Jesus Can Do It (John 5:1-17 Jeff Kliewer)

Psalm 129 and the Righteousness of God

This morning about waking up on a Sunday morning. I mean having your heart prepared even Saturday night. So that Sunday morning isn't all frenetic. But realizing on Sunday morning the blessing and the opportunity to come here and intentionally be spending this time in worship to be bringing ourselves before the throne of God by his grace through the Holy Spirit.

The whole Trinity thing. Jeff. But it is an awesome thing. And then to realize as icing on the cake we get to come together with our brothers and sisters. It is really cool before the service after the service to see how people congregate and fellowship with one another.

I can only anticipate how awesome it will be in the New Jerusalem. You ever think about that. Do you know that we only get one eternity to learn everything that there is to know about God. That's all we get is one eternity.

There's so much to know about him that we're always going to be rejoicing and fellowshipping with each other. I want to start us out this morning. In Psalm 129 verse 4 the Lord is righteous. There's a great proclamation right there.

The Lord is righteous. He has cut me free from the cords of the wicked. Now we've done. We have to confess and realize that in this world there are difficult times. In fact was it Jesus that said the world hates me it will hate you.

That's a paraphrase. But we do know that we are under a constant attack from Satan. It's his it's his bent on going after us. It also teaches us in scripture that God allows trials in our life. In fact we're to rejoice over them we grow through them.

But we do know that any trials that we experience are within the confines and the constraints of a sovereign God. Satan cannot do anything but what God allows it. But I will say this that he stays on the attack and his goal is to discourage you.

If you are believer Satan is seeking to discourage you and he is seeking to find any way to get your focus off of God. But we have a sovereign God who cuts the cords cuts me free from the cords of the wicked.

All I have to do is turn to him in all things that at all times God is faithful. He holds me and he will deliver me. Then my goal our goal as believers is to listen to God and not to the world and not to Satan because our God is sovereign and he has cut the cords from he has cut me free from the cords of the wicked.

We have some amazing things going on. We're here in the middle of the fall. Now first of all we have out in the foyer still the Operation Christmas Child boxes if you have not yet taken enough to hand out to your neighbors.

This is our opportunity to bless children around the world physically but also with the gospel message was encouraged to let you know that that Cornerstone has a dedicated link that you can actually online prepare the boxes online and we encourage you to use the pastor Jeff's pastor Graham has that and in fact here's a thought take the link that we have that can be used put it on social media so that people that follow you on social media will go on to that link and present these and fill these boxes for our children.

Encourage you to that gentlemen our retreat is coming up a week from this coming Friday we leave for the Pocono Mountain Bible Camp and amazing weekend of hearing from powerful powerful men speaking to our hearts about what it needs to be a man according to the Bible not according to the world.

No political correctness in these conferences if you're interested in it but at this time it just doesn't fit economically. We have certain amounts of scholarships available so if you would like to go but it just doesn't fit but you would like to go see John Dottoli see pastor Jeff see myself.

And we can make that happen for you. So don't let that be the limiting item. We're still working on establishing our ministry for the police. If you have not heard starting two years ago we spent a year ministering to the Mount Laurel police and midnight we brought food for the police officers that served on the midnight the night shift so they could have some food during their shift.

And it was a great opportunity as God would give us to share our faith. And why we're doing it. We're going to do it now for six months with the Evesham police with everything that's going on in the country with police being so brutally attacked throughout the country we want to encourage them that they're appreciated and that they're loved.

If you are interested in being part of this ministry again just pastor Graham has a link but I want you to contact me directly. We're getting close to having enough teams to have a critical mass that we can actually do this once we get to that level.

I'm going to the police station with Stan Wilt. We're going to talk to the police captain. We're going to set this up and for six months at midnight on Wednesday we will bless those police who stand the front line for us prayerfully consider that Wednesday of this week there is a meeting if you are interested in taking part on the greeters ushers or safety ministries here at the church.

Wednesday at 630 here at the church we encourage you to come out. We also want you to remember the various fellowship and discipleship and worship opportunities. Tonight's prayer meeting at 6 we got the Monday men's apologetics.

