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Old 01-18-2022, 06:52 AM
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Nicodemus1968 Nicodemus1968 is offline
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Re: Pool of Bethesda

Quote:
Originally Posted by votivesoul View Post
A supposition for your consideration:

Does that sound like the work of a righteous God?

The supposition is therefore, as follows:

What if the "angel" that went into the waters, to stir them up, was not from God, not a holy angel in the truest sense, but rather was a renegade spirit of some form?

This spirit, causing and leading people into sin through temptation, then begins to afflict them, and then "heals" them when they enter the water?



It seems to me, but I am not certain, that Jesus saved that man from something that man had no idea he was trying to get himself into.

Go and sin no more, so that something worse wouldn't come upon him then means, you will find yourself paralyzed and pathetic again and Jesus won't be there to heal him, and he'll end up back at the pool and eventually someone will pity him enough to get him into the water, and he will be "miraculously" cured by the spirit. God will receive no glory. No one will look to Jesus as their healer.
That is an interesting thought. Yet, I just want to add to this in a way to have both sides of the argument revealed.

First, the writings of John say it was an angel. In the case that it was another spirit that claimed to heal and never did, one would have to believe the Bible would say so. Otherwise, you go down the road of "what else is it not saying"?

Second,

[I] John 5:4
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./I]

It doesn't say healed, rather made whole. Bring made "whole" is more significant than just being healed.

Luke 17:14
And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.


Ten lepers were healed, yet only one was made whole.

And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.

When the Bible uses certain words I believe they have a greater impact on the lesson. When that one person entered the waters as it was being troubled I believe like the Bible says, that they were made whole, not healed.

Quote:
Originally Posted by votivesoul View Post
people have undiagnosable, non-decripted syndromes of some sort or the other, that have no cure, many of which are psycho-somatic in origin, or are brought on by the unrighteousness of their lifestyle. People who are perpetually sick or are disabled in some way can get pretty desperate. They might try anything. Woman with the issue of blood comes to mind. How many people took her for a ride?

I knew a man back when I was in college, who was paralyzed from the chest down. Had a government paid for electric wheelchair, had a full-time caretaker. Said he had MS. But he told me his doctor told him he had no identifiable disease.

MS is easily discovered through a fMRI. The lesions on the brain can be seen, even without training, so how come his doctor couldn't diagnose him? But the man was most certainly paralyzed. What the truth of the matter was, I cannot say for sure. But it is entirely possible his own state of mind created his disease. The placebo effect works in this way. And it can go to an extreme, even an extreme opposite, called the nocebo effect.
Do you believe spirits can cause sickness and other alignments that may seem like "an health issue" but rather its a spiritual one?

Luke 13:11-16
And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself.
12 And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.
13 And he laid his hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.
14 And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because that Jesus had healed on the sabbath day, and said unto the people, There are six days in which men ought to work: in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the sabbath day.
15 The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering?
16 And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?


This woman was in a paralyzed state for 18 years. Long time to be in such a state, imagine what it does to ones spirit? Yet, Jesus comes and gives us insight to what a spirit of infirmity is. It's a working of satan, and one that binds in fact. That spirit bound her for 18 years, medicine wasn't going to do it, it took the Lord loosing her from that spirit. In a sense she wasn't healed, she was delivered.

Mark 9:25
When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him.


A spirit caused a man to be deaf and mute. And to this day that spirit still works in that fashion. A preacher was brought before a man that couldn't hear nor speak, he rebuke the spirit that caused this, and immediately he was able to hear and talk.

We can try to cure these "diseases" in todays methods and have no results.

A man called me up one time a couple years ago from another state, and had major seizures, he said his pastor didn't believe him that it was a spiritual attack, yet prayed for healing, and healing never came. This man was about 50 years old, and has had seizures since a child. I asked him what I felt from the Lord, "where you molested as a child" to which he said in astonishment, Yes. He told me no one knew about that, I told him that's where his seizures stemmed from, and from that root you now have branches in alcoholism, perversion, depression the list goes on. My point is this, we can pray for healing and without comforting the real issue, not just the surface wound you'll never get anywhere. The man eventually left the church, was driving an ATV on a farm at 50 MPH and had a seizure and crashed into a combine, he is now deceased without deliverance.

As the church we have discernment to understand what's needed in the life of an individual. I heard the analogy that the church is a hospital room, well we should start acting like the spiritual doctors we should be.

Quote:
Originally Posted by votivesoul View Post
, imagine Jesus comes to you, but you don't even know who He is, and He asks you if you want to be healed, and you dodge the question and make a complaint about your situation, and in no uncertain terms, Jesus tells you "GET UP!"

I cannot prove, only suppose the possibility that the Lord broke through the man's unfortunate state of mind and released him from his psychosomatic illness and his propensity to pity-party himself into paralysis so he didn't have to take any personal responsibility for his own life and being.

Something an "angel" in a pool of water would never be able to do.
Brother that is the state of so many believers right now. They don't even know the voice of God from that of their flesh or another spirit.
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