Gooding, David: 7 - On the Road with Jesus

Hello, and once more a very good evening to you and a very great welcome. Thank you for coming again, those of you who are here again for the, uh, now the fourth time. I have to be honest with you and tell you that, sorry as I might be, tonight I have to work you. I have to start working you very hard. That is not altogether my fault. It arises because of the material that we are due to cover this evening, namely John's Gospel, chapters five and six. And as you may have observed, these two chapters follow a similar pattern of material. In the first one, there is a miracle. It is recorded in eight and a half verses. The remaining thirty eight and a half verses of the chapter are not narrative so much as closely reasoned statements and arguments. In chapter six, likewise, there are two miracles at the beginning. Between them, they cover twenty one verses, but the remaining fifty verses are composed of closely reasoned statements and arguments once more. Now, if only I could take the miracles and weave around them a vivid sermon, choosing what pieces I chose to, uh, to take, or if I could take the discourses and every now and again select a vivid phrase and build a sermon around it. It would be easier for you to listen, I am sure, and what is more, I might run the possibility of being accounted a moderately decent preacher. But then, as you are aware, that we cannot do. For in these studies, we are looking supremely to trace the thought flow in the material that John has here presented for us. And that will mean not just surveying the stories of the three miracles, it will mean trying to, uh, relate those miracles to the discourses that follow, and to ask ourselves, is there any thought flow between those three signs and the discourses that follow, and then more difficult still, we shall have to try somehow to follow the thought flow through those very dense verses of very closely reasoned statements and arguments. And I do not pretend otherwise, that you will probably find very difficult. I am encouraged, of course, it's not altogether my fault, by a verse that does come, and here I p- I go against my rule and select a verse and preach a mini sermon therefrom. Preachers have that liberty, you know. Uh, and this is the verse that we shall encounter in John's Gospel chapter six, where our Lord says to the crowds as they come seeking him, work not, labor not for the food that perishes, but labor for the food that endures. So that here is our blessed Lord on record as saying that if we would enjoy the food that endures, we must be prepared to work hard, work for the food that endures. When our Lord made the remark and said, don't work for the meat that perishes, he didn't mean it as a straightforward prohibition. Oh, do come, please. Uh, plenty of seats here, uh, uh, here and there around the front. Do come, please. And here, when our Lord said, work not for the food that perishes, he was not issuing a complete and absolute prohibition, you mustn't go to work to earn your daily bread and butter, of course. He was, in the good Hebrew manner, making a contrast in relative value, as between the lesser goals of life and the major goals of life. Let your major goal in life be that you seek not the food that perishes, but the food that endures unto eternal life. One can immediately see the sense of that remark, can one not? Because food that perishes is so important for the maintenance of our daily life, we are prepared, at least most of us, except academics who live in ac- ivory towers and don't have to work, you'll see, but look out of their windows and watch everybody else working. Uh, apart from them, everybody is prepared to see that you have jolly well got to work hard for your food that perishes. If that is so, it adds strength, doesn't it, to the other part of our Lord's exaltation when he says, comparatively speaking, don't work for the meat that perishes, but work for the food that endures unto eternal life. So that if we are prepared to work hard for our daily bread, our Lord is saying that we must be prepared to work much harder still for the food that endures unto eternal life. The Apostle Paul had to issue an exhortation, so we read in one of his epistles, to some recent converts of his who thought that becoming a Christian relieved you of the necessity of going about your daily work and earning your bread and butter. They seem to have reasoned that if the gospel said that the Lord Jesus is coming again and coming very soon, then you could afford to give up your daily work and sit around or whatever you like to do and wait for the Lord to come. And the apostle had to correct that error, of course. Yes, the Lord Jesus is coming, but that doesn't mean that in the meantime we can sit down on our chairs and expect God to rain down food out of heaven. We must be prepared to work for our daily living until the Lord comes. Sometimes, however, there comes over the Church of God a similarly flabby idea when we come to the study of Holy Scripture and the seeking of that food that endures. And the flabby idea is that having once trusted the Savior, then the learning of God's word and the seeking of the food that endures ought to be a very simple thing, requiring very little labor. So keep it simple, my brother, they say, and they mean well. But how you keep John five and six simple, I don't know. Perhaps you'll judge by the time you're finished, Jose. But that could be a, a false idea, couldn't it? Who told you it had got to be simple? Why the dear man who earns his bread and butter by studying physics, which is but the study of God's handiwork, finds it, of course, very exhilarating, but hard, hard work. And if the study of God's handiwork in nature involves hard work, how shall not the study of God himself, in all the majesty of his wonder, how shall that not call upon every ounce of physical and mental and emotional energy that we can give it? So, here is my defense tool, as the Apostle Paul would say. If tonight is very hard, it's hard work, then I cite the Lord's exhortation, work hard for the meat that endures. Of course, at heart, I'm very merciful. Any device that you can employ or think of, uh, to make the work a little bit easier, uh, you are permitted to use. Listen with your eyes shut, stand up and waggle your feet or something, or whatever you like to do, uh, get your elbow and poke your fellow who is snoring, or anything like that at all, uh, to make it easier, as easy as we can, that you are permitted to do. The question is, of course, why should we read these long passages of a statement and then of argument that record for us these long conversations that our Lord Jesus had with the Jews of his own day? We all come to the conclusion a lot of them were hardened old unbelievers, and you might well be tempted to say, well, why did our Lord bother to talk to them? Why didn't he say, gentlemen, you're unbelievers, goodbye. I won't waste my breath on you. And if we have the record of what he said, why should we in our day listen to it? And the answer is, of course, manifold. It is this in particular, to start with, that our Christian gospel is not a philosophy built up of timeless truths that anybody could see if he had a, a, a, a modicum of intelligence. Our gospel is not a philosophy. Our gospel is a person, and it's a message about a person who, at one stage in human history, came down from heaven and walked on this very earth on which we stand, and there made his tremendous claims, not about