Once more He visited Cana in Galilee, where He had turned the water into wine.

And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to Him and begged Him to come and heal his son, who was close to death. Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders, Jesus told him, you will never believe. The royal official said, Sir, come down before my child dies. Jesus replied, You may go. Your son will live. The man took Jesus at His word and departed. While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour. Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, Your son will live. So he and all his household believed. John 4: 46-53 As John draws this fourth chapter of his gospel to a close he brings us back to the issue of Jesus knowledge of what was in the hearts of people. John does this by telling us about the enthusiastic response that Jesus receives when He returns to Cana in Galilee from Judea. The eyewitness accounts of the miraculous works that Jesus had performed in Jerusalem were stirring the imaginations of the people of Galilee. Their response however was betraying a false, superficial type of believing that would not lead to salvation because it was not genuine faith. As we take a careful look at the events at the close of chapter four we are forced to ask ourselves a question about the genuineness of our own faith. Charles Haddon Spurgeon in his hymn Amidst Us Our Beloved Stands puts it this way. If now, with eyes defiled and dim, we see the signs, but see not Him, O may His love the scales displace, and bid us see Him face to face. Spurgeon echoes the point that John is pressing home here. We see and presumably get excited by the signs, the miracles, that which stirs our lust for the sensational. We do not look beyond the sign to see Him as He really is. To understand who the LORD Jesus Christ really is, as He has been revealed to us in Scripture is to have our whole lives transformed by a new commitment and love. It is this that John points us to here in this text. What this calls us to has been wonderfully illustrated for us by Robert Rayburn in his sermon True and False faith preached on April 9, 2000. In it Rayburn quotes this story from Phillip Evans, (The Parson Converted by his Own Sermon, The Evangelical Library Bulletin 77 (Autumn 1986) p. 2-3). I was reminded the other Sunday, in the foundations class, of William Haslam, whose story I have told some of you before. In some ways, it is very much like the story of this father in Galilee. No doubt this man too was a religious man, a man who, up to that time, had no real concerns about his state before a holy God. He had been content to take Gods favour for granted, he thought well enough of himself to do so. It was the near death of his son that changed all that and took him out of the blindness of his pride. Well so with William Haslam. He was among the large number of Anglican priests who held pastorates in English churches and preached every Sunday, but who had no living faith in Jesus Christ. But, through a variety of circumstances, he had become unsettled in his heart and conscience. He

began to be aware that his religion was more outward than inward, what Paul had called a zeal for God, but without knowledge. On Sunday morning, October 19, 1851, he was preaching a sermon to his church and was making the point that the Pharisees had been condemned because they had not believed that Jesus came to save them from their sins. As he preached it, he realized for the first time that he did not really believe it either. As he continued with his sermon he saw the truth more and more clearly. I do not remember all I said, he wrote in his autobiography, but I felt a wonderful light and joy coming into my soul....Whether it was something in my words, or my manner, or my look, I know not; but all of a sudden a local preacher, who happened to be in the congregation, stood up, and putting up his arms, shouted out in Cornish manner, the parsons converted! The Parsons converted! Hallelujah! and in another moment his voice was lost in the shouts and praises of three or four hundred of the congregation. The vicars own conversion sparked a revival in the parish that lasted for three years. Haslam was thereafter known as the parson converted by his own sermon! What type of faith do you have?