Fullness of Life — Alan Redpath

The following address by Dr. Alan Redpath was called FULLNESS OF LIFE AND VICTORY.

The Multitude at Bethesda and the Deeper Problem of Sin

During the days of this week, for many of us I trust, you remember that we are brought face to face in this chapter at once with a great multitude of people. When the Bible says a great multitude, it never exaggerates, it always tells the truth.

And so we want to take a moment just to reflect upon the fact that this was a great multitude. I have no doubt in my mind at all that their problems were not primarily physical. I'm quite sure that the primary problem was a spiritual one.

I say that because in the 14th verse of this chapter, we find the Lord speaking to the one whom he singled out for treatment and saying to him, go thy way and sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee.

What a tremendous thing it is that we have a living Christ who can say just that to any of us today. Go thy way and sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee. In other words, it's always possible for a Christian not to sin, but God never makes it impossible for him to do so.

Go thy way and sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee. So here this man's problem was something much deeper than a physical one. And I suggest that that is true of the whole great multitude that were at Bethesda.

I'm not suggesting that sin is at the root of human suffering. Except of course, that if there was no sin in the world, there'd be no suffering. But what I mean is that my sin, your sin, does not necessarily result in physical suffering.

It may do, but not always. But here's this great multitude of people, and you notice, have you ever noticed, that in four ways they were different, but in one way they were all alike. Some of them were impotent, that means they've got no power.

Some of them were blind, that means they had no vision. Some of them were hobbed, that means they couldn't walk. And some of them were withered, that means they'd never grown up. But they were all waiting, waiting for the moving of the water.

For we are told that a certain season, an angel came down and troubled the water. And whosoever was first in, when the water was troubled, was cured of whatsoever disease he had. Do you notice two wonderful words in that verse?

Whosoever, whatsoever, God has no favorites. Whosoever, without distinction. Whatsoever, without exception. And all this crowd, among this great multitude of people, were all waiting for the intervention of heaven.

For a miracle, for God to intervene, so that somehow they would be healed. Now I must not exaggerate and say that here at Belgrave Heights, we have a great multitude of people. We've certainly a good crowd.

But I do want to suggest to you that here we have a miniature pool of Bethesda. For some of us are here and we have no power. Impotent, weak as water, Christians all right, but powerless Christians. Dr. Graham Scruggie used to say that the trouble with the church is that most of us live on the right side of Easter, but the wrong side of Pentecost.

The right side of pardon, but the wrong side of power. The right side of forgiveness, but the wrong side of fellowship. That's not Christian experience, but it's the experience of an awful lot of Christian people.

Who when faced with a choice between right and wrong, are powerless to do what they know they ought to do. A great company of people who are impotent. Amazing how many Kittick conventions like this we attend and we continue in that condition.

Things are better for a week or two after we leave it, but then we've reverted to time. We experience another tripping up of Satan and we've gone back to square one. And we found ourselves impotent and powerless when faced with choice.

Powerless people. And there among that crowd a number who were blind, had no vision. And if I spoke to some of you today about the cross, the blood of Christ, the transforming power of Jesus, maybe even to a crowd like this, among a crowd like this, there are some who to whom it would mean nothing.

But powerless Christians are usually Christians without vision, who have no missionary vision. No vision beyond, of the need, beyond their little church and the little denomination, their own group, who've never got a global view of the need of the gospel.

And there were some people in that crowd who were withered. That's to say they hadn't grown up. Still dwarfs, still children, still in the kindergarten. And isn't it amazing how many years we've been on a long road in Christian experience, but somehow strange to say we haven't really grown.

Oh yes we know a bit of doctrine, a bit more about the Bible. But we've not really grown in maturity, in Christ's likeness of character. There's nothing very attractive about us. The trouble of so many of us is that we're not all orthodox, but we're unattractive.

There's nothing about us that resembles Jesus. And after all that's the basic test of our Christian experience. That it should make us very more like him, and less like ourselves. And there were others in this crowd who were hot, limping.

Something the matter with their walk. And some of us in Christian experience are just going up and down all the time. Sometimes up on the mountaintop, but a long time down the valley. Now that fairly represents, and just a sentence or two, I suggest to you, this great company today on the first day of Belgrave Heights Convention.

