Mark chapter 2. The Son of Man
has power on earth to forgive sins. To you who know what sin is, that's a powerful statement.
Powerful statement. What would it mean if you owed
a great debt to someone, a debt that you could not pay? And they forgave you that debt,
completely forgave you that debt. Or if you had a crippling disease
and that disease was cured, what would that mean? I believe it would mean everything. Everything. Our Lord said this, to whom much
is forgiven. Have you been forgiven much? They love much. They love much. Their love overflows. It overflows. Now, we have such a case before
us this morning, and let's see what we can glean from it for
our spiritual benefits, and how we, this day, can glorify God
in the forgiveness of our sins, that He has saved us by His grace. Now, back in Matthew 8, verse
34, our Lord healed a demonic man, and the whole city came
out And when that whole city came out in verse 34, guess what
they asked Him? They asked Him to leave. Be careful
what you ask God for. Because He did. He got in the
boat and left. They asked Him to leave. And after leaving that city,
He came to His own city, Capernaum. This is where He did most of
His miracles. And where Christ does most of
His miracles, where He is preached in the gospel and sinners are
saved, those who sit under it and ignore it have the greatest
condemnation. I promise you, they have the
greatest condemnation. Now, in verse 1 it says, "...it
was noise abroad that he was in the house." You know, when
the sun rises, You can't hide it. Just try to hide the sunlight. And when that sun comes up in
the morning, you try to block that out. You ain't big enough. God is. And when the Lord enters a place,
it's noise abroad. He doesn't secretly go somewhere.
It's noise abroad that He's in the house. His fame went abroad. You know, when he healed that
leper, you know that leper went out and spread his fame. The
Lord made him clean. He healed many. He cast out devils.
Our Lord came to save sinners and sinners are going to be saved.
And his fame is going to be noise abroad. That he's in the house. He's in the house. And it says there in verse 2, and he preached the Word, the
Gospel. He preached the Gospel unto them. He didn't entertain
them. He didn't tickle their itching
ears. He preached the Gospel to them. This is the best thing to do
when sinners are gathered at the door. Christ being the door. He said, I'm the door. Preach
the Word. That's what Paul told Timothy.
Preach the Word. Preach the Word. Be instant in season, out of
season. Reprove, rebuke. Preach the Gospel. It'll do the
rebuking. You know, you don't have to go around with
a whip in your hand. The Gospel. The gospel corrects
us, the gospel guides us. If you have ears to hear and
eyes to see, it will. If not, it won't. It won't, it
won't change you. But if you do, it will. This is how you counsel. You counsel with the gospel from
the pulpit. And you can't counsel, you know,
I've learned this, you can't counsel the lost, they have nothing
to work with. You don't have anything to work
with. There's no foundation there to work with. They only want to hear if you
agree with them. Only if you agree with them,
they want to hear it. Now in verse 3, we have the example
of faith. Oh, to have four friends like
this. just to have four friends that are so concerned about you,
that they do whatever it takes to get you under the sound of
the gospel. And they come to him, because
they heard he was in the house, and bring him one sick of the
palsy, which was born of four. They had him on a stretcher,
One on each end, and they're carrying him. They brought him, if you'll notice
here, he couldn't bring himself, he's crippled. You take the first
step and God will do the rest. Where did you ever get that from?
That's not in the Bible. I'm learning this more and more,
and I think it causes less headaches if you learn this. If you're
going to do something, bring Scripture. bring Scripture. Our Lord always brought Scripture.
They always brought Scripture. They brought Him, He could not
bring Himself. We are by nature, spiritually,
we've heard this many times, but it's so crippled. We can't
take the first step. No more than a dead man can take
a first step. We need God. We need God to help
us. We need God to bring us. We need
God to providentially bring us to Him. And He'll use
whatever means possible. You know, when I heard the gospel,
I'd already made a profession. I was all right. I didn't need
anything. I was fine. But providentially,
I went over to my dad's house and he was listening to Henry.
He said, that man's preaching the gospel. I heard the gospel.
I wasn't looking for Christ at all. You weren't looking for Him when
you found Him. No. I was found of them that what?
Sought me not. You say, well, that's a paradox.
