(Sabbath Miracles) 05 - Humped Woman Dropsy

Thank you, Bill. Good morning. Wasn't that a marvelous blessing? One of the joys I have through the year is as the Lord opens up a scripture, that God's people come along and we study together and we fellowship around these things.

And many of you this summer have joined and we've studied together and it's been so wonderful. But after what I've seen this morning, we've got to get the addresses of those kids. Isn't it wonderful the light that the Lord gave them and how He used them all? That was just so marvelous.

Our brother Bill has already applied the indispensable principle, so that will not stop me. I'm going to leave this prayer and I'm not going to pray it again because God has heard and He'll answer that prayer. But I'm going to remind you of that indispensable principle.

What He did was He laid it before the Lord because only the Lord can open His Word. I want to begin by sharing a verse and I promise you, brothers and sisters in Christ, I don't have anybody in mind and I'm not in any way trying to put a guilt trip on you. I am only showing you a dreadful possibility and I want you to pray with me that God will deliver us from this possibility.

And so I'd like to begin in Ezekiel 33, if you'll turn there please, just for a moment. Ezekiel 33, beginning at verse 30. As for you, son of man, your fellow citizens who talk about you by the walls and in the doorways of the houses, speak to one another, each to his brother saying, Come now, hear what the message is which comes from the Lord.

They come to you as a people come and they sit before you as my people and they hear your words but they do not do them for they do the lustful desires expressed by their mouth and their heart goes after gain. Behold, you are to them like a sensual song by one who has a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument. They hear your words but they do not practice them.

Let's pray that God will deliver us from that. Our Father, we just thank you for your word. We wait now and trust that what our brother Bill has prayed you'll bring to pass and deliver every one of us, we pray, from being hearers of the word only and not doers.

We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Let me give one final review and then get back into the mainstream of what we're looking at.

And pray with me, please, that God will tie up every loose end. I firmly believe that a clincher message is every bit as important as an introduction lesson and that we go away not with just a general blessing but that God would clinch it in every heart. We've been looking at these seven Sabbath miracles which the children so wonderfully put before our minds again.

I hope by looking at each miracle individually we will not have been distracted from the great simplicity of the whole thing and that is walking with Jesus in the grain fields in the presence of our enemy. That's what it's all about, walking with the Lord. If we do not walk with Jesus in the grain fields then we will be tormented by the unclean spirit and we will find in our Christian life that we're laid up on a bed with a high fever in all of our service opportunities.

We will be paralyzed by our own sin, withered in our attempts to obey the Lord, blinded in our spiritual vision, humped over, bound in an unhealthy way to this earth, puffed up in the flesh. But, brothers and sisters in Christ, if the Lord is allowed to take His Sabbath back, if He claims His Sabbath as it was on His heart to do when He walked on the earth and is on His heart this moment, then picture it with me. Here's His Sabbath.

Every child of God filled, possessed, controlled by the Holy Spirit. Everyone serving the Lord with delight. Everyone walking in liberty without any condemnation even of their past.

Everyone will be obeying the Lord in the power of the life of God that flows through them. Everyone's eyes will be filled with a vision of Christ and that vision will be growing and growing as He progressively unveils Himself. And this morning we want to look at the last two miracles together.

As we look at these final miracles, once again I'll ask that in your hearts you just hold me before the Lord that the Lord will make these things clear. I'll ask you to turn to Luke chapter 13, please. Beginning at verse 10.

And He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who for 18 years had a sickness that was caused by a spirit. And she was bent double and could not straighten up at all.

And when Jesus saw her, He called her over and said to her, Woman, you are freed from your sickness. And He laid His hands upon her and immediately she was made erect again and began to glorify God. And the synagogue official, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, began saying to the multitude in response, There are six days on which work should be done.

Therefore, come during them and get healed, not on the Sabbath day. But the Lord answered him and said, You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead them away to water him? And this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for 18 long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day? And as He said this, all His opponents were being humiliated and the entire multitude was rejoicing over all the glorious things that were being done by Him. Before we home in on what I think is the heart of God in this marvelous passage, let me just make a couple of observations so that we can get a feel for the story itself.

