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The Nobleman’s Son
Mrs. Thelma Jenkins
The last story I told you took place in Cana of Galilee. About 15 to 20 miles from Cana there was a town called Capernaum, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. In this town lived a nobleman - that means a man who was rich and important and, perhaps, a servant of the king.
When this story begins be was a very unhappy man, because his son was very ill. We are not told if he was a little boy or an older one, but his father loved him very much and, because he was rich and important, he would have been willing to pay the doctors lots of money to make his son better, but none of them could do anything. They gave him different kinds of medicine but he just grew worse and worse and the poor father could see that his son was dying.
Now everyone in that part of the country would have know about the first miracle at the wedding in Cana. The father must have thought, "If only I could get Jesus of Nazareth to come and see my boy, I’m sure He would make him well" - but everyone said that Jesus had gone to Jerusalem. Then one day, news came that Jesus and his disciples had travelled all the way up from Jerusalem and were in Cana again, where the wedding had been.
The Nobleman said to himself, "I will go at once and ask Jesus to come and see my boy." He had plenty of servants and plenty of money, so he told some of them to saddle his fastest horse and come with him, bringing another horse that Jesus could ride on, if He would come back to Capernaum. They probably started off very early in the morning, because it would be too hot in the middle of the day. Fifteen or twenty miles does not sound much to us, but it would take quite a time to travel because there were no real roads and it was rough, hilly country.
When at last they reached Cana, the nobleman had to find where the Lord Jesus was. He may have been teaching the people and he could not interrupt, although he was so anxious. At last, when he could speak to Him, he begged the Lord Jesus to come back with him to Capernaum to heal his son who was at the very point of death but the Lord Jesus gave him a very strange answer. He didn’t say "Yes, of course I will come and heal your son." He said, "Unless you see signs and wonders, you won’t believe Me."
The poor father did not really know what He meant. He only knew that every minute was important because his son was really dying. Even now, it might be too late. So he said, "O Sir, please come with me before my child dies."
Then the Lord said him, "You can go on your way home. Your son is living. He will not die. He is getting better already." The nobleman looked up into the face of Jesus and he knew, in his heart, that what the Lord said was true. He believed what he had said, and he went away with his servants to begin his journey home again - without taking Jesus with him.
Now that was a very brave thing for him to do. He knew how ill his son was. He knew no one but the Lord could possibly make him better and he had travelled all that way to take Him back with him. Yet now, he was going home without Him. That meant that he really believed that the Lord Jesus had power, in His very words, to heal his son who was all those miles away. Jesus did not need to come and see his son or to touch him.
I wonder if it was all right. What do you think? Well, the next day, as the father and his servants were galloping home as fast as they could go, they saw some people coming to meet them. As they drew near, the father could see that they were some more of his servants. He could see by their faces that they had good news for him and, as they jumped off their horses, they said, "Your son is better. He is not going to die after all." "I know that", said the father. The servants wondered, " How could he know his son was better?" (There were no telephones in those days!) Then the father asked them, "What time did he begin to get better?" Guess when it was? Yes, the servants told him the time and he said, "It was at that very minute I was talking to the Lord Jesus and He told me my son would live and not die, and I believed Him." Then the father, and the servants and all the people in the house believed in the Lord Jesus and I am sure the father told his son exactly what had happened and the young boy believed in the Lord Jesus too.
You notice that it was like the first miracle in Cana. The servants had to obey the Lord Jesus when He told them to pour out the water even though it did not seem as if it could be right. But they obeyed Him and it was all right. That first time, the Lord Jesus was standing right next to them. Now, the father had to believe and obey, even though the Lord Jesus was many, many miles away from his son. But he did believe, he did obey - and it was all right.
As we grow older, we find that all kinds of hard things happen in our lives, but if we love the Lord Jesus and we want to be His children, we learn what He says to us in His Word, the Bible. We hide it in our hearts; then, when the hard times come, and things that puzzle us, we must remember what He said and we must trust His Word and try to obey Him. We shall find that He will help us in our difficult times, just as He helped the father and his son, all those years ago in Capernaum.
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