Do You Desire Healing?

A Kansas man by the last name of Florence told a story about his daughter who was suffering from an illness. Mr. Florence said, “My daughter, suffering from anorexia and bulimia, was undergoing treatment at Baptist Medical Center in Kansas City. On one particularly difficult day she was told to drink a glass of [milky looking medicine], but she just couldn’t. Her doctor was called in. He sat down beside her on the bed and said, ‘You are a Christian woman, correct?’ She answered yes, so he said, ‘Do you remember the man Jesus healed near the pool of Siloam? Jesus put mud on his eyes to bring about his healing. But what really healed him?’ She thought for a moment and then answered, ‘His faith.’ ‘Good!’ he said. [You have to believe in the procedure, and believe that it’s going to work, even though it tastes bad and might not make sense.] ‘Now, drink your mud’.”(1)

There are believers in this room right now who are suffering from some illness. Many have physical ailments; however, this morning I am going to be addressing emotional and spiritual illnesses and see how they can be healed. In our passage today, we will learn how Jesus confronted a man who had been ill for thirty-eighty years, and asked him if he desired to be healed. The entire time we’re looking at this passage I want you to be asking yourself if you desire to be healed of your emotional or spiritual illness; for God’s Word will show us that some of us are not healed simply because we don’t want to be healed; or, because we lack the faith to be healed.(2)

Do You Have A Lifelong Disorder? (vv. 1-5)

1 After this there was a feast of the Jews, and 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. 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. 5 Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years.

In these verses we find a great deal of symbolism. First, we find that this large multitude of sick people were lying by the Sheep Gate. Warren Wiersbe tells us that the Sheep Gate speaks of the sacrifice of God’s Son, the Lamb of God, who had to die in order for God’s grace and spiritual healing to be poured out on sinners.(3) Next, we see that the name of the pool was Bethesda. “Bethesda” means “house of grace,” and this is a picture of how God extends His free “gift” of salvation which heals us of sin.(4) This emphasis placed on grace and salvation through Christ tells us that many of these people lying around the pool waiting to be healed were in need of spiritual healing, and not just physical healing.

In Mark chapter 2, someone brought a paralytic to Jesus to be healed, and Jesus said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you” (Mark 2:5). Today, we see illnesses related to sin primarily in the area of emotional illnesses. You may not realize it, or perhaps you think it’s superstitious, but there are people who are experiencing emotional pain because they’re living in sin. Jay Adams, who is the founder of “nouthetic” (confrontational) biblical counseling, tells us that many times mental and emotional illnesses are the result of unconfessed sin and the dodging of responsibility for our actions.(5)

If we harbor hidden sins then we can become tormented and fall under bondage. You see, the walls we put up to hide our sins from the world can become the very walls that keep us penned up behind emotional bars, and feeling as though we’re trapped with no way out. This is known as spiritual bondage, and the only route of escape is by taking responsibility for our actions, confessing our sins and accepting the unconditional love and forgiveness found in Jesus Christ. Jesus said in John 4:10-14 that there is a well of living water that exists for our healing; and there are some of us here this morning who need to jump into that pool of grace, and allow ourselves to be healed.

Some people are having painful emotional feelings such as depression and hopelessness, and they can’t understand why because they’re unable to identify any obvious sin they’re committing. Some people, like the man who had an infirmity for thirty-eight years, have been living with a “lifelong disorder.” They have lived with their illness for so long that they don’t even realize they have one; but if a person is experiencing emotional or spiritual pain, then more than likely he or she has sin which needs to be confessed and forgiven, and which needs to be healed.