Here we are, rejoicing and singing our hymns and being together once again. But basically spiritually and desperately, because we're powerless Christians. Because we're visionless Christians. Because we haven't got to walk with God.

And because we haven't really grown in stature to likeness to Lord Jesus. And frankly all of us are waiting for something to happen. The promising sign in this convention, I would say in almost every heart, is that there's a longing for something more.

The only person for whom God has got nothing in blessing, is the person who's completely satisfied with what they're like now. I hope there's nobody like that here. But I hope that in your hearts there's a real hunger and a thirst for more of God.

You know, health is tested by appetite. When you're healthy, you're hungry. You're thirsty. But if you're off your food and you can't eat and you can't drink, there's something desperate along with you.

Well I hope today that in this crowd, there's a crowd of people who spiritually have got a great hunger for God. Who long for more of him. Who want to see in this land, and please God enduring this week, a great outburst of Holy Spirit revival.

Which could turn the tide of history. And which could stem, stem the backsliding of the Christian church. And bring us into life and liberty and power in the gospel. A great multitude of people with tremendous need, but all longing for God to intervene.

Hunger for God and the Promise of Spiritual Blessing

Well here's our multitude, here's our crowd. And here perhaps you don't find it hard to put yourself in the picture. Somewhere there. It's wonderful that the Lord has promised that to pour water upon the one that's thirsty, and floods upon dry ground.

And today if in your heart there's barrenness and dryness, may I suggest to you that just very simply in your imagination, you put yourself within a little circle and you say, Lord everything in that circle is a candidate for blessing.

I can't leave Valbrae Heights as I came. I'm longing for God to do something more for me. I daren't go back to my home, to my business, to live the same kind of Christian life which has been such a complete failure.

Lord do something for me. A little bit of dry ground, a thirsty heart, Lord today provide it. And the wonderful thing is he says he will. Well there's our crowd. But as so often in the Bible, the Holy Spirit turns our attention immediately from a crowd to a man.

How often the Lord does that. How often may I say so that he does that in a congregation like this. When you suddenly feel that you've been singled out for treatment. When it seems to you that the preacher must know everything about you, whereas in point of fact he knows nothing.

But where the Holy Spirit seems to drive you into a corner and want to speak to you, and single you out from a great crowd as if you were the only one who matters. Well now look at the individual who's singled out for this crowd in this story.

The Man with the Thirty-Eight-Year Infirmity

You know him well. A certain man, quite anonymous, we don't know his name. But certain man was there which had an infirmity 30 and 8 years. Now let's look at this man a moment. He had an infirmity. Let's pause.

What's that mean? Well now, the word that's used for infirmity is a word, it's a medical word. A word which is often translated in our English language by the word neurasthenia, or something like it. Now neurasthenia, well it's worth paying a doctor a hundred pounds or a hundred dollars, I'm sorry, that you may be told you've got neurasthenia.

But if I tell you that neurasthenia is simply a missing connection between your brain and your body, that's not so good. You see, you never move an inch without your brain giving instructions to your body.

Your brain passes a message down through the nerve system to your foot, and says foot move forward, and your foot responds and moves forward. Your brain sends a message down to your hand and says hand raise yourself up, and your hand lifts itself up.

It's wonderful when it works. But supposing the foot sends back a message to the head, SOS, sorry can't move an inch. And supposing your hand sends an SOS back again, sorry I can't move at all. That's not so funny.

That's neurasthenia. Now listen, do you recognize this language? A language spoken in autobiography in the Word of God. The testimony of a Christian man who said, with my mind I serve the law of God, but with my flesh the law of sin.

And that's the apostle Paul. Awakened in his mind, a mind renewed by the Spirit of God. A mind indwelt by the Holy Ghost. With that mind, I desire to do the law of God, and serve the law of God. But my body won't respond.

Fancy Paul, you had an experience like that. That brings you a mighty near to me, and mighty near to all of us. The good that I have worth, I know not. The evil that I hate, that I do. To where it's present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I find not.

Ah, but this man was a self-righteous Pharisee. A man who was the Hebrew of the Hebrews. A man as touching the righteousness of the law, blameless. That's what he said about himself. Well, how can a man like that, who is absolutely moral, say with absolute truth, that with my mind, I serve the law of God, with my flesh the law of sin.

