Would you care to open your Bibles
to Matthew chapter 9? We'll begin our study in chapter
9 of Matthew this morning. Before we begin, let's bow together
in prayer. Our Father, how thankful we are
to be able to come into your courts this morning with worship
and praise. Thankful that we can come before
your throne accepted in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. We're
daring only to plead His obedience as our righteousness, pleading
His blood that pays for our sin, to satisfy you and make us accepted. Father, we're thankful. We're
thankful that you're God on the throne who rules and reigns and
does as you please and none can stay your hand or say unto you,
what doest thou? And we're thankful that in your rule, everything
you do is right, just, holy, good. Father, give us the faith
to rest in your sovereign rule, knowing that you will work all
things together for good to them that love God, to them who are
called according to his purpose. And Father, I pray this morning
that your purpose for your people would be mercy and grace. Bless
us as we look into your word. Enable us, Father, to see the
Lord Jesus Christ with the eye of faith, to learn more of him,
to rest more fully in him, to be thrilled at the sight of who
he is and what he has accomplished for his people. I pray, Father,
that both in the class and the worship service this morning,
that you would not leave me to myself, but that you would enable
me to rightly divide the word of truth and enable me to preach
the gospel and the power of your spirit. not in the strength of
human intellect or oratory, but in the power of your spirit.
For your glory and for the good of your people, Father, we ask
this. Well, what we ask for ourselves in our class this morning, we
ask for our children's classes that you would bless our children,
bless our teachers as they teach the word, that this might be
a time where you would plant the seeds of your word into the
hearts of our children. Father, we thank you for this
place. We thank you for all those that you've gathered together
out of the world to be one family here. Father, for those of our
number who are away traveling, we pray that you bless them as
they visit with family and friends and give them traveling mercies
as they return back home, we pray. Father, all these things
we ask, and that name which is above every name, for his glory,
the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, we pray and give thanks. All right, Matthew chapter 9.
I titled the lesson this morning, Thy Sins Be Forgiven. Now our
text this morning, the Savior pronounces the forgiveness of
sin to a paralyzed man. I want us to see a few things
that are always present whenever the Lord forgives sin. Number
one is this, when the Lord forgives sin, I guess this is obvious,
the Lord is there and he's there on purpose. Verse one, Matthew
chapter nine, and he entered into a ship and passed over and
came into his own city. Now the Lord is going to have
mercy on some. He's going to forgive the sin
of someone, but we know he'll not be merciful to everyone.
God's going to forgive the sin of his people. Now, why is it
that the Lord has come to his own city? Well, look back verse
34 chapter eight. And behold, the whole city came
out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they besought
him that he would depart out of their coasts. Now, sadly,
after the Lord cast the demons out of that gathering demoniac,
not only did that make his life better, it should have made everybody
else's life better. Remember how they couldn't go past the
graveyard, this wild man running around? And the people of that
place asked the Lord to leave their country. And he did. That's one of my worst fears,
the Lord will give me what I want. He left because they asked him
and he never returned. Never returned there in mercy.
Nobody can blame the Lord for turning away from those people
in righteous judgment, can they? They asked him to leave and he
did. He did not have mercy on them. But thankfully, the Lord
will not turn from everyone. He's going to have mercy on someone. Someone is going to receive mercy.
Now, who is it? I want to know who it is that's
going to receive mercy, forgiveness of sin from God. The Lord's not
going to have mercy on everyone. Well, I know the Lord did not
come to help those who can help themselves. I know that. I know
the Lord did not come as the great physician to heal those
who are not diseased. We know that. The Lord came to
help the helpless. He came to seek and to save that
which was lost. He came to heal those who are
spiritually dead. He's going to forgive the sin
of those people, and He's going to come where they are on purpose. He didn't come back to His own
city randomly. He came back to His own city
to find a sheep that was lost, to heal one of His broken people. And that brings me to my second
point. Whenever sin is forgiven, there's a helpless sinner. Verse
2. And behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy,
lying on a bed. And Jesus, seeing their faith,
said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, be of good cheer. Thy sins
be forgiven thee. Now this man was sick of the
palsy. That means he was paralyzed,
either partially or fully paralyzed. And it seems that this man was
completely paralyzed. Four men had to carry him on
his bed. He couldn't help him. It looks like he was completely
paralyzed. He couldn't even get out of bed
by his own power. Completely paralyzed. Now this
man's a picture of all mankind spiritually. When Adam sinned,
we died. Born into this world dead in
sin. And since we're dead, we're completely paralyzed. We can't
move an inch by our own power. So it does no good for some false
preacher to tell us, now if you'll just take the first step toward
God, God will meet you and take you the rest of the way. All
you got to do is show a willingness to, you know, come to God, start,
start, you just start the trip and God will do the rest. Well,
that doesn't do me any good. Does it do you any good? It doesn't
do you any good if you're dead. It doesn't do you any good if
you're paralyzed. If the Lord would have said,
now son, I'm going to heal you if you'll just get up off that
bed and show me you want me to heal you. He died paralyzed, wasn't he?