Well, it's spiritual. It's Bible. You weren't looking
for Him when you found Him. And here's encouragement to bring
sinners, loved ones, to hear the gospel. Is there anyone you
want to hear the gospel? You try to compel them to come
in. Compel them to come in. Now the place here in verse 4,
the place was so crowded they couldn't get to him. They had
heard about him, no doubt they heard of his fame, and they believed
this was the Messiah like those blind men we looked at a couple
of weeks ago. And they got their, I don't know
if they're relatives or just friends. I'll just call them
friends even if they're relatives or friends. And they bring him,
but the crowd was so jammed around that house, in the front of that
house and around it. They couldn't get through the
crowd with him, carrying him. The crowd wouldn't let him through.
Wouldn't let him through. But I know this. When someone
becomes desperate to be saved, nothing will stop them. I promise
you, nothing will stop that sinner whom the Lord is bringing to
Himself. Like that woman with the issue
of blood, she pushed her way through the crowd, and she said,
if I can just but touch Him. And then in that narrative, it
means if she keeps saying in her heart, if I can but touch
Him, if I can but touch Him, if I can but touch Him, I'll be
made whole. That's faith. if I can just get
to Him." And that's the kind of faith they had. Well, they
couldn't get there, that crowd. So what do they do? Do they give
up? Do they just take Him back home?
They climb upon the roof of that house. The Lord's in there preaching. What do they think they're doing?
What do they think they're doing? You're talking about disturbing
a worship service when the roof starts to open up, light starts
to shine in, and debris starts to fall down. And I know there's
some of that and they're getting a little upset about it because
it's getting into their way. It's in their way. But they go up on the rooftop
and they rip a hole in the roof. I wonder if the owner of that
house goes, what are they doing? They're tearing a hole in my
roof. We're not talking about a peephole. We're talking about
a hole big enough to let a man down laying on a stretcher. This
has got to be a massive hole in this roof. They don't care. There's a sinner
here that needs mercy. It's like we come from mercy.
They won't let us in, but you know what? The Lord let them
in. The Lord let them in. And listen, I picture these
things when I'm studying. Here comes this stretcher down
like a spider on a web, and it's coming down. and they drop it
right in front of Him. I mean, it's not like over here,
over there. They drop it right in front of
Him. What we see here is faith in
action. And what our Lord sees here,
and He does not rebuke, He sees faith. Faith. But I also know this, and these
men not able to get through the crowd, and they've got to climb
up on the roof, and that's not easy with a limp body. It's like having a dead man there.
They've got to climb up there, then they've got to tear the
roof up. They've got to tear it all up. Then they've got to get him down
there. The Lord's trying their faith. Do they realize that? Those blind men, when they had
to follow the Lord, it says they followed the Lord when He went
into the house. That's when they went into the house. They didn't
realize the Lord was trying their faith. Whatever troubles come
your way, He's trying your faith. It's a blessing. It is a blessing. Whatever form it comes in, it's
a blessing because faith is tried. I want to know I got it now.
I don't want to die and stand before God and hear him say,
depart from me, I never knew you. And there'll be many who
say, Lord, Lord, we preached in your name. And that's what
I'm doing. We've cast out devils in your name. We've done many
mighty works in your name. And he's going to say, depart
from me, I never knew you. I don't want to be found in that.
I don't want to get in that line. I want to know in this life that
the faith I have is genuine. The one prayer that I pray, that
I pray constantly for my parents, and I pray this constantly because
they're old and they're close. I pray constantly, Lord, I pray
that their hope and their faith in you is real. It's genuine. I probably pray that every day.
Because He only can give faith. He only can give repentance.
And He only knows whether it's real or not. You know, our hearts
are deceitful. Desperately wicked. Desperately
wicked. And so He tries their faith.
And where faith is present, It's going to come out. It's going
to come out in acts of love and kindness and tenderness. It's
going to come out in forgiveness. Jacob said this, I will not let
thee go till you bless me. You reckon we can do that this
morning? You reckon we can have the faith
and confidence of Jacob and say, Lord, I'm not going to let you
go, you blessed me this morning. I came here to hear from you.
Give me ears to hear. And when Jesus, verse 5, when
Jesus saw their faith, you see, He sees faith wherever it is.
