I break in with the greatest news o f all time, SOMETHING HAS HAPPENED! The greatest MOVEMENT of all time began nearly twenty cen- tries ago. God entered history in Jesus Christ. He so loved the world that He gave His Son. The Gos pel is the Good News that there has been a MOVING of the waters and they are still moving! But there is something better still. Humanity waits for a MAN. That Man has come, that Man who was also God, bom o f a virgin, living a sin less life, dying for our sins, rising bodily from the grave! Peter began his Pentecost sermon, “Jesus of Nazareth, a MAN . . .” (Acts 2:22). What this poor man needed at Bethesda’s pool was not a moving o f the waters or a man to put him into the waters. He needed the MASTER! That Master stands today at all our Bethesdas asking, “Wilt thou be made whole?” Salvation carries with it the idea of health, soundness, wholeness. All sick ness is a consequence of original sin and much of it is the result of our own sinning. There are many whose illnesses would disappear if they got right with God and men. Who would dare to say how many would take their beds and walk if they trusted the Saviour with simple faith? Other multi tudes are ill with mental and moral and spiritual distempers. Some have inflammation o f the mind, others have poison in their hearts, pus in their souls. Grudges and resentments can fester and cripple us all over. Just as a bad tooth may make the whole body sick, so do evil attitudes poison us in body, mind and spirit. We will never be healthy until these focal points of infection are dealt with. Sometimes surgery is indicated. “ If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out.” Sometimes we treat symptoms and neglect to deal with the disease. We need a check-up just as sometimes we need a phys ical going-over. The procedure is much the same. There must be a sense o f need. We must have faith in the Physician. We must submit to the examina tion. We must accept the diagnosis. We must take the treatment. Sometimes we may feel worse be fore we feel better. When God operates, He does not use an anaesthetic! The object of the Gospel is not first to make us happy but to make us well. When we are well, we will be happy. Are you waiting at some pool of Bethesda, wait ing for a Moving, waiting for a MAN to help you? The Master is by your side asking, “Wilt thou be made whole?” You must will to be well. Then came the command, “Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.” That was the very thing the man could not do, but something in the Master’s face and voice told him that by His power he could. There was a split sec ond in which he made the effort in obedience to the Lord’s command and found that he could. So the man who came with his back on the bed went out with the bed on his back! “Wilt thou be made whole?” Ha
THE FEAST OF UNLEAVENED T ru th A bou t S an c t ifica t ion T he F east of Unleavened Bread began the day after the Pass-
over. The Passover Lamb was slain on the fourteenth day and the Feast of Unleavened Bread was inaugurated on the fifteenth day of the same month (Leviti cus 23:6). No interval of time was to elapse between the first and second Feasts. The duration of the Feast of Unleavened Bread was to be seven days (Deuteron omy 16:3), one full week, a per fect period of time. This and the Feast of Tabernacles were the only seven-day feasts. The other five were one-day feasts. As the Passover Lamb is a type of Christ’s death, the foun dation of our union with God, so the seven-day Feast of the Un leavened Bread points to the character of the believer’s walk, the ground of his communion with God. It is important that we distinguish between our relation ship with God and our fellowship with God. Faith in the Blood of Christ is the foundation of union, but a holy walk is the condition under which it is enjoyed. Since leaven is a type o f evil, it must be put away. The type is clear. “ Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sac rificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leav-
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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