There was a woman. Did you notice in all of these Sabbath miracles, it's not true in all the miracles, but it's true in all the Sabbath miracles, everyone was anonymous. Did you notice that? There was a man with an unclean spirit, Peter's mother-in-law, that's as close as we get to identity, an impotent man, a man with a withered hand, a man born blind, a woman with an infirmity, a man with dropsy, no names.

Fill in your names. Fill in my name. Look at verse 16, please.

This woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for these 18 long years. That expression, whom Satan has bound, it's not 100% clear from the original language what's meant by that. There's some discussion as to whether for 18 years, Satan continually held her down, or if 18 years before, Satan belted her, and that continued for 18 years.

Either way, even though you can't know exactly which is meant by God, either way, the principle's the same. She's in trouble and Satan's behind it. And whether he was holding her down for those 18 years, or whether he did something that burdened her for 18 years, we still see the spiritual behind the physical.

And we see the enemy of our soul. And as you come to the end, just as we started off, God is going to make sure we know that this is the war between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. And he brings us back again so that we might see that Satan wants us burdened.

Satan does not want us delivered. And Satan does not want Jesus to have his Sabbath. That doesn't mean Jesus won't get his Sabbath.

It just means that we're to be made aware that there is an enemy. The fact that this 18 years is mentioned twice makes it important. In verse 11, what we have is what the Holy Spirit gives us through her biographer, through you.

And we just say, there was a woman who for 18 years had a sickness caused by a spirit. But then in verse 11, Jesus was talking to the hypocrites, to the Pharisees, and he said, This woman is a daughter of Abraham, and Satan has bound her for 18 long years. And when I read that, I realized that Luke said she had it for 18 years, and Jesus said she had it for 18 years.

I wonder if she was keeping count of the years. I wonder if you went up to this woman and said, How long have you been humped over like that? I wonder if she'd have to figure it out. I wonder if she'd have to think, Well, let me think now.

It started a long time ago. You know, when you're suffering, time gets away from you. Time gets away from you, and hours turn into days, and days to weeks, and weeks to months, and months to years, and years to decades.

I have an idea she couldn't have nailed it down. She couldn't have said, You know, it's been 18 years. It started on February 11.

Maybe she could. I don't know. I know at the present, I think I mentioned it to you, my mother-in-law is suffering from a disease which has doubled her older.

When Jesus said she had this for 18 years, he didn't say 18 years. He said 18 long years. Talk to my mother-in-law, she's only been like that for about two years, and now it's worse, and now it's only been months that she's in this condition.

But you talk to my mother-in-law, she'd say there have been long months, and they've been long years that she's been double over. I don't know. I can't prove whether this woman knew how long it was, but isn't it a blessing to realize that our Lord Jesus knew how long it was? He knew the cause of it.

He knew the length of it. He knew the intensity of it. And it must have blessed her heart that this woman, he's talking to the first, this woman who for 18 years, she goes, great day, he's right.

He knows exactly. And I think that must have blessed this woman. How does this miracle, how does this woman, humped over, illustrate a Sabbath principle? Let's look again at her infirmity, and let me suggest what I believe is the heart of God and the Sabbath principle.

As we have seen Sabbath surrender, and Sabbath service, and Sabbath liberty, and Sabbath obedience, and Sabbath vision. What's being pictured by this woman? In verse 11, it's a pitiful sight if you just try to paint it in your mind's eye. Just get this view.

It says that she was bent double. That's not hard to visualize in your mind. She's bent double.

She could not straighten up at all. And to make it worse, it was caused by a spirit, and he's identified as Satan himself, bound for 18 long years. When we began and looked at the first Sabbath event, Jesus stood up as the Emancipator, and he said, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.

He's anointed me. And one of the things he said is to set free those who are downtrodden. And this woman certainly fits that.

In this connection, I love Psalm 145, 14, The Lord raises up all who are bowed down. Isn't that a great verse? The Lord raises up all who are bowed down. Because being bowed down like that is a painful thing.

Listen please to Psalm 38, 6. I'm bent over, said the psalmist, and greatly bowed down. I go mourning all the day long. Those who are bowed down like that are mourning all the day long.