Because He gave it. He gave it. He sees faith. You and I, now
listen, you and I see the act of it. They saw these men climb
up there, let down the gurney, whatever you call it, and let
it down. The crowd saw that. We see acts of faith. Jesus Christ
sees faith in the heart. He sees whether or not you and
I really do believe. He sees that. You know, we can
fool each other. We can't fool God. Because He's
the one who gives it, and He knows where He gives it. He knows. Now I want you to notice here
in verse 5. After they let that man down in front of the Lord,
the Lord saw their faith there in verse 5. He said unto the sick of the
palsy, Son, and that's with a capital S, Thy sins be forgiven. I don't believe they came for
that. I don't believe they came for
that. You know what they came for? They believed in their hearts.
I think they believed in their hearts that he's a son of David
and that he can heal our friend. That's what they came for. They
came for that physical healing, but they got a lot more. They
got a lot more because our Lord deals with the real problem.
The real problem is sin. It's not being crippled. Our
Lord said it's better to be halt and maimed than enter into the
kingdom of God. To be made whole, go straight to hell. They didn't come for that, but
they didn't understand. They didn't understand sin and
all the problems that it causes. You know, all our problems come
from sin. The root of it is sin. It doesn't
mean I had to do something sinful because something happened to
him, it's just sin. Sin, it just causes problems. And I'm not
saying this man did something to cause his crippledness, if
that's a word, but he's crippled. But I do know this, sin was his
problem and that's what the Lord's going to deal with. His Son has
a sin problem and He's going to deal with it. There's no pill
you can take for sin. There are pills you can take
for the symptoms of sin, no matter what they are, whether it be
physical or mental. There are pills you can take for the symptoms
of sin, but you can't cure sin. Only Jesus Christ can deal with
sin. He's the only one. The great
physician doesn't deal with the symptoms, he deals with the problem.
Aren't you glad? I'm so glad he deals with the
root of the problem, my sin, my sin nature. And there's something
else here, as I pointed out. He calls him son. He wouldn't
have said this if he were not a son. He wouldn't have said,
Thy sins be forgiven him. And there's something else here,
let me point out. This man was brought to Christ, he was totally
passive. He didn't take the first step.
He didn't take it. There were no steps for him to
take. He was totally passive. You and I are passive in this
matter of salvation in the very sense that God commands life.
I do not help God to save me. He died on Calvary's cross alone. He said, they all forsook me.
I tread the winepress of God's wrath alone. Alone. And then his sins were forgiven
without even asking. Did you hear him ask for forgiveness?
As soon as he dropped down in front of the Lord, the Lord said,
son, thy sins be forgiven. You know what? I want you to,
this is good. The Lord is not asking him if
he wants forgiveness of sins. He's declaring a fact to him.
He's declaring a fact to him. Your sins are forgiven. They are forgiven. Before he
even asked, they were forgiven. You know, there's a real sense,
a real sense, that all my sins were and are forgiven before
I ever knew about it. If not, God would have never
called me by His grace. If He were not satisfied toward
me, He would not call me affectionately. I'm talking about affectionately.
Call me. He wouldn't do it. Couldn't do it. The sin issue's
got to be taken care of. So our Lord declares a fact to
this man. He didn't say Christ did not
offer to forgive his sins if There ain't no if to it, is there?
No if to it. He said, your sins are forgiven.
Just like Nathan said to David. He said, thou art the man. You're
guilty. You're guilty. But you're not going to die.
God has put away your sin. God has put away all your sins.
And that was before the cross. But Jesus Christ is the Lamb
slain before the foundation of the world. I've got this. This is interesting. If you understand something about
the tenses of the way things are written, this is written
in the perfect tense, passive voice, perfectly complete, never
to be repeated again. Your sins are forgiven. It's
not the Lord's forgiven me one sin at a time. They're all gone. They are all gone. They're all
gone. Our sins are forgiven. Well,
now we're going to come to the complaining group. You see, you
got that. You know, I had a business for
25 years. And I had, you know, I had at
one time was 15 men plus, it was probably about 15, 18 of
us or so. And so I had those that complained. So I put them in the complaining
group. I knew what group they belonged to. You get the whining
group. You put them in the whining group.
