The Amish Voice 7
A Healthy Bride
—
Felty Yoder
This article was originally,
written for a local newspaper
in the Salem KY area.
We would do well to pause for a time
from
our many activities and consider
where we stand in our spiritual life, to see
whether or not we’ve made any progress
in the last year, or years.
We know the secular world has been
advancing so fast in the last 150 years that
it’s hard, if not impossible, for anyone to
keep up with the “latest.” On the other
hand, it is obvious that the Church of Je-
sus Christ has come far short of the excel-
lence that Paul writes about in Ephesians
3:20: “
Now onto Him that is able to do
exceedingly abundantly above all that we
ask or think, according to the power that
worketh in us.”
We must admit we have
seen very little of this power of love that
Paul is writing about.
Although the secular world has gone
beyond what could only have been imag-
ined a generation ago, are we then to be-
lieve the kingdom of darkness has a great-
er potential than the kingdom of light? I
don’t think so. We have not come any-
where near unto the measure of the stature
of the fullness of Christ. I cannot think of
anything more descriptive of the sad state
of affairs of the church in our day than the
figure we have in the first eighteen verses
of John 5. Jesus went up to Jerusalem to a
feast of the Jews. By the sheep market (or
gate) is a pool, in the Hebrew tongue
called Bethesda (House of Mercy), having
five porches A great multitude of crippled,
blind, and paralyzed people were lying
there, waiting for an angel to stir the wa-
ter. The first one to step in would be made
well of whatever disease he had.
Here is the picture: Jesus is the gate to
the sheep. At the House of Mercy, the
sheep market, people sell their souls from
one denomination to another. In the pres-
ence of the five porches, the five helps,
where the fivefold ministries move the
Living Waters every Sunday morning, we
have a multitude of impotent folk, lame,
diseased, and helpless. We also have rest-
lessness, contention, envy, strife, and bit-
terness. The list goes on and on of deeds
that hinder our walk with Jesus.
Now there was one man who had been
sick for thirty-eight years. Jesus asked him
if he wanted to be made well. Since the
man had no one else to help him, Jesus
told him to rise up, take his bed, and walk.
This happened on the Sabbath. When the
Jews who followed the scribes and Phari-
sees, the theologians of their day, saw the
man carrying his bed, they said it wasn’t
lawful to do so on the Sabbath Day. When
they learned that Jesus had told him to do
so, they sought to slay Jesus.
Jesus told the Jews that he was only
doing what the Father was doing. This,
however, did not satisfy the Jews who
imagined they knew the will of God better
than Jesus did. They sought all the more to
kill him, not only because he had broken
the religious order of the day, but also
because he was making himself equal with
God.
The number thirty-eight appears in
another Scripture which fits in beautifully
with this picture. In Deut. 2:14 the Israel-
ites had come to the doorstep of the Prom-
ised Land, but they drew back in unbelief.
In consequence they had to spend thirty-
eight years in the howling and barren wil-
derness, because they didn’t believe they
could overcome the enemy.
The fact of the matter is, we must meet
the lowly Nazarene like the man at the
pool did. When He tells us to get up and
move on, we must heed His command,
and do His will as He did the Father’s
will. Then we can have victory and make
progress.
If we don’t believe in taking up the
battle and gaining the victory over sin, we
will be wasting our life in the wilderness,
not going anywhere. Or we will remain
with the rest of the helpless and unbeliev-
ing at the House of Mercy, entertaining
the thought that Jesus will come momen-
tarily and rapture us. The Jews had little to
offer the suffering at the pool.
In the same way the church, as a
whole, has made little headway in the last
1,650
years by reading the scriptures
through the lenses of the theologians who
would have us believe they understand the
will of God better than
Jesus did.
Felty Yoder, (270) 988-4145
646
Lewis Croft Rd, Salem KY 42078
What does 'propitiation' mean?
Romans 3:25 and 1 John 2:12, 4:10
Propitiation is a big word that means satisfaction. Because God
is a holy God, His anger and justice burns against sin. And He
has sworn that sin will be punished. There must be a satisfacto-
ry payment for sin. But God said, “If I punish man for his sin,
man will die and go to hell. On the other hand, if I don’t punish
man for his sin, My justice will never be satisfied.” The solu-
tion? God said that He would become our substitute. He would
take the sin of mankind upon Himself in agony and blood—a
righteous judgment and substitute for sin. His wrath burned out
on the cross when His only Son died as man’s propitiation for
sin. And this is love (see 1 John 4:10). —by Adrian Rogers
