The Great Physician follows-up with a second question, “Friend”, He says, “How did you get this disease?” Again, if the sick man has come to understand the Truth of God, he’ll know that he got his disease not in one particular way, but in 3 ways. First, he’ll say that he inherited it from his parents. This agrees with the Truth of Scripture which confesses, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me!” (Psalm 51:5) Sin was literally bred in us; transferred genetically from one generation to the next. The Romantics hate this doctrine. So do the Utopians. Pop psychology hates it. Pop Christianity skirts around it. But like it or loathe it, it carries the full weight of Biblical Truth (and besides – anyone who’s been with a 2 year old knows it to be true!)

Secondly, he’ll say that he caught some of his sins from others. It’s not just a hereditary condition, sin is ridiculously contagious too! Many of the sins we might never have fallen into were acquired by our association with other sinners. How many boys would never have fallen into the sin of pornography had it not been for that older boy who introduced them to its world of shame and darkness? How many teenagers would never have chosen the sin of street drugs had it not been for someone older influencing them to try it “just this once”? This is why training up a child in the way he should go is so valuable; this is why parental protection of a child is so important; this is why being careful about the company we keep is so vital.

Third, the sick man will admit that he took the down elevator himself. Without Divine Intervention, all of us are naturally inclined to slide further downhill in our sins, going from bad to worse in severity, in frequency and in gravity. None of us can say it’s just heredity; or that it’s just someone else’s fault. Its our own fault too. We pressed the Down Arrow and took the elevator down ourselves. This is how it is without the intervention of the Great Physician. But fortunately, happily, joyfully, Jesus did not come for the healthy. He came for those diseased since birth, those who’ve been infected by others and those who’ve participated willingly themselves.

Welcome dear friends, to Home Church Langley!