So, Mark's Gospel, chapter two,
and we're going to read the first 12 verses. This is the account
of the healing of the man who was sick of the palsy. Mark chapter two, verse one.
And again he entered into Capernaum after some days, and it was noised
that he was in the house. And straightway many were 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. And they come 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. When Jesus
saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy
sins be forgiven thee. But there were certain of the
scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, why doth 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 unto
them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts? 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 thee, 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, insomuch
that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never
saw it on this fashion. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. The greatest problem that we
have is our sin. and the greatest need that we
have is for forgiveness of sin. There is no greater grace that
a man or a woman or a boy or a girl can obtain in this life
than by faith to hear the Lord Jesus Christ say, your sins are
forgiven. This is the key to our study
this evening. Mark is teaching about the forgiveness
of sins. And I just wanted to draw your
attention to the fact that all of the gospel writers knew that
the purpose and mission, the message and ministry of the Lord
Jesus Christ as he came into the world, as he embarked upon
those three years of his itinerant ministry throughout Galilee and
Judea, Jerusalem, was the forgiveness of sins. It was salvation from
sin that was key to the Saviour's ministry. And while there was
much that He did which was miraculous, It was a spiritual ministry that
the Lord Jesus Christ was embarked upon from the very beginning. And I say that because we discover
that each of the Gospel writers, very early in their Gospel, declare
this aspect of the Lord's teaching. For example, in Matthew chapter
1 and verse 21, we read there that Matthew records, for all
who will read, for all who will enter upon his account and his
narrative of the life of Christ, that the reason why the Lord
Jesus Christ was called Jesus was because he would save his
people from their sins. She shall bring forth a son,
and thou shalt call his name Jesus, said the angel to Joseph,
for he shall save his people from their sins. It wasn't that
the Lord Jesus Christ was coming to perform a wonderful healing
ministry, or a wonderful prophetic ministry, or a wonderful testimony
to the glory of God upon earth. The Lord Jesus Christ came explicitly
and specifically in order to save his people from their sins,
in order to accomplish their salvation through the forgiveness
of sin. and at the beginning of Luke's
gospel, again in chapter 1, although this time it's in verse 77. The
opening chapter of Luke is a very large chapter and so much is
pressed into that chapter. But in the context of the ministry
of John the Baptist, that John the Baptist would go before the
Lord Jesus Christ and that he would open up the way he would
anticipate the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. So Zacharias
was able to say that the ministry of John in anticipation of Christ
was to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission
of their sins through the mercy of God. And it is the way in
which the Gospel writers understood that this work of Christ was
a work of spiritual dimensions, eternal dimensions, the salvation
of the people of God by the forgiveness of their sins. So John, equally
in the opening chapter of his Gospel, verse 29, speaks about
the ministry of John the Baptist also and he says there in that
verse, the next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him and saith,
behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. You see, this was the great purpose
of Christ's coming. It was the purpose of dealing
with the problem of sin. And so, as we read together here
in, granted, the second chapter of Mark, and in verse five, that
the Lord Jesus Christ says to this man sick of the palsy, Son,
thy sins be forgiven thee. We realise that Mark in association
with the other Gospel writers is emphasising this purpose of
the Lord Jesus Christ, that whatever we might know of Christ, whatever
we might think of Christ, whatever we might study of Christ and
endeavour to emulate of his life in the way of his approach and
his attitude and his wisdom, his love and his mercy, his dealings
with men and women, no matter how we endeavour to use the life
of the Lord Jesus Christ as an example to us as to how we should
live in this world. The principal purpose of the
life of Christ was to deal with the problem of sin in the life
of sinners. And the scene set before us here
by Mark I think is very interesting. He tells us in the opening verse
of the second chapter that the Lord Jesus Christ has returned
to Capernaum. And we know that the Lord had
gone out from Capernaum because of the fame that had arisen around
about the miracles that he performed, the healing miracles that he
had performed. And he had gone out preaching throughout Galilee. In fact, we left off the previous
chapter with the Lord saying to his disciples, let us go into
the next and he went throughout Galilee preaching in the synagogues. And the context is that here
in the Lord's early ministry, he is returning to Capernaum
and he is back in the house, presumably, of Peter and Andrew. And I just want to mention something
about this city, Capernaum. because once again we see the
Lord coming into the city and performing amazing miracles. And we are going to be thinking
a little bit about this poor soul, this man who was sick of
the palsy and the blessed provision that was made for him in the
miraculous ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. But this town Capernaum,
of all the towns in Israel and of all the towns in Galilee,
no city was more blessed by the Lord's presence and by the demonstration
of His power than this place. Indeed, we discover that the
Lord performed so many miracles in this place that he called
it a city that was exalted unto heaven. But equally, we discover
that there was no city more severely condemned. And that reminds us
that there is great responsibility in the great blessings that God
gives and that the Lord Jesus Christ ministers to his people.
