Bethesda.
Content
BETHESDA. BY R. DRUMMO D B. RAW SLEY, M.A.
'And a certain man was there which had an infirmity' thirty and eight years.' — St. John, v. 5. The miracle at Bethesda has been read in the second lesson for this service, and it is a miracle that offers many points for our consideration. In the person cured ; in the length of his malady ; in the day on which the cure was done ; in the comment on it by the Jews — their carping words, ' It is the Sabbath day; it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed;' in the answer of our Lord, 'My Father worketh hitherto,' on the Sabbath as well as other days, ' and I work ;' in the warning to the healed man, when his Healer met him shortly afterwards in the Temple, 'Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee' — in all these particulars how much is there for our learning! how much that is fitted to confirm our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and draw our hearts to love and follow Him ! Let us then return to the account which we have already heard out of the fifth chapter of St. John's Gospel. We read at its opening that * there
Bethesda. 2 1 was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to it to Jerusalem.' We cannot say with certainty what the feast was ; but probably it was the Feast of Purim, which fell about the month of March, ' ow at Jerusalem there is by the sheep-market a pool which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda' —
the house of mercy — having five porches. These five porches or porticoes were built to shelter the various classes of sick persons who sought the pool for its healing properties. ' For an angel/ we read, ' went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled the water ; whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.' We need not suppose that an angel visibly descended from heaven, for this is not asserted in the narrative ; but that at a certain period of the day the water in the pool was moved, whether by an intermittent spring or from some other cause, and that on its being moved it was endued with healing power. Further it would seem that this healing power was not of long duration, that its virtue was soon exhausted, that only the first who got down into the water after it was troubled derived benefit from it. Among the crowd of expectant sick folk was a poor cripple 'which had an infirmity thirty and eight years!* He was totally helpless, and from the length of his ailment must almost have ceased to hope for relief, But on this day relief was at hand. ' Jesus saw
22 Bethesda. him He ;* Jesus * knew that he had been now a long time in that case ; and He saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole ?' The impotent man answers 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 saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.' The man had faith equal to the occasion ; he believed the word that Jesus spake to him ; he tried to do as he was ordered— tried in faith, nothing doubting — and he succeeded. Cure came with the effort to obey Christ. ' Immediately he was made
whole, and took up his bed' — the rug or mattress on which he had lain — ' and walked.' And on the same day was the Sabbath. ' The Jews, therefore, said unto him that was cured^ It is the Sabbathday: it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed.' The man answered them — and it was an admirable answer, — * He that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed and walk.' The Pharisees, on this, turn their wrath from the man who was miraculously healed upon Him by whom the miracle was wrought : ' What man is he which said unto thee. Take up thy bed and walk?' Observe, they do not say, 'What man is he that healed thee?' — that would have been to allow Christ's great power — but, 'What man is he which said unto thee. Take up thy bed and walk ?'
Bethesda. 23 At first no answer was given. The man that was healed did not yet know his benefactor. But shortly after, having met with our Lord in the Temple, he gave the desired information : he 'went 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/ I pass over our Lord's defence of what He had done, as being beyond our subject, and will proceed to mark some of the points intended in the narrative for our instruction. And first I would say. Behold in the miracle the mighty power of Jesus Christ ! Without any effort, without any delay, by the single utterance
of His will, He made the impotent man whole: ' Jesus saith unto him. Rise, take up thy* bed, and walk. And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed and walked.' And next let us notice the person on whom this mighty cure was done : he was a man ' who had an infirmity thirty and eight years !' o doubt in that group, that great multitude of sick folk who crowded the porches of Bethesda, there were many sad cases of infirmity, many blind, many halt and withered, waiting for the healing effect of the waters. But there could hardly have been any one so heavily afflicted as was this poor man. And because he was so heavily afflicted.