Well, think of this. Most of us really, when it comes down to us, have never understood the depth and the awfulness of what sin is. Sin is not sinful action. It leads to that. But sin basically is rebellion.

It's my determination to have my own way. It's my right to my own independence. It's my refusal to break. My insistence upon I, S-I-N. Of course, that may have various methods of outworking in all sorts of ways.

I remember some years ago, when my daughter was about eight, one morning in London, her boyfriend came to see her. He was nine. Oh no, it's all off now, it's finished. She married somebody else. Actually, actually, this incident finished the whole business.

He lived next door, you see. And he came to see her, and she was swinging on that garden gate. And he arrived ten minutes late. That was bad strategy. And when he arrived, I saw him looking at her. I was looking through the window.

And she was looking very disgusted with him. And so he got up on the gate beside her. And she took her elbow and pushed him hard. She slipped, fell on his back of the head on the path, and thoroughly hurt himself.

Now, no Englishman takes that from a girl lying down. So he got up on that gate and smacked her face good and hard. What was my amazement to see my, I always thought, good-natured, placid daughter, suddenly get hold of that boy by the throat and shake him like a rat.

They both fell off the gate. And in two minutes, I had to go out and rescue him. Because what chance is a man with nails and teeth? And when I got them settled down, I asked myself, now what on earth caused that?

Oh, I portrayed only a little girl who was bad-tempered and annoyed and selfish. And a small boy who wasn't going to take it, so he hit her back. Two young people were jealous of each other. Two young people who had bad tempers and blew their top very easily.

And the only answer to it was a stand-up fight. Now, I don't want you to accuse me of being very childish. But I do state simple fact when I say that that is at the root cause of international conflict.

It's also the reason for the queue at the divorce court. And it's the reason for unhappy homes and broken marriages. All because inside our hearts there's a great big capital I that refuses to give in.

That's sin. And therefore, with my mind, often we say, I must study my Bible more, but my body stays in bed. With my mind, I say, I really must get to the mission field, but my body continues doing the job I've been in for years.

With my mind, I say, I'm never going to be trapped by that temptation again, that my body does it time and time again. And try as I would, struggle, strive and fight, with all the internal battles of sin and temptation, I find myself beaten every time.

Naming the Infirmity Before God

A certain man was there which had an infirmity. And he had it for 38 years. Why, that's a lifetime. 38 years! Yes! He'd been going on like this for 38 years, a whole lifetime. If anybody in that crowd had given up hope, I think he had.

If anybody was saying it's no use, I think he would. In fact, he said so to the Lord Jesus. I can't get up. Every time I try and get in the pool, somebody gets in first. Every time God works a miracle, I'm left out.

Hopeless. And it may be, my friend, I don't know, may I ask you very lovingly? No, I don't want a preacher to ask you. I would pray that the Spirit of God may just ask you as if you were the only one in this crowd today.

My friend, listen. What's your infirmity? What is it? The thing which has taken the joy out of your heart. The song out of your lips. The light out of your eyes. The reality out of your Christian experience.

And it's made you just one of doctrine and truth and the Bible, but no reality, no power. And your testimony hasn't been used of God because it's just dried up on you. You have nothing really to say because there's nothing real, there's nothing lived.

Some little time ago, a few months ago, the gentleman stood at the front of my church after morning service, deeply moved. He was a man of about 60 and judging by his dress, a wealthy man. And he said to me this, every word that you said this morning was real to me 20 years ago.

But he said, I've got a big business and I have 300 men under me. And I have to get to work every day at six and I'm never home till nine. Oh, I have to get the men out on the road. I'm always at it, morning, noon and night.

He said, it's been a tremendous success. I'm a millionaire now. But then he said, Oh God, what a price I've paid. Certain men with an infirmity, 30 and 80. What's your infirmity? Would you name it in your heart before the Lord today, would you?

Let's be honest with God. We don't get anywhere unless we are. Don't let's try and hide behind pretense or sham. Let's be absolutely out in the open. What is my infirmity? Is it just shocking temper? Is it secret sin?

Is it impurity of thought? Nobody knows about it but the Lord and you. But you know, a certain man was there which had an infirmity 30 and 80. Take a minute to be impressed with the fact that that man is you, is me.