We must never take for granted the access that we have to the
gospel. We must never take for granted
the blessedness of fellowship with brothers and sisters in
the Lord. We must never take for granted
the accessibility that we have to be able to read the scriptures
in our own language, in our own homes, with freedom and without
fear. These are blessings that the
Lord God has given to us and we neglect them at our peril. We should have a desire to be
honouring God in all the ways that he has shown us kindness.
For we are reminded in Matthew chapter 11 and verse 23 and 24
that the Lord Jesus Christ condemns Capernaum because They neglected
and rejected him and the ministry and the testimony that he bore
amongst them. He says, and thou Capernaum,
this city which had been so blessed, which art exalted unto heaven,
thou shalt be brought down to hell. For if the mighty works
which have been done in thee had been done in Sodom, and we
remember what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah and the wickedness
that dwelt in those places, if these mighty works had been done
in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto
you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the
day of judgment than for thee. God grant us wisdom to be able
to take the privileges of hearing the Gospel, to be able to take
the privileges of reading the Word, our accessibility to fellowship
and to the wealth of written material and preached material
that we have at our disposal. in order to deepen our understanding
and our experience of the things of God and the things of grace,
and not be found to have been negligent of these great privileges
and blessings in that day of accountability." What a solemn
judgment it was that God laid upon Capernaum, or the Lord Jesus
Christ did, to have been so outwardly honoured by Christ, so closely
identified with the Lord Jesus Christ and so intimately linked
to him and yet never truly to have known him, to have seen
so much and to have tasted so little. Externally, Capernaum
saw Christ's works performed amazingly, and the testimony
of the people here at the end of this little passage was that
we have never seen things done so wonderfully, so marvelously,
not on this fashion. This was a new thing for them
to see, and yet their hearts remained hard. They had been
informed of his divine nature. They had seen his divine identity. They had heard his preaching
and saw his works, and yet they were adamant against Christ. hard-hearted and dead in their
souls. If ever there was an object lesson
for the need of sovereign effectual grace and quickening in the heart
of an individual, it is Capernaum and the men and women of Capernaum. People tell us today, oh, if
only God would do an amazing miracle, then we would believe. If only God would do something
dramatic, something amazing, if only he would prove himself
to me in some way. Well, this too is a lesson for
us this evening. Now let us move quickly into
consideration of this miracle. I don't want to spend too much
time, as it were, simply recounting the story to you. The story we're
familiar with largely, and we've read it again if you want to
think about the verses step by step. You can read it here, you
can read it in Matthew chapter nine, you can read it in Luke's
gospel as well. It's recounted in each of the,
what's called the synoptic gospels. And I think the circumstances,
the narrative of the story really is pretty well self-explanatory. But there are a few points, main
points that I want to highlight for our consideration and reflection
and thoughtfulness. this evening. And the first one
is this, that to return as it were to those opening comments,
the root of our problem is sin. The root of the man's problem,
who is called the Sick of the Palsy, for we have no name for
this gentleman or indeed his friends, but this one who has
come to us known as the Sick of the Palsy, his problem certainly
was his lack of ability to move, was the inability to move. the problems of his muscles and
his mobility, but that palsy was symbolic. And we will see
that in the way in which the Lord deals with this man. It
was real. It was his experience. It was
his challenge. It was his trouble. It was the
cause of anxiety amongst his friends and no doubt his family. but it was for our purposes this
evening, symbolical. It was symbolic of the debilitating
nature of sin. And again, I repeat myself, it
is no accident that Mark emphasises this aspect at the beginning