24 Bethesda. because the Lord ' kne\/ that he had been now a long time in this case/ He singled him out from the rest to be the recipient of His mercy. He did it, we believe, with a purpose : He did it for the hope and comfort of afflicted souls who should come after. Henceforth, however bad our case may be — of however long standing, however inveterate — we need not despair of finding relief — relief in Jesus Christ Yes : though our case be in the eyes of others hopeless, it is not so in the eyes of our merciful Saviour. He sees us lie. He knows our misery, and He can bring relief. And, further, observe in what way that relief may come. How did Christ heal the impotent man at Bethesda? What was the medicine He employed, the means of cure } It was very simple. All He said to him was, 'Wilt thou be made
whole ?' Do you indeed wish to be healed } Think of that question, and think of it as put to yourselves. The Saviour asks it of every soul labouring under the sickness of sin. He asks it of those most especially who have lain the longest in that evil case, — *Wilt thou be made whole.?' Dost thou indeed wish to break the cord of thy besetting sin ? Dost thou from thy heart desire to be loosed from thine infirmity — to be once more a free man, no longer tied and fettered by the chain of evil habit ? ' Wilt thou be made whole V
Bethesda. . 25 That IS His question, and who would not answer, ' Lord, I do wish ! Lord, I desire above all things to be set free from my sin ! If Thou canst do anything, have compassion on me and help me ! ' Where there is this earnest desire to be delivered, this faith in Christ's power to take away sin, this casting ourselves wholly upon His mercy, there surely will the cure be wrought — there again will the Great Healer do His mighty work, and break the power of sin and Satan over the soul of his long-detained prisoner. Aye, though he be a prisoner like the one in the Gospel, held captive by an ' infirmity of thirty and eight years ! ' I refer again to this point in the miracle, as the one most rich in instruction, most rich in consolation for us, 'A certain man was there which had an infirmity thirty and eight years !' Surely it has been recorded for our learning. Surely this instance of a man made whole after an infirmity ot more than half a lifetime, made whole by coming under the notice of Jesus Christ, deserves to be read, marked, and remembered. Surely it forbids us to say of any case of human infirmity that it is
incurable. Surely it opens a door of hope where, but for such opening, hope were not ! Thirty and eight years is a long time for a soul to be tied and bound by the chain of sin ! Thirty and eight years is a long time for a man to go on provoking God ! Thirty and eight years to be a Sabbath-
26 Bethesda. breaker ! Thirty and eight years to be in the habit of* constantly taking God's holy ame in vain ! or to be for all that time in the habit of drinking over much ! or to be of an impure and unclean life ! or to be habitually a transgressor of any of God's holy commandments for thirty and eight years, is indeed to be in a very perilous condition ! You would say that there is small hope of improvement or change for the better in such a person. And it may be so. There is small hope of change for the better in such cases. The longer we go on in any evil way the harder it is to leave it. The longer we indulge in any sinful habit the harder it is to break off our sin. Still let us not, with this miracle before us, say that it is impossible. Let us not put any limit to the grace and power of our Grod. He can raise us up, however long we may have lain dead in trespasses and sin. He can raise us to the life of righteousness. He can touch and turn the heart of the hardest amongst us, and make it soft with godly sorrow. He can, in His own way and hour, strike into the careless soul a sense of its danger, and bring forth from the conscience-smitten sinner the cry, ' Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do ?' I think, then, we may gather from the cure of this poor, long-afflicted man hope for cases which would else appear desperate I think one chief
lesson for us here is, not to despair utterly and
Bethesda. 2 7 entirely for ourselves or for others — not while life remains, to give up a single soul as lost. True, we must be careful not to presume upon Grod*s forbearance. o man who has gone on for long years in his provocation can reckon on being stopped and changed in time. All I say is, that such a change is not beyond the bounds of possibility. In the worst and most hardened characters there are some seeds of a better life. o man, however habitually careless and irreligious, is without some better moments, some compunctious visitings, some wish to change, some resolve to amend. The grace of God, which bringeth salvation, can make its way through every hindrance. The voice that said to the poor impotent at Bethesda, ' Rise and walk !' can pierce the dullest ear, and that with a power not to be withstood. * Awake, thou sleeper, and call upon thy God that thou perish not !* There is yet one other point on which I would touch before concluding, and that is the warning speech of our Lord to the man on whom He had wrought this miraculous cure. '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.' A worse thing than that out of which he had been delivered ! A worse thing than an infirmity of thirty and eight years ! It must, indeed, have been a very terrible
