May it please God to bless us
together as we meditate in his word this morning. Let's turn
to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 2, and we'll read for text verse
5. The Gospel of Mark, chapter 2,
and reading verse 5. When Jesus saw their faith, he
said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be Well, this account that we read
here in the second chapter, commonly known as the man who had the
palsy that was healed, it does occur three times in the Bible. It occurs in Matthew, it occurs
in Mark and it also occurs in Luke. And each account has very
minor variations. but the thrust of the whole account
is the same. And it's wonderful to realise
that such things are repeated and they are repeated in a slightly
different way for our benefit to realise the importance of
such accounts as this. And there is indeed a great deal
of instruction in a few verses here which we have in this account
now we're told that Jesus entered into Capernaum after some days
and it was noise that he was in the house and it's quite clear
therefore that by this time the Lord Jesus had a reputation as
that one who went about doing good as that one who healed and
therefore there was this man who was ill we're told he was
sick of the palsy Palsy really means that he was paralyzed,
and obviously he couldn't do much, he was on a bed, on a stretcher,
and therefore he needed something. And we're told that as Jesus
came and was in this house, straightway, many when they heard about it,
they gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive
them, no, not so much as about the door, and he preached the
word unto them. Wonderful days, weren't they,
to think of that. As soon as the name of Jesus was heard,
the people crammed together to hear the great news, the good
news, the words from the lips of the Saviour. What wonderful
times they were. And so, here was this situation. Very easy for us to understand,
isn't it? And then we were told that here
was this man, and they come unto him bringing one sick of a palsy,
which was born of four. It was seen therefore he was
one of quadruplets. And it must have been quite rare
in those days. And here was this man, and he
was brought to this place. And they came, no doubt expecting
to be able to see Jesus very simply. But no, it wasn't as
simple as that. And we're told when they could
not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof
where he was. And when they had broken it up,
they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay. And
we see here a wonderful example, really, of determination. They
weren't put off, these people that brought this man. They'd
come to see Jesus. And they didn't want to go away
again without seeing Jesus. And therefore, they didn't say,
well, there's a crowd here, we can't possibly see Jesus. They persevered. and generally
speaking in those days of course there was a staircase up on the
side of these houses and they could go up the staircase because
often people would sleep on the roof of the house especially
when they were hot and the nights were cool and therefore it wasn't
unusual for people to go onto the roof and therefore these
people went up onto the roof and they they pressed forward
they pressed forward and we can think well what's the analogy
of that today. Well, I believe the analogy is
very simply this. It would be wonderful if people
are really moved to bring people to hear the gospel. And they're
not put off by difficulties. They're not put off by opposition. But they press on. These people
pressed on. And very considerably, there
was no other way but going up on the roof and then to break
open the roof so that they could let down this man on his bed
on the stretcher right before Jesus. Well, there was perseverance,
wasn't there? And when we think about today,
in the age in which we live, there's not very much perseverance,
is there? Not very much perseverance. We might ask people, well, will
they come to us to church? And they say, oh no, don't fancy
that. And therefore, they never come.
And we don't persevere. Well, it reminds me of a story
which I'll just tell you. When I was in America, and I
heard this evangelist And he told us of his life story. And really it was a very remarkable
account. And there's a lot of teaching
in it. He was a pretty wild man. And he was a drunkard. And he
wasn't interested in the things religion had taught. He was very
anti. And anyway, one day, He and his wife, he got married,
and one day he and his wife moved house. And they went to live
in Michigan. And Michigan, as you may know,
in the wintertime it gets pretty cold. Well, he was in this house,
and it was a pretty rough old house, and he was trying to fill
the cracks in and decorate it, and his neighbor came and knocked
on the door. And he said, oh, come in. And the man came in,
and he said, oh, he said, I'm your neighbor. He said, can I
help you? And he said, oh, yes, please.
Give us a hand with these, fitting these cracks in. And so he said, he got up on
my ladder and he said, and I sat down in the corner and got my
bottle of whiskey and started drinking the whiskey. And the
man up the ladder, he said, well, he said, it's a real joy to be
here. He said, I'm a preacher. And
the man said, you're a what? He said, I'm a preacher. He said,
well you can get out of this house right now and don't come back again. He
said, because I don't want any preacher in my house. Anyway,
the preacher went out. He lived next door and every
time this man used to see him, he used to ask him, would he come to church today?
