THE GOSPEL OF JOHN
THE NOBLEMAN’S SON
DR. JIM DIXON
AUGUST 2, 1987
JOHN 4:46-54
He was a nobleman. He lived in Capernaum in the land of Galilee, and he was almost a king. In fact, the word the Bible uses to describe him is the word basilikós, a word which means “kingly,” or “king-like,” or “noble.” This nobleman was probably very high up in the service of Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee. Some believe that he was Chusa or that he was Manahen, two of the most powerful officials of Herod. No one knows for sure. He may have been Greek, Roman, or Jewish. No one knows for sure, but even if he were Jewish he was probably, like Herod, influenced by both the Romans and the Greeks. This nobleman was wealthy. He had as much wealth and as much power as anyone in his portion of the world.
But he had a problem, because he had a son and his son was dying. Like most fathers, this nobleman loved his son. But you see, all of his wealth and all of his power could not heal his son. He had probably tried everything. He had taken his son to physicians and their medicines and their cures had availed nothing. He may have taken his son to spiritualists (not unlikely for a member of Herod’s court) but their incantations availed nothing. He may have taken his son to Asclepius or any of the Greek and Roman gods of healing, but it all availed nothing. His son was dying and he was desperate, but he had one last hope. He had heard of a Man, a special Man; a miracle worker, Jesus of Nazareth; a Man called the Christ; a Man called the Messiah; a Man called Son of God. He had heard how this Man had changed water to wine at Cana of Galilee. He heard that this Man was once again at Cana in Galilee, and he resolved that he would go to this Man—this Jesus of Nazareth—and ask if He could heal his son.
This was a bold decision. It was likely that it would jeopardize his position with Herod. And yet, for this nobleman nothing was more important than his son. So he made that 25 mile journey from Capernaum to Cana. He probably traveled all night. When he found Jesus Christ, he pleaded. The Bible says he begged. He said, “Come down and heal my son. If You do not come, my son will die.” He had come for healing. He’d come for a miracle, but he discovered God and he discovered two truths about God. These two truths comprise our two teachings this morning.
First of all, this nobleman discovered the purpose of God. Have you ever wondered what God’s greatest purpose is in the world? What’s God’s deepest desire? What’s most important to Him on the Earth? Why did He send His Son to this world? Why did He send Jesus Christ to the Earth? What was His highest purpose? Did He send Him to heal our physical afflictions? Was that His highest purpose? The nobleman probably hoped so, but he soon discovered otherwise.
This is a powerful scene. The nobleman was a man of power. He was probably recognized by the masses. Jesus Christ was a man of infinitely greater power—power that comes from another and greater world, veiled power. The nobleman was desperate. His son was at the brink of death. He said, “Come down and heal my son.” He begged. And in this moment, Jesus Christ made an incredible statement. Jesus looked at this nobleman and He said, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will never believe.” That was a strange statement to make to a desperate father who was on the brink of losing his son. “Unless you see signs and wonders you will never believe.”
Now, in fairness, Jesus wasn’t simply talking to the nobleman, because the word “you” is in the plural. Jesus was speaking to all the multitudes around Him and to the nobleman as well. You see, Jesus Christ wanted everybody to know the highest purpose of God. The highest purpose of God was not signs and wonders, but the highest purpose of God was belief. His highest purpose was that all might come to believe in His Son and find salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
You see, to God your faith is more important than your health. That’s a difficult concept for some of us. But you see, to God your faith is infinitely more important than your physical health. Physical healings are not really solutions. Everybody that our Lord Jesus Christ healed ultimately died. There’s not a single person that Jesus Christ healed who didn’t ultimately die. For us in this temporal world, nothing seems more important than preserving physical life, but God wants us to understand it’s not possible to preserve physical life. God wants to provide the ultimate solution. This is His highest purpose. That ultimate solution is that you might have eternal life in a world beyond this world, and God wants you to know that is only possible through faith in His Son Jesus Christ. So this is the highest purpose of God: your faith. His highest purpose is that you might believe.