28 Bethesda. punishment which our Lord had in his mind when He so spake ! He seems to refer to the sufferings of a future world, to their awful condition who shall be condemned in the day of Judgment. Or it may be, He points to that hardening of the sinner's heart which follows on repeated sin, and which makes it almost impossible for him truly to repent, and therefore impossible for him to be saved. Whichever way we interpret the words, they are words of deep and solemn meaning : words that warn us against sliding back, which put before us, in the strongest way, the danger of trifling with an old sin, going and committing it afresh after we have once repented of it and been forgiven. Let us carry home that warning, and lay it up deep in our hearts, and if at any time we find ourselves thinking lightly of sin ; if some old temptation rises up and entices us to do again what we once did, and for which, as we thought, we had heartily repented; if we find ourselves, I say, on the point of some old fall, some sin from, which, by God's grace, we had been delivered, O then, let us recall these words of our Saviour, of Him Who has dealt so lovingly with us. Who has had pity on us, and healed us, and forgiven us our past great transgressions, let us recall His words of warning which we have heard to-day — words of warning which He speaks not to that one healed
Betkesda. 29 man at Bethesda only, but to all on whom He has done His cure, to whom He has remitted sin,
' Behold, thou art made whole ; sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee ! '
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'And a certain man was there which had an infirmity' thirty and eight years.' — St. John, v. 5. The miracle at Bethesda has been read in the second lesson for this service, and it is a miracle that offers many points for our consideration. In the person cured ; in the length of his malady ; in the day on which the cure was done ; in the comment on it by the Jews — their carping words, ' It is the Sabbath day; it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed;' in the answer of our Lord, 'My Father worketh hitherto,' on the Sabbath as well as other days, ' and I work ;' in the warning to the healed man, when his Healer met him shortly afterwards in the Temple, 'Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee' — in all these particulars how much is there for our learning! how much that is fitted to confirm our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and draw our hearts to love and follow Him ! Let us then return to the account which we have already heard out of the fifth chapter of St. John's Gospel. We read at its opening that * there
Bethesda. 2 1 was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to it to Jerusalem.' We cannot say with certainty what the feast was ; but probably it was the Feast of Purim, which fell about the month of March, ' ow at Jerusalem there is by the sheep-market a pool which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda' —
the house of mercy — having five porches. These five porches or porticoes were built to shelter the various classes of sick persons who sought the pool for its healing properties. ' For an angel/ we read, ' went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled the water ; whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.' We need not suppose that an angel visibly descended from heaven, for this is not asserted in the narrative ; but that at a certain period of the day the water in the pool was moved, whether by an intermittent spring or from some other cause, and that on its being moved it was endued with healing power. Further it would seem that this healing power was not of long duration, that its virtue was soon exhausted, that only the first who got down into the water after it was troubled derived benefit from it. Among the crowd of expectant sick folk was a poor cripple 'which had an infirmity thirty and eight years!* He was totally helpless, and from the length of his ailment must almost have ceased to hope for relief, But on this day relief was at hand. ' Jesus saw
22 Bethesda. him He ;* Jesus * knew that he had been now a long time in that case ; and He saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole ?' The impotent man answers 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 saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.' The man had faith equal to the occasion ; he believed the word that Jesus spake to him ; he tried to do as he was ordered— tried in faith, nothing doubting — and he succeeded. Cure came with the effort to obey Christ. ' Immediately he was made
whole, and took up his bed' — the rug or mattress on which he had lain — ' and walked.' And on the same day was the Sabbath. ' The Jews, therefore, said unto him that was cured^ It is the Sabbathday: it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed.' The man answered them — and it was an admirable answer, — * He that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed and walk.' The Pharisees, on this, turn their wrath from the man who was miraculously healed upon Him by whom the miracle was wrought : ' What man is he which said unto thee. Take up thy bed and walk?' Observe, they do not say, 'What man is he that healed thee?' — that would have been to allow Christ's great power — but, 'What man is he which said unto thee. Take up thy bed and walk ?'
Bethesda. 23 At first no answer was given. The man that was healed did not yet know his benefactor. But shortly after, having met with our Lord in the Temple, he gave the desired information : he 'went 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/ I pass over our Lord's defence of what He had done, as being beyond our subject, and will proceed to mark some of the points intended in the narrative for our instruction. And first I would say. Behold in the miracle the mighty power of Jesus Christ ! Without any effort, without any delay, by the single utterance
of His will, He made the impotent man whole: ' Jesus saith unto him. Rise, take up thy* bed, and walk. And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed and walked.' And next let us notice the person on whom this mighty cure was done : he was a man ' who had an infirmity thirty and eight years !' o doubt in that group, that great multitude of sick folk who crowded the porches of Bethesda, there were many sad cases of infirmity, many blind, many halt and withered, waiting for the healing effect of the waters. But there could hardly have been any one so heavily afflicted as was this poor man. And because he was so heavily afflicted.