some universal truths, but about himself personally, as to what he was and who he was and what he would do. And therefore the Jews came, and many of them, some of them believed, but many of them disputed what he said. Why should we bother? Well, of course, because our Lord came historic, made these claims historically, and the claims relate to his person, not to some general truths. We can't treat the truths of the gospel as though they were, so to speak, like the two times table, you know, that, uh, advanced course in arithmetic. Two times two is four, and two times three is six, and two times four is getting beyond me, something else. Ha. Uh, we don't have to ask ourselves, well, uh, who thought that up? And who was the author of that? Uh, no, bother who was the author of it. Whether there was any author or not doesn't matter at all. These are statements of the laws of arithmetic, and they are valid at any time, place, or country, and it doesn't matter. You don't have to go back to the history of it to see who wrote them to find out if they are true. Now, when it comes to the gospel, you do have to go back into history. You go have to go back to our blessed Lord Jesus, who was here on earth and made these claims. We, therefore, as believers, are concerned to go back in history and to discover exactly what did Jesus of Nazareth say when he was here. And then, of course, we shall be interested in hearing the response of his contemporaries, for while some believed, a lot of them didn't believe and disputed what he said every inch down the road. Why did they dispute him? We as Christians want to know that, don't we? We lived thousand years after Jesus Christ was on this earth. These were his contemporaries who, who saw him and touched him and handled him and heard him. If they disagreed with him, if they disputed his claims, how can we believe them at our late date in history? At least we shall want to know, shall we, why did they dispute him? Was it that perhaps they didn't understand exactly what he was saying, and therefore, alas, because they had got the mistaken idea, they disputed it? Or was it that they perfectly understood what he was saying and rejected it? And if the latter is true, then why? If they had valid reasons for rejecting it then, how could we possibly have any valid reasons for believing it? Therefore, because our faith is an historic faith, we must be patient and diligent to listen to what our Lord said all those two thousand years ago, and why people objected, and what he answered to those who objected to him. So much then for the whys of our study this evening, and we come to our pre- preliminary observations. We are tonight to da- dis- to study together chapters five and six of the Gospel by John. And the question arises, why should we trouble to take chapters five and six together. And the answer, as you will now know from our previous studies, is because of what we have come to think about the literary structure of the Gospel by John. We have found that the main passages of the central passages of the Gospel by John are the records of certain journeys which our Lord made to Jerusalem on the occasion of the great religious festivals, and of his journey then to Jerusalem and back again. So it was in the earlier chapters from two verse, uh, thirteen until the end of chapter four. At two thirteen he went up to Jerusalem to the feast. By the end of chapter four he is back in Galilee. Now, at the beginning of chapter five, the pattern repeats itself. There was a feast of the Jews, says chapter five, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. The rest of chapter five is an account of what he did and what he said at Jerusalem. Chapter six follows on. After these things, Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. And so once more you notice, now in chapter six, he is back again up in Galilee. It's the same pattern as in the first journey. Secondly, we shall notice it, uh, its significance later on, just let's notice the common theme. In chapter five, our Lord goes down to Jerusalem on the occasion of a feast of the Jews. What feast it was, we are not told. In chapter six, he was back up in Galilee, but in verse four, John the historian pauses long enough to tell us, because he wants to tell us, that the miracle that now took place, took place when the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. So our Lord didn't go down to it. John doesn't say the Passover has already arrived. It was near at hand. It was Passover season in general when our Lord did this miracle. Let's come to something deeper than that. We could argue, if we wanted to, that chapter six is grouped with chapter five simply because the events of chapter six happened after those of chapter five. That's a very good reason, isn't it? So there have been a lot of liberal scholars that have said that John, uh, the present manuscripts have got the order of these chapters wrong, and, uh, it should be that chapter six comes first and then chapter five. and somehow or other it's all got muddled up in the manuscripts. Well, you can believe that if you like, but if you're inclined to reserve your opinion at least till the end of this lecture, you'll see. But it could be that chapter six is recorded here because it happened, the events happened after the events of chapter five. There is, of course, however, a deeper reason, is there not? And I have partly indicated it on the board in front of you. In chapter five, it will be my contention that John presents our blessed Lord Jesus as the source of life, as the source of life. Whereas in chapter six, John presents our Lord as the means of life. What do I mean by that? Well, look in chapter five, two verses will help us, and one in particular. Chapter five, verse twenty six: As our Lord comes to his tremendous statement of his claim, this among other things he says, chapter five, verse twenty six: For as the Father hath life in himself, so even so gave he to the Son also to have life in himself. I ask you to notice that little phrase, in himself. It doesn't simply say as the Father has life, so the Son has life. It is saying that the Father has life in himself. That is to say, the Father is not only alive, of course he's alive. At one point in chapter six, our Lord will refer to the Father as the living Father has sent me. Yes, it is the living God. He is not a mere dead idol or figment of somebody's imagination. He is the living God, but there's more to it than that. The living God has life in himself. That is, he is the source and fount of life. The phrase reminds us of what John says about the Word of God in chapter one. um All things were made by him. Without him was not anything made that was made in him. In him was life. That is, if you survey the vast variety of life in this universe, and you ask where Christ the Creator got the life from to make it all with, then the answer is he didn't get it from anywhere. He was the source of life. In him was life. He spoke every kind of life there is. He spoke it into existence. He's the source of life. But now when you come to chapter six, our Lord is presenting himself throughout, is he not? It is self-evident, as the bread of life, or the living bread. What does that mean then, you say? What is the difference? Well, let me use a simple homely illustration and analogy. Let's take ordinary physical life. Yeah, and let me ask you a personal thing or two about your physical life. And this first, and pray, where did you get your physical life from? I