We know she was burdened. We know she was bent over double, and we know that Satan was behind it. What spiritual reality is illustrated by this bent over woman? I believe there are at least two things pictured by her condition.

The first is illustrated by the words of Psalm 44, and verse 25. Here he takes the physical and he ties it into the spiritual. Psalm 44, 25 said, Our soul has sunk down into the dust.

Our body cleaves to the earth. Try to picture just on the physical side, this woman is all humped over and bent over double. If ever there was a person whose focus was on this earth, you have the picture in this woman who's bent over double.

She has to look to the world. She has to look to this earth. She has no other place that she can look.

I don't believe it was an accident that the Holy Spirit, as he arranged these Sabbath miracles, put the blind man just before this one. Because both of them deal with eyesight. And the blind man was able to see the Lord Jesus, and this woman is only able to see this earth.

She's sort of locked in to looking at this world. And I'll tell you friends, nothing is going to bow you down more than looking at this earth. And all that is represented by it, this changeable, this vanity here.

Thousands, as you know, who name the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, live their Christian lives humped over with their focus on this world. And to make it intensely practical, I'm talking about what comes with looking at this world that makes it a burden. Anxiety, shredding, worrying, locked into this world, a burden.

And I'll tell you, we need a jubilee. Satan would love to keep you looking down at this world. I think Jesus waited toward the end of these Sabbath miracles to use these last two illustrations because as you come to the end, more and more, he's going to get more profound in the experience of the believer in Sabbath rest.

I'll just give you my own testimony. There have been times in my life I just wanted to lift up my eyes to the hills from whence my help came. And I wanted to see the glory cloud in the sky.

And I wanted to turn my eyes upon Jesus so the things of earth would grow strangely dim. And it was like I had spiritual curvature of the spine. And it doesn't help when you're like that for someone to come along and say, don't worry.

Yeah, right. Don't worry. Okay.

And you do worry. And you're humped over. And you're locked in.

And you can't get up. And Satan keeps you that way. And you're fretting.

And you know you're not supposed to. And you try to straighten up and look to Jesus. And you can't.

And he saves that to the end. There are those who are burdened, especially as our sister was saying, who are perfectionists. And they want so much to look up.

And they hate it. And they don't want to look down. And they don't want to be burdened.

And they don't want to be anxious. It seems like they can't help it. That's the situation we have here.

The second part of the picture is in verse 11, she could not straighten up at all. It's not an accident that when the Holy Spirit wrote his Bible, he chose special words. And one word he used to describe the godly, they walk upright.

Do you ever notice that? They walk upright. Job was perfect and walked upright before the Lord. Walking upright in heart.

The Lord is a buckler to those who walk upright. Over and over again, we read about walking upright. But what if you can't? See, those two things at the end, God says.

Now, I want to set my people free. I want to set all my people free from everything. I want to proclaim jubilee and take my Sabbath back.

And I know as Christians enter in to what it means to be filled with the Spirit. And as they begin to understand what it means to serve the Lord. And as they begin to know their liberty.

And as they begin to be able to obey God and they're seeing Christ. The two things that still hang in there is their attraction to this world. And I can't stop sinning.

After all that he's done. After all that he's given us. Why do I still worry? And why do I still sin? Why am I so bent over? And this is the condition, he says.

I got to set my people free. They don't have to be worried. And anxious anymore.

And they don't have to sin. I want to work in them so that they'll be delivered from all the anxieties of this world. And they'll be able to walk upright before God and before man.

Lillian, as I shared this, I always share everything with her. Before I ever bring it to any of the saints. That is part of our union together.

And she said, make sure the people understand that these people were allowing the Lord to use their bodies as illustration of spiritual truth. Don't judge their hearts. It's their bodies that are the picture.

They've become object lessons. In other words, just because that man was crippled for 38 years, that doesn't mean in his heart. We can't judge him.

That doesn't mean that he didn't want to be healed. Or that the man with a withered hand wasn't obeying the Lord. He probably was obeying the Lord already.