I read recently the story of a princess. Her name was Luisa Augusta Magdalen. She was from Darmstadt, Germany. She lived some time ago. On July 21st on a hot summer day in the year 1741, Luisa Augusta Magdalen was dying. She was in her bed. She was not expected to live until July 22nd. Her doctors told her that she was dying and her body was failing. A Christian named Fresenius came in to see this German princess. He was an outstanding Christian leader in that community in Germany. He came to the princess and invited her to believe in Jesus Christ, to receive Christ as Lord and Savior. She refused. She said she didn’t really believe. She said, “If I invite Christ into my heart now, I’d be kidding myself. I’d be lying. I don’t believe.” And so she resolved that she would go to her death in unbelief. But this Christian minister named Fresenius left the castle where the princess lived and he went back in the community among his Christian friends. He asked all the Christians that he knew to pray with him for a healing that Luisa Augusta Magdalen might not die. They all prayed through the night. They prayed and didn’t sleep. They prayed all night, and a miracle happened. She didn’t die. July 22nd came and she was alive.
And the weeks passed and the months passed, and the Holy Spirit touched her heart and she gave her life to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Shortly after the princess became a Christian, she was in her carriage and something happened with the horses. She was riding through the German countryside. No one knows for sure what happened, but somehow the carriage was thrown off the side of the road and Princess Luisa Augusta Magdalen died.
It seemed like a tragedy to the world and it seemed like a tragedy to all the people around Darmstadt and all the people who had known her. But you see, to God, His highest purpose had been fulfilled in her life because God’s highest purpose hadn’t been that physical healing. God’s highest purpose had been her faith. What’s true of that German princess who lived so long ago is true of you and it’s true of me. God’s highest purpose in your life and in my life is that we might believe. As Christians, it is very important that God’s highest purpose becomes our highest purpose. It’s very important that we live to see other people come to faith, that we live to see other people come to believe in Jesus Christ—people like the nobleman of Capernaum who met Christ in Cana of Galilee.
You know, two weeks ago, with some friends of ours, Barb and I had lunch with Franklin Graham. You might recall that he visited us at the church service two weeks ago. Sunday afternoon of that Sunday we had lunch with him and he told us about the ministry of the Samaritan’s Purse, a ministry which he heads up. He told us that the Samaritan’s Purse seeks to give food, water, clothing, and physical assistance to the poor. It seeks to give a cup of cold water in the name of Jesus Christ. But he told us that it wasn’t enough to give a cup of cold water in Christ’s name because you can give someone water or food or clothing—you can provide for their physical needs—and they’re still going to die. There’s a higher purpose. There’s a higher need, and that’s why he told us that the Samaritan’s Purse always seeks to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with the people that they minister to, so that everyone might have an opportunity to believe and come to faith in Jesus Christ. This church is committed to missionary endeavors like that. We are committed to supporting missionary work all over the world that might be in accord with God’s highest purpose: that people might come to faith.
You know, in the year 1910, among the Heimer people in Northern India, there was not a single Christian. In fact, the Bible had never been translated into the language of the Heimer people. But in that year, 1910, a woman in Great Britain gave a financial gift that was given for the purpose of providing a Bible in the language of the Heimer people. A complete Bible was not made, but the Gospel of John was translated into the language of the Heimer people. No missionary ever went to those people in Northern India, but somehow that Gospel of John came into the hands of one of the members of the Heimer people and the Holy Spirit used the Gospel of John and that man came to believe. Now, today it is 1987. There are 150,000 Heimer people living in Northern India. It’s a small group of people. To this day, there has never been a foreign missionary come and minister among them. But it is said that today all 150,000 of those people of the Heimer community have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, all because that Bible had been given to them. You see, the Bible says it’s the will of God that the word of God not return void, but that it accomplish that for which it was purposed.
This is the purpose of the word of God: that people might come to faith, that people might believe. That is why we as a church support the distribution of Bibles all over the world: that we might support God’s highest purpose. That is why we support mission agencies and Bible distribution agencies: that they might take the word of God to the nations. World Vision tells us that there are 5,400 languages in the world. But the complete Bible has only been translated into 500 of those languages, less than one-tenth. We have a great task before us, and we not only need to take the word of God written to the world but we need to take the word of God spoken and we need to send men and women all over the world to every nation of the Earth. And we need to send you into your communities and wherever you live so that God’s highest purpose might be fulfilled.
The American Atheist Society tells us that there are 2 billion atheists in the world. I don’t believe that. I believe they’ve exaggerated their numbers. But it is true that there are 2 billion people in the world who live under atheistic or communistic governments. It is also true that there are 952 million Muslims on the earth. There are 640 million Hindus in the world. There are 556 million Buddhists in the world, and there are 155 million tribal animists in the world. All of these people desperately need to hear the word of God that they might, in accordance with God’s highest purpose, have an opportunity to believe.
If you believe that all religions are the same, that many paths lead to Jesus Christ, or that the most important thing is that we just all get along, you can’t possibly understand God’s highest purpose. You see, God’s highest purpose is that all people might have an opportunity to believe in His Son. Buddha didn’t die for sins. Muhammad didn’t die for the sin of a single individual. Only Jesus Christ did that. Buddha didn’t rise from the dead. His ashes were scattered over the Earth. Muhammed didn’t rise from the dead and no one claimed that he rose from the dead. Only Jesus Christ rose from the dead and He is the hope of the world. And this is the highest purpose of God: that we might give all peoples an opportunity to believe. We are part of that purpose.
Well, I have a second and final teaching from the Lord for you this morning. And the second teaching is this: this nobleman not only discovered the purpose of God, but this nobleman discovered the power of God. The nobleman said, “Come down and heal my son.” He said, “If you don’t come, my son will die.” He obviously didn’t understand the full scope of Christ’s power because even if his son had died Jesus Christ could have raised him from the dead. And Jesus Christ said to this nobleman, “Go your way. Your son will live.” And at that moment, in a moment in time, 25 miles away, a little boy was made whole in an instant through the power of God. It was beyond earthly comprehension.
God wants you to know that that same power is available today. It’s available to you. You don’t have to travel 25 miles. You don’t have to go to Cana of Galilee. You can take a journey called prayer and you can tap the power of God. That’s the privilege given to us as Christians: that we might experience the power of God. We’ve seen God’s power in this church. We’ve seen God’s power tapped through prayer.
On January 29th, 1984, Jim and Jenny Warren rose from bed. They’d had a good night’s sleep. Jim came over here to the church at 7:30 that Sunday morning. He was teaching Sunday school. Jim is an elder here now. Jenny stayed to get the children ready. She went into the bedroom where their new baby Becky was, and she was concerned when she saw Becky because Becky looked limp and listless. She had a fever. At 9:30 that Sunday morning, Jenny took Becky to the doctor. And when the doctor examined Becky, the doctor was concerned. So Becky was taken to Porter’s Hospital and the doctors examined little Becky there at the hospital. And as they examined her, they discovered that something horrible was happening. Little Becky had come down with an extremely severe case of meningitis. She was very near to death. It had happened that quickly. They came and they told Jenny, and Jenny told Jim.
The next 36 hours are beyond description. During the next 36 hours, little Becky’s whole body just deteriorated. One after another, every bodily organ began to just shut down, including her kidneys and her liver. Her lungs filled up with fluid. She began to experience cardiac distress. By Monday night, they had her on almost total life support. There were tubes all over Becky’s body. There were tubes in her feet and tubes in the top of her head and in her nose and in her hands. She was on a respirator. The doctors came to Jim and Jenny and said that little Becky was slipping away and would probably not last through the night. I remember when Bob and I showed up that Monday night and we went into the critical care unit and looked down at little Becky. We felt helpless. Humanly speaking, the situation seemed hopeless. But you see, God is not helpless, and with God no situation is ever hopeless. I remember that we prayed for Becky that night, and we weren’t the only ones. Many of you prayed. Many, many people pray. A little miracle happened that night.
