's given you grace to
come. When you believe on Him and follow Him, you're going
to prove that He's given you grace to do it. If you stay set
where you're at, you don't get up and come to Him, you ain't
going to prove you've obtained grace from Him. That's just a
mere profession, is it not? When a person comes to Christ,
and as a person follows Christ, I mean when the going gets tough,
bud, when the weight is heavy, and the valley is long, and the
hills are rough, and you just keep following Him. You know
what you're proving? His command. Follow Me. And those
who don't do it, just proving they have no grace in their hearts.
With the command comes the grace to do it. Follow Me. Thirty-eight years. He never
even asked, Lord, are You sure about this? Lord, how is this
going to work? I can't understand this. Give
me some fillings. Give me a sign. Give me something."
You know what he did? He just got up, tucked his bed
and put it on his shoulders and walked. That's all a man needs
to do, is it not? Stop all this questioning. How? And all this other stuff. Just
do it. Just do it. Before you leave this building
this morning, if you're here without the Son of God, then
give yourself up to Him. You say, how do I do it? Just
do it! Look to Him through the eye of faith and be saved. Just
do it. Then you'll see grace. What a strange reaction here
in verse 10. Look at this. Now this is strange.
The Jews therefore said unto him that was cured. It is the
Sabbath day. It is not lawful for thee to
carry thy bed. Isn't that strange? Thirty-eight
years this man laid in this condition. And don't you think some of these
Jews knew him? If they didn't, shame on them
for a man to lay thirty-eight years and these fellows never
see him, never know him. And that's strange, I think,
for this to be his first question. Their first question. It's not
lawful for you to carry your bed. What would have been your
first question? If you knew this guy for 38 years,
then suddenly you saw him and there he was packing it, wouldn't
you have said, praise God, what in the world has happened to
your man? Let me look at you. Let me examine you. Is this you? What has happened? Wouldn't that have been your
reaction? It's not lawful for you to carry your bed. I tell you, religion will make
a fool out of you, won't it? It will make a fool out of you.
It will make you so legalistic, it will make you so self-righteous,
and I tell you, it will make you dangerous. It will make you
dangerous. They not only started questioning
Him there in verse 16, they sought to slay the Lord Jesus Himself. Because he had broken their Sabbath.
He didn't break the Sabbath. It hadn't been a sin to do that,
would it? Some have their own criterias,
don't they? Of judging people and their salvation. They got their acid tests. And
boy, they get hung up on this. And when they do, they get so
pathetic. I know some fellows, I mean,
Mr. Baker does. We've talked with
them, visited with them. You know what their first question
to this man would have been? Do you believe God's predestinated
everything? Do you believe God loves everybody?
Do you believe Jesus died for everybody? Huh? Huh? Isn't that
amazing? I had a friend. Man, he's a bad
guy. I worked in the steel mills with
him. Boy, you go in some of the steel places. The work is so
hard, you get some rough fellas in there. Man, I've seen guys
shoot at each other and beat each other. When a man didn't
come to work, you didn't know if he's sick or dead. One man,
a friend of mine I was working with, he didn't come in. I said,
where's old Jim? They said his wife killed him last night. It's a rough place to work. Don't
lie, cuss, swear. I had a fella I worked with,
and man, he was rough. He was rough. He come in one
morning, he said, the Lord has saved me. The Lord has saved
me. He's washed me. He's forgiven
me of my sin. And buddy, every day, every day,
you could see the change in that man's life. And every day, he
just give the Lord the glory for it. That's all he wouldn't
talk about. You reckon the Lord really saved
that fellow? All he knew was he was a sinner
and Christ was his Savior. I'm telling you, that's all he
knew. What kind of question should I have asked that man? I just
took him at his word and his life proved it. How silly. How silly. It's not lawful for you to carry
your bag. Oh, how silly. Don't we get silly? Don't let
religion make us silly. If you see a man that loves Christ
and dependent upon His merit, He's following the Savior. Take
Him at His Word until He proves you different. Don't try to examine
Him so thoroughly that you condemn Him and discourage Him. Verse 14, and we'll quit. I tell you, this tells us here
that our Lord is no ordinary man, doesn't it? Afterward, Jesus
finds him in the temple and said unto him, Behold, thou art made
whole. Sin no more, lest a worse thing
come upon thee. This seems to imply here that
this man's sickness had come upon him because of some personal
sin, doesn't it? And the Lord knew it. We don't
know it. But he did, and the Lord knew
it. He knows everything that's past,
doesn't He? There's nothing in our past life
that He doesn't know. And there's nothing in the future
that He doesn't know, lest a worse thing come upon you in the future. You know, sometimes lost people,
they mistake. They make this statement. I've
heard lost people make this statement. It doesn't matter what I do.
It doesn't matter how I live. It doesn't matter how often I
sin against God. I'm not saved anyway. It does. It does. We've got it recorded
in the Scripture that sometimes there are men who go over the
line and God brings judgment upon them. He does. It does matter what
a person does. And this man here had been involved
in some sin, and the Lord had saved him from it. And now notice
what he says. Don't you go back to that. Don't
you go back to that life, to that sin, lest a worse thing
come upon you. The Lord told the lady in chapter
8 of this book, in verse 11, Go and sin no more. She had been
taken in adultery, and He forgave her. Now He says, Go and sin
no more. The Lord knows us, doesn't He?
He knows us. He knows the weakness of our
frame. He knows that we're still depraved.
We have this awful nature. Even when He saves us, we still
have this awful nature. And sometimes we grow very presumptuous. And we have these thoughts that
wonder, well, I think I'll just go do this, and I think I'll
go do that. And we even plan to do it, don't
we? You know how the Lord often keeps us? Go sin no more, lest a worse
thing come on you. Does He ever keep you that way?
Aren't you afraid of sin? And one reason you're afraid
of sin is because you're afraid He'll take you away from Him.
You're afraid you'll grieve Him or bring His judgment upon you. Aren't you afraid? I will put
my fear in their hearts. and they shall not depart from
me." I'm afraid, aren't you? David said, Lord, keep me from
presumptuous sin. Keep me from even thinking that
I've got the liberty to serve my sins. Will we sin? I don't know of anybody that
don't. Do you? But what sin ever done good for
you? Has it not grieved your heart? Has it not brought some
heartaches in the long hours of the night? Has it not brought
tears? Has it not brought doubts? What good has sin ever done for
us? No. Go and sin no more. Don't talk about and don't think
about the life He saved you from. It's the past. It's gone. Don't
go back to it. Don't even think about it. Look
forward to Him. Plead to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Sin no more. That's the worst thing to come
upon you. And here's the way the Apostle
Paul said it. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an
evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. But exhort
one another, encourage one another daily, daily, while it's called
today, lest any be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. God bless His Word to your hearts.