With Peter's mother-in-law, I think she was already serving the Lord. But she let her body be a picture. And just so I'm not suggesting this woman is a fretter and a worrier and somebody who's always looking to this world.

No, her body pictures that. I'm not judging her heart. I don't know where her heart was.

She's probably trusting in the Lord and walking upright in her spirit. And so Lillian said, make sure they understand the body is the illustration. Don't judge these people.

Nothing's a greater burden than being attached to this old sinful world. You know, as we go on in the Lord, we want so much to be cut off from that. We want to walk upright.

I know I've cried out to the Lord so many times in terms of those two things. Look at the deliverance. Verse 12, when Jesus saw her, he called her over.

Don't read that la-la-la. On the level of earth and with these eyes, I suggest that it was cruel, I speak as a fool, to call that man with a withered hand, come forward. And he had to come up with his withered hand.

You think that's cruel. Look what he does here. He does not go over to this woman.

He does the same thing. Come forward. Can you picture her shoving him up to the pub? He made her do that in public.

He could have walked over. He could have healed from a distance. He had done that before.

He could have spoken the word. Where you sit, you're healed. He could have done that, but he doesn't.

And this part I can't prove. This is in Miller's reversed version. But just know in the heart of God, she's probably in the last row.

She's probably in the last pew. And as she shuffles forward, bent over, locked in, can't walk upright, Satan holding her down. And she stands like this and looks into the face of Christ.

Picture it. This really happened. And it represents the awful bondage of being caught up with, being worried about this and worried about that and tied into this and how is this going to work out and all the anxieties and all the threatful things.

Focused on the earth. Not able to walk upright. What a burden that is.

Jesus does a miracle a little differently than he did the other Sabbath miracles. This time he does two things. He speaks and he touches her.

Notice in verse 12. Woman, you are freed from your sickness. Man, what a word.

That was the judicial fact. That was the word. You're done.

If he had dismissed her then, here's how she would have left the synagogue. You're freed from your sickness. Thank you.

And she would have shuffled home. Why? Isn't the word of God enough? Didn't he say it? Wasn't it true? She was healed when he said it. But she also needed his touch.

She had the word. It's a fact. But then he had to touch her.

She needed the word of God but she needed the God whose word it was as well. And she needed the Lord to touch her. Verse 13.

He laid his hands upon her and immediately she was made erect and began to glorify God. It's a glorious thing. We know the word.

We have the word. And I'm talking theology. We have the record.

We have the Bible. We know what it says. It's true.

I am crucified with Christ. Has he ever touched you in terms of that? You can have the word but then you need the Lord himself to touch you. You see, those burdens.

That back bent over. That represents her burdens. You say, what am I supposed to do? I'm so anxious.

I'll tell you what to do. Second thing, the guy with the ribbed hand had to do. Start by coming forward.

And when she came like that she was bringing her burden to the Lord. You bring that anxiety to the Lord. That's what she was doing.

And she brought, she shuffled that thing. Oh, I'm so worried about this and that. Bring it to Jesus.

Bring it to Jesus. And he'll give you the word. And then he'll touch you.

And you're gonna stand up and glorify God free from that anxiety. You got that awful sin. I can't stop sinning.

That thought keeps coming to my mind. I hate it. I promised God I'd never do it again.

And I keep doing it. And I don't know what to do. Bring it to Jesus.

Come on, man. Bring it. Shuffle it up to the Lord.

Give it to him. Claim his word. Receive his touch.

You will stand up and glorify God. He wants to set his people free. And he wants to set them free.

This is Sabbath victory. This is Sabbath victory. Bringing your burdens to the Lord.

Bringing every anxiety to the Lord. Bringing all of your inability to walk uprightly before the Lord. And say, here it is, Lord.

You got this humped over person. And then the Lord will enable you to stand up. When we discussed Peter's mother-in-law being freed from a fever, I called attention to the fact that there was no convalescence.

Remember, after that fever, do you realize what a great miracle this was? Eighteen years of being bent over. Do you know how established her spine was? After eighteen years in that position, on the level of earth, you straighten her up, you break her back. No convalescence.