Becky began to turn around and some of her bodily organs began to function again. Her kidneys began to function again and the doctors began to believe that maybe she might live. The next morning she was still alive, and through the week the struggle continued and she teetered between life and death. By Sunday, February 5th, the doctor said she might live. But they said, “Even if she does live she’ll never be normal. There’ll be damage, permanent damage.” And you might recall on February 5th that Bob led us in prayer in the worship service. That Sunday morning he had Jim Warren come up. We all gathered and laid hands on Jim and Bob prayed. We all prayed. And a miracle happened that morning, because at that very moment, Becky over at Porter Hospital began to heal. Every organ began to function again, and a week later Becky was home. And today Becky is healthy and she’s one of the cutest girls you’ll ever see. She’s complete and whole. There is no damage.
It was almost a year later on January 10th that Mark and Donna Vote took their little baby to the hospital. Their baby was dying. They didn’t know it when they went to the hospital, but their little Brennan had a horrible case of meningitis and was very near death. And I remember that when I got to the hospital the chaplain took me aside into a little room and he told me that this baby was going to die—that Brennan would probably die by noon, but certainly would not live out the day. He said, “I want you to be aware of that so you’ll be ready to minister to the mom and dad.”
Well, we prayed and everybody prayed. We put it on the prayer chain. All of you prayed. And a miracle happen. You see, Brennan didn’t die. Brennan lived, and Brennan is alive today. You know, they said to Mark and Donna that Brennan would never be normal. They said, “Brennan will never hear and Brennan will never see.” And Donna said, “Is there any possibility that he’s going to hear or see?” The doctor said, “There is no possibility he will hear because his nerves are dead. There is a small possibility that there might be some regeneration of cells in the vision center of the brain.” Well today, Brennan sees and he hears perfectly. And that’s the power of God. The same power that healed the nobleman’s son is available today and can be tapped today through a privilege called prayer. We have seen miracles in this church. We’ve seen tumors removed. I mean the tumor was there, people prayed, and the tumor was gone—not by surgery but by the power of God. X-rays show the change. This happened to an elder in our church by the power of God.
You know, this past week I was sitting out on our front lawn. It was kind of late in the day and I was trying to beat the heat and I was just laying down out there. Heather, our daughter, was out there by me and I was going over some scripture. In fact, I was going over the passage of scripture on the nobleman’s son for this week. And I was saying it and Heather was listening. And when I was done, she said, “You know dad, that’s really a beautiful story.” I said, “It sure is Heather.” She said, “Wouldn’t it be great if Jesus would do that kind of stuff today?” And I told Heather what I’m telling you now: Jesus Christ does do that kind of stuff today. Jesus Christ heals today.
Now, I want to caution you. On the authority of the word of God, I want to caution you. His power is available—it can be tapped through prayer—but we must always understand that we touch His power but we never control His power. The nobleman didn’t control His power. You can’t control His power. Bob and I can’t control His power. God is sovereign. Sometimes we’ve prayed for people and what we wanted to happen just didn’t happen. You’ve prayed for people like that. Some of you have had loved ones die. You prayed for them. We may have prayed for them. God is sovereign.
There’s a story that I want to share with you. It’s a true story that concerns a man who lived a long time ago. His name was Augustine. I think most of you have heard of Augustine. He was born in the year 354 AD in the town of Thagaste in North Africa, near modern-day Constantine in Algeria. Augustine’s mother was a Christian. Her name was Monica. Augustine’s father was not a believer. As a young man, Augustine resolved that he would walk the path of his father, and so he lived a life that was wild but brilliant. He lived a life of promiscuity, more promiscuous than even the secular world of his day. He was known as an immoral but brilliant man. He was a scholar of extreme intelligence, educated beyond most anyone of his day. He became an orator and he was skilled in rhetoric and he taught and spoke in Carthage in North Africa. All the while, his mother Monica prayed for him, “Lord, somehow touch my son. I desperately want him to be a Christian.” Well, in the year 386, when Augustine was 32 years old, he resolved that he would go to Rome because he wanted to study there. He wanted to study oratory and rhetoric in the greatest city in the world. Monica prayed and she said, “Lord, don’t let my son go to Rome,” because she thought Rome was the most immoral city on the earth, even more immoral than her son. She didn’t want him to go there. She said, “Lord, don’t let Augustine go to Rome. Don’t let my son go there, whatever You do.”
