Watch

Listen

Click here to listen to the episode on our website

Read

The Healer of Your Soul

Portraits and Pictures from John's Camera Roll

The Gospel of John is like a camera roll full of portraits and pictures of Jesus. As we take each chapter, we get a new picture of who He is. In John chapter 5, the picture is the Great Physician.

After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 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?" 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." Jesus said to him, "Get up, take up your bed, and walk." And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath.

John 5:1–9

Why John Wrote

So that we're always on the same page: the Gospel of John is different from the others. John's primary goal is not to give a historical treatment of the life of Jesus.

No, John's purpose is to exalt the person of Jesus so that people believe on Him and are saved.

That whole purpose is summed up near the end of the book. Just listen to what John writes:

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

John 20:30–31

That's pretty cool, right?

In order to elevate Jesus to the proper level, John presents Him in a new way in every chapter of the book. And in these verses, Jesus is presented to us as a healer, as the Great Physician.

The Physician and the Bank Card

This might be on the lame side, but it's a good illustration when you process it.

Think about a physician who cured a bunch of diseases. He came up with the solution, and he became a multi-gazillionaire. He became so wealthy from curing these fatal diseases that he decided he would use that wealth to help some people in real need.

The First Man: He Threw It Away

One day he went out on the street and found a man lying on the sidewalk, hungry and hopeless. The doctor took pity on him, took out the bank card he kept specifically for this purpose, and handed it to the man.

"Take this card," he said. "It gives you access to a bank account with over a hundred million dollars in it. You must make withdrawals every day for all your needs, and to help others as much as you can. That's the deal by accepting this card."

The outcast looked at the card. He looked at the physician. He looked at the card again. He couldn't believe anything the good man said. Could it be that this stranger has gone out of his mind? Is somebody punking me?

So he grabbed the card, threw it away, and returned to his sidewalk bed.

The First Woman: She Lost It

The doctor continued his search. He found a poor woman in an equally sad situation and made her the same offer. She accepted the card happily, but she did not go to the bank immediately.

As the day dragged on, she got distracted by her problems and lost the card, the very card that would have solved all of her problems. And she made no attempt to even find the doctor. She just went on with life.

The Second Man: He Showed It Off

Not long after that, the physician found another man in desperate need and offered him the same deal. The man took the card thankfully and was careful to keep it with him at all times.

Wherever he went, he proudly showed his bank card and spoke enthusiastically about his immense wealth. "I'm rich," he used to tell people. "I have need of nothing."

But he was still dressed in rags. He was still terribly sick. He was still dirty, disheveled, and dependent on handouts. Whenever he said he was rich, no one believed him, because he lived exactly as he did before accepting the card.

The card he displayed proudly, but never used.

The Second Woman: She Used It

Stay with me. Another woman in desperate need caught the physician's eye, and she was in the greatest need of all. Deathly sick. Thin. Weak.

The rich man made her the same offer: "Take this card. It represents all you need and more, but you must make withdrawals every day for all your needs and for the needs of those around you."

She took the card in her trembling hand and saw her very own name on it. She thanked the rich man and went straight away to the bank. She walked up to the teller, presented the card, and dared to ask for $100. She could not yet fully understand the vast riches at her disposal.

The teller was a friend of the wealthy doctor and was aware of his offers. Seeing the woman was in true distress, the teller said, "Are you sure that's all you need? This account makes more interest in the time it takes me to count out that $100 than what you're asking for."

In disbelief, she finally got up the courage and asked for $5,000.

She rented a small apartment. She bought food, new clothes, and a badly needed bath. And she went to the rich physician for healing for her sickness, as well as advice on how to prevent it from coming back.

This woman began to live as much like a rich person as she knew how. The only rich person she knew was the physician, so she had to imitate him. Following the instructions given to her, she went to the bank every day, made withdrawals of her wealth, and shared with others in need.

What the Card Means

That's a pretty cool analogy, isn't it? It illustrates the truth of what Jesus desires to do for all of us.

Now, some people take this truth and twist it into you can ask God for whatever you want, and He should give it to you if you just have enough faith. That's not what's being said here.

The point is that He will take care of all your needs according to His riches in glory (Philippians 4:19), based on His will for your life. His will for me and His will for you can be two different things. That's why it is well with us. And we push on because of the great hope we have in Jesus Christ.