He can't get up. We can't get out of bed. We can't
get out of our grave because we're dead. Now, our only hope, if you're
dead, if you're paralyzed, you're just like this man, our only
hope is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the savior of helpless
sinners. Our only hope is he will come
where we are on purpose and do for us what we cannot do for
ourselves. Since we're dead, we are totally dependent on God
to be gracious to us because we can't do anything to deserve
His grace. Grace, by definition, is undeserved. We are totally
dependent on God to exercise His power and give life and faith
where there is none. We can't do anything even to
get God to feel sorry for us and do something for us. We're
totally dependent on Him. He will show mercy and then He
will show mercy. He'll be gracious to me, will
be gracious. Now, thank God. That means he's going to be merciful
to somebody. He said, I'll be merciful to whom I will be merciful.
I mean, he's going to be merciful to somebody. I know who it's
going to be. Dead sinners. That's who he's
going to give life to. That's who he's going to be merciful
to. Look over at Matthew chapter 11. The Lord, now he came here
on purpose. He came back to his own country,
where he already knows most people there will not believe him, even
though they're going to see more miracles done in their area,
their city, than any other place during our Lord's earthly ministry.
They're going to see it all, all his miracles. Yet they will
not believe him. And the Lord came there anyway.
Look at Matthew 11, verse 20. Then began he to upbraid the
cities where most of his mighty works were done because they
repented not. Woe unto thee, Chorazin! Woe
unto thee, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which
were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would
have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you,
it should be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of
judgment than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which are
exalted unto heaven, shall be brought down to hell. For if
the mighty works which had been done in thee had been done in
Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto
you that it should be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and the
day of judgment than for thee." See, the Lord came back to his
own country knowing most people there aren't going to believe
him. But somebody will. He's got some sheep he's going
to save out of that whole area of darkness and unbelief. Yes, most people won't believe
him, but the Lord's got some sheep there. He's going to go
get them and he's going to save them on purpose. And that brings
me to my third point. Wherever sin is forgiven, God-given
faith is already there. Now, we don't know much about
this man who was sick of the palsy. We don't know whether
he had faith, whether he believed Christ could heal him or not.
We're not told. We don't know if he's the one
that asked his friends, would you take me to this man Jesus?
We don't know if he asked that or not. But here's what we do
know. We do know his friends had faith. His friends believed that Christ
could heal him. The Lord saw it when he saw their faith, he
saw it. They believed that the Lord Jesus
could heal their friend. That's why they brought him.
They knew their friend had no other hope than the Lord Jesus. They tried everything. I'm sure
just like the one with the issue of blood, they tried everything.
Nobody could help them. Christ was their only hope. So
they brought their friend to the Lord. And look over Mark
chapter two. Here's the story as Mark tells
it. They were very serious about
getting their friend to the Lord. Mark tells us how much effort
these friends, boy, this man has some good friends. They went
to a lot of effort to get their friend to the Lord. Mark chapter
two, verse one. And again, he entered into Capernaum
after some days and it was noise that he was in the house and
straightway many were gathered together in so much that there
was no room to receive them. No, not so much as about the
door. And he preached the word unto them. And they came unto
him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was born of four.
And 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. Now these men, here they are. They're carrying this man
on his stretcher. And they got where the Lord Jesus
was, and they couldn't get in the house. I mean, they couldn't
even get near it. They couldn't even get to the door. The house was just
overflowing with people. And that made me wonder, what
would we do this morning? We came to this house this morning,
and it was so full, you couldn't get in. What would we do, not
even, if just, you could stand, but all the seats were full.
I wonder what we'd do. We'd probably just go back home
and say, oh well, it wasn't meant to be, I'll go next Sunday. But
that's not how these men reacted. And you know why they didn't
react that way? They had a need. They needed Christ. So they climbed
up on the roof and they tore the roof apart so they could
lower their friend down where the Lord had to see him. They
were lowering him right down, right down to his feet. They
believed the Lord could heal their friend and they were not
going to let anything stop them from getting to Christ. Now that
is true faith in the heart. Faith in the heart is seen in
our actions. Now here's something else. Suppose
we knew that the Lord Jesus would be here in the flesh this morning.