think perhaps you got it by eating bread and butter, if not marmalade as well, yes? You got your physical life by eating bread. Well, of course you didn't. It isn't the way you get life, not eating bread and butter. Where did you get your life from then? So I got it from my parents. Ah, yes. They, of course, got it from God eventually. He was a source of life. But in a very limited sense, perhaps we may say that it was your parents were the physical life, in the sense that they were channels that channeled it to you, and your life began in your mother's womb. A very different process from eating bread and butter. Ah, I stand corrected. That's, that was the source of your life. I get it now. And, and because you got your life that way from that source, you don't ever eat bread and butter, I suppose. You don't need it. Well, you say, don't be so stupid, don't. You are confusing two things. You are confusing the source of life with the means of life. Yes, you got your life from your parents, not by eating bread and butter. But once you got the life, that life had constantly to be fed and maintained, did it not? And for that you needed the means of life, as we call them. Jose, Lebensmittel, as the Germans say. We need the, the, uh, means of life to sustain and maintain the life we have got. Two things. And what is true of physical life is true, of course, of spiritual life. How do we get life? Well, we get life from him who is the source of life. And as we shall presently see, the receiving of life is not some long, drawn-out process. It is instantaneous, as we shall see, as the blessed Lord Jesus healed the man at the pool after his thirty-eight years of try- trying and, uh, endeavoring all to no effect. Our Lord gave him life instantaneously. So is it with our receiving life from the Savior. The moment we believe the Savior, that very moment, instantaneously, he gives us life. And because it's eternal life, it never has to be, uh, it never can be lost. That also we shall find. But, uh, once we've got life, does that mean we've got all we need? The Lord Jesus has given us life, we don't need him anymore, thank you very much. It is a fact that perhaps a few, uh, believers seem to give that impression. They can tell you when they were converted, when they were born again, when they received new life, it was in the year eighteen eighty nine, in February the sixteenth. Thereafter, they behave as if they don't need the Lord anymore. They don't need constantly to feed on him. Because they say, well, I, I, I did receive life and I believed, you see, so that's all that I need. No, it isn't. Here's our Lord telling us, and it is the point of John's arrangement of this material in these two consecutive chapters. The first, we need to receive life from the Savior, which we get instantaneously. Secondly, having received life, we need our blessed Lord still and constantly and shall ever need him as the means of life to feed and sustain the life that he has given to us. We could make the opposite mistake, couldn't we? People reading God's Holy Word, we shall find examples of it, eh, as we go on this evening in our study. People reading God's Holy Word and studying it diligently because they think it is food for their souls. They're seeking the means of life, but have never received life itself. Never been born again. That is a very real and a perilous danger. One can seek to feed on Christ without ever having been born again and received life. We must keep the chapters in their due order, then. Did you notice what order they were in? It's a logical order, isn't it? First, Jesus, the source of life and receiving life, and then Jesus as the means of life and the maintenance of life. And I hope you will see that these, uh, two chapters form a logical whole. In order to be faithful to the topic in hand and to discuss it properly, you will need both chapters put one alongside the other. Let me use an analogy there, if I may. You'll see. Um, him, here's me, uh, sitting down to describe, if not to paint, the human face. And they say to you, well, the human face has got a nose, mm-hmm, it's got an ear, and it's got an eye and a mouth. You say, half a minute, old chap, is is that all? Do you see? Thought it had two eyes. Oh yes, sir, eh eh yes, it should have to be a real human face. It's meant to have two. And what about the ears? Well, yeah, yeah, two of them as well. Oh, I see. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Do you see? And the human body, oh, it has got an arm and a leg. What, is that all? Well, of course not. There are two arms and two hands and two legs and two feet. If you only said it got one eye, you would be given a very misleading description of the human body. To have a proper complete description, it must have two eyes and two arms and two hands and two legs and two feet. And this is a way we have of, of, of checking our interpretation, you know, of Holy Writ, if I may interject that. How do I know I've got the right, uh, interpretation of these two passages? Well, just as I know I've got the right description of the face if I say there are two eyes, one right eye and one left eye, yes, and two hands, one right and one left. So I know that we've got the right interpretation of this when I say that Jesus on the one hand is the source of life and on the other the means of life. You need both. Else you have an inadequate description of him and of the life he gives and the life he maintains. And temptation has got the better of me, you see. Um. Just let me go back to these hands. Human body, to be complete, has two hands, hasn't he? Whoever, uh, contemplated them at close quarters. Now, there's one, there it is, if you can bear to look upon it. There is the other. Both of them have a thumb and four fingers, lo and behold. But now you'll notice a comical thing about them, or perhaps it's not so comical, that if you hold them up like that, they are not quite the same, are they? Of course, I could put one round that way, and then they'd match completely, wouldn't they? Thumb, both of them in the same direction, little finger on the same end, you'll see, and they'd be the same. But that would be artificial, wouldn't it? If you pulled them out like that, while they've got the same elements in each one, they are, so to speak, opposite to each other, aren't they? They are a reverse symmetry. This thumb pokes that way, and this one pokes that way, this one north and that one south, you'll see. And the fingers are kind of opposite each other in the symmetry. And that you would never confuse the right hand with the left, would you? You better ask, start asking why they are opposite way round. Why they are arranged in that kind of a pattern. Anyway, we shall find now, as we go along, that the, um, chapters five and six, as far as the material goes, they are placed out in the same form, are they not? They both follow the same form. Let's run briefly over that now, as we see, chapter five starts with a miracle. It happened on the Sabbath, and the man was made whole. Then there follows the story of the miracle itself, as you'll see, goes from chapter five, verse one, to chap- uh, to verse nine, mhm halfway through. Straightway the man was made whole and took up his bed and walked. Then follows the reaction. Now it was the Sabbath on that day, so the Jews said unto him that was cured, it is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for thee to take up thy bed. But he answered them, he that made me whole, the same said unto me, take up thy bed and walk. And they said, who, who was that man? And he said, I don't know, for Jesus had, we notice it, Jesus had conveyed himself away, a multitude being in that place. Then afterwards, Jesus finds him and says, don't sin anymore, lest a worse thing happen to you. The man went away and told the Pharisees what he'd said, and they therefore persecuted Jesus because he did these things on the Sabbath, and Jesus replied to them, and that brought an even stronger reaction. Therefore, the Jews sought them all to kill him because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also called God his own father, making himself equal with God. So in the second place, the reaction to the miracle that our Lord had done. Then from chapter five verses nineteen to twenty five, our Lord proceeds to expound exactly what it was he was claiming. In calling God his own father and making himself equal with God, what did our Lord mean? In what sense did he intend us to take it? An exposition of the claim of the Lord Jesus, therefore, Jules says, that goes from verse nineteen down to verse 30. Then after that, we get Christ's witnesses. He has made his claim. Now he cites the witnesses that will support that claim and are evidence for the truth of that claim. The witnesses, chapter five, thirty one down to verse forty. And with the citing of the witnesses, the evidence, John also records the response of the Jews to those witnesses. Many of them alas, rejected the evidence. From verse forty one to forty seven, Christ gives his verdict on their unbelief, in the sense that he analyzes for us and diagnoses for us what the cause of that unbelief. We'll see the chapter begins when he'd done the miracle with their reaction. They said it was against the law. They stood for the law, they stood for the law of Moses. When our Lord finally diagnoses and analyzes their unbelief, he points out that in actual fact, they did not themselves believe Moses. The very Moses in whom they trusted and in whose name they were rejecting the Savior, the very Moses, if they weren't careful, when it came to the final judgment and that August scene, they would find Moses rise up in outraged protest. But they had ever dared to say they believed Moses. They hadn't believed Moses. They had misconstrued what Moses was about, and not having believed Moses' writing, how could they believe Christ's words? And more to that effect. So that will be chapter five. and when we come to chapter six, it will follow the same pattern. It begins, as you'll see, with, uh, a miracle done, this time not on Sabbath, but at the season of Passover, you'll see. And the, uh, miracle goes down in the chapter till verse thirteen. Then verse fourteen, right down to verse thirty one, comes the reaction to the miracle. In the first place, when the people saw the sign which he did, they said, this is of a truth of prophet that cometh into the world. And as Jesus saw, they were on the point of coming and taking him by force to make him king. Marvelous reaction, you say, we're getting somewhere now at last. Unlike these fellows who rejected it, the reaction this time is very, very favorable, in fact, enthusiastic. They recognized him as the prophet like Moses, the prophet that shall come into the world, and they're going in their enthusiasm to make him king. Our Lord then does a very strange thing, doesn't he? He can, oh, he conveys himself away, like he did with the man at the pool. First of all, he went up the mountain to escape the people, and his disciples went across the sea in a boat. And then, when it was dark, the blessed Lord Jesus conveyed himself across the sea, doing his second sign. But pray observe what he was doing it for. He was coming away from the people. He was not minded that they should make him king. And the next day the people came and they said, Rabbi, they said, when did you come here? And he didn't answer. Very good reason, I suppose, if he said, well, I walked across the lake, perhaps they wouldn't have believed him there and then. But the reaction continues as our Lord explained to them, you seek me not because you saw the sign, but because you ate of the, the bread and the fill. Labor not for the meat that perishes, and so forth and so on. The reaction then to the miracle. Then our Lord begins to explain and expound what it is that he is claiming. Verse thirty two down to verse forty. I am the bread of life, and so forth. An exposition of our Lord's claim. From verse forty one and all the way down, you'll see to fifty nine, There follows Jewish objections. Notice verse forty one: the Jews therefore murmured concerning him. That's their first objection. I am the br- because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. They said that was nonsense. And then in verse fifty two, the Jews therefore strove one with another, saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? The two major objections leveled against the claims of Christ by the Jews on this occasion, and our Lord's response to them. And finally, in chapter six, verse 60 to the end. Twice over the attitude of the disciples, verse sixty: many therefore of his disciples, when they heard this, said, this is a hard saying, who can hear it? And again in verse, uh, sixty six, upon this many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. So it wasn't merely that the Jews objected, but now numbers, many, says John, of the disciples who hitherto had professed to believe in the Lord Jesus and had been following him as his disciples, indeed one of them, an apostle, if you please, that Jesus himself had chosen, are now exposed as nothing but unbelievers. Once more, our Lord Jesus diagnoses the causes of their unbelief. These are solemn chapters, but they are glorious chapters, aren't they? One of the, uh, lessons, one of the claims that our Lord Jesus makes is that he is to be the judge. When at the end of these two chapters we see him with the crowd around him, who do not or will not believe him, then it is a very solemn scene as our Lord, looking absolutely through them, says, I know you. Not merely I, I, I know you, you're, you're Harry, aren't you? Are you? You're, you're Jean, surely. Not that. I know you. The divine insight. He had read their hearts and now exposes to them why exactly it is they don't believe. He is to be the judge. And what he did then, he will do at the final judgment. Oh, he will not just impatiently say, you didn't believe, well, out with you. Before men and women are consigned to their judgment, Christ, the blessed Son of God, will take the trouble to show them why they didn't. My judgment, he says, will be just. So what I've been doing just now is to point out that the pattern of these two chapters, the way the material is arranged, is the same in both the chapters. Like the two hands are the same. But the one chapter doesn't repeat the other any more than the right hand repeats the left. And what we shall have to do is to try and see why these two chapters, how indeed they balance each other and put the two different sides to the truth. But that being so, let's start with not pattern or structure, but thought flow. There is a chorus, and some people are learning it very well. It's one of these new modern choruses that says that there is structure, and there is pattern, and there is thought flow. These three, and the greatest of these is thought flow. Glad to see you'd learned it. The greatest of these is thought flow. You should sing it too, and sing it to yourself in your bath. It's thought flow that is the most important thing. So that we start with chapter five in this, our first session, and we've got to see what the miracle was about, of course, but also what the miracle had to do with what followed. It's easy to see that in chapter six, isn't it? Because first our Lord multiplies loaves and fishes, and then having fed the crowd with material food, then our Lord preaches the sermon on spiritual food, I am the bread of life. So there is a connection between the miracle and the discussion that follows. What is the point? Is there any connection between the miracle in chapter five and the discussion that followed. To begin, therefore, our thinking along that line, we ought to notice perhaps at once that the miracle in Chapter five. was performed on a Sabbath day. If the Holy Spirit wanted us to know what feast it was, he would have told us. He doesn't tell us. Therefore, it can't be the major point, can it? For if it were, it would have told us. Isn't that funny how we are always looking to what the Bible doesn't say as being important, instead of listening to what it does say to say. What it is about to tell us is that at this feast, whatever feast it was, our Lord Jesus did this miracle on the Sabbath day. And that is why it incurred such anger from the Jews who kept the law. Therefore, we would understand the significance of the Sabbath, the doing it on the Sabbath. We ought to pause a moment and remind ourselves what the Sabbath stood for, did we not? You'll see. The Sabbath, one day in seven, was not merely a day in which people rested from their work and relaxed and played bowls or something. It was that, of course, and to take a day of rest from your normal work is a very wise thing, surely, to do. But there's many an unconverted man who takes one day in seven as a rest day for the good of his health, who doesn't keep it in the terms that the Old Testament laid down. The point of the Testament command is that you had to remember the seventh day to keep it holy unto the Lord. The seventh day was a time when Israel ceased other occupation that they might consider God and contemplate God. And if we read the accounts of the law of Sabbath, we shall find two reasons are given for the commandment. The one is given us in chapter uh twenty of the book of Exodus. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, says the commandment. And why should you do that? Well, you'll see, for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day. Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. That is its reason, that man might cease from his own daily labor for the moment and ponder God, the great creator of all things. Why is that important? Oh, it's exceedingly important so that we get our relationship with God right. We didn't make ourselves, did we? We didn't create this vast world in which we live. True, we go about our daily work and are busy at it, and sometimes you think our very lives depended on it, the way we fuss about it. But once in seven, says God to Israel, please rest a moment and ponder this, that all your little work, or big work as you may think it, is but secondary to my great creative work. Had God not created us in the first place, we should not be able to work ourselves, should we? Ponder it. And ponder this next, if you will. So much depends on your working, doesn't it? Granny's, uh, comfort in the nursing home, you're earning the money for that, and, uh, your wife and seven children and their education, you're working hard to supply that, plus the toys and things, and to keep John Major happy with the income tax. It's jolly hard work, uh, but consider this. If your work is necessary for those things, what did your work create c- contribute to your own creation? Nothing. Is that true? Oh, sit back a minute, if that's true. Oh, what a thing it is. Here I am, you know. What right have I to be here? You say, well, because you're an honest citizen and you work hard. No. Because you are moderately clever. No. You don't deserve to be here because you aren't very clever. Well, that's wrong as well. On what ground do I stand here? Totally of grace, my dear friend. God made me. Oh, what a marvelous thing it is. Not all my spasticating work and all its anxiety contributed anything to it. My being here doesn't depend on it. I am because he made me. You may think he did a very unfortunate thing when he made me, but that's irrelevant. He didn't consult you, my good friend. Your estimate of me counts nothing. He made me, and all the luxury and the ease of spirit and the rest of soul to sit back from life's rat race and ponder the fact I'm here because God made me. Remember it. It will take some of the strain out of life, won't it, if we get our relationship with the Creator the right way round. In a world gone from God, then people's status depends so often, doesn't it, on their cleverness, or on their money, or on their talents, or on their this, that, and the other. And if you're not good at those things, you are depreciated. But they don't in God. The major thing is that he made me. All else is secondary and comes out of that. It is God that has made us, saying the psalmist, and not we ourselves. Oh, marvelous thing. And as I go to bed at night, I think about it sometimes, you see. Because he made me. Oh, the wonder is he made me of his grace, and what is more, he made me with eternity in mind, and just because I am by his grace, I shall one day be in the great eternity. Magnificent, you know. That's God. Oh, how sad are those people who have lost faith in a creator. What a rat race it turns life into being. Ah, but then there is a second reason given in the Old Testament for, uh, keeping of the Sabbath, and that is the reason that is given in the book of Deuteronomy and chapter five, where a different reason is given. Seventh day is a seventh day of rest, you'll see. Verse fifteen: and thou shalt remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God brought thee out thence by a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm. Therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day. That's Deuteronomy five fifteen. The second reason why Israel kept the Sabbath, to remember now that not only was the Go- God the God who created them, he was the God who redeemed them. Yes, now that they were redeemed, they were to serve God. Isn't that what Moses said to all Pharaoh? God says, let my people go that they may serve me. They had to serve him day by day. They had to work hard building a tabernacle and using all their skills to the place of God, thereat they might serve. Oh, but even when they came to make the tabernacle, they were told, um, uh, rest one day a week, even when you're making a tabernacle. Why is that? To remember that it was God who redeemed you. All your service for God is but the second thing, the secondary thing, the second order thing. It wasn't your service for God that redeemed you, was it? Was it? You're resting your eternal security on how well you work for the Savior and how many souls you've led for Christ. Would it make you feel a little bit s- more secure if you had been a missionary and been the means of bringing ten thousand people to Christ, which I should feel I was really saved in? You would. Oh, oh, I think you mean to say your, your, your salvation depends on your service for the Lord? Then, my dear brother, my sister, you need, you do need to keep a Sabbath, if I may put it that way. Stop all your working for a moment, even for the Lord. And remember, it was not your work for the Lord that redeemed you. You can only work for the Lord once you have been redeemed. There were Israel, they were God's creatures, but now they had come into bondage in Egypt. How did they get out? Not by working a bit harder than usual. How cruel it would have been of God to come down and say, well, now you've got yourselves in hard work, haven't you, in your bondage to these Egyptians. Now I tell you what, I've got a scheme by which, if you were prepared to work a bit harder, you might get out. No, no. Their redemption, their deliverance was a work of God's supreme redeeming power through the blood of the Lamb and the miracle at the Red Sea. It is important, isn't it? Because we're not only creatures, but we too were in bondage to sin and to Satan. How do I get out? And every day of my life, I ought to find some time to sit back and to think, don't I? It's not my work for the Lord that got me out. I'm out by his redeeming power. That was Sabbath. And with that then, if that is what Sabbath stood for, we come to the miracle. We're told that there was a pool in Jerusalem, and by that pool was a multitude of... Now, please pray do notice what kind of people. A multitude of disabled people, weak people, blind, lame, and paralyzed. Ah. You'll notice once the very big difference between that miracle then there and the miracle here. The multitude that came out to Christ, they are not said to have been diseased, though many of them may have been. What was wrong with them was they were hungry. But hunger, hunger is not a disease, is it? It is a very painful need sometimes, but it's not a disease. You're meant to get a bit, uh, pain when you get hungry, do see. And satisfying it is not curing an illness. That was hunger. But here, the trouble was not hunger, but disease. And diseases of a special kind, you'll notice. Not the diphtheria, nor septicemia, nor cancer. It was that in their bodies they were misshapen or broken, blind, lame, paralyzed. What a sad comment. This is a miracle, it's a sign, but they were real people, weren't they? And what a comment on God's great creation. He made man perfect. Oh, tell me what's happened to these folks and to the millions more. Broken, bruised, lame, blind, paralyzed. The answer is of the fall, of course. God loved the world of sinners lost and ruined by the fall. God, with his great creatorial power, made them perfect. But see what sin has done to them now, done in their very bodies ultimately, as they are broken, blind, lame, paralyzed. And here comes what you know in advance. That's cheating a bit, isn't it? But then you shouldn't have read the rest, I do think. Um, uh, you know in advance that into that, into that pool is coming, into that area is coming. The Creator incarnate. He who at the first spoke the word because in him was life, and human beings came into existence. Now they've been broken by the fall, and here comes the Creator. Oh, how will he mend them? How will he, to use the term, make them whole? And that, uh, draws our attention to the pool, does it not? So we shall have to stay a few moments by this pool. Now, um, question arises. First the facts. What about this pool thing? First facts to get hold of is what the original manuscripts say, what the older manuscripts say, and the better ones, as far as we can judge. The better ones omit what in the older Bibles came at the second half of verse three and the whole of verse four. The better manuscripts read in verse three, in these lay a multitude of them that were sick, blind, halt, withered. You'll see. The better manuscripts read that. Older, not so good manuscripts add, waiting for the moving of the water. And then verse four, for an angel came down from time to time and troubled the water. Then whosoever it was that got into the pool as soon as the water was troubled first was healed of any disease he had. But that second part of verse three and the whole of verse four is absent from the better manuscripts. You say, why was it put in? Well, I suppose it was put in by people who were trying to explain, uh, verse seven. When our Lord came to the man and said, would you be made whole? The man said, I've no mo- man to put me into the pool, but while I'm coming, another steppeth down before me. Well, why should that be an obstacle to being healed, is the point, isn't it? Why does it matter how many people step down into the thing? So somebody obviously thought they had to explain that, and they explained it by saying, well, from time to time, an angel came down and troubled it. To get the benefit from that, you had to get in, be the first man in, you'll see. Uh, uh, uh, uh, and the first man used up all the extra power that was put there, and the goodness, you'll see, and anybody else coming in afterwards didn't get any benefit whatsoever, you'll see. So they explained it that way. But the explanation is a later addition to the earlier manuscripts. So that's number one point, getting out the facts, you'll see. But the question now comes in, and our Lord came to the man, and the man was trying to get into the pool. Sir, he said, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool. Question is, why didn't Christ therefore give him a helping hand and say, you poor old fellow, you've got no friends around here to help you into the pool? Let me give you a helping hand, old chap. You'll see, get hold of him and lead him to the side of the pool and push him in if you had to, do you see? Uh, why not? That would have been a kind thing to do, wouldn't it? Why didn't he then? It's obvious he didn't. Now here the learned have one or two different explanations, and I shall have to trouble you with them. There's a first lot of theologians that say the reason our Lord didn't use the pool like that and help the man into the pool was because the whole business was a lot of silly old superstition. Fancy imagining getting into a pool would could do you any good. What a sort of superstition, and our Lord wasn't prepared to collaborate with such a superstitious idea. Oh. Oh. We want to be careful, I think. We've got some doctors in the house tonight. We have to be careful what we say about methods used for healing. Because down the centuries, you know, all kinds of methods have been used for healing. Uh, and doctors used them at one stage, you see? But, um, then in later centuries, the doctors have gone around and said, you know, that wasn't so. Well, what was it then? Well, you'd hesitate to call it superstition, but they know tell you there was no value in it, and all that money you spent on the chemist was useless, you'll know, or other people. But there you are, medicine is an empirical science. Uh, we better be careful. And there have been people that have believed that certain waters and pools and things, um, have benefits, don't- don't they? I mean, there was a spa at Ballynahinch, and another one you'll see, uh, or two in England, the Romans used one at Bath, you'll see. And the more you go to the continent, the more you'll find them. They're great believers that there are certain benefits in certain waters. It is conceivable that this pool did at certain times have a, a, a discharge into it from the piping systems around Jerusalem of certain water that did convey a small modicum of, uh, chemicals that could have been useful to some extent, at any rate, even if they didn't do any harm, you'll see. It's just about possible. And that, uh, the in- in- the incursion of these waters from time to time into the pool was so small that its benefits, so