God longs to bring us where we need to be, in spirit and in truth. At the pool of Bethesda, we get to see the Great Physician in action. So let's observe Him as He delivers this man from bondage and affliction, because He offers us the same opportunity in the spiritual realm.

1. A Sick Man (John 5:1–5)

His Wretched Condition

Verse 5 particularly describes this man's wretched condition. He's disabled, and according to Scripture he has lived with this infirmity for thirty-eight years. He had been sick longer than Jesus had been on the earth. Think about that.

The Bible says this man was an invalid. Some translations say he had an infirmity. The word means he had a weakness or frailness that prevented him from walking about as other people did.

That is a picture of the lost sinner, isn't it? Separated from God by his sins. Regardless of what he tries, the sinner is still lost and unable to walk in the ways of the Lord.

The sinner may be able to put on a good show at times and have all the appearances of being right with God. But the fact remains that God knows the heart. He knows that the sinful person is still dead until they taste the life that can only be found in the Lord Jesus Christ.

What I love about the Scriptures is that they interpret themselves. If you take them as a whole, all of it makes sense. Check this out:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Ephesians 2:1–3

Many times, folks who are lost just go along as if they need nothing. And sadly, a lot of people are in more trouble than they could ever believe.

It's easy to take on the lies of the religion of our culture called evolution, totally wrapped up in the magic elixir of millions and billions of years, where impossible things could never happen, but if you give it enough time, you think they might. What's at the core? I won't be responsible or held accountable to a holy God, my Creator God.

If you live your life without God, that's one thing. After all, you don't miss out on what you never had. You can live comfortably numb with the idea that there is no Creator God. But you still face the potential for the most awful, terrible thing to happen: to die without God.

His Desperation

This guy is desperate. The very fact that he is at this pool in his condition is proof positive that he is desperate for healing. Imagine him dragging his broken body down to that pool. Maybe he had help. Maybe somebody got him down there.

There are always too few lost folks who are desperate about their spiritual condition. Many live their lives as if they'll go on indefinitely. But there's this tug. There's this pull.

I dare say that in Shelby County alone there are five to ten thousand people being tugged by the Spirit who want to hear the gospel. They're just afraid to hear it. Or they don't know how. Or they don't trust the church, or they don't trust this, or they don't trust that. With all the buffet table of choices out there, they wonder, What am I supposed to do? And so they just go on.

If we're going to be truthful, this life is nothing more than a brief pause between two long eternities. This life is simply a time of preparation. One day our life will end, and if you are in a lost condition, it will be too late to do anything about it.

That's what makes pushing the gospel so important for those of us trying to fulfill the Great Commission. We can't be guilty of presuming on tomorrow. Time may just run out on us.

Many of us love Jesus because He loved us first and saved us, and we gather to worship. But we all know there are lost people around us. I'm convinced very few people desire to face God's wrath and punishment when they die. That's why we make up as much as we possibly can to try to eliminate the truth we know in our hearts: there is a Creator God. There has to be.

The only way anyone can escape God's judgment and His wrath, sinful as we are in front of a holy God, is to come to Jesus Christ and receive Him as Savior.

His Disappointment

In verse 7, this man becomes a parallel to so much of the disappointment in our culture. This dude was disappointed. He tells Jesus that every time he's about to get into the water, someone else beats him there and goes away with the healing instead.

I've been to the pools of Bethesda five times. The ruins are still there, as are all the stories. Legend had it that an angel would stir the water, and whoever was in the pool first got the healing. Some say that actually happened. Others say it never really happened. They say sometimes there would be a little wind, someone would be first in the water, and they'd get the impression they had been healed for a minute or two. But it didn't last.

How desperate do you have to be when your only hope is a legend that maybe the angel will stir the waters and you can jump in the pool and be healed? This is the desperation that is preyed upon by fake faith healers, and we must stand against such foolishness.

Can you see the sinner in this scenario? A person can try many things to bring peace and salvation to the soul. They can try works. They can try religion, goodness, giving, praying. But none of these things will ever save the soul. It's the blood of Jesus that accomplishes that. That's it. Try anything outside of Jesus, and you'll be sadly disappointed.

Here's what's really tough, and this has been my experience: I have the blood of Jesus, but then I still go out and try to add all these other good things on. It doesn't work that way.

What happens is you have the blood of Jesus, and out of good old-fashioned gratitude you start to do all these other good things. You don't even think they're that good, because you know you're involved. So He gets the glory even in the good things you're doing. It's out of obedience that we give. It's out of obedience that we love people and forgive. And many times when we're doing it, God is working through us, and we know it's really not even about us.

It takes the shed blood of Jesus to make the sinner truly worthy of being in God's presence:

Knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

1 Peter 1:18–19

His Wretched Companions

Go back to verse 3, and you see that he's got a bunch of wretched companions around him. The whole area is full. The text says a multitude. It's a busy place. It's festival time in Jerusalem, so everybody with any kind of ailment came down to the pool hoping they would be the lucky one.

This man was surrounded by others in the same shape as himself. They offered him no comfort. They offered him no help. They were as desperate as he was to be released from their own prisons.

Even if these people had been able to help him into the pool, I'm sure it would have been every man for himself once the water started acting like it might be stirred. They wouldn't help him, because they needed the healing for themselves.

This is a sad but true picture of the lost culture all around us: people lost in their helplessness, brokenness, blindness, and uselessness before the Lord. We are surrounded by others in the same boat, just like this guy. Others who are just as lost as he is, and who can no more help him than he can help them.

That's why God calls us, after we're saved and redeemed, to be different. We don't act this way to get salvation. We act this way because we've received salvation.

Many times we stumble into a vain attempt to justify our condition. But when we are soundly saved, we slowly work our way out of that. We look at the Scriptures as a whole, and we realize it's not about us. It's about what Jesus has done for us.

2. A Sympathetic Messiah (John 5:6)

The biggest thing is this: we have a sympathetic Messiah.

In the first part of verse 6, Jesus is pictured as the compassionate Savior. He's shown doing three great works that prove this is true.

He Chose This Sinner

According to the Bible, there was a great multitude at that pool. Jesus could have gone to any person in that place. Yet for His own reasons, He went to this man. This is nothing but pure grace.

It's a cool picture of His work of salvation. He passes by and knocks on our heart's door (Revelation 3:20). He reaches out to us in love and calls us to Himself. When we as sinful people respond in faith, Jesus comes in and does the work of salvation in our hearts and lives. Now we are new creatures, and we're never the same again.

Do we still stumble and sin? Yep. Do we still make mistakes? Yep. Is there stuff you did this week that you wish you could get a do-over on? Probably.

But when we understand that the work is His grace and His grace alone, that we have done nothing to deserve His love and nothing to earn our salvation, the joy can't help but build up. I've got to be honest: there are so many days in my morning devotions when I feel like the luckiest guy in the world to have been saved by this incredible, sympathetic Messiah.

If somebody asks for a good memory passage, this is one:

Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, "Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame." For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

Romans 10:9–13

We have done nothing to even make God notice us. Yet He chooses to love us because He is God.

I praise the Lord for the day He chose me. He could have passed by and left me bound for the judgment of God, but He didn't. I don't know about you, but maybe your testimony is similar to mine. I was helpless, broken by sin, and He reached out to me. All I had to do was say yes.

Now, don't misunderstand me. I am not saying that God has handpicked some to go to heaven and others to go to judgment, to go to hell. All I'm saying is that the sinner is dead in his sins until Jesus comes along and awakens the heart. Then, and only then, can that person be saved. All are called; far fewer answer.

He Knew This Sinner

Jesus knew everything there was to know about this guy, just like He knows everything there is to know about you. And yet Jesus reached out to him anyway. That's a picture of grace.

Want to know something cool? The word Bethesda actually means "house of grace."

Jesus knows all about the condition of the sinful human. He knows we love our sins, that we cannot control our passions, and that we desire the things of the world to gratify the old flesh. It still comes back. And yet He loves us.

Do I sin as much as I did twenty years ago? Absolutely not. But can I fall back into it and make mistakes? Of course. It's called the sanctification process.

Remember the analogy from the beginning? The only rich person we know is this Physician, so we start to act like Him. We try to emulate Him. As the sanctification process takes us down a new path, we stop doing a lot of the things we used to do, but we don't reach perfection on this side.

Jesus looks beyond our faults and failures and cares for us in spite of our sins. I think it's an awesome thought to have when we come to worship: Jesus knows every low-down, dirty thing we've ever done, and yet He still loves us and can still use us.

That's where the term Salvaged by God comes from. I was on the salvage pile. I'm not worth doing any of this stuff. And yet He plucked me off the salvage pile and started using me in ways way beyond what I ever thought was possible.