The women's have a precepts. The women's have a study. I think on Tuesday maybe that's backwards but Monday night and Tuesday and then there's all the small groups that are meeting as well as our midweek Bible study on Wednesday.

So please take advantage of those. Let's go to prayer. The Lord is righteous and we acknowledge that we profess it. We proclaim it. The Lord is righteous. He has cut me free from the cords of the wicked.

When we realize the full extent of the righteousness of God we accept the sovereignty of God the sovereign will of God. Over the attacks of the world those attacks become less scary. The Lord is righteous.

The Lord is sovereign and he has cut me free from the cords of the wicked Lord. We pray that we would understand and rejoice and live according to that. We pray Lord that you would use us for the work of your kingdom in your church here in this world.

Help us to understand to accept and to use the gifts that you have given to us for your glory for the one another and Lord to reach a lost word. Help us to see these needs and to step out. Give us the courage to step out and to be your ministers.

Lord. We pray that as we do this we're being blessed by the power of the Holy Spirit. It says in Acts you will have power after the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And that Holy Spirit has come upon us. Pray that we would be obedient to going to Jerusalem Judea Samaria to the uttermost parts of the world using what you've given us for your purpose.

And so we pray Lord that as we do these we rejoice for the impact that will be on your church. The impact that we can have with one another building each other up and the impact that we could have being your salt and light in a dark world.

Lord we continue to pray be with those in need. Lord we pray be with our country. It is so divided in contentious argument. Be with our leaders that they would turn to you and that they would lead according to your sovereign will powered by your Holy Spirit today.

Lord as pastor Jeff opens the scriptures and we see the amazing power of our Lord who can do and as he does. We pray Lord that you would speak through him. Give him your words prepare our hearts. We pray these things in Jesus.

Name amen. I was so blessed that pastor John in his prayer he had chosen to read from Psalm 129 which is it's considered a song of ascent. There are 15 Psalms from 120 to 134 and they're called songs of ascent.

And what that means is the in the Old Testament were commanded to go to the temple three times a year for Passover for the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Booths. And as they pilgrimaged to to Jerusalem they would sing these songs.

Jerusalem the city sits upon a high plateau so anywhere from around Jerusalem that you have to go to Jerusalem you have to ascend to get to the city of Jerusalem. And in the Jews they would as they were on their pilgrimages they would sing these 15 Psalms and to get to the city of Jerusalem and then even to the Temple Mount and Mount Zion they were constantly ascending to to go to worship to the temple.

And the Lord just laid that on my heart. This morning why don't we all stand. I'm gonna read from Psalm 130 first. This is Psalm 130. This is a song of ascent out of the depths. I cried you O Lord. O Lord hear my voice.

Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy. If you O Lord should mark iniquities. O Lord who could stand but with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared. I wait for the Lord.

My soul waits and in his word I hope my soul waits for the Lord more than watchman for the morning. Oh Israel hope in the Lord. For with the Lord there is steadfast love and with him is plentiful redemption.

He will redeem all Israel from all their iniquities. He became sin who knew no sin his righteous watchers over the city. The watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest eating the bread of anxious toil for he gives his beloved sleep.

Every song we could ever sing worthy of all the praise. We could ever be worthy there for you. It's the only lift up my eyes to the hills from where it is. My help come from. My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade on your right hand. The Sun shall not strike you by day nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out. And you're coming in from this time and forever.

Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Lord be thou my vision. Jesus you are the light of the world. We look to you. We pray Lord that you would open the eyes of our hearts to behold wondrous things from your word.

We pray that you would give us eyes to see and ears to hear make our hearts open to your word. You alone can do in us what we cannot do for ourselves. And we pray Lord that this morning you will do it what each of us need.

Lord speak to us. Your servants are listening in Jesus name Amen. Juan Elias Riesco had deep-seated strongholds in his mind until he found freedom in Christ better stated Christ found him and set him free.

His family the Riesco's were from Cuba and the grandfather had been arrested as a political prisoner by Fidel Castro and spent ten years in a Cuban prison till he got out and eventually the family was able to flee to the United States of America.