Suppose he'd been here for a few days. There was noise about this
whole area that the Lord Jesus was gonna be in this building
in the flesh this morning. This building couldn't hold the
people that would come. It couldn't hold them. But you
know what? Christ is here. Christ is where
the gospel is preached. He is where his people meet together
to worship him. And something more, people would
love to see the Lord in the flesh, but Christ is revealed more clearly
through preaching of the gospel than he is seen in these audience.
He's revealed more clearly to see him by faith as he's preached,
to see who he really is, how he saves sinners. Now that being
so, We should do everything we can to be where He is, because
He's our only hope of salvation. And if wherever there is God-given
faith, we will get to Christ. Wherever there's God-given faith,
we will get to Him. We won't let anything stop us.
We won't let anything stop us from getting to Christ because
we have to have Him. He's the Savior. He's the only
one who can save me. If we need mercy, we're going
to be determined to get to the source of mercy if God's given
us faith. If we need salvation, we will
be determined to get to the source of salvation because we need
it. And if we truly believe that Christ is the Savior of sinners,
that he saves his people through the preaching of the gospel,
if we really believe that, If we believe the only way our lost
loved ones could be saved is to know Him, to hear of Christ
through the preaching of the gospel, we would do absolutely
everything in our power to get them there, to hear the gospel
preached. Now, with many of our loved ones,
we can only go so far. You know, my advice is if they
will come listen, they will listen to a Can't get out of the habit
of saying a tape. Nobody gives a tape. You give
a CD or you email them a link or something to a sermon audio
message and they won't listen. And they won't come with you
here to listen. This is my advice to you. Don't ruin your relationship
with them over it. You know, your parents, your
brothers and sisters, they're the only ones you got. I mean,
enjoy whatever relationship you can have with them. But, I mean,
tell them about Christ. I mean, you know what I'm saying.
Tell them, but don't ruin your relationship with them over it.
But there's some of our loved ones, that's not the case. You
parents, that's not the case with our children, is it? No.
If you believe that Christ is your child's only hope of salvation,
then you do whatever you have to do to get them in their Bible
classes here every Sunday. and get them out here to hear
the gospel preached. They can understand. And I promise
you this, you parents, I assure you of this. I do absolutely
everything I can to make sure your children, the youngest of
our children, can understand what I'm saying. I really try
to use two cent words, really, so that they can understand.
If you believe that, that the gospel of Christ is your child's
only hope of salvation. Don't you let anything get in
your way. Tear the roof off if you got
to, but get them where they can hear the gospel. That's what
these men did, and when they did it, the Lord saw their faith.
All right, here's the fourth thing. Sin is forgiven by the
Son of Man. We ought not pass over certain
words that are kind of common. There's something important Sin
is forgiven by the Son of Man. Verse 3, back in our text, Matthew
chapter 9. And behold, certain of the scribes
said within themselves, this man blasphemeth. And you can
understand what's going through their mind. Here's this man in
the flesh. He's back in his home country.
Maybe some of these men watched Jesus grow up. Maybe they knew
him as a little boy. I don't know. But here's a man
in the flesh telling this fellow, laying down here on his bed,
thy sins be forgiven. You can understand what's going
through their minds. This man blasphemed. And Jesus,
knowing their thoughts, said, Wherefore think ye evil in your
hearts? For whether it is easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven
thee, or to say, Arise and walk? But that you may know that the
Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins. Then saith he
to the sick of the palsy, Arise, take up thy bed, and go into
thine own house. And he arose. and departed to
his house. Now this man, his paralyzed man,
his friends, they made an effort to get where the Lord was. I
mean, they made the effort to climb up on the roof, tear the
roof off and lower this man down. And you know what they were hoping
to hear? They were hoping that to hear the Lord say, I'm going
to heal you of your palsy. That's what they were hoping.
And instead they heard the Lord say, son, Thy sins be forgiven
thee. They didn't expect to hear that.
But you know what the Lord was doing? He was dealing with the
disease, not the symptoms. The symptoms are our sicknesses
and our weaknesses. The disease that causes all those
symptoms is sin. So the Lord dealt with the disease.
He forgave the disease. He forgave sin, which is the
root of the whole problem. And I find this very interesting.