So I say glory to God! What a testimony of amazing grace to the Almighty God. Jesus healed this man at Bethesda, and He healed me. How about you? Are you healed from the burden of sin?

I'm just so glad God loves sinful people.

And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners."

Mark 2:17

And the ironic part is that people who think they're righteous are not.

He Came to This Sinner

And maybe the greatest move of all: Jesus literally comes to this poor man lying there and reaches out to him in genuine grace and love.

It's one thing for Jesus to love us in spite of our wickedness. However, it isn't until He actually comes to us that we have the opportunity for salvation.

Three Ways Jesus Comes

There are three ways in which Jesus comes to the sinful person:

1. He arrives as a Sacrifice.
2. He arrives as a Savior.
3. He arrives as a Judge.

Let's look at each one.

As a Sacrifice

The first time Jesus arrived here, He came to die. He went to Calvary and gave His life as a ransom, as my substitute. The wrath I deserved, He took upon Himself when He died on that cross.

And He took your sins upon Himself and paid the price for your redemption. Jesus suffered the agony of Calvary in your place. He became your sin and suffered the incredible wrath of God so that you wouldn't have to.

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:21

As a Savior

When Jesus comes to any of us today, He comes as Savior, because He is the one offering eternal life to all who receive Him into their hearts and lives. His work is finished. "It is finished" (John 19:30).

And then the spiking of the football on the whole deal is the resurrection: victory over death, hell, and the grave.

He knows all there is to know about you and your life, yet He still calls you to come to Him. He desires more than anything for you to be saved, and for your neighbors to be saved and miss God's justice. If you respond in faith, He will not deny you salvation.

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

John 6:37

As a Judge

But He could cast you out if He wanted to. You know why? Because He also comes as Judge.

One day, if the sinful person doesn't respond to the gospel message and come to Jesus, he will find himself facing Jesus as Judge.

We have created this weak-wristed, shampoo-model Savior in our culture, a Jesus who would never do anything because He loves me so much. And yet we don't understand that there's justice. He's also the Judge. He has the power to sentence you to the lake of fire. That's why the gift of eternal life through salvation is so special.

This is a long passage, and it's one you'll want to look up later this week in your devotion time. This is what it's all about:

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

Revelation 20:11–15

That's why the whole game, everything, all of our life, comes down to one thing:

Is your name in the Book, or is your name not in the Book?

And guess what? Nothing you can do can put your name in the Book. You can't crawl your way over to the pool. You can't figure out a way to be good enough to get your name in the Book. Jesus is the only Righteous One, and He writes your name when you accept His finished work by faith.

"But What If I Haven't Heard?"

A lot of people say, "It's not fair. What if I haven't heard the gospel? What if I don't know whether there is a Creator God?"

Let's take a quick sidebar and talk about natural revelation, or general revelation. What does that mean? It means God has shown us enough in the natural order of things to testify to His immense greatness, and therefore to our understanding that we are created beings in subjection to a divine Creator.

Creation Is Not Silent

Scripture testifies to this again and again:

• Psalm 19:1 says the heavens declare the glory of God.
• Psalm 19 and Romans 1:20 present creation as a universal testimony to us, a continual proclamation. Nature is not silent about our Creator. The heavens testify to God's glory even without spoken words.
• In Romans 2:15, Paul talks about the work of the law written on the heart. We already know the work of the law.
• Acts 14:17 says God has not left Himself without witness.
• Job 12:7–10 says creation testifies to God's hand.

And on and on and on it goes.

So we can't presume upon the grace and goodness of God. If anything, take the opportunity God gives you to run to Him for salvation, because He is your Creator and you are accountable to Him.

The Religion of Evolution

That's why we as a culture, especially since the 1850s, have spent billions upon billions of dollars trying to prove a theory that became a religion: evolution.

Did you know Charles Darwin said that if you don't find intermediate species in the fossil record (one species becoming another), you should throw his theory away? Yet we are taught in our culture as if it's fact.

Every time, I laugh out loud, because I've studied the evidence for years. It's amazing how people make stuff up. We found these bones, and we believe they're 62 million years old. How do you know 62 million? I'm sure after 10 million it gets a little fuzzy. They don't know. It's all a satanic game to avoid being accountable to a holy God who created you.

A biologist named Michael Behe wrote a book in the 1990s called Darwin's Black Box. He did not want evolution to be false. He wanted it to be true. But the more he dug into it, the more he realized there was no possible way. One of the things he said was that it would be absolutely, chemically, biologically impossible for males and females to evolve at the same time.

