47. When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judæa into Galilee, he went unto him, and besought him that he would come down, and heal his son: for he was at the point of death.

48. Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.

49. The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die.

famous for the number and the malignancy of its fevers." The beloved son in this home was taken dangerously sick. The love and devotion of the family centred upon the sick boy, and all that they and the doctors of that age could do failed to cure him. He was at the point of death. Then there came word to the nobleman that Jesus was come out of Judæa into Galilee. Here was his only hope, the man that

had worked miracles of healing, and who therefore might save his son.

The Nobleman goes to Cana. 47. He went unto him, a distance of 20 miles in a straight line, but much farther by the winding roads over hill and dale. And besought him that he would come down to Capernaum doubtless by a chariot as a Roman officer would be likely to come, and heal his son.

Note that "trouble often sends to Christ those who would not have gone if the trouble had not touched them. We all owe far more than we know to our troubles. We do not always recognize our need of divine help until we are in sore distress when human help can do nothing for us. Then we turn to God. Indeed the Bible becomes

a new book to us in times of trouble. Many of the best things in it we never should have found had it not been for some great need which made their meaning real to us." — J. R. Miller in Devotional Hours with the Bible.

Three Stages of Faith. The Faith which Grew

"We have in this miracle of healing an example of the Growth of Faith. The chief interest of the Miracle, in the mind of Jesus, was plainly not so much the healing of the boy there was no difficulty about that as the inspiring of the boy's father with a true faith.

"THE FIRST STAGE began with Faith in the reputation of Jesus as a great worker of miracles. The first word to the father given by Jesus was, not a direct answer, but v. 48, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe. 'It is your faith I want.' Jesus works the miracle primarily to work faith on the father and his household." Dr. Albert Goodrich, in The Miracles of Jesus.

Jesus saw that his miracles had impressed the people more deeply than the teachings they were intended to convey. They saw the sign, but forgot the thing signified. He wished that they would see his character, his mission as the Son of God, his gospel of salvation from sin, his love and friendship for men, so that they would come to him for what he was. This nobleman had not much faith, but he used all he had. He took every means in his power. He could not cure his boy himself; he therefore went to one who could.

Jesus does not throw any slight upon miracles as evidences of his divine mission, for he is continually doing them, and referring to them as evidences (John 14:11). They are necessary in their place, and to human nature as it is, or he would not have kept on working them. He does not disparage his own work.

The faith having its origin and strength in these external signs was an inferior kind of faith, having less influence on the life and character. It was the first step to higher things, but it was only the first in a series of steps to the best character; and it was a pity to rest on the first step and climb no higher up this golden stairway.

As

THE SECOND STAGE OF FAITH, Believing in Jesus' own word. "His faith had passed from a reckoning on Christ's reputation to a trusting of Christ's definite word." the man of Sychar said to the woman who had talked with Jesus, Now we believe, not because of thy speaking; for we have heard for ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world (4:42).

49. The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die. He is too much in earnest to stop for discussion. His child was dying. He had no strength to reply or explain, he would be hindered by no seeming rebuke. He showed that he was not waiting to see wonders, but could trust Jesus to heal his son. When the soul is in earnest it will not stumble at small obstacles. In this very petition this nobleman was climbing to the higher faith.

50. Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way. 51. And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son liveth.

52. Then enquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.

50. Go thy way; thy son liveth. Here is the reward of his faith, and the means to larger faith, as we soon see. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken. Here was a step higher in his faith. He not only believed in general in the power of Jesus to heal, but he believed for himself and acted upon his belief. He believed the

word of Jesus. He had come nearer the true faith, which is a personal trust in the Lord Jesus. And he went his way, because he believed. He did not again ask Jesus to go down to Capernaum with him. His heart was at rest in Hope. "More than twenty miles off the sick boy lay, but the power of Jesus healed him there just as easily as if he had been at the bed-side." Miller.

"The nobleman believed in our Lord as a worker of miracles, but as yet he did not have faith in Him as his Saviour. How many there are who believe in the beauty of Christ's life, in the perfection of His character, and in the purity of His teachings who do not accept Him as their Saviour ! And while such men desire to receive all the benefits of Christianity, as this nobleman desired to get all he could from Christ, yet, like him, they hesitate to do Him the honor of recognizing His spiritual power and authority.' They have reached only the second stage of Faith.

III. THE BOY RESTORED TO HEALTH. THE FATHER AND FAMILY BECOME CHRISTIANS,

vs. 51-54. As he was now going down to Capernaum. It was one o'clock, the seventh hour, when Jesus spoke the healing word in Cana, and the same hour that the household at Capernaum noticed the change in the sick boy when the fever left him. The servants left Capernaum for Cana to report the good news to his father, and the father returning from Cana met them on the way. It was a happy meeting. The father enquired of them the hour when he began to amend. They replied yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.

That word yesterday has caused considerable discussion. For why should the nobleman be so long on the journey, and the servants start so late to report the good news. But one or two facts make all plain. (1) The Jewish day was from six o'clock in the morning to six o'clock at night, when the next began. (2) The distance the nobleman would have to ride by the roads from Cana to Capernaum would be 25 to 30 miles, although the direct line would be only 20 or so miles. It would also take some little time to get started. So that if he reached the vicinity of Capernaum in the evening probably some time after six o'clock, what would be a part of the same day according to our reckoning, would be the next day to them, and they would naturally speak of the seventh hour when the boy was cured as yesterday. It was yesterday to

them.

And himself believed, and his whole house. This was THE THIRD STAGE in the development of his Faith. "He believed fully, altogether, in Jesus, not simply in his

53. So the father knew that it was at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house. 54. This is again the second miracle that Jesus did, when he was come out of Judæa into Galilee.

word, but in Him, Himself. He believed in His mission; believed He was the Son of God, the Messiah, the Founder of God's Kingdom upon the earth, the Saviour of the World. Such was his faith that it infected his whole household.". - Dr. Albert Goodrich.

54. This is again the second miracle (Am. R., "sign") that Jesus did, when he was come out of Judæa into Galilee. The other was at the wedding in Cana some months before. He had wrought others in Judea.

IV. LESSONS IN FAITH. I. Facts are a true foundation for our faith. All that God has done for others proves that he can do the same for us. Every saint, every triumph over sorrow, every miracle of conversion, every noble deed, what Christianity has done for individuals and for nations are proofs that we can safely rest our faith on our Father in heaven and on Jesus Christ.

2. We have a great advantage in some directions over the people of Palestine, that we have the records of nearly nineteen centuries of what Jesus has wrought among the peoples who have believed in him. He has been tried and proved.

He has for

Jesus has proved himself able and willing to help, by having already bestowed upon others the very blessings we need. He is a tried and proved Saviour. He has sustained others in trials and needs like ours; therefore he will sustain us. given others' sins; therefore he will forgive ours. He has heard others' prayers; therefore he will hear ours. He has healed others; he will heal us.

3. Perfect faith is a growth, a development, a fruit of experience. The Swiss Guide conducting a traveller up the difficult passes of the mountains, came to one place where a rock jutted out over the path below which was a precipice a thousand feet deep. The guide put out his hand for the traveller to step upon in order to get around the jutting rock on to the path beyond. The gentleman hesitated. The guide stretched out his hand before him, and said, "This hand never lost a man." The traveller believed, and went over safely. Jesus never lost a man who trusted in Him.

The Eiffel Tower. When I first stood at the foot of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and looked up a thousand feet to its top, it seemed a dangerous thing to enter one of those elevators. But when I heard that they had carried thirteen millions of people in perfect safety, then I had good reason to believe that what it had done for others it would do for me.

Professor Drummond says, "So far as I can see, there is only one way in which faith is got, and it is the same in the religious world as it is in the world of men and women. I learn to trust you, my brother, as I come to know you. I watch you, I live with you.

I find out that you are trustworthy, and I come to trust myself to you, and lean upon you."

Note the Faith of the Nobleman by which he succeeded in saving his son.
It was faith overcoming many obstacles.

It was a faith exercised for others. It reached out into the region of unselfishness, and was thus of the highest quality.

It was a reasonable faith, based on facts.

It was a faith that led to an avowed discipleship, that sets its candle on a candlestick, and shines.