This is the only place in scripture where the Lord calls a man, son. He says to the sick of the paltry,
paralyzed man, he calls him his son. What a term of endearment,
son. That tells me Christ forgives
the sin of all his sons, all his sons and daughters. He forgives
the sin of all of God's son. He told his disciples, I go to
my father and your father. He forgives the sin of all God's
sons and daughters, all of his brethren. Christ sends the gospel
out to reach the hearts of who? The little children. Now the Lord Jesus Christ is
God. This man in the flesh is God. It's not like he's God. He is
God. And he showed that a couple of
ways. Number one, he saw their faith. Now, maybe he did see
their faith by their actions. Our faith in the heart is showed
outwardly by our actions. But I think that means more than
that. He saw faith in the heart. He saw into the heart what a
normal man, you and me, we can't see that. But he also showed
he's God by knowing the thoughts of it. They weren't saying this
out loud, why is this man blaspheming? They were just thinking it and
he knew their thoughts. Now that's being God. And that's
important because the only way the Lord Jesus can save sinners
is if he's God. He's got to have all the omniscience,
all the omnipotence, all the eternality of God, the holiness,
the righteousness. He's got to be God and he is. Since that's so, you know what?
It's evil. It's blasphemy to think anything
less of Christ that he's God. It's evil. It's blasphemy to
think. that the Lord can't forgive sin.
It's evil because he is God. But the Lord Jesus is also the
son of man. He calls himself the son. Now
he is God and he's the son of God, but he's also the son of
man. Now, why does he say that? He
says in verse six, but that you may know the son of man have
power on earth to forgive sins. Why does he call himself the
son of man? Was because the Savior must be
both God And the Son of Man must be an important name for the
Savior. It's used 85 times in the New Testament. The Son of
Man, maybe the most common name the Lord used for himself, the
Son of Man. Now see, the Savior must be God.
So he has the power to forgive sin. We've sinned against God. Well, then only God can forgive
sin. If somebody sins against you, I can't forgive them. You
gotta forgive them. Well, our sin is against God.
Then only God can forgive sin. The Savior must be God so that
he's got the holiness, the righteousness to say, but he must also be a
man so that he can be the representative of his people. His people are
in the flesh. If he's going to be their representative, he's
got to take on him flesh. Look over to Hebrews chapter
nine. So that's what he did since the Savior must be a man. He
must be made flesh so that He can be our representative. That's
what He did for His sons and daughters, for His brethren. Matthew, or I'm sorry, Hebrews
2 verse 9, but we see Jesus. We don't see all things put under
Him yet, but Hebrews 2 verse 9, but we see Jesus. who was
made a little lower than the angels for a little while. He
was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering
of death. He had to be made flesh so he
could suffer death. We see him crowned with glory
and honor that he by the grace of God should taste death for
every man. And that word should be son.
It's the, it's the whole, it's all his people for every son
for it became him for whom are all things and by whom are all
things. and bring many sons to glory,
not all men, but many sons unto glory, to make the captain of
their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that
sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one, for
which cause he's not ashamed to call them brethren. They're
his brethren because he came in the flesh just like them,
saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst
of the church, who I sing praise unto thee. And again, I will
put my trust in him, And again, behold, I and the children, which
God has given me." See, it's all the sons and daughters of
God, his children. For as much then as the children
are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took
part of the same, that through death, he might destroy him that
had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them,
who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to
bondage. Reverently, he took not on him
the nature of angels, But he took on him the seed of Abraham.
He didn't take on him the flesh, the nature of angels. He took
on him the flesh, the nature of men. Wherefore, in all things,
it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might
be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to
God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For that
he himself has suffered being tempted. He is able to succor,
to comfort them that are tempted. That's why Christ became flesh. So he could save his sons, his
daughters, his brethren, all the children of God. So he could
have sympathy, compassion on them and their suffering because
he knows what it's like to be in the flesh. He is the son of
man and he has the power to forgive sin because he's the one that
paid for sin by the shedding of his precious blood, by the
shedding of God's blood, perfect, sinless blood. Christ can forgive
sin because He paid the awful price and put it away. Now only
the Son of Man, who is also the Son of God, can pay that price,
because He's got to have perfect blood. The shed is payment for
sin. So He is God, but He's the Son
of Man. Now He asked them, which is easier? It's easy to say,
take up your bed and walk, isn't it? It's easy to say, but hard
to make happen. You know, I could go just block
or two out of my way on the way home this afternoon and stopped
by the hospital. And I could walk up and down
the hall. I could go through that emergency department. And I could
tell everybody laying there, I say to you, take up your bed
and walk. I say to you, get up and go home. I say to you, feel
better and go home. I could say that, it'd be easy
to say. Nobody would, but it'd be easy to say. What's also easy
to say, your sins be forgiven you. Catholic priests do it all
the time. It's easy to say your sins be
forgiven. But it's hard to make happen. It's hard to make happen.
