That is the truth about us; she is a picture of us, She is so physically sick; we so spiritually sick, chained, bound to flesh and time. Before conversion I am just chained to this present world. I think this is everything, this present physical earthly life is everything, I cannot rise above it. My thoughts are all earthly thoughts, thoughts about me, things for me: how people are treating me, what I can enjoy, what I can have. All my thoughts are limited to this present world. It is like having a bar on the telephone at work, so that the staff can't make international calls, and you can dial as much as you like but it's programmed not to let you make that call. That is what we are like before conversion. Our thoughts can soar no higher than ourselves and we are limited and shut off from the living God.
The curious thing about Satan is that he hates you, and yet he wants you. He has no regard for you; he is a condemned fallen angel who sinned and fell from heaven, and he will exert all his power to bring you down, he wants to devour you. He hates you, and he is jealous of you, but he is determined that God shall not have you, that you will die in ignorance, that you will die condemned in your sin. He wants to be your personal tempter, and to drag you down through life's journey.
People couldn't bear to look at this poor woman, and sometimes they cannot bear to look at us. Sometimes people look at you and me, and they see our sins and they see our rottenness. What are your besetting sins? Do they see your terrible temper and recoil? Do they see your selfishness, do they get an insight into your dishonesty? What is it they see? Sometimes even other sinners recoil from us and dislike us. What must it be to Almighty God: the deformity of sin and guilt, and quite incapable of changing ourselves.
What if somebody had said to this poor woman in the synagogue, ‘Pull yourself together. Straighten up. Do some exercises every day, unwind yourself somehow, just a little bit more day by day. Work at it; you will get rid of the deformity.’ That would have been utterly callous, that would have been terrible. But there are some churches like that, Unbelievably there are churches that say, ‘Spiritually you are a sinner; you are cut off from God and under condemnation. This is what you have got to do. Just start to try living a righteous life, make yourself a little bit better each day. Pay us some money and we'll help you. By the end of life's journey, you may have straightened yourself out.’ It’s cruel; it's dishonest, it's impossible. That is the trouble like this deformed woman. She cannot help herself. We cannot make ourselves fit for God; we cannot eradicate the background of guilt; we cannot make ourselves righteous enough for him. We are doomed, we are condemned. There is no hope apart from Jesus Christ, the wonderful Saviour.