And he said, no. I don't want to
hear it. The man didn't give up. Every
time he saw him, he asked him the same question. So there came
a time when this man said, well, to his wife, I'm fed up with
this man. Keep on asking me. He said, it's
church night tonight. I think what we'll do, we'll
go and have a hamburger down the town until the time has gone
for the service. Anyway, they went to Hamburg
and came back and there was a man. And the man said, will you come
to church? And the man said, you never give
up. And he said, well, I won't give
up. Anyway, the next time, He saw him, he asked him the same
question, and he said, oh well, he said, we will come, but there's
a few rules. I don't want anybody talking
to me. I'm going to sit in the back seat. And as soon as the
service has finished, I want to go. He said, OK, I
want to talk to you. He came down, and he went in
the church, and he sat on the back seat. And the minister preached now
from those words, come now and let us reason together. It's in Isaiah, the first chapter. And he heard those words and
he sat there and he got home after the service. He came out
to the minister, the minister actually who he'd been speaking
wasn't preaching, he was a different minister. And he said, hey, you
told this man all about me. He said, I never told you anything
at all. I never said anything to the man. Word he said, he'd
said everything about me. So he said, well, he went home
with his wife, and he said to his wife, wife, that man preached
to us tonight. He said, may God help us to change. And from that time forth, he
went to church, and the Lord blessed him. And let me just
go on a little bit on that story, because it's quite interesting. So the next day, he got up and
he went to work, and he used to work for the Ford Motor Company,
or one of the motor companies. And he went to the gate, and
he used to go through a gate, and he went there and he brought
a lot of dishes. And the gatekeeper said, what have you brought those
for? And he said, well, he said, I stole them. And he said, when God touches
your heart, he makes you honest. So he said, here are the dishes.
And then he went to his workbench and he told the people, on his
workbench. What had happened? And it's interesting,
the man opposite said, oh, he said, well, I'm a Christian.
And this man said, you're a what? He said, well, I'm a Christian.
He said, well, man, he said, I've never heard that from you.
And he said, I was only converted last night. But I want to tell
everybody what God has done for me. Well, that's a wonderful little
account of this man who then was called to preach the Gospel.
And there were a number of other things I could say, but just
enough to show the concern and the wonderful favour of that
preacher who never gave up. It should be an encouragement
to us And so here were these men with
this sick man. They didn't give up, did they?
They didn't give up. They pressed on. And it wasn't
easy, was it? To break through the roof. They
didn't know what was going to happen. They broke through the
roof. They were successful. And they
were able to let down the stretcher right in front of Jesus. And they let down the bed wherein
the sick of the palsy lay. And then we come to this fifth
verse. And what does it say? This is
what it says. And when Jesus saw their faith, they clearly believed that Jesus
could heal this man. And that's why they persevered.
They clearly believed that this man could be healed. And so Jesus
saw. See, Jesus sees into our hearts. He knows whether you and I have
faith or not. And he saw that these men had
faith. And it would also seem that this
man who was paralyzed also had faith to believe. He was willing
to be let down. He was willing to come and behold
the Lord Jesus. And so he was let down. And when
Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, son,
thy sins be forgiven thee. Now, such a statement is very
grand and very glorious. But it's also very significant
because they let this man down to have his paralysis healed,
his illness healed. But Jesus didn't speak about
it at all. He didn't speak about it at all.
He honed in on a far more important issue. And what was that issue? The issue was the condition of
this man's soul. He could see his body. He knew
also about his soul. And he knew, the blessed Lord,
of the great need that this man had. And the priority, the priority
was not his body. The priority was that his sins
might be forgiven, that he might be cleansed, that he might be
made right with God. This was the great concern. And often, you know, we look
at it an opposite way, don't we? We seem to be always concerned
about this one and that one and their bodily ailments. Now I'm
not belittling that, please don't get the wrong impression. But
it is good if we were always concerned about the state of
the soul. And you may say, well, why is
that so important? Well, it's very simple. Very
simple. Because you and I live on this
earth, and we live our life. And our life might be very short,
it might be very long. We might live to over 100 years
old. Many people are today. But the reality is that our natural
body must die. But we have, all of us, a soul
that will never die. And if you think of that, we
have a body that might live for a hundred years, we have a soul
that always lives and never dies. Surely then you and I can understand,
can't we, the difference and the significance and the importance
of the life of our soul and the life of our body. Now, without
saying anything, the Lord Jesus so very clearly spoke to this
man about his soul, about his soul. Well, it's good instruction
for us in the day and age in which we live. You see, we're
often backward, often backward in speaking to people about their
souls. And yet, this is the vital thing. Go back to that preacher. He
didn't give up. He'd been rebuffed time and again. He pressed on. Well, we have this wonderful
example of the Lord Jesus Christ speaking to this man. And what
a wonderful statement it was. What a wonderful promise it was. Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. Yes, he was cleansed. The Lord
had come, the Lord had spoken to him, the Lord had blessed
him. So what do we conclude really from such a statement? Surely
we conclude this, the most important thing in our lives to know that
it is well with our souls. We're concerned with our body,
correct and right and proper. But may we be more concerned
about our souls. And may we truly know that the
Lord speaks to us and forgives all our sins. You see we have
this situation here. These men, they wanted to see
Jesus. That was their great aim because
they knew Jesus could heal. In a spiritual sense, today,
do we want to see Jesus? That he may speak to us and forgive
all our sins. And there will be opposition.
