Waiting for the moving of the Water
PPT 1 Message Title
This is a message for the church to awaken to the needs of the people God places in their path, and a message of hope for those waiting for the moving of the water.
PPT 2-5 text
John 5:1 After these things there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
John 5:2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes.
John 5:3 In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, waiting for the moving of the waters;
John 5:4 for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted.
John 5:5 And a certain man was there, who had been thirty-eight years in his sickness.
John 5:6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, He *said to him, "Do you wish to get well?"
John 5:7 The sick man answered Him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me."
John 5:8 Jesus *said to him, "Arise, take up your pallet, and walk."
John 5:9 And immediately the man became well
, and took up his pallet and began to walk...
I want to start by looking at 2 of the verses...
PPT 6 text
John 5:2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes.
John 5:3 In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, waiting for the moving of the waters;
This passage contains a very literal story from which I would like to draw out some readily apparent spiritual truths.
The literal is that by the sheep gate there was a pool where sick people were congregated and were waiting for a miracle that would be apparent and ushered in by a stirring of the pool of water. First one in got healed.
Now let me draw out from that several spiritual truths.
1. The tragedy of the location of the hurting.
The location of those needing a miracle was a pool near the sheep gate. The sheep gate was the gate which sheep were brought in to the city proper to be used in the sacrificial rites .It was a staging area, it was the area the sheep clustered together.
So the literal is that the sick are laid in the area where the sheep were and remained sick. The spiritual is that this is a veiled indictment of the church as a whole, and us as individuals that God lays people at our door and we have not done enough to change their condition. I want to show you a passage in the book of Jeremiah which I think, perfectly portrays the situation John 5 is describing:
PPT 7 Text
Jeremiah 8:21 For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am broken; I mourn, dismay has taken hold of me.
Jeremiah 8:22 Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has not the health of the daughter of my people been restored?
It is easy to blame others for their condition, but until we take their suffering to heart like God does in Jeremiah 8:21 nothing will change. When we get hungry for God to do something He will. There is a balm in Gilead, we do have the words of life, there is a Holy Spirit to help us get the job done.
Reading this passage as a Pastor has greatly convicted me that there are people who come to the church and are not helped because I am not as spiritually fit as a pastor as I should be. The text in Jeremiah makes it very clear God is willing to change the situation, and has made the necessary resources available to see that the job is done, but it wasn’t happening.
I’m not saying this to bring condemnation on anyone, it is my hope that it will stir a mighty hunger. For when we hunger we will be filled, that is the promise of God. Let me give another example and then we will move on. This one is found in 2 Kings 2 there were 50 prophets who lived/stayed in Jericho in the time of Elisha. (2 Kings 2:7) Elisha receives the mantle of Elijah and crosses the Jordan and enters Jericho from the East. He meets the men of the city who tell him:
PPT 8 Text
2 Kings 2:19 The men of the city said to Elisha, "Look, our lord, this town is well situated, as you can see, but the water is bad and the land is unproductive."
The literal Hebrew expresses the idea that the land caused produce to abort itself and never come to completion. Elisha than asks for a new cruse, puts salt and the waters are healed. What troubles me is that there were 50 (non)pophets who never did a thing about the situation. Did they accept as a fact of life, did they give up praying? What? It was the foremost thought on the peoples minds and they did nothing about it.
Again I am not trying to stir up condemnation only hunger, “Lord, let us be profitable servants!”
First we looked at the tragedy of the location of the hurting.
Now we will discuss:
2. The conditions they were afflicted with
John 5:3 In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered. All are physical conditions which also have spiritual parallels.
Sick - On the disabled list (think of Christians who are on the sidelines, for any number or reasons)
Blind - Unsaved
Lame - people who have serious problems with their walk with God
Withered - the idea is of people who have shriveled up. Think of people starving, or emaciated by cancer. The literal in the Greek is dried up.
Seeing their condition is meant to stir up our compassion and to cause us to seek God for a remedy. Let me key in on just one person there to show his condition. We will use the man Jesus healed as our example, and we learn this about him.
First he is sick, KJV uses the term impotent. The Greek word is astheneo and it means to be weak, feeble, to be without strength, powerless.
Secondly He is friendless, he has no one to help him get into the water. (I wonder how many people in church are friendless? Or how many people struggle that they have no one they can count on?)
Third he was around the sheep but didn’t know the shepherd. It wasn’t till well after he was healed he found out Jesus is the One who did it!
Fourth he was hopeless. Jesus asked him if he wanted to be healed and his answer was basically, I don’t stand a chance. NO MAN to help me. (I believe God has an answer even for people who think things are hopeless!)
Fifth he probably struggled with rejection. (Others get in but I don/t/can/t)
He had all these issues, and it should remind us that just because people come to church, and maybe dress up, it doesn’t mean they don’t have serious issues in their life. This man’s story is an indictment of a blind and impotent church, which isn’t really impotent but is living that way.
So again we have people who are near the sheep who are unable to function, lost, limping, and dried up, and though they are in close proximity to the sheep their condition is not changed. I believe God brings people to us all the time, the question is, do we see them changed? Or do we ignore them the same way people ignore pan handlers? Who is God laying at your feet? Who is God laying at the door of our church, how many members here are desperate for a touch of God?
1. The location
2. The condition
3. The hurting came to the right conclusion about what they needed.
You will notice the text says they were waiting for the moving of the water.
(It is italicized in the text, but there are manuscripts with its inclusion, and it is certainly makes sense as the reason they were there.)
They realized they needed the water to move. (Literal) But there is also a spiritual parallel that their are a lot of people who are waiting for and longing for a move of God.
They were waiting for the moving of the water. In our story that is attributed to an angel, but in the NT water is a euphemism for the Holy Spirit.
PPT 9 text
John 7:38 "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘from his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.’
John 7:39 But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
So we could say that in a sense people were waiting for the Holy Spirit to move.
Right there is where I will lose some of you, you have this idea that a move of God is bound up in the sovereignty of God and there isn’t much we can do about it.
While there is some truth in that thinking there is also error. It leaves us helpless and hopeless, I don’t believe God intends it to be that way.
I believe God moves when His word is preached.
I believe God moves when His people pray.
I believe God moves when His promises are claimed.
I believe God moves when His people get hungry and call out for Him.
I believe God moves when His people believe Him, there is a balm in Gilead, there is power in the blood, there is power in the name of Jesus!
I believe God moves when we make room for Him to move and stop accepting the sick and lame as the status quo.
Close: Pray for those who want to see the ones God lays at their feet changed by the grace and power of God. Pray for those who are waiting for the moving of the water.
