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[ Music ] ♪ Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine ♪ ♪ All the poor face the glory divine ♪ ♪ Heir of salvation, purchase of God ♪

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♪ God of His Spirit, washing His blood ♪ ♪ This is my story, this is my song ♪ Praising my Savior, Holy Lord. This is my story, this is my song.

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Praising my Savior, Holy Lord. Perfect sufficient, perfect divine. Visions of rapture, the first of the sun. ♪ Angels do sing thee, great and above ♪

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♪ Echoes of mercy, whispers of love ♪ ♪ This is my story, this is my song ♪ ♪ Praise ye my Savior, O great Lord ♪ ♪ This is my story, this is my song ♪

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♪ Praising our Savior all day long ♪ ♪ Reverence of mission, all is at rest ♪ ♪ High in my Savior, I'm happy and blest ♪ ♪ Watching and waiting, looking above ♪

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♪ Filled with His goodness, awesome is love ♪ This is my story, this is my song. Praise ye my Savior, all the day long. This is my story, this is my song.

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Praise ye my Savior, all the day long. Hear this word which is the basis of the morning message. "An angel went down at a certain season into the pool "and troubled the water.

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"Whosoever then first, after the troubling of the water, stepped in was made whole of whatever disease he had. The subject, "An Angel Troubling the Waters." "An Angel Troubling the Waters."

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We are all destined to encounter trouble in this life. Job says that man is born of a woman but a few days and full of trouble. There is trouble all over this world. Trouble in the temple,

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trouble at the marketplace, trouble the United Nations, trouble in Washington, trouble

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in Austin, trouble in the home, trouble in the church, trouble in our minds and in our hearts. There is trouble all over this world. Our text speaks of an An angel troubling the waters.

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These waters are at the pool of Bethesda. An angel troubling the waters. An angel is a messenger from heaven. An agent of the eternal descending to earth at certain times troubling the waters, stirring

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up the waters. Now in the troubling of the waters, salvation is experienced, people are healed and made whole. The fact that an angel troubles the waters shows that God is concerned about what happens

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on earth. God is in heaven but he is concerned about what is wrong on earth. He is not seated on a throne somewhere detached from the affairs of his creatures. Our God cares about us.

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He's involved in human affairs. He loves us. He cares about us and he intervenes in human affairs. So he visits us.

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He comes to see about us. And this angel is a messenger from heaven who troubles the waters so that it's not intended in the scheme of things for us to have calm

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and peaceful waters all the time. At certain times, an angel from heaven comes to trouble the waters. So there is no salvation without trouble.

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The human situation is plagued by blindness, by people who are crippled, by persons who have withered limbs, and they are all gathered around the pool,

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waiting for an angel to trouble the waters. They wait for healing. The name of this pool, the scripture says, Bethesda which means house of mercy. Those gathered around the pool have no

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merits of their own. They are completely dependent on the mercies of God. They They wait for the supreme manifestation of the supernatural. They wait for a miracle. They are gathered around the pool waiting for the unusual, for the extraordinary, for

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the miraculous to occur. angel troubling the water. This suggests that heaven and earth interact. The water is stirred up, the water is disturbed, there is turbulence in the water. The water is troubled in order that the sick may be healed. For when the angel troubles

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the water that person who is the first after that occurs to step down into the water the belief was that that person was healed so isn't it good to know that God's concerned about each one of us he's concerned about our welfare our our personal health, our rheumatism, our arthritis,

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our sinus, our cancer, whatever it may be that ails us, God is concerned. This story is preserved by the faith community and is evidence of the fact that God cares.

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The text is testimony of a living witness, believe me when I tell you, that God cares about the sick. Whoever and wherever they are, at the pool of the Bethesda, there with the five porches,

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some are up and about, and some possibly in wheelchairs, others are bedridden, they've been brought there on their pallets.

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But whatever the condition of the sick, God cares and sends an angel to trouble the waters. An angel troubling the water. God often uses trouble as a blessing. like a surgeon, he hurts us to heal us. So all of these impotent folk that are at the pool ought to be healed by the troubling of the waters. So it just may be

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that when we have some special trouble in our lives that seems to occur that this is to enrich our character to strengthen our witness that God somehow permits an angel to come and trouble the water and you know what's happening we are experiencing the troubling of the waters Congress voted a few days ago not

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to educate the children of illegal aliens not to educate them now some people say well you know that's a wonderful thing that means we won't have to pay as much taxes but can you imagine any human being voting to not educate them they're already over here do do we want to be surrounded by increasing

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ignorance that's the troubling of the waters. Congress votes to not educate the children of illegal aliens. The angel you see is troubling the waters. Now last week UT and University of Texas and Texas Southern have been affected by the the affirmative action program. It's been struck down. Affirmative action.

