Our God heals! Those are comforting words, aren’t they? When we, or a loved one, are sick or injured, we want to know that God will heal us. The fact is, though, God doesn’t always heal the way we want Him to, nor does He always heal when we want Him to. What the Scriptures teach is that God doesn’t heal according to our purposes -- God heals according to His purposes. Is that still a comforting thought? This week we read about Jesus healing a man who had been an invalid for 38 years. As the story unfolds, we’ll get to see the purpose behind Jesus performing this miracle of healing, and we can ask ourselves, do we have faith that His purpose is always good? Speaker: Pastor Tom Hendrikse.
5:1 After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic1 called Bethesda,2 which has five roofed colonnades. 3 In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed.3 5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” 7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” 9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.
Now that day was the Sabbath. 10 So the Jews4 said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” 11 But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’” 12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” 13 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. 14 Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.
[1] 5:2
[2] 5:2
[3] 5:3
[4] 5:10
(ESV)
In John 12:32, Jesus said, "If I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all manner of human beings to Myself." In John 12:32, Jesus said, “If I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all manner of human beings to Myself.”