Well, Augustine went to Rome. He went to Rome in 386 and began to study there. As he studied, he was given an assignment wherein he was told to go to Milan to hear Ambrose preach. Of course he wasn’t sent for the spiritual input, but to watch the technique and the skill of Ambrose, who was a great preacher. It was in that moment in the year 386, as Augustine sat in a church in Milan and heard Ambrose speak, that the Holy Spirit fell upon him. Augustine gave his heart to Jesus Christ, something he never thought he would ever do. He asked Jesus Christ to be his Lord and Savior. His life changed radically, and Augustine became one of the most famous Christians in the history of the world. Most historians would say he was the greatest Christian in the post-apostolic age. Above all else, it was Augustine’s ministry, teachings, and writings that influenced Christianity during the medieval period. And more than a thousand years after Augustine’s death, his writings influenced, above all else, the thinking of Martin Luther and John Calvin. Today, he is called Saint Augustine, but he wouldn’t have been a saint, he wouldn’t have been a Christian, if he hadn’t have gone to Rome. All the time his mother had been praying, “Lord, whatever You do, don’t send him to Rome.” But you see, you never control the power of God. You touch the power of God, you tap the power of God, but you never control it. God knows what’s best for you.
So many times we pray and we want God to do this or we want God to do that. But you see, God is sovereign. That’s why faith must be our highest purpose. It’s more important than healing. It’s only by faith that you really can accept the sovereignty of God. When things don’t go the way you want them to, by faith you believe. We are a praying church. We have elders who pray. We have deacons who pray. We have a staff that prays and we love to pray. We’re committed to prayer. We know that God is sovereign. We cannot force His hand. We trust His will. Down deep, we say, “Not our will, but Thy will be done.” And yet, whenever we pray there is a sense of confident expectation and excitement…there is a sense of anticipation because we know God loves us and we know God has all power in heaven and on Earth.
We know that whenever we pray we touch that power. We want to be faithful to pray for you. I don’t know of any time anyone ever came to us with a prayer request that we didn’t pray. And God wants you to be like that, too. He wants you to be men and women of prayer. He wants you to know that the same power the nobleman touched in Cana of Galilee is available today. So we have two messages from a nobleman who lived almost 2000 years ago. The first concerns the purpose of God. The highest purpose of God is your faith and that all men and women all over the world might be given an opportunity to believe. The second message concerns the power of God. That power is available today. We cannot control it, but we can touch it through prayer. Let’s close with a word of prayer.
Lord Jesus, we love You. Lord, we call You our friend. We call You our friend because we love You so much. And Lord, we know that You love us even more. And yet, Lord, we know that You are more than our friend. You are God. And Lord, we stand in awe of You. We stand in awe of the things You do. We read the Bible and we see how You commanded the sea and rebuked the wind. We stand in awe. We read how You raise the dead and how You cause the blind to see, the deaf to hear, and the lame to walk. Lord, we stand in awe. Lord, we want Your power in our life. We pray, Lord, that we might be more faithful in prayer,. We pray that we might touch Your power every day for every need of our life, for every need of our loved one’s lives. And Lord, we pray that Your highest purpose would be our highest purpose. We pray that we might live to see people believe in You. Lord Jesus, You performed many signs and wonders. You were always frustrated when You performed miracles and people didn’t believe. You were frustrated when people wouldn’t believe unless they saw a miracle. Lord, help us to believe and to believe so much that our lives are sold out for You. We love You and we pray these things in Your great and matchless name. Amen.