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Since we've had so much against us, two strikes against us all the time, affirmative action arranged some special way to be sure some of us would get accepted into the outstanding law schools and the like. And that's not just black folk. When I was chairman of the Board of Regents at Texas Southern we

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had one white gentleman to sue us to get into the law school. So it affirmative action all of us need some kind of affirmative action at some point in our lives but that's taking a reverse all of these things that we many of them that these things that we thought were gains in civil rights a number of years ago

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these things are being reversed and somehow in the reversal of it it just may be that God is so arranged in it that there is an angel that's troubling the water. There are plans underway to dismantle HUD, the housing program, and housing is one of the leading industries in this nation, so

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there are plans underway to sort of dismantle HUD, and it just may be that all of this is a signal that the angel is troubling the waters and what often appears as a tragic experience God may be using it as a means to indicate the mighty triumph of His grace. So when the water is troubled the first step first

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to step into the waters that person is healed. So our camera is focused on a man at the pool who has been lying there for a long time. In fact this man has been brought to this pool he's been in this condition he's been brought to this pool time and time again in fact 38 years that's almost a lifetime 38 years some

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say that 38 years could represent the 38 years that the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness. But for 38 years he has come to this pool expecting to be healed, expecting to take advantage of the troubling of the waters. Waters were troubled, but somebody always stepped down into the water before he

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made it. The waters were troubled but never touched his life. You know there's a popular TV program entitled Touched by an Angel. The angel came, this angel enters into human affairs and alters many things and where something is is designed to have a certain effect the angel shows up and angel turns it

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around well the angel comes but his life isn't touched in the process for 38 years he's been like that 38 years and people may be in the same school listening to the same instructor some pass the course others fail some may be in the same church and listen to the same preacher declare the same gospel

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some here believe and are saved and others stay in their same condition the troubling of the water is an advantage the troubling of the water is a blessing but this man is unable to take advantage of the troubling of the waters and the trouble that we see here with this man is that he blames others for his

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situation. Somebody says to him, "Man, why have you been around this pool all these years without being healed?" And his answer is, "Sir, I don't have anybody to help me. Everything, every time I witness the troubling of the waters and I try to step down, by the time I get around to getting there somebody else has already

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stepped in. Well this man is looking for a welfare program. He's looking for a welfare program to deliver him. He's playing the blame game. He's not the reason, others are the cause. His family background, his neighbors, the government. He points an accusing finger to everybody but

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himself. Now Jesus sees this man. Jesus knows his condition. Jesus knows his problem and Jesus has eyes to really see this man as he is. And he says to this "Mr. Mann, do you want to be made whole? "Do you want to be made whole?"

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You know, some people don't want to be whole. I have a friend, the doctors diagnosed him. He went to Mayo Clinic and he was diagnosed as being diabetic and they gave him all kinds of things

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that he had to read once it was known he was a diabetic and all of that and the food must be prepared this way and that way they gave him all of that and he enjoyed being a diabetic because he got more attention and some people enjoy being sick because they order people

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around they get this they get that and so they come to just rely on their sickness and enjoy it. This man had been down there on that pallet so long that he had come to enjoy being brought there even though he went through the motions when the waters were stirred. And so Jesus knows this man's condition. He sees

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through all of the superficialities of life and he says to him, this direct question do you want to be made whole? Not some others, not your family, not a but do you really want to be made whole? Do you want to be healthy? Do you want to be an asset rather than a liability? Do

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you want to be made whole? Now Jesus didn't go to the church folk and say go out there and help this man. He didn't go to the circle leaders, say why don't you see that this man received some help from the benevolent committee. He didn't do that sort of thing, he just addressed this man because the man's cure was

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related to his own response to the doctor. In other words, the doctor is asking him the question. When you go to the physician and the physician examines you he asked you what's wrong yes you the questions and you have to answer for yourself so the man's cure was related to his obedience to the doctor's

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prescription do you want to be made whole you do not have to lie there by the pool and watch the lives of others change while yours remains the same. The question is do you want to be made whole? You know brothers and sisters as a people we're sort of at the pool. Angel troubling the waters and the answer

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to the question do you want to be made whole? That answer that we give as a people will determine our future years to come. Jesus the great physician notice that Jesus goes where the sick people are Jesus finds this man and like a doctor he's just making his rounds he stops at