to speak, were soon used up and dispersed. You'll see. I'm not myself inclined to think that the reason why our Lord didn't help the man into the pool was because the pool thing was all superstition. You'll say in chapter nine— will you remember it? We shall come across it anyway. We were looking at the pattern of the signs, weren't we? And in chapter nine, when our Lord found a blind guy, he sent him to a pool. Do you suppose our Lord said, now look here, my man, make sure you don't get the wrong pool. There is one pool around the corner at the sheep gate. There's a lot of old superstition, that is. Um, uh, uh, but the, the pool I'm telling you to is a real good pool, my boy. If you go there, uh, and dip in there, you'll get your sight. It's very good for cleansing sight. Uh, healing sight and giving you sight. Is that why I used the pool on that occasion and not on this? That wouldn't fit really, would it? No, no. We'll have to find some other reason. We'll see. In chapter nine, our Lord was prepared to use the pool as a means of healing. Our Lord used it, told the man to go and wash in it. He used a lot of other means as well, making clay and putting it on man's eyes. Our Lord could have spoken the word and said, see man, but he didn't. He used a lot of means. And he could have used the means here if he'd like, couldn't he? You just ponder the matter. We as creatures of God, we have to use means, don't we? But God doesn't, unless he wants to, does he? You want to make some wine? Well, you'll have to use the means for it. Get a vine, plant it in the ground, tend it, let the rain come and all that, and all the processes. Oh, what a lot of means you'll have to use to make wine. And our Lord made wine, he didn't have to use the means, just spoke the word. When God made the universe, didn't have to use some means that were around somewhere. What could I make this universe with? Let me get a crane or two and a... No, no. Didn't have to use any means. We do, don't we? If you want to live, you'll have to, uh, use means to get your bread and butter. You'll have to eat the old bread and butter. You will, you will, you will. And normally when you're sick, let me remind you, normally when you're sick, you'll have to use the means to get well. You see, some dear Christians have felt that it would be an un- unspiritual thing if they were sick, physically sick, to go and get the services of a doctor. Oh, there's a long, long tradition going back to the Old Testament where people who felt they were especially holy felt it would be a wrong thing to use the doctors, you'll see. You ought to have faith in God, and God would heal you. Well, God does sometimes miraculously heal his people. It's not the normal. God has put the means for our healing in earth, hasn't he? You're feeling unwell? Well, take some rhubarb then, or something of the sort, do you see? Yeah, God has put the means, mercifully. He's got herbs galore, and then he's got doctors and, and things, do you see, that, um, and God having provided the means, even health spas, if you believe in them, God having provided the means, we are expected normally to use them. There is no criticism of the pool made in John chapter five. If we decide that the whole thing was a superstitious nonsense, well, we shall have to read that into the text. It's not what the text says. Where was the difficulty? The difficulty was not in the, in the pool and what limited healing resources it had. The difficulty was in the man himself, wasn't it? The pool may have been okay, the difficulty was in the man. He was too weak to use the means. Will you be made whole, said the Lord. He said, I've no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool. A pathetic, pathetic thing, isn't it? Thirty eight years tantalized by the sight of the pool, believing if only he could get into the pool, it would be the means of his healing. But alas, the kind of malady he had, the brokenness he had, he was too inadequate to use the means. He's a broken man. How would the Creator help him? I'll give you a little help to use the means, my, my man. No, indeed not. Nothing so undignified. The creator said, you can't use the means. I tell you what, my man, I don't need any means. I can heal you and make you whole here and now. Get up. Ah, the Creator had come, and because he is Creator, he doesn't need any needs. He's about to say, as the Father has life in himself, so has he given to the Son to have life in himself. And the hour is coming, and now is, when the very dead shall hear his voice. For they that hear shall live. Before we proceed, I want to, I want to, uh, use the whole thing as an analogy. So let me be quite clear, make it clear as I can to you, that I'm not saying the pool is a type of anything. Will you say that? And if you hear anybody afterwards saying gooding he, you know he can't off with this fanciful stuff, and sometimes more fanciful than others. And do you know what tonight he actually said? That the pool of Bethesda was a type of the law. He didn't. No, no, he didn't. Seriously, he didn't. And if you think he did, that was because you were asleep or something. He didn't say anything of the sort. He's saying that the pool was there, it had some means of of healing, but the man was too weak to use the means, and Christ healed him by his word without any means, instantaneously. Yes. Having said that, I wanted to think of another completely different situation. We're not talking about the pool at all, something absolutely different. Yes, and what is that? Well, we started off with the creator, didn't we? Remember him, he made you. Ah, but then there came the fall. You'll see. And sin came in. And God therefore gave his law. Now you know what? There's nothing wrong with the law, certainly nothing superstitious about it. And the law said, the man that does these things, he shall live. Marvelous. So here's a race full of sinners, the Israelites, and they're broken by the fall because of sin. And the Lord has given them with a happy advice on the label of the bottle. He who does it will live. And the lot of earnest Israelites did their best to do it. Do you know what? Here and there, and insofar as they were able to do it, the Lord did have a very healthy effect, didn't it? It's always more healthy not to murder, you know, than to murder. Yeah. And it's always healthy for society if you honor your father and your mother, and you don't tell lies. You'll see, by and large and in general, if you keep the law, you'll find it promotes a kind of a healthy form of life. Ah, but while that is so, listen to the New Testament and Paul in. If you were to say that now we've become sinners, the law is there so that by using this means we might find eternal life and salvation. Oh, what a cruel thing you would say. There's nothing wrong with the law, but we're broken men and women, lame, blind, paralyzed. What is the good of your telling me, look, this is this marvelous law here. It is perfect, keep it gooding, and it will bring you life. Then you haven't diagnosed my need, have you? I'm a broken man, and I've no man. When the means of life is available, I've no man to put me into it. And what is the answer? Not God's law. Thank God, not God's law. The answer is the Creator himself, he who made us by his grace, not by our help, not by our works, but made us. Now that we have fallen and broken and bruised, comes to remake us, to make us whole again. How? Not by our works, but by his power. It's glorious, isn't it? I'd go anywhere and preach that gospel. Man, he said, I've not come here to help you get into that pool. You know, many people have the notion that's what Jesus Christ is about. They wake up in life to the fact that their lives are ruined, if not physically, then spiritually. Their lives are all in a mess and a horrible tangle, and they get the idea then that, that, oh, Jesus Christ could help me a bit, so let me, uh, go to Jesus Christ. And they are looking to Jesus Christ little by little to put them right, to put them right, to put them right, to put them right, in the hopes that one day they might be repaired well enough to get into God's heaven. That's not what you have to do. Not come to give us a little help, to put us right, so that we may qualify for eternal life in heaven. He's come to give us life here and now. As the Father has life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself. Well, that was the miracle. Just spend, let's spend five minutes thinking of the reaction. The Jews came along to the man who was now carrying his bed on the Sabbath day, and they said, it is not lawful for you to carry your bed on the Sabbath day, you see. And he replied, he that made me whole, the same said unto me, take up thy bed and walk. And they asked, who is this man? And the man didn't know, for Jesus had withdrawn himself, conveyed himself away, so the man didn't know. So for the moment, that eliminated who Christ was. Even that so, it left a bit of evidence, didn't it? Here come these Jews, and they say, it's not lawful to carry your bed. Ah, but, said the man, you see the man that cured me. He told me to. What's the logic of that? Well, if he had the ability to cure, would he not also be doing right to tell me to walk? At least the Jews could have considered it, couldn't they? There was a miracle staring them in the face, an act of God, surely, unless it was an act of a demon. It was a miracle. If the man who was used of God to do a miracle said, take up your bed and walk, they ought to be a little bit slow in accusing him of breaking the law of Moses, wouldn't they? Anyway, the man couldn't tell. Who is the man? So Jesus then, uh, found him in the temple and says to him, behold, thou art made whole. Don't carry on sinning. Stop sinning, my good man, lest a worse thing befall you. Now here we shall have to distinguish one or two things, shall we? Forget all about my analogy, won't you, when I talked about the law. Forget that for the moment. Come back to the actual historical thing. He was a man physically ill. Lots of folks around the perimeter of this pool, they were physically ill. It wouldn't be right for us to say that the blindness of this man and the lameness of that man were the result of their personal sin. No. They are broken because the human race is a fallen race, not necessarily as a result of any individual sin. But this man whom our Lord cured, his illness was the result of some personal sin, as you now see when our Lord said, you stop sinning, my friend, lest the worst thing happen. You sinned before, and this happened. Now I should, I tell you straight, stop sinning now, else the worst thing would happen. And what does that tell us? That our Lord was not, forgive the word, antinomian. It's a long word for Saturday night, isn't it? He's not saying that he so saves this man and cures him, and the implication of that is it doesn't matter whether you sin or not. Of course he isn't. Telling the man straight, you go on sinning and the worst thing could happen. You'll see we have to, uh, secondly, distinguish two things, don't we? The penalty of sin and the consequences of sin. Yes? The penalty of sin is death eternal death indeed. The consequences of sin can be all sorts of things, illness included. Yeah? Here's a man in his lotto blind drunk because he will drink methylated spirits every morning before breakfast, and he suffers the most terrible anguishes of mind and body, and he gets converted. Marvelous. Does it mean now it doesn't matter whether he goes on drinking or not? No, for the moment the man is converted and perhaps leaves his methylated spirits. But he goes back to it. The fact he's become a Christian won't save him, will it, from the consequences. Paul reminds us of that as Christians, doesn't he? Romans chapter six. What is being converted? You were the slaves of sin, he says, but now you've delivered yourself into that great mold of doctrine to which you have been delivered. Yield your members to God as servants to God, for if you go on as believers, yielding your members to sin, I'll enslave you. There are consequences. I'm saved by grace. Marvelous. But don't you go about biting and backbiting and devouring your fellow Christians, will you? For if you do, the results will follow. God is not marked. What a man sows, he reaps. You reap to the spirit, you shall of the spirit reap the glorious fruits of the spirit. You sow to the flesh, and of the flesh you will reap corruption. Christ does not preach antinomianism. He didn't to this man. Preached the very opposite. Made whole, but don't carry it on the same way. In spite of that, the Jews persecuted him because he did this on the Sabbath. So our Lord had to explain now. My father, he says, works hitherto, and I work. What does it mean? Well, God did indeed, in the creation of the world, he took six days to create it, and he rested on the seventh from all the work that he had created and made. That is, he ceased the work of creation and rested. He didn't cease from every kind of work, did he? Having created the world, he had to uphold it. And you know that's God's constant work, isn't it? It isn't the fact that God made the world and then went off, absentee landlord, and let it carry on by itself. Hebrews chapter one tells us that God, our Lord, upholds the whole universe by the word of his power. Every minute of the clock, he keeps the world going. What we call the laws of science are but the effects of his constant input of energy, the word of his power, his powerful word. Created it by his word, now he maintains it by the constant input of his divine energy. So creation was one thing, maintenance is another. And then there's the third category, putting it right when it went wrong, redeeming it. My Father who made it has been at work ever since. And I work, says Christ. And for that, the Jews sought to kill him for two reasons. That he, uh, uh, he not only did these things on the Sabbath, he referred to God as his own father, making himself equal with God. The question now arises, their animosity, they wanted to kill him. Was it because they hadn't understood what he said when he said, my father works hitherto, and I work? Perhaps he was talking in general terms. You know, we're all sons of God. I'm a son of God, you're a son of God, and she's a child of God, a daughter of God over there, you see. And, uh, God works and she works, and, uh, God works and he works, you see. And that was all he was saying. We're all children of God, and God works, and we all have a right to work. Is that what he was saying? And they mistook him and thought he was, um, saying that God was his own father in a special sense. And because they misunderstood him, they persecuted him. Was it what he... was that the truth about him? No, of course it wasn't. And how do we know? Because in the third section, we're going to hear his own exposition of what he meant. But that is a long story, and you've worked very hard till now, and there's a cup of tea awaiting you, as you'll see, and we'll take our pause.