Waiting For The Moving Of The Water

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: