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That's connectwithskip.com. In these lay a great multitude of sick people. That's not how the 1611 King James Version puts it. It says, in these lay a great number of impotent folk.
Now that word has changed meaning. Impotent in 1611 does did not mean what it has come to mean today. Originally the idea of an impotent person was a person without strength. A person unable to better himself.
A person unable to do something for himself. So playing off that word in the original 1611 translation, a great number of impotent folk, we have the story here of an impotent man meeting an omnipotent man. One who is all powerful. A man who is powerless meeting the all powerful one. A man without strength meeting the one who has all strength at his disposal.
All power and authority at his disposal. A man who is totally helpless meeting the ultimate helper. Now I remember as a boy my father quoting what he believed to be a verse of scripture. And he would say, you know son the Bible says God helps those who help themselves. I believed it was in there. When I became a believer I searched for it and I couldn't find it so I thought it must be in an alternate translation. My father was a believer. My dad must be so well versed in the Bible that he knows different translations of the scripture.
So I searched in various translations and I found not only in the King James version but in all the variants thereof, whether it's the Kodak Sinaiticus or Vaticanus, whatever sets of text you want to rely on, I couldn't find that verse. But I kept reading the Bible. Not only did I find God helps those who help themselves, I discovered the greatest truth. God helps those who can't help themselves.
He helps the helpless people. Then I discovered that where that verse of scripture came from was not the scripture. It was from Ben Franklin. He's the guy who said God helps those who help themselves. Not the Bible.
It was Ben Franklin first noted and first quoted in poor words almanac printed in 1757. So the scene is in Jerusalem. A special area known as the pool of Bethesda as we will read. The pool of Bethesda, the word Bethesda means mercy, house of mercy, place of mercy.
It's a beautiful name, Bethesda. The pool of Bethesda, the place of mercy, the house of mercy was anything but a house of mercy. Rather, by the time Jesus enters the scene, it's not a house of mercy, it's a hangout of misery.
There's a great multitude of people who are unable to better themselves, unable to help themselves. And we find Jesus coming on that scene here. Now here's what's important for you to kind of put in your mind as we go through John. What happens here is the turning point in Jesus' ministry.
When I say turning point, I don't mean for the better, but I mean for the worse. It is the point at which the nation of Judea, the Jewish nation, formally sets themselves in opposition against Christ. And the opposition against Him from this point onward mounts and continues to mount and rises higher and higher until finally they succeed in putting Him on a cross and executing Him. What causes such hatred, what causes such persecution, what causes such opposition initially it is this event that John will follow all the way to the end when Jesus is put on the cross. So that's important for you and I to remember as we go through this chapter and the next chapter and the rest of the chapters as you'll see. All of the rumors they spread and all of the lies that they perpetrate and all of the backstreet conspiracies, it all stems from this incredible event.
So let's get into it. In verse one, and you know our style as we begin and we end when it's time to end, we pick it up next time when we gather. After this there was a feast of the Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now after this refers to the events in the previous chapter we don't know how long after this this occurred.
It could be up to a year or more. We also don't know what feast this is in Jerusalem. We are not told which is interesting at least to me. It's interesting to me because one of the things I've noted in John's writings is that he is typically careful in telling us which festival Jesus is celebrating whether it's Passover or the Feast of Dedication in the wintertime, Hanukkah, or the Feast of Tabernacles in chapter 7. It's just a feast. Most scholars believe it is indeed the Feast of Tabernacles that takes place in the fall, the autumn of the year.
But we're not told. John just says after this there was a feast of the Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Why did Jesus go up to Jerusalem?
Well it's interesting. According to the law, you know this now because you've been with us in our studies of the Old Testament, that Jewish males in Judea were required to attend three festivals every year. Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles.
Now if you lived in Galilee you weren't necessarily required to make them all, but Jesus made this one because he wants to show mercy in a place that was filled with misery. Now something that that is also interesting to me is that Jesus, though the Jewish leaders hate him and come to vehemently hate him, Jesus works through the system that he was born into. He was born Jewish. He was circumcised as a child on the eighth day according to Judaism. He went up to Jerusalem and he went up to Jerusalem as a child of 12 turning 13 to be bar mitzvahed in Jerusalem. He was in the synagogue for worship service on the Sabbath days. He wore the tassels that Jewish males wore, their robe with the colored tassels that marked them as men under the covenant of Judaism, a relationship with God. So that the woman who touched the hem of Jesus' garment was touching the tassels that hung from that hem of his garment. And he himself said, do not think that I have come to destroy the law and the prophets.
I didn't come to destroy them but to fulfill them. So he goes up and he keeps the feast. He goes through the ritual. He uses this feast to touch a man in great need as we will see. Now there is in Jerusalem verse two, by the sheep gate a pool which is called in Hebrew beit ezda, Bethesda in English, the house of or the place of mercy. Whenever you see that little word or those those letters B-E-T-H, beit or beth, it means house or place of. So beit lechem, beth lehem, same thing house of or place of lechem, bread. It's the bread basket of Israel.
Beit ezda, Bethesda, the house of the place of mercy. Now it says it's by the sheep gate. Most of us don't know where the sheep gate is and the only other reference that we find to it is in the book of Nehemiah, I believe, chapter three, when the sheep gate is also mentioned. But the sheep gate was a place by the wall of the city of Jerusalem where sheep were kept outside.
And why sheep? For the sacrifice is in the temple. They would be taken to this pool of Bethesda, which is believed to be about two to three feet deep or it was at the time. Animals were washed in that pool, these sheep, and then taken to the temple for sacrifice. There were many pools in and around Jerusalem and this is an interesting pool because for years, skeptics, unbelievers, said you can't rely on the documents of the New Testament. They are totally unreliable. There are stories that cannot be collaborated or corroborated by archaeology or history.
For example, there's no record in Roman history of a guy named Pontius Pilate and then they found a description in Caesarea that said Pontius Pilate, the procurator of Judea. And all they could say then was oops. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we get back to Skip's teaching, Nate Heitzig has written a children's book just in time for Christmas. And this month, we're offering it to you as thanks for your support of Connect with Skip Heitzig. Christmas Under the Tree follows the timeless story of Jesus Christ, from the cradle to the cross, through the eyes of an unlikely character, a humble tree. This beautifully illustrated book, which includes a companion audio experience, is a wonderful way to tell the Christmas story and the story of Christ to the children in your life. This resource is our thanks for your gift of just $25 or more today to help share biblical teaching with more people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig.
Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copy when you give $25 or more today to reach people all around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Let's continue with today's teaching with Pastor Skip. And another one that they loved to wave around was this pool of Bethesda. They said there's never been any archeological evidence or records of a pool called the Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem, especially of this magnitude. Until several years ago, they were digging around by this sheep gate, an area called St. Anne's Church, and they discovered this five-porched, five-colonated pool that matches this description. And they said they've discovered the Pool of Bethesda. Again, all the skeptics could say is, oops, well, we'll look for something else then, and they do until that is then thrown out. But this is one of those sticky points with many unbelievers for a while. So there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porches.
In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed. Here's an interesting footnote. Waiting for the moving of the water. 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.
If you are not reading the translation that I'm reading to you, you may have the new international version or the ESV or a number of other newer translations, you will notice that either that one verse is not in there or it's hyphenated on both sides to indicate that the oldest manuscripts that have been found do not have this verse in it. All of that to say, to make it really simple, it was believed, it became a legend because a subterranean spring fed this pool, evidently. And the subterranean spring that fed this pool would let in water every now and then and it would bubble up. And so when it would bubble up, keep in mind we're dealing with an ancient people and in antiquity people believed all sorts of crazy, superstitious things.
So a legend developed that the bubbling of the water was due to an angel who would stir it up. And whoever got there first would be healed, which presents a problem if you're an impotent folk. Because you can't sometimes get anywhere, let alone get somewhere first.
So you have lots of people who can't help themselves. Now what a cruel way to view God's power. Can you imagine God saying, I'm going to do this miracle, but I'm going to have an angel stir up the water, but whoever gets there first is the only one that can be healed. Ooh, you got there second, milliseconds after, but you didn't get there first.
So go away till next time. It became a legend developed that it was an angel that stirred it up. They had to have some explanation for this stirring up of the water.
Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity for 38 years. Let me tell you just a little bit about this pool. If you can picture, well picture the pool.
I'll use my Bible, even though it's falling apart, so I'll hold it really tight. It's rectangular, right? How many sides are there?
Four sides. Now, can you imagine a porch, a covered porch, around all four sides of that Bible, that rectangle? So that's four porches, one, two, three, four, five, six, that rectangle. So that's four porches, one, two, three, four, and then another porch dividing it in half.
So you have two pools, essentially seen as one pool, right? But it's divided in two by a colonnaded porch, so you have five porches, and that is what they discovered by St. Anne's Church in Jerusalem, the pools of Bethesda, the archaeological dig. So imagine these large, two to three feet deep pools of water, seen as one area, the pool of Bethesda, five covered porches. Covered would keep people out of the heat, would protect them from the elements, and it was used for a congregation of all sorts of diseased people.
One scholar believes that there were about 300 people that would congregate under those covered porches around the pool of Bethesda on normal times, during normal hours, normal parts of the year, but during festivals like this, there were upwards of 3,000 people. It grew to 10 times the normal population of sick people. So I'm telling you this because I want you just to imagine the sight and the smell of people who are diseased, who can't move, who have bedsores gathered in this humid area, the kind of disease that could spread, and you can understand that most people, especially the aristocratic people, nobody would come to that area unless you were really miserable. First time I visited a third world hospital, I was shocked. You know, you think of a hospital in the United States, it's sterile and there are certain criteria that you have to follow. You've got to wash your hands before you get in, you wash your hands during the day, but if you go to a third world hospital, I've been in Africa where I've seen two patients to one bed. They didn't know each other, they were unrelated, they had different diseases, but they were in because they ran out of beds. So two patients to a single little cot. Families gathered around the bed on the floor with cooking stoves, cooking meals for the patient because the hospital didn't provide that. And I've tasted hospital food, probably the food they're cooking is better than most hospitals anyway, so. In that environment, it was just shocking. I thought, this is a hospital?
This is where you come to die. And no doubt, many people who gathered there thought the same thing. So there was a certain man who was there who had an infirmity for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there and he knew that he had already been in that condition a long time, he said to him, do you want to be made well? So Jesus comes in, he's a stranger to all those people gathered. He's surveying the crowd, all of these sick people.
They've had diseases of different kinds for several years. He surveys the pile, the heap of humanity, but his eyes land on one person. A man who for almost four decades had been in a very miserable condition.
Now there's a principle here, I just don't want you to escape from seeing it. Mercy toward others begins by how you see them. Jesus saw him and he knew something about him.
He knew his medical history, knew his physical history. But Jesus looked at him and it all begins with a look. In Matthew chapter 9, Jesus saw the crowd. It says he had compassion when he saw the multitudes. They were like sheep without a shepherd.
They were weary, they were scattered. And when Jesus saw them, he had compassion on them. Mercy toward others begins by how you view them. I don't always view a crowd with compassion. I sometimes am guilty by viewing a crowd of people as a nuisance.
What are they doing here? I hate lines. I want to get here first before all the selfish people do. That's my human nature. But if I just take a step back and go, but how would Jesus view them? These are like scattered, weary sheep.
They have no shepherd. And I could, I could by God's grace, decide to see people differently and have a heart of compassion. I could see people have a heart of compassion. Jesus saw him.
He knew he had been in this condition. And then listen to the question Jesus asked. Hey, do you want to get better? It's an unusual question.
It sounds like first. In fact, if you were there, maybe visiting somebody, and you heard Jesus walk up to a man who had been in a condition like this for 38 years and asking the question, hey, you want to get any, do you want to get better? You might immediately think how cruel to ask a question like that. Can you imagine walking up to somebody who had any kind of disease, cancer, couldn't walk, some kind of a handicapped person say, hey, you want to get better? Well, you might say, of course, somebody would say, yeah.
So it sounds like a cruel question, but it actually is a fair question. Jesus, I believe, is getting this man to focus on his issue, his problem, his helplessness, how bad the condition really is. The man says, you know, well, I'm giving it away, so I'll wait. Let's just read it.
I get a little caught up in it, and then I forget to read it. He said, do you want to be made well? 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. And Jesus said to him, rise, take up your bed, and walk.
Now let me make another suggestion. Not only is Jesus getting the man to focus on how impossible his situation is before he heals him to show him mercy, but to ask him, do you really want to change your condition? Thanks for listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We hope you've been strengthened in your walk with Jesus by today's program. Before we let you go, we want to remind you about this month's resource that will help you and the children in your life see the timeless story of Christ with fresh eyes.
Nate Heitzig's book, Christmas Under the Tree, with Forward by Levi Lusko, is our thanks for your support of Connect with Skip Heitzig today. Request your copy when you give $25 or more. Call 800-922-1888.
That's 800-922-1888. Or visit Connect with Skip dot com slash donate. And did you know that you can find full message series and libraries of content from Skip Heitzig on YouTube? Simply visit the Connect with Skip Heitzig channel on YouTube, and be sure to subscribe to the channel so you never miss any new content. Come back next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
