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Are You Ready For A Miracle? Series
Contributed by Sharon Thurston on Nov 3, 2007 (message contributor)
Summary: There was a man at the pool of Bethesda for 38 long years waiting to be put into the pool for his healing. and Jesus came and told him to take up your bed and walk.
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Are you ready for a Miracle?
John 5:1-8
There were 3 festivals (holy days) or Sabbath 1, Festival Passover of unleavened bread 2, The of Pentecost, 3, Festivals of Shelters.
Men had come to celebrate from Jerusalem to Sinai. This celebration is the feast of difficulties and there was excitement to meet old acquaintances and friends and come together with love for one another because we don’t know when God is going to call us home. But where we are going is an imaginary journey and not an exciting place. We are going to a spring fed pool of Bethesda located at the north east side of the city. The word Bethesda means ( house of adversity) you would think that they are merciful but, looking at this place, it looks like a place of heart ache but around this pool is a multitude of impotent, lame, sick and cripple folk just waiting for a miracle to happen. They were waiting for the angels to come by and stir the water so they can jump in and be healed.
So we have it that some folk had been there for days, some for weeks, and some for years, but in the midst of the multitude you find a cripple man that been there for 38 long years waiting on a miracle, little did he know that this day his waiting will be over. Amen? Are you ready for a miracle?
He did not know that today he will walk again because this impotent man was about to meet Christ who specialize in the hopeless and the helpless, but in this passage of scripture we see a picture of today’s lost world. If you look at it you will see that it’s a world that’s spiritually sick. If we continue to look at this we will see a world that is dying to sin. You will also see that it is a world that is unable help itself.
Let’s take a close look at this man’s situation at the pool of Bethesda. I have learned that you must preach with logic. I want you to understand everything that happened at the pool of Bethesda. You see this world that is full with people is inflected with sin and cannot save themselves.
I’m trying to see what was Jesus saying? There was a great multitude waiting by the pool for a miraculous move of the water, but among them was this man waiting on his miracle for 38 years on the verge of a miracle but have never been healed. (Are you ready for a miracle?)
This man was hoping and dreaming for a miracle. How many of us are waiting for a miracle? We are no different than this man who’s been waiting for 38 long years and had been disappointed. (No matter how trapped we feel in our infirmities God can minister to our deepest needs. So don’t let problems or hardships cause you to lose hope.)
I am here to tell you that are disappointments can be God’s appointments. I don’t think you heard me, I said that are disappointments can be God’s appointments. Amen?
God doesn’t always do things the way we want it done nor when we want it done. Jesus is not a dream He is real. Even when the angel did stir up the water someone would always beat him in because there was no one to put him in the pool and that gave him false hope. One would think that when they jumped in the pool that they would grab this man or push him on in with them) He may have been thinking that God has failed in his life. But God never fails. Amen? Now God sent His Son Jesus to the pool the same Jesus that Peter denied, Judas betrayed, Thomas doubted Him, but because of Jesus this man was going to have a life changing experience because he waited on the side of the pool for 38 years to get in. He could have possibly thought night and day that he would be free and healed. He didn’t give up. (no matter how grim things look don’t give up).
He was separated from a miracle by only a step or two, so near but yet so far away. He had to come to terms with what he thought was his destiny of life. He seems to be just a spectator of life. How many of us are in the same way?
(Are you ready for a miracle?) Sometimes the world tries to make us as Christians seem foolish by telling us that we are crazy to think that we can be healed or go on and accept it because you are going to die anyway. But this man waited and that is was Jesus tells us in His word to be patient and wait. Jesus came along and He had supernatural knowledge of this man’s situation. Jesus picked this man out of many sick people because the sovereign initiative was His, and no reason was given as of His choice.