This Is The Time For Stepping

John 5:1-4  After this there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. [2] Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. [3] In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. [4] For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.

Prayer:

I want to preach to you today on this thought... This is the time for stepping!

As we look at our text we see a pool, a multitude of sick people, and an angel that by assignment troubles the water at a certain season.

These are the ingredients in our text. So we understand that in this place there is every kind of sickness and disease known to man. And most likely they are there because they have exhaused every natural avenue of assistance.

Our text refers to this great multitude of people as impotent folk. The word impotent means a general lack of effectiveness or ability to influence or change something. 

So in a broad sense this crowd of impotent folk covers the spectrum of all the weaknesses, and the lack, and the emptiness, and the pain and the frustration that is familiar to the human condition. We could just as easily say, the drug addict was there, the pornography addict was there, the fornicator and the adulterer was there. 

However the condition manifested itself in the lives of the people, it all fell under the category of impotency. Meaning these people were desparate, they couldn't help themselves. They couldn't change their condition. Every option they had was gone. They had nothing left.

I have to say this right here. It's so sad that some people have to hit this level of desperation before they will turn to God. But how many can say that you are glad that even though Jesus was your last hope, he was the only  hope you really needed?

This describes all of this crowd there at the pool. And they are there because they have a hope that they can get a miracle. Somewhere they heard and seen someone who had received a miracle, and a seed of faith was planted in their hearts.

They heard that at a certain season the water would start moving, and the first person who stepped into the water after the troubling, or the moving of the water, was healed of whatever sickness or disease they had.

This message spread far and near. There is a pool in Bethany by the sheepgate, and at a certain season, the water gets stirred up, and whoever steps into the pool after the moving of the water gets healed of whatever problem they have.

Not only that, there were people walking around town who were living witnesses to the miracles that were happening there. They had personal testimonies, not just of what they had seen, but of their own personal miracles.

So the multitudes came anticipating their own miracle, and they knew that the miracles happened after the moving of the water, and they knew that it happened at a certain season. But the big problem was... they didn't know the day or the hour when it would happen.

But they did know that when it happened, the first person into the water was healed. Of whatever their disease was.

So there was an understanding that it didn't matter whether their condition was stage 4 cancer or warts, the first person to step into the pool after the waters moved was healed.

By this we're made to understand that nothing, and no case, is too hard for God. For all things are possible with God, and all things are possible to them that believe.

There was also an understanding that it didn't matter how many people jumped in the pool and splashed around, nothing supernatural happened for them until the angel troubled the waters.

So the Bible says, this great multitude was gathered together around this pool, waiting for the waters to move.

Now the Bible doesn't say that God sent down an e-mail to these people explaining these circumstances and these conditions for their miracles. So they must have learned through observation, and trial and error.

So no doubt many had stepped into the water before the season or after the season of the moving of the waters, and they had been severly disappointed, because nothing happened.

But eventually they came to know, there is a season when the waters will move, and eventually, probably through trial and error, they came to understand that only the first person to step into the troubled waters were healed.