Have you ever doubted God’s power? If not that, have you ever doubted God’s interest in you?
Painful trials often lead to serious doubts. When we are sick or when we suffer, and when we don’t see God’s answers, questions arise, and some of us question if God is able or willing to intervene. Other people seem to get amazing answers to prayer, but not you.
Genesis 18:4 asks the question, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” We all need reminders of who God is and what he has done for us.
For the old woman Sarah, God’s power enabled her to conceive and give birth to a son in her old age when thought impossible. To the timid shepherd Moses, God’s power led to the 10 plagues and the crossing of the Red Sea. To the patriarch Noah, God’s power saved the world from the flood. To the Children of Israel wandering in the wilderness, God’s power fed them with manna daily. God brought water from the rock to a thirsty nation. He made the sun stand still for Joshua. Gave Samson supernatural strength. Fed Elijah by ravens. Cured Naaman of Leprosy. Destroyed attacking armies. Delivered Daniel from the lions den, Shadrach Meshach and Abednego from the fiery furnace, and Jonah from the whale. Amazing!
But remember, some of God’s answers were in the form of trials, trouble and pain. It took Sara 90 painful years of waiting before she God a son. David had to face a Goliath. Daniel got the lions den. Moses had to leave the comfort of Pharoah’s court and live in the wilderness as a lonely shepherd. Their adversity became their success! It was precisely the thing that they hated that brought them the greatest gains and greatest miracle! But God was in it all.
No matter whether you get a miracle, or you become the miracle, God is in it all. And when we doubt, let’s remember the man who came to Jesus and cried, “I do believe, but help my unbelief.” Mark 9:14-29,
How great is God? God is by definition omnipotent, meaning that He has unlimited power and is able to do anything he chooses to do. In Hebrew, the title "God Almighty" is written as El Shaddai and means “God, the All-powerful One.” The title speaks of God’s ultimate power over all things. He has all might and all power, and has the ability to answer all prayers. We serve a God who is in control of all things, and loves His children with an everlasting love.
Some of you have experienced God’s amazing answers to prayers and some of you are still hanging in there.
Jesus Christ, our Savior, is all powerful, because Jesus, is God Almighty in the flesh. And that is the message of John chapter 5; Jesus systematically set out to demonstrate his divinity every day and in every miracle he performed. When Jesus healed the lame man at the pool of Bethesda, this was His message: I am the almighty God! And because of that there is hope for you and me.
Today, our goal is to be amazed at Jesus and his power. The first thing that we learn is that Jesus has power over sickness.
Power over Disease
5:1 There was a feast of the Jews – [it could be either Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (Pentecost), or Sukkot (Tabernacles) – we don’t know which one it was.] But Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches.
For hundreds of years, skeptics pointed to the Pool of Bethesda, as one of the glaring errors in the Bible. Up until the 19th century there was no archeological evidence of the pool. Skeptics argued that the book of John must have been written by someone who didn’t have firsthand knowledge and so he made an historical mistake. But in 1888, as happens so very often, an archeological dig uncovered the pool of Bethesda just where the Bible said it would be. In fact, when I went to Israel, I saw the pool of Bethesda first hand. This is what happens to the skeptics all the time. They are slowly being backed into a corner… with mountains of evidence piling up.
There are two pools, known as the twin pools. Together they are about the size of three Olympic swimming pools, and were very deep – 50 feet deep (400 ft by 165 ft 50 feet deep)! And the pool of Bethesda is Located along the via dolorosa just north of the temple mount.
The twin pools of Bethesda were surrounded by covered porches and both pools were separated by covered porches, or colonnades, allowing it to have 5 porches. Herod built one of the pools as a high class resort for the upper class, and the other pool was used by the common folk, and was filled with the sick and infirm who were looking for healing.
And the waters are the source of its name – Beth-Hesda – means the “house of kind waters, or merciful waters. The baths of Bethesda were used for medicinal and religious purposes, by the diseased, infirm and unclean which were barred from the temple. It was also a mikva – a place for ceremonial baptismal cleansing before entering the temple. In these baths, they hoped to cleanse and heal themselves by baptismal immersion so that they could enter the temple, worship the Lord and achieve eternal life.
3 In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. 4 For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had.
Interestingly, next to these two reservoirs was a small pagan temple dedicated to Asclepius, the Roman snake god of medicine and healing. Asclepius was a competing cult healing center which used sacred baths for people who hoped to be healed.[i] The waters of Bethesda were thought to have supernatural healing powers.
Some believe that John purposely included a pagan legend in John 5, which had its origins with the god Asclepius; The legend goes like this: At random times an angelic being would supernaturally stir up the waters of the pool, leaving healing elements there, and legend had it that if you got to the pool first, you would be healed.
The pools were fed by underground springs which would rise or fall depending on the water pressure, giving rise to the belief that an angel stirred the waters. In this pagan belief, healing was the prize for being the first to dive into the pool.
But Jesus came to neutralize the myth that we should depend on angelic manifestations to heal us. John intentionally contrasted Jesus’ instant power to heal with the ritual-bound, pagan healing practices associated with Asclepius. Jesus shows that he, the great physician, is able to instantly heal a man who does not even know who he is; therefore, has no faith in the Messiah to be healed.