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his bed and questions him, "Do you want to be made whole?" And you know you can't make yourself whole, you have to depend upon the great physician here, and Jesus speaks the word of resurrection power saying rise up take your bed and walk rise that's the word of redemption that's a word of hope rise up you have

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legs, exercise your faith, rise up. You have ankle balls, but rise up, use them, stand up, your limbs will hold you. Rise up, stand on the ground, stand on your own feet. Rise up. There are challenges that await you, there are tasks to be done. Rise up! There's work out there for you to do. Rise up. Make your witness and then take your

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bed and walk. Now this man has been brought there on a pallet, but now instead of being a burden to other people he is to be able to carry his own burden. Take your bed. You don't have to be carried. You can carry yourself. Rise up and walk. Go where you want to go. You can reach lofty goals in life. You can

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achieve your dreams. You can travel on your way, you can carry your burden, take your bed. This man was found by Jesus, his life was changed by Jesus, and as he was there in the temple precincts discovered all of a sudden that he was whole and he started moving around and people looked and they recognized him as being the

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same man that had been around that pool for so long they looked at him they said what happened to you man he said well I met a man who cured me of my maladies so what's his name so I don't know so all I know is that he cured me I was asked if I wanted to be made whole and and I said yes but I don't know his

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name some of us could say that he is strength for our weakness help for our helplessness. He could say that he's the crutch on which we lean. We could say that. But he didn't know. But one thing about this man when he got well is he went to church. That's the first place he went. He went to the temple. Now he was

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out there to poo, but now he goes into the temple. They see him as he goes in. And so many people forget that. You had a lady that was sick and she said, "Oh if I could just get well to go to Las Vegas one more time. Not to the church but to Las Vegas one more time." But here this man recognizes the source of his blessing and he

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wants to go into the temple that he can rejoice with others about the goodness and the grace of God into the temple. And then what happens is that Jesus finds this man again. You know it's a wonderful thing about Jesus how he's all he's finding he found him the first time. Man didn't find Jesus, Jesus found him. And

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then when the man went on and didn't know who it was and then Jesus finds him the second time and he identifies himself so that the man may know the source of his blessing that it is Jesus Christ who has lifted him up. He's been cast down but Jesus has lifted him up. He has changed his life and Jesus

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said now you go ahead now you know who I am you've been cured you go on and said no more. Well we need to know and we need to accept him as Lord of our lives and as the miraculous healer. We need to know that for ourselves. Once there was a mother who had a son and this son had received the death penalty and he was on

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death row and this mother who was a poor widow was doing everything she knew to try to save her son she appealed to the governor time and time again to intervene life of her son and so finally the governor after having so many contacts by this woman he decided that I'm gonna go and see about this young

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man so the governor went himself and when the governor went to his cell governor tried to talk to him but the man was so bitter he did not respond he was he was so distraught and so withdrawn that he would not a word when the governor tried to talk he didn't know who the governor was and he had

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withdrawn and then the governor left and when he left those that were nearby said, "Man, didn't you know that was the governor? That he has the power to change your life? Didn't you know that was the governor?" Well, the governor is always around, and the governor has the power to change our lives. The governor has the power to

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lift us up from being around the pool, to give us a new spirit and make us aware of new possibilities the governor can do that and his name is Jesus Christ he gives us a new spirit a new hope and a new life so as we sing the hymn of invitation we extend the privilege of the church to accept Jesus Christ as

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Lord of your life because you see not only do we have an angel that troubles the waters, but we have one who is the captain of our salvation, who guides the ship, the old ship of Zion that is the home of every committed believer in Jesus Christ. He's the one who palaces the life through the troubled waters of

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this world. So as we sing, we invite you to come unite with the people of God here at Ebenezer. [MUSIC] Is the old ship of Zion.

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Is the old ship of Zion. Get on board. ♪ Get on home ♪ ♪ She has landed ♪

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♪ Many a thousand ♪ ♪ She has landed ♪ ♪ Many a thousand ♪ ♪ She is black as death ♪

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♪ In a fountain ♪ ♪ Get on board ♪ ♪ Get on board ♪ ♪ There's no danger ♪

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♪ In the water ♪ ♪ There's no danger ♪ ♪ In the water ♪ ♪ There's no danger ♪

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♪ In love of earth ♪ ♪ And of home ♪ ♪ And of home ♪ ♪ Jesus ♪

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♪ Is my guardian ♪ ♪ In Jesus ♪ ♪ Is my heaven ♪ ♪ In Jesus ♪

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♪ Is my heaven ♪ ♪ There are no ♪ ♪ And all the world is the old ship of fire ♪ ♪ Is the old ship of fire ♪

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[Choir singing] [BLANK_AUDIO]