The Riesco's settled in Chicago and that's where Juan was born. His mom and his dad ran a deli on the bottom floor of their apartment complex and it was called Nini's deli. Juan would help out and he as a young man began to go to school but he was not born again and so in the Catholicism of his parents he began to drift from that and started to shoplift after school and it became a stronghold in his life where every single day he was shoplifting from the local stores and became quite a kleptomaniac.

Well after the rush of that had begun to wear off. He looked for greater thrills in his teenage years and became entangled in sexual sin in one hookup after another which then progressed into homosexual behavior and he continued as a homosexual man for a number of years.

He decided at that time to move to San Francisco looking for opportunities in that way and he became a graffiti artist and still a shoplifter. All of this time in his mind he considered himself to be a good person.

In fact he would steal from the store but just to show how good he was he would give some of that that product away to other people and therefore convinced himself that he was still good. His religion at that time was devoted to the Sun and the moon.

He believed that he prayed to the Sun and the moon and that the moon and the stars were like watchmen that were watching over him that he was protected and and was doing well. He was in many strongholds of mind and of body.

Eventually his mother could sense that something was wrong with Juan and so she drove from Chicago and convinced him to get in the car and come back home. When he got home he saw his brother who had been born again who had encountered Jesus and this man told Juan about the Lord Jesus and in that moment Jesus found him as he continued to look at the cross and to pray and to read the word by the washing of the word he was not only forgiven of his sin and became a Christian but the strongholds of mind and of body were broken because Jesus is able to set the captive free.

Juan Riesco was delivered gloriously of his homosexuality and of his kleptomania and any of others addictions of that nature that he had the Lord gloriously redeemed him. He got married. He now has two children and another on the way.

But what was interesting about Riesco's story. As if that wasn't interesting what was notable in the world was his work. After he got saved that little deli under their apartment complex. Nini's deli soon under his work became the most famous deli in Chicago one of the hundred most famous in the country.

They had contracts with Nike Derek Rose the the point guard for the Chicago Bulls would wear the the insignia of Nini's deli on his cap. It became famous in the of Chicago because of the food and the service that Juan Riesco offered as he continued and served the community.

You would think that those that he served and that loved him would have stood by him. In 2020 however after the George Floyd incident he continued to preach the gospel on his Facebook page and many activists said no you must say black lives matter.

And he refused. He continued to show love to all people but on the day that he posted all lives matter there was a protest rally organized against Nini's deli in Chicago. Everybody was aware of it because it was posted on Facebook.

And so what did Juan decide to do. He and his brother woke up early in the morning and went and stood in front of the deli and set up a speaker and got Bibles in their pastor and they stood there and preached the gospel in the midst of the protest at 9 in the morning there was only one person there and Juan said to his brother does this mean there's not gonna be a protest.

And his brother said no. These people don't wake up and come to work until later in the day they're sleeping in. That one young man who met them in front of Nini's deli listened to the gospel repented of his sin accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and was baptized into the faith.

Well later in the afternoon the crowds did show up and it became very hostile against them with crowds of people mocking and scorning them. The flags that they waved had 666 written on the flag and rainbow colored stripes mocking the American flag.

Things became increasingly hostile. The next day it would become thousands of people and they painted his wall black with the Marxist fist. By that time the second day he had to flee the city as Paul fled the city under circumstances like this.

But the gospel continued to go forth. On that day twelve people were born again and baptized into the church of which he was a part and he continues to go on to this day. He goes across the country from Chicago.

They started a new church in Dallas. They're part of the same ministry that we are called love life. And they go to the women's centers to preach the gospel and to plead with women to offer help. It is amazing what our Lord is able to do.

The world will tell you with all the dogmatism of the most religious fanatic that homosexuality cannot be changed that there are strongholds of the mind that cannot be broken and things are the way they are and nothing can change it.

But I'm here to tell you by the gospel of Jesus Christ that Jesus can do it. He can do this and anything with God nothing is impossible and he's done it for thousands and thousands of years. Church. He raised a crippled man at the pool of Bethesda and he set that man free from strongholds as well.

Jesus Finds the Sinner Before the Sinner Finds Him

We're going to turn to John chapter 5 this morning before we read the first five I mean the first verses of John chapter 5. I want to review some of the things that we've seen in John already because there is a theme emerging in the book of John and that is that Jesus finds sinners in their sin and rescues them.