But for the grace of God. Now, let's look at this man a minute. But let's turn our attention to the master who comes upon the seat. Away from a crowd to a man. Now with the man in our mind, let's look at the master.

Christ's Loving Gaze and the Call to Wholeness

And when Jesus saw him lie and knew that he had been now a long time in that case. Oh my word, every word of that is like a music in my heart. It's the gospel. When Jesus saw, and there's nobody sees like Christ.

Nobody left Edinburgh to come over here. I had to come to Thailand. And it's necessary to get a visa to get into Thailand. And that meant that I had to go and get my photograph taken. That's a very painful thing.

I haven't lived in Edinburgh five years for nothing. Because I have discovered a place where you can get passport photographs, half a dozen of them, for two and six. So I went to this place for a passport photograph.

You simply go into a little booth and you put two and six minutes in a slot. And you sit and smile at the machine and it clicks and out comes the pictures. A girl is there to put something over them so that they don't fade.

And you go away with a little packet. I went away and got a bus home. I noticed that on the little packet it said untouched proof. And when I got home, I opened it and I got the shock of my life. I said to myself, surely it can't be as bad as that.

You know, in our living room at home, we have a piano. And on the piano is a family photograph. It was taken a few years ago by an expert photographer. And so I took this unfinished, unfinished proof and looked at it with his hand.

And then I looked at this photograph and there wasn't the slightest resemblance. And the more I looked at the photograph on the piano, the better I felt. Until just in a minute, my wife came in behind me.

Thank God for our wives. They halve our sorrows and double our joys and treble our expenses. And that's why it is they're so dear to us. And she came in that day, you know, and she saw me and she knew exactly what I was thinking.

And she just peeped over my shoulder and she said, Now, dear, don't you flatter yourself. This is really you. You know, that blew the balloon at once. I don't mind you smiling. In fact, I wanted you to smile.

But now, just a minute. Let me hold you. Listen. God isn't interested in looking at the you who is on the family photograph on the piano. He's not interested in the kind of person that we want other people to think we are.

Nor is he interested in looking at the kind of person that we think we are ourselves. But he has one great desire, and that is to look at the untouched proof. When we're willing to draw aside the curtain to the right from behind the camouflage and the pretense and acknowledge what we really are, then we're on the road to blessing.

Then we're on the road to victory when God really is allowed to look at you and me. Do you remember when poor Peter was cursing and swearing and denying the Lord turned and looked upon him? And how do you think he looked at him?

He didn't say to him, Peter, I told you that would happen. He didn't look at him with a sense of anger, with a sense of disappointment, with a sense of rebuke. Oh no. He looked at him with a look of love in his heart.

Because some years ago he had met him on a country road and he beheld him and said, thou art Simon, thou shalt be Peter. And the word means he looked him through and through. And when Peter was denying his Lord, the Lord turned and, same word, looked him through and through.

And you know what that look did? It broke Peter's heart. It broke his heart. And that puts the question of emotion in its right place in our spiritual experience. And I say to you without fear of contradiction, if God is going to move in in power and blessing and authority in your life, my dear friend, he's going to break some hearts this week.

Jesus saw and he sees, and he knew that he had been now a long time in that cave. Oh, he knew. My friend, he knew the very first moment when the fight with the infirmity was on. He knew the first resistance, the first determination in which we said, no, it's not going to happen again.

And he's watched years of struggle. He's watched an effort and the attempt that we've made to battle with our infirmity. He knew. And he takes us back even today along the corridor of our memory to the day when it all started.

The day when we yielded to temptation and said, oh, I'm not going to yield again. The days we fought, the tears, and Jesus knew. I'm so glad that this is one who sees me and knows me, all about me. Not just a psychiatrist, not just a psychologist coming to me and saying, now, square your shoulders and try again.

It's bound to be all right. No, not that. One who sees the struggle, sees the failure, and knows all about the history of the infirmity. And in light of all he sees and all he knows, what does he say?

It's absolutely amazing. He says to this man, will thou be made whole? Get it? Not better, not convalescent, not limping, not willed, not haught, not without vision, but whole. Natural man. A man like God intended me to be.

Do you want to be made whole? Said Jesus. Now, what's he mean by that? Would you agree with me that there is only one person who has ever walked the face of this earth who has been completely whole? And it's the one who asked this question.

Jesus himself. Therefore, I suggest to you, what he is saying to this man is this.

Do you want to be made like me?

The Gospel as Full Transformation Into Christlikeness

Now, I do want, if I may, to underline this in our hearts and for the Spirit to grip our minds with it. This is no more and no less than the offer of the gospel. The gospel is not, sign a decision card, give your heart to Christ, accept Christ as your Saviour, put your hand up at a meeting, come down the aisle.

That's not the gospel. The gospel is this. Are you listening carefully? The good news of the gospel. Do you want God, the Holy Spirit, to come into your life in such depth to make it impossible for you to live with your infirmity?

And so to transform your life and change your life, that one day he presents you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. Do you want to be made like Jesus? That's the gospel. Oh, do you want a full salvation, not just an insurance for heaven and life escaped from hell, but do you want really to be made a man of God?

Like Jesus. That means to say that your first concern is for the will of God in your life. And oh God, and so echo all his blood-bought family. We'd like to know thy will, oh God. It means your chief compassion is for the salvation of men.

He came to seek and to save those which are lost and for the child of God who's being made whole. The love of Christ constrains me, drives me on. It means my chief compulsion in life is the cross of Christ.

He steadfastly set his faith to go to Jerusalem. God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of Jesus Christ by whom I'm crucified to the world and the world unto me. Do I want to be made like her?

The Cost of Full Surrender and the Church's Loss of Power

Now I must really press this question upon you. Because you see, listen, if you want your infirmity healed, you must be willing to make it whole. The price of deliverance is wholeness. Am I ready for all God's will, for 100 treatment?

There's nobody I dislike visiting more than a dentist. Because I go to the dentist with a tiny little ache in one tooth and I tell him about it. And before long he's poking around my mouth with a whole lot of silly little tools and he finishes and comes up with a diagnosis that you need 12 teeth filling and four or five taken out.

No hope for them. So I have to be prepared for him to give me the full treatment. Oh my friend, I just tremble lest the Holy Spirit, lest I should fail to convey to you what God, I believe, wants to say to you today.

He doesn't want 95 of you, he wants all of you. Are you prepared to let Jesus come in and give you the full treatment? Are you prepared? Are you prepared to make whole? Because if you are, then your infirmity will be healed.

But the reason why the church is crippled, the church is paralyzed, the church has lost its power to attract men to Christ, the church has stagnated and somehow or other has lost its grip with the world today, is simply because, simply because so many of us have settled down to live with our infirmity.

Because we're not willing for wholeness. Oh, if we were made like Jesus, it would be so inconvenient, so disturbing. If the will of God was the one thing that mattered, other people would think we're an iron.

If the cross of Christ was the one thing that mattered to us, that we cared for nothing, not our reputation or ourselves, nothing at all, except that we should die to all of it, that we might live to the glory of God, it would be so disturbing.

Do I want to make whole? Have you read Amy Carmichael's book, Gold by Moonlight? A wonderful treasure. In it there's a story, the facts I can't all remember, but broadly there's this, of a minister who had been at his church for about three years, then scandal was being spread through the congregation about him.

Absolutely untrue, and his character was being pulled to pieces. He could easily have decided to quit and go somewhere else. But brave man he didn't, he decided to ride the storm. And he just rode it, and it got worse and worse.

Years went by, until one day, one Sunday afternoon, at a Sunday school class, a teacher who had in her class the minister's daughter, said to her, tell me, how has all this scandal affected your daddy?

And that child, that teenage girl, said to her Sunday school teacher, it's made it absolutely impossible for my daddy ever to say an unkind word about anybody. That's a man who cares for nothing but the cross.

Who rides it out, regardless of what other people think, or his reputation, simply that he might live for the glory of God. Are you ready for that? Do you want to meet me now? I mean, how far do you want Jesus to go with you?

Let's be honest now. The first day of this convention, full Jesus, oh just 90 percent. Just 95 percent, not all the way. I'm willing for everything but, ah, that but. I can picture this man looking up into the face of Christ, enormous.