Come on, be real. Evolution decided we needed a bigger chin? There are a lot of adaptations within species that happen over time through the way DNA works. But you know what the Bible says? Living things bring forth after their own kind (Genesis 1:24–25).

Dogs bring forth dogs. Cats bring forth cats. There are thousands of different dogs and cats, but they still bring forth after their own kind. All the crossbreeding and weird stuff people have tried has never, ever produced anything else, because God's Word is true cover to cover.

3. A Mighty Miracle (John 5:6–9)

In verses 6 through 9, we see a huge miracle.

The Offer and the Excuse

The offer Jesus makes the man is simple: "Do you want to be healed?"

And the man responds by appealing to his flesh nature. Don't miss this. He says, "Well, look, there's nobody to really help me into the pool."

This man is guilty of the same thing so many others are guilty of. He is confusing the physical with the spiritual. Jesus came to offer him physical healing from a spiritual source, but this man still has his eye on what he can accomplish.

Even today, Jesus comes to the lost sinner and makes an offer of salvation. And the common-sense responses are:

• "I'm not good enough."
• "I can't hold on."
• "I've been too wicked."
• "It won't work for me."

The problem is that sinners are looking for a physical solution to a spiritual problem. The sinner needs to be saved, and that is something no person can do for himself. It takes the power of God, the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and the blood of Jesus. That's what accomplishes it in the sinner.

So if Jesus is calling you to come to Him, don't tarry. Obey, and come to the Lord for salvation.

The Command and Childlike Faith

There's an order to all this. Jesus tells the man to get up and walk. He just told this man to do something he hadn't been able to do for thirty-eight years, if ever. That's a pretty incredible command.

However, all that was required on the part of this man was simple, childlike faith and obedience to the call of Jesus, just to go ahead and try.

When it comes to the call to the lost sinner, the only necessary response is faith. Jesus comes to people who have lived their entire lives in the grip of sin. He passes by and says, "Hey, come on. Get up out of the gutter and follow Me."

And people sometimes refuse because it sounds too simple. Why? Because it is. It is too simple. Jesus doesn't require perfection. He just requires faith in Him.

I suppose that's why it's so easy for children to be saved. They're used to depending on Mom and Dad for everything, so it's easy for them to trust Jesus and be saved.

Adults are different, aren't we? We are conditioned to make our own way in the world. We are taught to stand on our own two feet. I believe that's why we need a dose of childlikeness in our lives.

The Instant Healing

There is a response when Jesus comes, talks to us, and touches us, and we experience Him. When this man responded to Jesus' command by faith, he was immediately healed, and he was able to get up and walk.

This miracle required no input from the crippled man. All he had to do was get up and walk at the command of Christ.

Salvation works the exact same way. Jesus comes to the sinner and calls him to salvation. All that is required of the sinner is humble obedience to the call of Jesus.

Now listen. When this obedience comes, the sinner is immediately and instantly:

• made right with God,
• transformed into a child of God,
• delivered from wrath, and
• made an heir of all that heaven has to offer.

That gets us jacked, doesn't it? It gets us excited! All of this simply because the sinner turns to the Savior in pure, humble faith.

Jesus Christ has the power to take any life broken and ruined by sin and make it over again. He is all-powerful, all-saving, and awesome. He will lift you out of the affliction of your sins if you will only come to Him when He calls you.

The Healer of Your Soul

Jesus demonstrated His power as the Great Physician by healing this man's body. However, think about it: there's no indication that this man ever became an actual believer in Jesus.

What a sad thing to come face to face with Jesus, experience His power, know His touch, and yet go on in sin without Him and perish, lost forever.

The important thing to remember about Jesus as the Great Physician is not just that He can heal your body. He can, and that's His sovereignty. You're not going to conjure up healing through some sort of faith practice. In faith, we trust Jesus to heal our bodies if He wills.

But the big deal is that He heals our soul. He renews our soul. Healing the body is wonderful, but eventually the body will perish. The soul is eternal. Committed to Jesus now, it will be presented before a holy God as if we had never sinned.

If you're saved, be glad today. Maybe you need a time of confessing to the Lord. Maybe He's dealing with you about something. Whatever the deal is for you, come to Him, listen to Him, and obey: pick up your spiritual mat and walk (John 5:8). In spite of our weaknesses, God has saved us so that we will live for Him today, and we celebrate the glory of the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.