5 Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” 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.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” 9 And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked.
At Bethesda, the house of miracles of mercy, Jesus came to demonstrate his mercy and grace to a man who didn’t even know his name. Jesus is the great physician, and he is the one we should turn to when we need hope, health and healing.
Jesus is Lord and almighty master over all disease and sickness. If it is in his purpose, he will heal you. That is not to say that all sicknesses and diseases will be healed, but if you trust Jesus all your sicknesses and diseases will be used for the glory of God! And they will have their work in you to heal your broken heart.
Jesus not only has power over all disease, he is Lord of the Sabbath.
Power over the Sabbath
And that day was the Sabbath. 10 The Jews therefore said to him who was cured, “It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed.” 11 He answered them, “He who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your bed and walk.’ ” 12 Then they asked him, “Who is the Man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” 13 But the one who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, a multitude being in that place. 14 Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.” 15 The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. 16 For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath. 17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.”
The Sabbath, or Shabbat, is the Jewish day of rest. It is enshrined in their law. It was revealed to Moses, and was meant to be a sign of the covenant between God and the Jews. There was a weekly Sabbath each Saturday. Every seven years the land was supposed to experience a Sabbath rest. Every 50th year, was to be the Jubilee Sabbath. There were also various feasts throughout the year related to the Sabbath.
When the Church began, they originally observed the Sabbath rest but also began worshiping on the Lord’s Day – the Day of the Resurrection of Christ. Within 30 years most Gentile Christians had transitioned to worshiping exclusively on the Lord’s Day.
As an observant Jew, Jesus worshiped on the Sabbath. There were numerous occasions when the Jewish religious leaders clashed with Jesus over the interpretation of the Sabbath. Almost always this resulted from an incident in which the Messiah “violated the Sabbath” according to the teachings of the scribes and Pharisees.
Seven times Jesus purposely chose the Sabbath to heal on. 1. He healed a man with an evil spirit (Mark 1:21-28), 2. He healed Simon Peter’s Mother-in-Law (Mark 1:29-31); 3. He healed a man with a withered hand (Mark 3:1-6; Mt 12:10; Luke 6:5); 4. He healed a lame man by the pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-18); 5. He healed a man born blind (John 9:1-16); 6. He healed a crippled woman (Luke 13:10-17); 7. He healed a man with Dropsy (Luke 14:1-6).
Each time Jesus challenged the conceptions of the Jews. He was breaking their laws enacted by the religious leaders. He was repeatedly called out for it, and he repeatedly said that the laws of the land enacted by men could not supersede the laws of God!
Jesus defended himself by saying things like “The Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath.” Mark 2:27; “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” And it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath (Mark 3:4).
In this case, in John 5, his defense was “My Father works on the Sabbath, and so do I!” What Jesus was saying is this; God the Father maintains the universe seven days a week! He never stops working! If God the Father can work on the Sabbath, then certainly God the Son can work on the Sabbath too!”
In this Jesus placed himself above the Law! Jesus was the Law giver! If He wanted to, He could be the Law Changer! This was heresy for a human to say! No human was above the Law! But Jesus claimed to have power over the Sabbath! He also claimed to be God Himself!
A large body of teaching regarding the interpretation of the Sabbath had emerged in Judaism. These interpretations were known as the Mishnah. It contained 63 main sugjects, requiring about 800 pages in English.[ii]
Later Judaism set itself to the task of interpreting these interpretations. These commentaries on the Mishnah are called Talmuds. “Of the Jerusalem Talmud there are 12 printed volumes; and of the Babylonian Talmud there are 60 printed volumes.”
They spent endless hours arguing whether a man could or could not lift a lamp from one place to another on the Sabbath, whether a tailor committed a sin if he went out with a needle in his robe, whether a woman might wear a brooch or false hair, even if a man might go out on the Sabbath with artificial teeth or an artificial limb, if a man might lift his child on the Sabbath Day. These things to them were the essence of religion. Their religion was a legalism of petty rules and regulations.
Jesus turned their interpretations on their head! Jesus is Lord master of the Sabbath! Jesus has the authority to supersede all laws. It’s His desire that we worship Him genuinely every day and everywhere, not just on the Sabbath. But the saga continues.
Power of The Almighty
18 Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.
Jesus not only broke their Sabbath laws, but he did something more infuriating! He made himself out to be equal to God the Father!
Jesus argument went like this: If I have the power to heal a paralytic, and if I have power over the Sabbath, then I am the Lord God Almighty!
And that is the message of John chapter 5; Jesus systematically set out to demonstrate his divinity every day and in every miracle he performed. When Jesus healed the lame man at the pool of Bethesda, this was His message: I am the almighty Messiah; I am God! And because of that there is hope for you and me.
If Jesus is truly the Great Physician, and Lord of the Sabbath, and Your God Almighty, then you are under his protection and care! If this is true, you can flee to Jesus for help, for hope, for health and for happiness. If Jesus is your Personal Savior, then He is willing, ready and eager to transform your life and change you into the person that have always wanted to be.
Are you languishing on a porch of your own making at the pool of Bethesda? Don’t look to the waters to save you, look to the mercy and grace giver Jesus who, after all your years of waiting is asking you, “do you want to be well?”