Sunday, February 21, 2016

Unbelief Conquered (John 4:50-54)


SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/21/2016 9:17 PM

My Worship Time                                                                              Focus:  Unbelief Conquered

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  John 4:50-54

Message of the verses:  “50  Jesus said to him, "Go; your son lives." The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started off. 51 As he was now going down, his slaves met him, saying that his son was living. 52 So he inquired of them the hour when he began to get better. Then they said to him, "Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him." 53 So the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, "Your son lives"; and he himself believed and his whole household. 54 This is again a second sign that Jesus performed when He had come out of Judea into Galilee.”

      We see after the man kept begging Jesus to come down to Capernaum to heal his son, Jesus tells him that his son lives.  Once Jesus said this to the man the man started off home.  Now we know the distance was around 16 miles, and we also know that it was rather late when Jesus told him that his son lives, but we don’t know what kind of transportation he had, whether or not he had horses or a chariot since he was a nobleman, but we do know that he did not stay the night to sleep, for he probably wanted to get home right away to see if what Jesus told him was indeed true.  John MacArthur writes that the man would have gone on the North shore of the Sea of Galilee which is about 700 feet below sea level.  Now as he was traveling home his slaves met up with him as they had already left his town to tell him the good news about his son.  When he hears the good news he wants to know what time the boy got better.  Now when Jesus heals a person they are instantly healed which is similar to what happened when He healed Peter’s mother-in-law as she was very sick with a fever, something that they had no cure for, but when Jesus healed her she got right up and began to fix food for her guests, feeling no ill effects from the fever and this is what happened to this man’s son.  He then finds out the time when his son got better and the slaves told him it happened at the seventh hour, and he immediately knew that it was the same time when Jesus told him that his son would live. The reason they tell him it was yesterday was because the man would have left yesterday and traveled past midnight, so it would have been a new day.

Because of the healing of the man’s son he became a believer in Jesus Christ and then told his family who also believed and they also became believers too.  This man needed a miracle in order to believe that Jesus was the Messiah while as we spoke earlier the woman at the well just needed Jesus to speak to her, so with that we see the different kinds of unbelief that each had, however Jesus did what it took for them to believe in Him.

MacArthur concludes:  “John concluded this account with the footnote, ‘This is again a second sign that Jesus performed when He had come out of Judea into Galilee.’ This act of healing was the second of the eight major signs that John records as proof that Jesus was the Messiah.  It was also the second sign (the first having taken place at the wedding at Cana [2:1-11]) He had performed in Galilee.  That it was not Jesus’ second miracle overall is made clear from 2:23.  In this instance, the stunning verification of Jesus’ power lifted the royal official all the way from sign seeking unbelief to genuine saving faith.” 

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Weighty and powerful” (2 Corinthians 10:10).

On the day of Pentecost, where was Jesus’ mother?”

Answer in our next SD.

2/21/2016 9:40 PM

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