It's not that they find Jesus but ultimately that he finds them and he brings help from the outside. Their salvation does not come from within them but God rescues the sinner. Jesus saves. So turn with me to John chapter 1 and you'll notice in verse 29 that Jesus found John the Baptist.

It says the next day he referring to John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him. It's an early indication that it's Jesus who finds us and not the other way around. John the Baptist being alerted of this by the Holy Spirit in his ministry is able to declare when when he sees him behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

The next day chapter 1 verses 36 and 37 once again it is Jesus who approaches where John the Baptist is. And it says in verse 36 he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said behold the Lamb of God. Verse 37 the two disciples heard him say this and they followed him.

So the two disciples were found by Jesus. He came by and they heard the declaration from John himself. This is the Lamb of God. Once again you have the story of Nathanael in chapter 1 and his brother finds him.

Philip says come come see the one that the prophets wrote about. But notice in John chapter 1 verse 48 Nathanael said to him how do you know me. Jesus answered him before Philip called you. When you were under the fig tree I saw you.

Jesus knew him first. He saw him first. The Son of God was drawing him and this encounter was no coincidence. It was no accident that Bartholomew also known as Nathanael would find Christ. He was seen before he met him.

Next we have in chapter 2 verse 14 you recall those who were selling oxen. Notice the language of John and this is no coincidence. John is very strategic in the words that he chooses. In John chapter 2 verse 14 explicitly says.

In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons. And you know the rest of the story. There he cleanses the temple. He drives these things out. But don't you understand. He had to drive their sin away in order for them to see him for who he was.

They were caught in strongholds that they didn't even know they had. And it was mercy that Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple in order that they would ultimately believe in him. Then you know of Nicodemus chapter 3 verse 2 who found who.

In chapter 3 verse 2 it sure looks like Nicodemus found Jesus right. It says this man came to Jesus by night. He came to Jesus but why was he coming by night. Look at verse 8. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear it sound.

But you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus didn't know what was drawing him to Jesus. He didn't know what was happening. But like a wind that blows a leaf and it falls down onto the grass and goes wherever God would send that leaf.

Nicodemus was being blown by the wind. The Holy Spirit was drawing him to the Son of God that he would be born again which ultimately he was and helped take Jesus down from the cross after the crucifixion.

Chapter 4. Verse 4 John notes that Jesus had to pass through Samaria. Was there no other way that Jesus could have gone to the northern part of Israel. He could have crossed the Jordan gone north and cross back over like most Jews did or taken the western route along the Mediterranean.

But Jesus had to pass through Samaria because we're told in verse 7 a woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus was finding her. There was a divine appointment from the father that he would go through Samaria to meet a woman at the well that this woman who was caught in sexual immorality with a man to whom she was not married having had five husbands and in the bondage of Samaritan religion hated by the Jews yet loved by God.

He went to Samaria to find her and the hundreds of people who would then come verse 40. The Samaritans came to him. They asked him to stay with them. And he stayed there two days. He found them and they declared this is the Savior of the world.

And then you have the son of the official verse 46 of chapter 4. So he came again to Cana. What was he doing. He was finding the official and his son where he had made the water wine. And at Capernaum there just happened to be an official whose son was ill notice what John is doing.

He is presenting us with the Messiah who is a shepherd that goes after the lost sheep. He finds the sick son and the official who's given faith. He finds the Samaritan woman. He finds Nicodemus. And today as we read chapter 5 you need to notice this.

He goes into a multitude of people. It's not just one man hanging out at a pool in his backyard but he goes to the pool of Bethesda where the text will note verse 3. In these lay a multitude of invalids.

He's there amongst the multitude but he's looking for the one the individual he's finding this lost sheep he's gonna give him grace. And so it is with each of us here this morning. We are individuals made in the image of God and he deals with each of us individually.

He has compassion for each of us and his word should speak to each as we listen this morning. Let's read it John 5. After this there was a feast of the Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool in Aramaic called Bethesda which has five roofed colonnades.