4. These same principles apply to our faith in Jesus for our salvation from sin, and to our becoming his disciples and followers. To be saved is to be saved from our sinful nature, to be made holy and in the image of God, and thus fitted to dwell with saints and angels in a holy heaven; and therefore faith in Christ is the real acceptance, from the inmost heart, of Jesus Christ as our Saviour from sin, and as our Lord and Master, so that we obey him in all things, follow him as guide, love him as our perfect and holy Redeemer.

"The faith of the Head

Is the faith that is dead;
The faith of the Heart
Is better in part;

"But the faith of the Hand
Is the faith that will stand;
For the faith that will do
Must include the first two."

LESSON VIII. - February 25.

JESUS AT THE POOL OF BETHESDA.- John 5: 1-15.

MEMORIZE vs. 8, 9.

GOLDEN TEXT. — It was Jesus who had made him whole. - JOHN 9:4.

Was there any real healing in the troubling of the in the Teutoburg Forest in Germany,

AFTER this there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2. Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches.

I. JESUS GOES FROM GALILEE TO JERUSALEM TO ATTEND THE FEAST OF THE PASSOVER, v. 1. Jesus had been two or three months in Galilee, when, on the occasion of one of the annual feasts he returned to Jerusalem, although it abounded with the enemies and the opposition which led him to leave Judea for Galilee.

It was his custom to attend the feasts, and that very fact would answer in some measure the charges the Jews brought against him.

Then many Galileans would go to the feast, and would be a kind of defence for him, and they would report at home what he had been doing there. Wisely religious people do not neglect to go to the great religious meetings. For while there are peculiar blessings in praying in secret, and "practising the presence of God with God alone; there are also peculiar blessings in large and enthusiastic religious meetings. The feelings receive new impulses, the understanding is enlightened, the heart touched, the whole religious life quickened and revived. Out of such meetings grow unity, broad knowledge, new methods, social progress, new ideas, deeper inspiration. There is an education for quite young people (as young as Jesus was when as a boy of twelve he first went up to a passover in Jerusalem) in going to great religious conventions, and true revival meetings, an education and inspiration that they can get in no other way, uplifting their whole lives.

II. JESUS GOING ABOUT DOING GOOD ON A SABBATH COMES TO THE POOL OF BETHESDA, vs. 2-4. The first day of the Passover was a Sabbath, a high day. Jesus walked forth in the morning to see what might be found in the line of his Father's business of doing good to the bodies and souls of the people. "He went about, not only healing the sick, and cleansing the lepers, and opening the eyes of the blind; but everywhere pacifying enemies also, and turning the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to the fathers, softening and sweetening and healing the hearts and the homes of all men wherever he went, with an affableness and a brotherly love never to be forgotten. He never left any house without leaving a long-remembered blessing behind him. To salute him or be saluted by him, even on the highway, was a benediction." — Whyte's Walk and Conversation of Jesus.

The test and proof that Jesus was the Messiah is given in the words of Jesus himself (Matt. 11:5)

"The blind receive their sight; the lame walk; the deaf hear;
The lepers are cleansed; the dead are raised up;

And the poor have good tidings preached unto them."

He expressed his love, and the love of his heavenly Father, toward men by these deeds of kindness and power. They told the loving-kindness of God in a language which all men could understand. The bodily healing was always accompanied by the gospel for sin-sick souls.

Jesus in his walks naturally turned toward the places where he was most needed. Rev. J. Gregory Mantle, Pastor of a church in Brighton, Eng., relates in the London Sunday School Chronicle this experience in his ministry,

Where do we put lamps? "A young lady came to me one day and said, 'I have just discovered, greatly to my disappointment, that I am the only Christian girl in such and such a house of business.' It was a large house of business, employing a good many young ladies, and she had made the discovery that she was the only Christian, so far as she could ascertain, in that house. I said to her, ' Where do they put the lamps?' She looked at me, for she did not perceive instantly the meaning of my question. I said, 'Where do they put the lamps ? ' 'Well,' she said, 'I suppose in the dark places.' I said, ' Certainly; and God has put you there, in that dark place, to shine for Him. Now,' I said, you go back and shine for Jesus in that house of business. Go there and live a reproachless, blameless, winsome life.'

Jesus set the example nineteen centuries ago. He went that Sabbath morning outside of the city walls and came upon a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered. For there is at Jerusalem by the sheep (market) a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda "House of Mercy."

=