Sermon Tone Analysis

Will You be Made Whole?

9:10 AM

This message uses examples from the Bible of types of healings.

However, the main focus is more on the hindrances or opposition to healing.

And, even more, the focus is on the thoughts, actions, and beliefs of the one that is healed.

Our theme verse today is John 5:6

We will read more of the context around this question that Jesus asks, “Will you be made whole?”

However, let me say right here at the beginning that there was a crowd of other sick people there and Jesus walked past them.

People are not healed because they are sick.

People are not healed because they need to be healed.

People are healed because they have an encounter with Jesus Christ.

Here, in John 5:6, “Jesus saw him” and somehow they connected.

and, Jesus “knew”, “that he had been now a long time in that case”

Only then did Jesus speak to him to ask him “Will you be made whole?”

This mans healing was contingent:

On the man having contact with Jesus.

On the mans response to what Jesus said to him.

But, why didn’t Jesus see other in the crowd?

Lets look at another healing event and then come back to the Pool of Bethesda.

The Healing of a Paralytic

This account is recorded in Matthew 9:2-8, Mark 2:1-12, and Luke 5:17-26

Ernest DeWitt Burton, A Harmony of the Synoptic Gospels for Historical and Critical Study, (New York; Chicago; Boston: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1917), Lk 5:16.

We will read mainly from Luke 5:17-26 however, lets first look at Mark 2:1

If we look back a bit for context, we find that Jesus had been in Capernaum before in Mark 1:21

Jesus had been teaching in the synagogue there and in Mark 1:28

After teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum it say in Mark 1:29

Jesus healed “Simon’s wifes mother” and then in Mark 1:33–34

“all the city was gathered at the door” of the house and Jesus healed many but he then went to preach across the region in Mark 1:39

Now, we can understand Mark 2:1 that as he returned to Capernaum and came back to Simon’s house, the crowds came looking for him.

9:20 AM

The Crowds

The crowd of people included those that were sick and those that wanted to hear His teaching.

The crowd also included religious leaders as it says in Luke 5:17

It seems that “Pharisees and doctors of the law” had headed to Capernaum and were waiting for Jesus to return.

Jesus then did what he had been doing everywhere and began teaching.

And, “as he was teaching”, Luke records this statement, “and the power of the Lord was present to heal them”.

The them here could certainly apply to everyone there, but more particularly it describes the “Pharisees and doctors of the law”.

However, the account here doesn’t record any of these “Pharisees and doctors of the law” getting healed

Instead, it shifts to a group of men in Luke 5:18–19

In this case, the man “with a palsy” was not able to get to Jesus.

He depended on his friends to carry him to Jesus.

They might easily have stopped outside the house at the edge of the crowd and said in themselves, We can’t get in.

But no, they carried him through the crowd outside.

They carried him up to the roof and took off “the tiling” and lowered the man and his “couch” down right in front of Jesus.

Jesus responded to them in Luke 5:20

Jesus responded “when he saw their faith”.

Certainly this was the faith of the mans friends that had so relentlessly carried him and found a way to get him to Jesus.

But the man on the couch also had to want to be carried, he endured all of the journey including the up and down necessary to get there.

Their “faith” is what caused Jesus to act on this man’s behalf.

It wasn’t the desperate situation the man was in.

It was that they all came “believing” that their friend would be healed and they persisted until they had an encounter with Jesus.

But Jesus response wasn’t “be healed”

Jesus responded, “Man, thy sins are forgiven thee”.

It seems Jesus gave this response to address the religious leaders in the crowd in Luke 5:21–22

The only way sin was dealt with for these Jewish leaders was through animal blood sacrifice.

And this was don e in a prescribed way as the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies once a year.

Jesus knows what they are thinking and now asks them a question in Luke 5:23

But Jesus doesn’t wait for them to answer.

He immediately gives them the answer in Luke 5:24

The religious leaders were right, no man had the power to forgive sin until now!

Jesus calls himself “the Son of Man”.

Jesus says he has the power “upon earth to forgive sins”

This statement also connects sin and this mans disease, his palsy.

Jesus now says, “Arise, take up thy couch, and go to your house”.

The Healed Man

This man who had not been able to get off his couch responds in Luke 5:25

It says “he rose up before them”.

He rose up before the crowd.

He rose up before his friends.

He didn’t ask his friends to help him, he “took up” his bed “and departed”

The Response of the People

The response of the people is recorded in Mark 2:12

We never saw this before!

and then in Luke 5:26

They were “amazed”, they “glorified God”, “were filled with fear”

and they said “we have seen strange things to day”

Then also in Matthew 9:8

the “multitudes”, remember the crowd so large they could not get into the house?

They “marvelled”, “glorified God” because he “had given such power unto men”

This miraculous healing happened because:

Jesus taught the people

This man and his friends had faith

Jesus brought the power to forgive sin to the earth

Healing is directly connected with forgiveness of sin.

9:30 AM

Lets go now back to the Pool of Bethesda in John 5:1.

The Pool of Bethesda

Jesus returns to Jerusalem in John 5:1

Jesus had often been to Jerusalem for these feasts as a child with his family

And now, He was anointed by the Holy Spirit and fully in His time of ministry.

During this time, Jesus entered the city by the Sheep Gate in John 5:2–4

When this temple was built, the Sheep Gate was the first gate to be restored.

It was rebuilt by the High Priest and his fellow priests and was the only gate that was consecrated (set apart as holy), as it was used for bringing in sacrifices for the temple.

It was called the Sheep Gate because it was the entrance for sheep entering into the Temple compound from the sheep markets (where lambs were sold for sacrifice in the Temple) and the sheep pool (later known as Pool of Bethesda), where sheep were washed for sacrificing.

It had become the place for the “impotent folk” to gather.

It was also a place where they could ask for alms as people entered the city going to the temple.

They believed an angel came to the water and then “first after the troubling of the water” “was made whole”.

While there was a “great multitude” waiting there in John 5:5

There was “a certain man” that had been there for “thirty-eight years”.

Now, Jesus was just walking by on his way to the temple as he had done many times before.