Oh, you know, feelings lie buried which grace can restore. Down in the human heart, crushed by the tempting. And I can see that man, after years of being baffled and beaten, just looking up to those gracious, lovely eyes of Jesus, and saying in his mind, Oh, do you think, God, can you make me whole?

So, I can't, I've no man. Oh, but then the water's trouble, everybody gets in first. But Jesus detected longing, desire for wholeness, and he says to him, get up. Now, I like to read my Bible with a little imagination, sanctified I trust.

And I can picture that man looking at Christ and saying to him, What's the use of telling me to do that? I can't get up. I've been held by my infirmity for 38 years. I didn't say, can you? I said, do you want to?

Oh, Lord, I want to. More than anything, I want to. Well, then get up, do the thing that you say you can't do, in the power that I can give you to do it, if you're willing. And in one moment, he's on his feet, standing.

Faith That Acts on Christ's Command

Do you want to be made whole? Do you want to be made like Christ? Oh, yes, I long to be made whole. Then what's your infirmity? Face it, bring it to your mind, and go and face the impossibility. And do it, in the strength that Christ can give you to do.

So, if you're willing, get up, say Jesus, and take up your bed. Oh, but Lord, I've been held for 38 years. I'll need some physiotherapy, and I'll be back in my bed in 20 minutes. I'll need to take some exercise.

Get up, get up, and listen, make no provision for going back. You're finished with Bethesda. Do you believe these words? Listen to me. He breaks the power of cancelled sin, and sets the prisoner free.

He doesn't only save me from the guilt of sin, but he saves me from the power of it, in a flash. Not by a gradual process. In the moment when I realize it's not my battle, but the Lord's. It's not my weakness, but his power.

It's not my effort, but it's faith, in the power of the Lord to set me free at this moment. And here today, on Boxing Day 1967, I can look up to the face of Jesus and say to him, Thank you, Lord.

I take the victory of your risen life.

I take the power of your Holy Spirit to break in me, the power of my infirm. And Lord, I'm going to make no provision for going back. You know what that means? Perhaps a bonfire of some of the novels that we've got in our houses.

It may even be, it may even be, that certain programs on television are no longer viewed. It may be, it may be, that certain friends are dropped because they do us harm. But at all points, at all costs, we show God that we mean business, because we want home.

F. B. Meyer's Surrender of the Last Key

I close with this. One of the greatest preachers in England for the last 50 years was Dr. F .B. Meyer. You, I'm sure, read some of his books. His Bible biographies are tremendous. He was a man of great honesty.

He never just preached at people, he was with them all the time. And he said at Keswick one year, that some years beforehand, he had allowed a particular sin to get into his life. It didn't affect anybody but him, he thought, and yet somehow every time he stood in his pulpit, it came between himself and the congregation.

There was no power in his preaching, no liberty. Congregations grew smaller and smaller. People weren't attentive, that something had happened, something had gone out of him. And he got desperate. So at Keswick, after an evening service, he went up into the mountainside and he fought a battle alone with God, like Jacob.

And he said, Lord, you've had every key to my life except one. Lord, take this last key, I can't hold on any longer. It's ruining my testimony, take it. And F .B. Meyer said, you know, the dear Lord, he never took the key.

Do you know what he did? He took the door out, and instead of the door, he put a window. And ever since then, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ has shone into my heart.

Hallelujah. Say, what's your infirmity? That little key that opens the door to fullness of blessing, will you place it in Jesus' hand? Will you put your inability to overcome at the same place as you put your need for forgiveness?

At the feet of Christ, for pardon. And trust him now, look into his face, and thank him and pray to him. Be unto God who giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Let us pray. Just a moment of quiet prayer, facing our infirmity.

Looking right through it and beyond it to a risen Lord. Realizing that his power alone is able. That he can break it now, no matter how long it has continued. The blood of Jesus goes further. No matter how deep the failure, the power of the cross of Christ is deeper.

And thank him today for victory. Wilt thou be made whole? O Lord, I long to be perfectly whole. May that be our response. Cleanse me from my sin, Lord. Put thy power within, Lord. Take me as I am, Lord.

Make me all thy know. Keep me day by day, Lord. Underneath thy sway, Lord. Make my heart thy cup and thy royal throne. For Jesus' sake. Amen.