You know what I'm talking about, being the worst smiler. You put
them in the whining group. Then you put the workers that
are good workers in the good worker group. You know who's
who. It don't take that long to be
around. You know who's who. If you've ever been in management
long enough, you got it. You group them out. That's where
they are. And here we have the complaining
group, the censorous group. These are the censors. These are the guys that watched
everybody. These are the scribes and the Pharisees. It says they
reasoned in their hearts. Now over Matthew, the Lord asked
him, why do you reason evil in your heart? Your reasoning is
evil. I can just see them sitting over
there with a note and pad. They're sitting over there with
a notepad and they're taking notes. Taking notes. And as the Lord
says this, you see one of the Pharisees saying, I think he
blasphemed. Did you hear that? He blasphemed. And they wrote that down. There's
a mark against him. That's true. They reason, it said, in their
hearts. You see, unbelief reasons faith
beliefs. Faith belief. When you start
to reason, you know that faith is not even in the house. Faith believes God. Here's what
I ask when I read this, what's there to reason about? What is
there to reason about? Are you going to call God into
question? And here's their reasoning. Why
does this man thus speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God
only? He's going to take them to school
here in just a second. You see, the first thing he mentions
is the forgiveness of sins before he commands him to rise and walk.
And the reason being is so they would know that he has power
to forgive sins. He has that power. He has the
power. He has the right to forgive sin. Now they say, no one can forgive
sins but God only with the right. You know, wrong people are not
always wrong. Sometimes they hit it right. And this time they
got it right. No one can forgive sins but God
only because sin's against God. When he did the sin with Bathsheba
and Uriah in Psalm 51, what does he say? Against thee and thee
only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. He didn't
say, I sinned against Bathsheba, Uriah, I messed that house up.
No, he said, God, I sinned against you. My sin against God makes
everything else pale in comparison. It's against God, it's rebellion
against God. But here's a problem, and our
Lord deals, He gives a cure for this problem. Thy sins be forgiven
thee. You can't see that, can you? If the Lord forgives me my sins,
you can't see that. If He says, thy sins be forgiven,
you can't see that, but you can see the effect of it. You know
what the effect of forgiveness of sin is? Faith, hope, love,
and a walk in a new life. You now walk in a new life. You
don't walk that old path no more. You don't do it. You don't walk
that way no more. You know, our Lord saw their
faith, but he also sees unbelief. He sees where that's at too.
He sees it. And here's a good question, and
I'm gonna tie this in with why he said, thy sins be forgiven
thee, and then told him to rise up and walk. I'm gonna tie this
in here. He said, which is easier, to say to the sick of the palsy,
thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, arise, take up thy bed
and walk? Well, you say it and see which is easier. There's
not a tongue twister in it. It's easy to say either one of
them, but impossible to do. Only God can do this. But I want
you to, here's what I want you to get. I got, this really opened
this up for me. Because our Lord meets these
so-called scholars on their own ground. The rabbis, the teachers,
They had a say. This is what they believed. This
is what they taught. There is no sick man healed of
his sickness until all his sins have been forgiven him. To the
Jews, a sick man was a man with whom God was angry. And so the
Lord, before He heals this man, before He gives him the strength
to walk, He says, Thy sins are forgiven. And these rabbis taught, if a
man's healed, it's because God's forgiven him of his sins. And
if his sins are forgiven, who does that say he is? God, Almighty
God. He left them without excuse.
They stumbled on their own teaching. They had to swallow their own
teaching, so to speak. You know, our problems and our
sins go together. Take sin out of this world, and
there's no more problems. Right? There's no more problems. Take sin out of it. And this is the reason why Christ
cured the man's legs. And he tells us here in verse
10 another reason why. that you may know that the son
of man has power on earth to forgive sins. He said to the
sick of the palsy, he tells him to rise up and walk. Here's great
mercy that you may know, that you may
know. Now those Pharisees, they were,
they were, They were enlightened intellectually,
even though they denied it, and they shut their ears and wouldn't
listen to it. But the Lord told them, but you who believe, He's
made you to know that He has power to forgive you of your
sins. Now that only means something
to a sinner. That only means something to somebody that knows
what sin is. Everyone here this morning has
been made aware, once again, from the Word of God, that Jesus
Christ can forgive sins. You got any you need forgiven?
