March 13, 2023
Avoiding an Illness
“Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.” John 5:14 (NASB)
I often hear some who tell me when tempted to sin, and then act on it, “The devil made me do it.” This response came from the character, Geraldine, on the Flip Wilson Show. It aired from 1970-1974. The usage of the phrase gained huge popularity and has drastically increased since the 1970’s. When I hear this phrase, I say at times we are our worst enemy. I reply, “Nine times out of ten, I helped the devil do it.” This is disobedience to God and a choice to sin. We help the devil’s ambitions to make us miserable and disconnected with God. The devil didn’t make us do it, we willingly did it, thereby assisting him. Perhaps this is a picture of this man’s life before he became ill. His sin brought the illness, and it plagued him for 38 years.
After the man with infirmities looked around, he couldn’t see who healed him, “for Jesus had slipped away” (verse 13). In fact, he didn’t even catch the name of the man. Imagine being so focused on your illness you forgot to ask for the name of your healer. When he looked around, Jesus disappeared. There was good reason though. Jesus didn’t want to draw attention to Himself. Later, “Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.” A. T. Robertson says, “He had suffered for 38 years. All sickness is not due to personal sin, but much is, and nature is a hard paymaster.”[1] The word “sin” here is the word hamartanō; to miss the mark or do wrong.[2] Something in this man’s previous life triggered this illness, hence the word “sin” which means to do wrong. “Jesus seems to imply here that the man’s affliction was related to sin. The worse fate that could happen is likely a reference to the eternal consequences of sin and failure to be reconciled with God.”[3] Others paint another picture of this life before, “a glimpse this of the reckless life he had probably led before his thirty-eight years’ infirmity had come upon him, and which not improbably had brought on, in the just judgment of God, his chronic complaint.”[4]
Each of us today should take a hard look at our lives every day. It needs delicate inspection. It’s your heart, no one else’s. This requires a few minutes each day to open the closet doors of our heart. Is there something there you have pushed to the back of the closet? I assure you; God sees all. David wants you to know this as well, “When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away. Through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer” (Psalm 32:3-4). For the Christian today, the idea of facing a lifelong illness or premature death can be so avoidable. Every person born to this date sins, but we can receive cleansing through confession and repentance. Go to God today, confess it, ask for forgiveness, and turn from it in the future. Once you have a clean heart, listen to the words of Jesus as he said to the healed man, “do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.” Do your best through God’s power to avoid it.
[1] A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1933), Jn 5:14.
[2] Robert L. Thomas, New American Standard Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek Dictionaries : Updated Edition (Anaheim: Foundation Publications, Inc., 1998).
[3] John D. Barry et al., Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016), Jn 5:14.
[4] Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, vol. 2 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 136.