Of course there will be. Why do you say that, you might
say? Because the devil doesn't want us to be forgiven. The devil
wants us to remain in his camp. He doesn't want us to be under
the glorious influence of the Saviour. But blessed be God,
the devil is a vanquished foe because Jesus has conquered. He conquered the devil through
his glorious death upon that cross at Calvary. And may we
today look to Jesus for our salvation, the saving of our souls. This
is the vital thing It is the glorious thing. Well, these people
there, they couldn't understand it. And people today probably
won't understand it. Because there were certain of
the scribes sitting and reasoning in their hearts. They were knowledgeable
people, naturally. But they reasoned in their own
minds. They didn't possess faith to believe. They reasoned in
their minds. And this was the conclusion that
they came to. They reasoned in their hearts.
And they said, why does this man thus speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God
only? And immediately, when Jesus perceived
in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said to
them, why? reason ye these things in your
hearts how true today how many people reason such things in
their hearts yes but they may not be prepared to say the things
that they're thinking the wrong things that they're thinking
but Jesus very quickly draws their attention to his power
and he says whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy,
thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, arise and take up thy
bed and walk. But that ye may know that the
Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, he saith to
the sick of the palsy, I say unto them, they arise and take
up thy bed and go thy way. into thy house. You see the Lord
was convincing these people that he was able to heal the soul
but he was also able to heal the body and therefore there
was a very clear demonstration that here was the Lord God himself,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now it's so relevant to see what
Jesus said. He said, I said, they arise,
take up my bed and go thy way into thine house. What was he
to do? He was to go into the place where
he lived. And what would he do there? They
would observe what had happened to this man. He was a changed
man. He left them paralyzed. He'd come back completely healed. What was it? The work of God. He went to his own house. He
didn't go wandering all around the town. He went to his own
house. And that's important, isn't it?
It's important. It's noted here and in the other
accounts. He was told to go to his own
house, to his own people, to tell them. What had happened? Yes, it's a great blessing, isn't
it? If we desire to tell our families, to tell our friends,
what has happened? Well, what had happened? A double
miracle had happened in this man's life. Firstly, His sins
had been forgiven. Secondly, his body had been healed. And so we're told the Lord said,
arise and take up thy bed and go thy way into thine house.
And immediately he arose, took up the bed and went forth before
them all in so much They were all amazed and glorified God,
saying, we never saw it on this fashion. See, what was the result
of this great and wonderful occasion? The result was this. God was
glorified. God was glorified. And we must
always recognize that our lives are for that purpose. that God
may be lifted up and honoured and glorified and what a great
blessing it is for you and me in our lives to have this concern for the
honour and glory of God that as we do observe and can observe
some of his great blessings that we should testify and speak well
of Him and honour Him. Sometimes people hide these things. They're not to be hidden. They're
to be set forth. They're to be displayed. They're
to show forth the honour and glory of God, what He's done. Our lives today are for His honour
and glory. We're not to live this life pleasing
ourselves. We are to live our life as unto
our God. Now let's just come back. It was costly. Real religion
is costly. These men didn't just turn up
at the door and wander in and have the best seat in the room.
