Signs, wonders, and miracles, in and of themselves, don’t prove that

something is of God. But, on the other hand, when they are of God, it’s

a dangerous thing to reject them.

Read John 5:10–16. What lessons can we take away from the amazing

hardness of the religious leaders’ hearts in regard to Jesus and the

miracle He had just performed?

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When Jesus revealed Himself to the man who had been healed, the

man immediately told the religious leaders that it was Jesus. One would

think this would be a time to praise God, but instead, the leaders “persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things

on the Sabbath” (John 5:16, NKJV).

Healings were allowed on the Sabbath only in an emergency. This

man had been disabled for 38 years; thus, his healing was hardly an

emergency. And then, too, what was the necessity of having him take

up his bed? One would think that someone with the power from God to

perform such a miracle would also know if it was permissible to carry a

mat home on the Sabbath day. Clearly, Jesus was seeking to take them

to deeper biblical truths beyond the man-made rules and regulations that

had, in some cases, stifled true faith.

What do these other accounts teach about how spiritually hard people

can become, regardless of the evidence? (Read John 9:1–16; Mark

3:22, 23; Matt. 12:9–14).

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How could these religious leaders be so blind? The likely answer is

that it was because of their own corrupt hearts, their false belief that the

Messiah would deliver them from Rome now, and their love of power

and lack of surrender to God. All these helped cause them to reject the

truth that stood right before them.

Read John 5:38–42. What was Jesus’ warning? What can we

learn from these words? That is, what could be in us that blinds

us to the truths we need to know and apply to our own lives?

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