You mean all those anxieties that have been bothering me now, I can, in a moment of time, stand up straight without, it doesn't have to be gradual? Exactly so. Pull out all the stops and believe it with all your heart. You can be as free from anxiety this moment, as God is free from anxiety about what concerns you.

Enter into His rest. This is His rest. This is His Sabbath.

This is what He wants. You say, well, my hand is withered and my back is all bent over. Shuffle to Jesus.

Bring that withered arm to Jesus. Give it to the Lord. This is an amazing deliverance.

Before we leave this story, I want to show you how the legalists hated this. You already knew it, but look in 14. The synagogue official, indignant because Jesus healed on the Sabbath day, began saying to the multitude in response, there are six days in which work should be done.

Come during them and get healed, not on the Sabbath day. Do you realize what's implied in that statement? The legalists are claiming we're not against what you teach. We're not against the principles that you're talking about.

Only, get there by works. Do it during the six days. Don't do it by grace.

You can work six days. See, what that does, it makes the legalist look good. It makes him look like he agrees with you six-sevenths of the time.

But the legalists don't agree with you six-sevenths of the time because Sabbath surrender and Sabbath obedience and Sabbath service and Sabbath liberty and Sabbath sight and Sabbath victory can only come out of the Sabbath. It can only come out of rest. The legalist says, we're not against all of that service and all of that victory, but work for it, surrender for it, tithe for it, pray for it, study for it, deny for it, give for it, get involved for it, do this, do that, do the other thing.

You got six days to work these things out. Jesus said, actually, no. Actually, there's only one way to come to this.

It's got to be done on the Sabbath day. There is no other day. They don't agree with us six-sevenths of the time.

They don't agree with us at all. One hundred percent of the time, they don't agree with us. And he's just calling attention to that.

Let's look at the last miracle and may God tie it all together for us. Luke chapter 14, please. It came about when he went into the house of one of the leaders of the Pharisees on the Sabbath to eat bread.

They were watching him closely. And there in front of him was a certain man suffering from dropsy. Jesus answered and spoke to the lawyers, the Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not? They kept silent.

And he took hold of him and healed him and sent him away. And he said to them, Which of you shall have a son or an ox fall into a well and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day? And they could make no reply to this. The final Sabbath day miracle did not take place in a synagogue.

It took place in a private home of one of the chief Pharisees. This final miracle, evidently, was also a setup. Now, as we come to the close, what I'd like to do is give four little ideas, four ways this is a clincher miracle.

See, God's going to wrap it all up now. And when it's all done, He's going to say, Now that's my Sabbath. The first is that this last miracle was dropsy.

Dropsy is systemic. Joyce Greenlee taught me what that meant. It means that it's not, the others were isolated.

It was a hand. It was an eye. It was a leg.

It was a back. It was local. This is all through your whole system.

Dropsy is an internal disease. And the toxins, the poisons, go through your whole body. And I was doing some research on this dropsy, as it was, and it was a terrible thing.

It destroyed the kidneys, and it went after the liver. Probably, with the exception of the high fever, this is the one. In its extreme case, this was terminal.

And the body would all swell up, the flesh would swell up, as that poison went through, and all of that. It was a terrible, terrible disease. And because the liver was affected, they described it as, you can just see this bloated person, because of this disease, and weak, and poisons through his body, and probably he's jauntous, and yellow, and so on.

I expect that's how he was so easily identified. That is a summary, of all the bondages you could ever have. It's one thing to have a hand like this, and the eyes that can't see.

But when everything from the whole, inside the whole fountain of my life, is polluted, and my flesh is just swelling up, and I'm dying a slow death, you couldn't get a worse disease, than this. As God comes to the end, he pictures for us, this internal thing now, and this terrible condition. The great emancipator, one by one went through the sabbath day, to set his people free.

And I'm going to ask you now, to take it all in personally, and it's not the new testament, it's not seven sabbath miracles, it's what God's working in our heart. And let's say now, God works and values me, Ed Miller, and I begin to say, Lord I want you to have your sabbath back, and I begin to learn what it means, to be rid of the unclean spirit, and just take the spirit of God, and the life of God, and be delivered once and for all, of independent life, so that I have his life. And I begin then, to learn how to serve, spontaneously enjoy, and I begin then, to understand that he's delivered me, from all condemnation of the past, and I'm free, and like that brother that had that bed, I carry my bed now, I've been delivered.