No, they couldn't even get in. It wasn't easy. It wasn't easy. But they didn't give up. And
they pursued. What a blessing it is if God
gives us that urgency in our spirits. You know, we can never
underestimate the value of a soul. We often value the body. But it's more important to value
the soul because the soul lives eternally now we live today really
in a dark world, don't we? we live in a dark world but we
should be very thankful that we have a God who is still very
gracious and as we're told I am the Lord, I change not And also
he is the same yesterday and today and forever. And it's a
wonderful blessing that we still have that God today who does
forgive sins like he did on this occasion. And all of us, without
exception, need our sins to be forgiven. None of us will get
to heaven unless our sins are forgiven. Well, Isaiah and Isaiah
is a wonderful prophecies I'm sure you know and in the 38th
chapter in the days of Hezekiah these things we read in the 17th
verse we're told behold for peace I had great bitterness but there
are so many wonderful buts in the Word of God and here's one
but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of
corruption for thou has cast all my sins behind my back. What a wonderful blessing this
man enjoyed. Hezekiah was able to write it. He was a godly king. You can
read about his life in Isaiah and also in the Kings, the book
of the Kings. and wonderful to realise that
here was a man able to testify of the truth of God and he tells
us, behold for peace, he hadn't got peace he did have peace,
but he didn't at one time instead he had great bitterness but this
is the secret thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from
the pit of corruption and what a blessing it is If God delivers
our soul by forgiving us all our sins, and it's spelled out
like this, and I've cast all my sins behind my back, cast
away, forgotten forever. What a wonderful God we have. What a wonderful blessing we
have. And there are many, many statements
like this in the 103rd Psalm. we read in the first few verses. It starts off, Bless the Lord,
O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the
Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgiveth
all thine iniquities, who healeth all thine diseases. This is a psalm of David. This
is the testimony of David. And what David wrote then is
true today. And what a mercy for us today. If we come with the same desire,
where he says, Bless the Lord, O my soul and all that is within
me. He was full with a blessing of
the Lord. Bless his holy name. He desired
The Lord be honoured and glorified. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and
forget not all his benefits, who, this great God, who forgiveth
all thine iniquities and healeth all thy diseases. Well, we can go on. Just he redeemeth
thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with lovingkindness
and tender mercies. Well, you can go home and read
some of these great truths. We're so thankful that the Word
of God has these truths to encourage us and to strengthen us and to
realize that the Lord hasn't changed. He is the same today
and we should be so very, very thankful. Now, just going back
to the great need there is for perseverance. Perseverance, I'm
sure you will remember. the account of Jacob. Jacob was
a man of God. The Lord led him and directed
him. All the things that Jacob did in his life we couldn't say
were honourable. Nonetheless, the Lord was gracious
to him. And we come to that time when
Jacob was returning back home And fearful of his brother Esau,
you know, he'd deceived him years previously and he was very nervous
about what the outcome would be. And we're told, and Jacob
was left alone and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking
of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed
not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh and the hollow
of Jacob's thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with him. And
he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. This indeed was the
angel, the Lord, resting with Jacob. He said, let me go. And
what did Jacob say? I will not let thee go, except
thou bless me. Now, what does that mean? It
means, therefore, Jacob was resting. He needed to be blessed. And
he wouldn't let the Lord go until he was blessed. Perseverance,
my friends, today, like these men, in our life today, we need
godly perseverance to not give up just because things appear
a bit difficult, just because there appears opposition. If
you're fearful of that, you think, well, I can't press on. I'm going
to give up. Just remember this account. Just remember that these men
went a long way, didn't they, by going up on the roof and breaking
a hole big enough so they could let down this stretcher before
Jesus. The Lord gave them living faith. My friends, today, you and I
need living faith to believe the truth of God's Word. and
to trust in Him at all times, at all times. You know, this
was a glorious day for this man, wasn't it? You can imagine how
he started off, beginning of that day, and how he ended up
full of joy, the peace of God filling his heart because of
the glorious blessing and mercy that he had Received where are
my friends today? May we be encouraged and then
let's realize this Jesus Christ is the same today. He is able
to do far more exceeding abundantly Then we can ask or even think
oh friends may we have confidence in our our God and realise we
have a God who does not deal with us according to our sins,
but is full of love and mercy and compassion. Well, may we
be able to come and commit our way unto the Lord, trusting also
in him, believing that he will bring it to pass that we may
be brought into the glorious situation of gospel freedom and
know that our sins are forever washed away in the fountain of
his most precious blood. And let us never forget the cost
of our salvation. It's easy to pass over it. We
read here of Jesus. Don't forget what he passed through
in order to redeem our souls. The great cost of our salvation,
dying upon that cross of Calvary, suffering all what incarnate
God could bear, with strength enough and none despair, so that
our souls might be eternally saved. Surely great cause to
praise and to honour and to glorify our God. Amen.