In these lay a multitude of invalids blind lame and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there knew that he had already been there a long time. He said to him do you want to be healed.

Sick man answered him sir I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up. And while I am going another steps down before me Jesus said to him get up take up your bed and walk. And at once the man was healed and he took up his bed and walked.

Now that day was the Sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been healed it is the Sabbath and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed. But he answered them the man who healed me that man said to me take up your bed and walk.

They asked him who is the man who said to you take up your bed and walk. Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was for Jesus had withdrawn as there was a crowd in the place. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him see you are well sin no more that nothing worse may happen to you.

The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them my father is working until now and I am working.

Amen. The Lord bless the reading of his word. Paul tells Timothy to devote himself to the public reading of Scripture. And so each Sunday we want to devote ourselves to first of all the reading just a plain reading without commentary of what God says.

And then we exposit what is there to better understand. So guys in the back could you put up the picture of Bethesda. Do you realize as Christians when we read stories of Jesus's miraculous healings these are not like the fables of ancient Greece pagan idolatry.

They're not fanciful. They're not like the myths of Muhammad ism of him flying on a beast to Jerusalem. These are real events that happened in real time to real people. And so archaeologists have dug up the pool of Bethesda and it's here to this day.

If you want to go where's the other picture. If you want to go to Bethesda today you will find this archaeological site and you will see some of the colonnades still intact. Real people in real history.

A place called Bethesda near Jerusalem. So as we look now into the text chapter five verse one maybe the first thing you noticed or perhaps you didn't as you were reading in the ESV or another of the modern translations that the verses count like this.

Look at your Bible. One two three five six. Anybody notice the problem. Yeah we're missing a verse. What's up with that. If you're in the ESV you'll have a footnote at the end of verse 3. If you have the NASB you'll have a bracket around some additional words.

If you have the King James Version you will have those additional words only footnoted. What's going on with this guys. Every English translation or translation into Egyptian or into Papua New Guinea language or into an Indian language.

Every translation is a human product of an infallible word. The infallibility of the Bible is in the manuscripts as God gave them to those who wrote. And there's an entire field of study called textual criticism which does its best to recreate the earliest possible reading.

And as some information comes out new manuscripts being discovered. For example the earliest manuscript of the Gospel of John is known to textual critics as p75 which stands for papyrus 75. It dates to about 175 ad maybe as late as 225 ad it is the earliest manuscript intact.

Now we have earlier manuscripts of John for example p52 the John Ryland manuscript it just has a little fragment. It's a minuscule of John chapter 18 but that dates to maybe 115 or 125 ad. So it's a very early manuscript but as far as full intact Gospel of John the first 15 chapters as well as the book of Luke p75 does not have what we call verse four.

Now the numbering of those verses were only included in 1551 Stephanus when he added the pagination to it. But the earliest Greek manuscripts do not have that verse. The earliest appearance of them in the Greek text record is in the 900s.

Three manuscripts then have it earlier than that. You have some Latin manuscripts that have verse four and where it probably originated is in the writings of Tertullian. Here's a quote from Tertullian.

He wrote a book called on baptism and this is late maybe the third century. But he's writing in Latin and Tertullian writes this an angel by his intervention was want to stir the pool at Bethsaida. They who were complaining of ill health used to watch for him.

For whoever had been the first to descend into them after his washing ceased to complain. What is likely to have happened is that the text as given by the Holy Spirit what John originally wrote did not include what we call verse four but a scribe took what was written in Latin and wrote it as a marginal note.

Why would they do that were they deceivers. No look at verse 7 there is a reference to the stirring of water and someone reading that might not understand the context and so a later commentator would make a marginal note to explain it.

Verse 7 says sir I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up. A later reader would say what are we talking about here. And so a scribe had made a note in Latin and in the Vulgate which was the Latin translation of the Greek New Testament explaining what was going on here and that worked its way into what became the King James and so therefore was popularized that way.

But the important point is how do we know what is authentic. How can we trust our Bible. How do we know. First thing that needs to be said minor differences like this in the textual record don't affect any doctrines of Christianity whatsoever.

It's just an incidental point on the side. But no doctrine of Christianity is affected by something like this. That's important. But secondly they use textual scholars have a science to determine these things.