24 Bethesda. because the Lord ' kne\/ that he had been now a long time in this case/ He singled him out from the rest to be the recipient of His mercy. He did it, we believe, with a purpose : He did it for the hope and comfort of afflicted souls who should come after. Henceforth, however bad our case may be — of however long standing, however inveterate — we need not despair of finding relief — relief in Jesus Christ Yes : though our case be in the eyes of others hopeless, it is not so in the eyes of our merciful Saviour. He sees us lie. He knows our misery, and He can bring relief. And, further, observe in what way that relief may come. How did Christ heal the impotent man at Bethesda? What was the medicine He employed, the means of cure } It was very simple. All He said to him was, 'Wilt thou be made
whole ?' Do you indeed wish to be healed } Think of that question, and think of it as put to yourselves. The Saviour asks it of every soul labouring under the sickness of sin. He asks it of those most especially who have lain the longest in that evil case, — *Wilt thou be made whole.?' Dost thou indeed wish to break the cord of thy besetting sin ? Dost thou from thy heart desire to be loosed from thine infirmity — to be once more a free man, no longer tied and fettered by the chain of evil habit ? ' Wilt thou be made whole V
Bethesda. . 25 That IS His question, and who would not answer, ' Lord, I do wish ! Lord, I desire above all things to be set free from my sin ! If Thou canst do anything, have compassion on me and help me ! ' Where there is this earnest desire to be delivered, this faith in Christ's power to take away sin, this casting ourselves wholly upon His mercy, there surely will the cure be wrought — there again will the Great Healer do His mighty work, and break the power of sin and Satan over the soul of his long-detained prisoner. Aye, though he be a prisoner like the one in the Gospel, held captive by an ' infirmity of thirty and eight years ! ' I refer again to this point in the miracle, as the one most rich in instruction, most rich in consolation for us, 'A certain man was there which had an infirmity thirty and eight years !' Surely it has been recorded for our learning. Surely this instance of a man made whole after an infirmity ot more than half a lifetime, made whole by coming under the notice of Jesus Christ, deserves to be read, marked, and remembered. Surely it forbids us to say of any case of human infirmity that it is
incurable. Surely it opens a door of hope where, but for such opening, hope were not ! Thirty and eight years is a long time for a soul to be tied and bound by the chain of sin ! Thirty and eight years is a long time for a man to go on provoking God ! Thirty and eight years to be a Sabbath-
26 Bethesda. breaker ! Thirty and eight years to be in the habit of* constantly taking God's holy ame in vain ! or to be for all that time in the habit of drinking over much ! or to be of an impure and unclean life ! or to be habitually a transgressor of any of God's holy commandments for thirty and eight years, is indeed to be in a very perilous condition ! You would say that there is small hope of improvement or change for the better in such a person. And it may be so. There is small hope of change for the better in such cases. The longer we go on in any evil way the harder it is to leave it. The longer we indulge in any sinful habit the harder it is to break off our sin. Still let us not, with this miracle before us, say that it is impossible. Let us not put any limit to the grace and power of our Grod. He can raise us up, however long we may have lain dead in trespasses and sin. He can raise us to the life of righteousness. He can touch and turn the heart of the hardest amongst us, and make it soft with godly sorrow. He can, in His own way and hour, strike into the careless soul a sense of its danger, and bring forth from the conscience-smitten sinner the cry, ' Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do ?' I think, then, we may gather from the cure of this poor, long-afflicted man hope for cases which would else appear desperate I think one chief
lesson for us here is, not to despair utterly and
Bethesda. 2 7 entirely for ourselves or for others — not while life remains, to give up a single soul as lost. True, we must be careful not to presume upon Grod*s forbearance. o man who has gone on for long years in his provocation can reckon on being stopped and changed in time. All I say is, that such a change is not beyond the bounds of possibility. In the worst and most hardened characters there are some seeds of a better life. o man, however habitually careless and irreligious, is without some better moments, some compunctious visitings, some wish to change, some resolve to amend. The grace of God, which bringeth salvation, can make its way through every hindrance. The voice that said to the poor impotent at Bethesda, ' Rise and walk !' can pierce the dullest ear, and that with a power not to be withstood. * Awake, thou sleeper, and call upon thy God that thou perish not !* There is yet one other point on which I would touch before concluding, and that is the warning speech of our Lord to the man on whom He had wrought this miraculous cure. '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.' A worse thing than that out of which he had been delivered ! A worse thing than an infirmity of thirty and eight years ! It must, indeed, have been a very terrible
28 Bethesda. punishment which our Lord had in his mind when He so spake ! He seems to refer to the sufferings of a future world, to their awful condition who shall be condemned in the day of Judgment. Or it may be, He points to that hardening of the sinner's heart which follows on repeated sin, and which makes it almost impossible for him truly to repent, and therefore impossible for him to be saved. Whichever way we interpret the words, they are words of deep and solemn meaning : words that warn us against sliding back, which put before us, in the strongest way, the danger of trifling with an old sin, going and committing it afresh after we have once repented of it and been forgiven. Let us carry home that warning, and lay it up deep in our hearts, and if at any time we find ourselves thinking lightly of sin ; if some old temptation rises up and entices us to do again what we once did, and for which, as we thought, we had heartily repented; if we find ourselves, I say, on the point of some old fall, some sin from, which, by God's grace, we had been delivered, O then, let us recall these words of our Saviour, of Him Who has dealt so lovingly with us. Who has had pity on us, and healed us, and forgiven us our past great transgressions, let us recall His words of warning which we have heard to-day — words of warning which He speaks not to that one healed
Betkesda. 29 man at Bethesda only, but to all on whom He has done His cure, to whom He has remitted sin,
' Behold, thou art made whole ; sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee ! '
1. 68 FREE BOOKS http://www.scribd.com/doc/21800308/Free-Christian-Books
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