And I've learned how to obey God now, I come with my withered hand, and I look in the face of the Lord, and I obey, I attempt to obey, and as I attempt, he floods me with his life, and power, and ability, and I can obey the Lord. He has opened my eyes, I've begun to see Jesus, in an ever increasing way, he's getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger. Let's say that my back's been straightened up, and he's taken my eyes off the world, and I'm not worried anymore, and he's beginning to teach me, how to walk upright.

You've pretty much arrived, don't you think? I mean that's not like heaven, don't it? If you're filled with the Spirit, and you're serving in delight, and you're free, and you're rejoicing in the Lord, and all of these things have happened, and then you go home, and you look in the mirror, and say, how come, after all I have seen of Jesus, how come that fountain is still there? How come I'm still sinning? Man, I've learned all these Sabbath truths, and yet that fountain is still there, I'm still deluded, the flesh still swells up, how come? Our Lord Jesus, he called that man with a withered hand, he said, come unfold. He called that woman that's humped over, and he made her come all the way up. But that guy who's sitting in that seat, and he's all sick, and dying, and after learning all this other, don't forget that, he's entered into all of that.

Jesus didn't say, come forward. Instead, Jesus went down, to where Abraham was. And did you notice this, he didn't speak a word, he didn't touch him, he says, he held him.

He held him. The word that's used there, is to seize. It's the same word that, if you're going to arrest somebody, you hold them.

It's the word Jesus used, they brought a little child to Jesus, and he held him in his arms. It's security, it's holding. And after you've learned all these truths, and you come to the reality, I'm still a dirty old sinner, and it's still there, and it still keeps coming up.

Jesus walks up to you, and he hugged you. And he just told you, because he knows. He understands.

And after that hug, you know what he did? He said, well yeah, you can go. And he released him from the house, and released him, he said, you go now. And for the first time, he turned and he went up to the Pharisees.

He'd been so strict with them. He'd been so hard with them. And he said, you can go, but they need to learn something.

And he begins to teach them, now when you come together, don't be proud, don't run for the high seat. And he begins to instruct the Pharisees. You know why? Because he wants them to have his Sabbath too.

He sends that brother out, in the influence, in the power, the hug. And he turns around, he begins to instruct the Pharisees. This is your Savior.

This is my Savior. This is the final miracle. Our brother shared last year, God hugged his spirit.

That's how we started, this is how we're ending. Where'd that guy go, after he got hugged? You see, it's probably not in your Bible, it's in my Bible, I know where it went. I'll tell you, but I'll let you know.

He went out in the grain fields, to walk with Jesus. That's where he went. That's where he went.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, our gatherings together, we're not playing religious games, we don't come up here to, it'd be a shame if you learn seven or eight or ten Bible stories, and Jesus didn't get his Sabbath back. We've come to hear from the Lord. We've come to learn what it means that we walk in this great liberty.

And when you learn all those principles about service and about life and about obedience, you're still you. And there's still that abiding corruption, and you know the theology of it, your old sin nature was taken to the cross, and judicially it's dealt with, and all that kind of thing. But you know the reality.

I'm still me, and that poison's still there, and I don't understand how God, and Jesus just comes up, and he just hugs you. He hugs you, he holds you, he knows it's okay, you've given me back my Sabbath. Now go on out, and walk in the green fields with Jesus in the presence of your enemies.

May God send us out of here under the power of that hug, under the influence of that embrace. Let's pray. Father, thank you that we don't have to be humped over, and we don't have to be fevered, and we don't have to be crippled, we don't have to be blind, and we don't have to be palsied, but you come in every case, and you are our sufficiency.

Thank you, Lord, for the hug. Thank you, Lord, for holding us. And we go out now, even though that fountain of pollution is still in us, looking for the day when what you've made true on the cross becomes real in our experience.

Send your people forth, we pray, and may we all be found walking in the only day that exists, the Sabbath day, in the grain fields with our Lord Jesus. In his name we pray. Amen.