They look at what's the earliest reading. So if we have p66 and p75 from the the second century and the earliest appearance of the later is in the 900s. Well we side with the earlier text right. The other thing is the majority reading which is also in favor of how the ESV handles it here which had so we have over 5 ,000 manuscripts from the early centuries.

No other work of antiquity comes close to that. So we have the ability to compare one thing for another. This is what the textual critics called multifocality different focal points. You can compare what was passed down in Syria or Rome or Alexandria.

And as you look at all the different text types you can see how the text record came to where we have it today. Does that make sense. So we can be certain fairly certain of the reading here. But here's the point it could well be that an angel stirred up the water and the first person in was healed.

That might have actually been a miracle that God was doing. We had to spend some time on it. Otherwise when you come to your Bible and you're missing a verse you might wonder what it is. But don't miss the forest for a tree.

The issue here is you have a multitude of invalids a multitude who cannot help themselves physically unable to make it to the water. But there's something deeper going on in verses six and seven when Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time.

How did Jesus know that he had been there a long time. How did he know that Nathanael was sitting under the fig tree. He's God. John is presenting him as all-knowing. And Jesus knows everything. In fact he knew how long this man had been there.

He asks a question that at first glance at first blush it seems kind of insensitive doesn't it. He says to him. Do you want to be healed. Why would Jesus ask. Do you want to be healed. And as we study through the scripture I think we need to learn to follow the text follow the argument.

And in verse seven the six the sick man answers him. So what Jesus was doing in asking that question was drawing out from the man what was going on inside of his head. That's what John wants us to hear.

That's what we need to see. So the man will explain. Sir I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up. And while I'm going another steps down before me can you hear the loneliness in that man's voice.

In the synoptics we learn of a man who had friends that were helping him get to Jesus. They went so far as to climb on a roof tear the roof apart and lower him down to Jesus. This man has no one like that he says.

There's no one to help me get in the pool. And while I'm going somebody gets in ahead of me. So he's able to go. Maybe he's paralyzed from the waist down. He can use his arms and he can pull himself to the water.

But there's always somebody swifter into the water. And you can hear the frustration in his voice. Whenever I read this verse my heart feels compassion for him because he had been there for so long. Can you imagine what this must have been like for this man.

He has a name. Maybe it was Jacob or Luke or John. Maybe he was a boy running with his friends playing in the yard and they decided to climb a tree. And he scrambled too high not expecting that the branch that he grabbed would break.

And he fell. And he hit the wrong way. And he discovered he couldn't move his legs and the family mourned and they rallied around him and they prayed. And then one day years later someone comes to the house and says have you heard of the pool of Bethesda.

It's where you'll get your healing people are healed there. And here's what happens. An angel serves the water and the first one in will be healed. And this young boy his mind lights up with hope. This is my hope if I could just get to the pool.

And so the family makes a decision that they're gonna leave their boy. Maybe a young teenager at this point and for 38 years he's paralyzed. But how many of those decades probably does he lay on the cold hard concrete of the colonnade and every time they see movement in the water he he fixes his mind.

I will get there. And he pulls with all of his might to get there. And just before he does somebody else is jumping in and he assumes that they go away healed. Do you see what's become in his mind the very point of his life.

It's a fixation. It's become a stronghold in his mind that life for him for decades is about getting to the water and getting healed. It's become a stronghold in his mind. And it seems insurmountable.

But there's nothing else he can do. He can't think about anything else. He's in the cycle in his brain. It's more strangling. It's a deeper stronghold than the physical itself. How many of you here this morning have strongholds in your mind.

Cycles of thought that plague you that you can't get out of your head. Sexual addictions sexual thoughts that you think define you. Strongholds of the mind. That's what this story is about. See I have an uncle.

I had an uncle he died a couple years ago named Herb. When he was in his 40s he fell on a farm where he was operating a tractor and he hit the hitch just the wrong way was paralyzed from the waist down.

But the rest of his days in Linden Washington as a paralytic were spent serving the Lord. He prayed for healing but the Lord didn't grant it. Remember there were multitudes at the pool of Bethesda. But he spent his days joyfully worshipping God.