A Catholic priest can't forgive sin anymore. I can make lame
people walk. That's not our business. But
the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of Man can. He can do both. Say
your sins forgiven and take up your baby and walk. And just
so everybody knew that he had actually forgiven the sin of
this paralyzed man. He told that paralyzed man Get
up, take your bed and go on out of here. And that's just exactly
what he did. Now we're going to see a few
examples of this in Matthew chapter nine. The irresistible call of
God. Here's one of those examples.
Lord told that man, take up your bed and walk. Now could that
man have stayed laying down there on the ground and laying on his
bed if he'd have wanted to? Could he do that? No, he couldn't. He couldn't do it. Because this
call, this commandment from the Savior is an irresistible call. It's the call of God. It's a
call of grace. Only God could tell that paralyzed
man, take up your bed and walk, right? Only God can do that.
Only God and grace could do that too. To forgive this man's sin
and power. See, this is an irresistible
call of God's grace. And you know why it's irresistible?
Because who's giving the commandment? With the command from God comes
both the power, the ability, and the willingness to obey.
I tell you all the time, you come to Christ. Right where you
sit, right now, this very second, you come to Christ. And Lord
willing, I'm gonna say that as long as God gives me breath.
But I do know this, I know when you come to Christ, when God
says, God the Holy Spirit says to you, come to Christ. You will. And you might think, I'm paralyzed. I can't get up. But I'm dead. I can't go. But if God calls
you, you'll be paralyzed and you won't be dead anymore. Because
with the command comes both the ability and the willingness to
obey. You'll come to Christ. Just like the Savior. He went
to the house of his dear friends. And they were all there, Mary,
Martha, and all their friends were there weeping because Lazarus,
their brother, had died. And the Lord said, take me to
where you laid him. And he told them, roll away the
stone. And they said, oh, Lord, don't
do that. I mean, he's been dead three days. He stinks. Oh, he's
ugh, ugh. The smell saves you. Roll away
the stone. And they did. And the Savior
stood outside that tomb where Lazarus' dead, stinking body
lay. And you know what he said? Lazarus,
come forth. That's easy to say, isn't it?
Well, who gave the command? Is there any way after he gave
that command, Lazarus is going to stay dead in that tomb? Not
a chance. Not a chance. The dead came forth
alive. Because with the commandment
from God comes the ability and the willingness to obey. When
sin is forgiven, the son of man in all of his power as a son
of God, he's there forgiving sin on an individual specific
person on purpose. All right, here's the last thing.
People marvel when the Lord forgives sin. Verse eight says, but when
the multitude saw it, they marveled and glorified God, which had
given such power unto men. Now people marveled and they
glorified God that this man, Jesus of Nazareth, this man,
the God man, had the power to forgive sin. He had the power
to heal the sick and he had the power to forgive sin. And I'll
tell you why they marveled and why they glorified God. If this
man's got the power to forgive sin, he's got the power to forgive
my sin. This man has the power to heal.
He's got the power to heal my sin sick soul. I know he's got
the power. The only question is a question
of willingness. I glorify God. He's got the power.
You know what? I'm going to go beg him, aren't
you? In Mark chapter 2, Mark records it this way. The people
were amazed and they glorified God saying, we've never seen
it on this fashion. We've never seen anything like
this before. We've never seen anybody with
the power to forgive sin before. Well, you know why they've never
seen that? They've never seen Christ before, but now they have.
And if God gives you faith to see Christ, your sin will be
forgiven. And Luke, in his account of this
same story, said the people were amazed and they feared. They
feared God. They referenced Him, saying,
we've seen strange things today. Can you imagine? Here's a man.
He's got a wife and children. He hears about this man Jesus. And maybe the kids are sick and
his wife can't go. He says, honey, I'm going to
go down and see what there is to find out about this man. He
goes. And he comes back home and she said, well, what did
you see? He said, you won't believe me if I told you. I've seen strange
things. Strange. The gospel sounds strange to
the human ear. It's strange how that the Lord
forgives sin, how He forgives the worst of sinners. He forgives
and heals the most helpless by Him taking their weaknesses,
their infirmity, their sin away from them and putting it away
by His own sacrifice and making them whole, calling them, letting
them know, you're my son. That's strange to the human way
of thinking. that God would save sinners that way. He doesn't
save people who are good people, but he saves the worst of sinners. That sounds strange, but I sure
do love it. God does it that way. Don't you?
That's how God, the son of man forgives sin. I hope that'll
be a blessing.