Boy, I do. I do. It seems like my sins follow
me like, you know, they get married and they tie tin cans at the
back of a car. You go down the road and they're
rattling. That's the way my sins feel like. I go down the road
and they're just rattling behind me. But I know, I know, in Christ
my sins are forgiven. You say, well, they don't feel
like it. Well, thank God we're not saved by what we feel. We're
saved by the one we believe. I believe God. I believe God. Concerning the record of His
Son, concerning forgiveness, concerning salvation, I believe
God. Like Paul said on that ship,
I believe God that it'll be just as he said it would be. I believe
God. He has the authority, Jesus Christ,
the Son of Man. That was one of his favorite
terms, Son of Man. It's his identity with us. He
was glad to identify with us. You know, we got people in the
family that we don't want to identify with. We might be the
one. But we got people in the family
that don't want to identify with us. But we don't want to identify
with them. Our Lord's not ashamed to call
them brethren. He saves a harlot. He saves a
harlot. And He's not afraid to call her
His sister. This is my sister. He introduces
her, my sister. You know that in the Lord's genealogy,
you know it goes back to Rahab, a harlot. You think, why did
He mention her? Because that's what, I tell you
what, I'm telling you the truth. In heart, in heart, every one
of us are harlots. In heart. Well, I wouldn't do
that. Oh, you've done things in there
that God, only God you know about. To think upon a woman to lust
after, or a man, is adultery. To hate your brother without
a cause, And we've done that. I know that
in that old nature we have, we're mean by nature. We're mean, cruel
by nature. They did a test, a scientific
test. This is another one of my gleanings
from scientific tests. This was done by the group of
psychologists you know, group, they did a scientific test. Do
you know they identified the meanest group of people on this
earth? They identified them? They were
two-year-olds. They were two-year-olds. They
put them in a room. I'm telling you, they put them
in a room. They said they kick, they bite, they steal. He said,
man, they ended up being the meanest group that they tested. The meanest group was two-year-olds.
They had not yet been socialized. At two years old, you're trying
to get them to quit acting like a heathen. They bite and they
devour. Poison of asbestos under their
tongues. You know what Scripture says? Don't socialize them and
see what happens. They become little hellions. That might not be a good word
to use, but they are. I'm telling you the truth. When I heard that, I thought,
man, they got that right. They got that right. Oh, he said, but that you may
know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins.
And you and I know it. We know it in our hearts. He
has power to forgive sins. And then he says in verse 11,
he's not inviting him to get up. He commands him, he says, I say
unto thee, I say unto thee, Arise, take up thy bed, and go thy way
into thine house." If the Lord heals us spiritually, if He gives
us spiritual life, we are to rise up and walk in newness of
life, a godly walk, but we're also to rise up and go home first. This is so important. You know,
in that day, you know, they didn't have all the handicap accesses
and all that stuff, but in that day, He had to be a real burden
to that house. He had to be. This was a blessing
to me. You go home first and be a blessing
to that house where you were a burden. You go home, if you're not a,
I'm telling you, I believe this, I believe this with all my heart.
If you're not a blessing to your house, God's never saved you.
I believe that with all my heart. I just don't know how anyone
could have the love of God shed abroad in their heart and not
be a blessing where they are. Someone who has tasted that the
Lord is gracious. Think about it. You've tasted
that the Lord is gracious. You can't help but be gracious. It's just going to flow out of
you. It's going to flow out of you. I know we're sinful and
we have our disagreements. I know that. Paul said, concerning
two couples, he said, let them marry, but know this, you'll
have trouble in the flesh. You'll have trials together,
and you're committed to one another, just like you're committed to
Christ. You're committed to it, you get through it, you work
through it. Go to your house, be a blessing
to your house, be an example of grace to your house first. Go home and tell them what great
things the Lord has done for you. Husband, be a good husband.
Wife, be a good wife. Children, be good children. Be
a blessing. If you can't be a witness to
your house, you sure can't be a witness anyplace else. Henry
used to say, if you want to really know what a person believes and
who they are, just go to their home. Let the family tell you
who they are. Let the family tell you. And
immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before
them all, insomuch that they were all amazed. The crowd was
amazed. He preached to them first, and
then he forgave this man of his sins, and told him to get up
and walk. And they glorified God, saying, We never saw it
on this fashion. You see, the end result of salvation
is this. Whether it's here, or in your
home, or in the workplace, God is glorified. God's glorified. Sinner saved. Sinner saved. All right.