of his gospel, as indeed all the gospel writers do. It serves
his purpose. And it serves the purpose of
reminding us that when we come to the life of the Lord Jesus
Christ and all of the wonderful things that he says and does
and the miracles that he performs and the amazing, wonderful things
that we have to say, well, we've never seen it done in this fashion
before. Let us always remember the purpose
of Christ's coming. The Holy Spirit here, by arranging
the text and the ministry of the Lord in this way, is also,
in our minds, establishing the great need that is at the heart
of every individual, and specifically the state of helplessness that
we are in because of sin. The greatest problem we have
is sin, because it is our sin that separates us from God and
brings us under his condemnation. It is our sin. It is our sinful
state and condition, because that's what sin is. Sin is a
condition. It is the state of our nature,
of our heart towards God. Sin isn't an action. It's not
even an attitude. It's not a behaviour. You can
amend your way of life. You can stop doing this or stop
doing that. You can start doing something
else. You can even, to a degree and
to an extent, having had something identified to you in your life
which is causing you trouble, which is causing your family
trouble, which is causing your friends trouble, you can stop
sinning. You can stop doing that particular
thing. but you will still be a sinner.
Because there is nothing that we can do about the state of
our heart. There is nothing that we can
do by desire or by determination to change the kind of people
that we are. The leopard can't change his
spots. The Ethiopian can't change his
skin. And neither can we that are accustomed
to do evil, alter that state or condition of our hearts. It
is not the ebb and the flow of our particular doings or abstaining
from doing. It is the fact that we are what
we are by sin. We are what we are by descent. We are what we are because of
who we are. You and I were born sinners and
you and I will die sinners. It is the legacy of our flesh
and of our nature. And the only question that we
have to ask and have answered in the context of this greatest
of needs that we have is this. When I come to that point of
death, when I come to that moment of transition, as a sinner by
nature, will my sins have been forgiven? Will I have peace with
God through the Lord Jesus Christ? You remember the little question
that was asked by the man called Bildad the Shuhite in the writings
of Job. He asked the question, in chapter
25, verse four. How then can man be justified
with God? How can a man be righteous with
God? He continued, or how can he be
clean that is born of a woman? And then he made a comparison.
He said, behold, even to the moon, and it shineth not, yea,
the stars are not pure in his sight. How much less man that
is a worm, and the son of man which is a worm. The presence
in this man's life of the palsy, is in order to prove a point. We touched upon this last week
when the disciples said, why is this man born blind? Who sinned
that this man was born blind? No, no, this is because the Lord
will have his glory seen in the work of grace upon this poor
individual's soul. I wonder if you've ever thought
about how fortunate this man was. Maybe you think he was fortunate
to have such good friends. Well, there's some truth in that.
But have you ever wondered how fortunate he was to be absolutely
paralysed by this terrible disease? of all the people that have ever
lived in all the world, this man was so privileged to have
been thus afflicted, that because of that affliction, his friends
took him to Christ. And the presence of that affliction
opened the door into a more profound and glorious understanding, not
simply of a healed body, but of a healed soul, of sins forgiven,
of peace with God, of redemption through the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The palsy proved a point. It proved that man in his sin
is helpless and is lost, that there was nothing that he could
do. And this miracle performed by
the Lord Jesus Christ in Capernaum, revealed to the men and women
of Capernaum, and revealed to men and women down through the
ages, since it occurred in that historical day, that there is
a spiritual state that prevails in the heart and life of every
single man and woman because of sin. The second point that
I want to draw your attention to from this passage is that
the Lord Jesus Christ had the right to forgive this man's sin. When this poor soul was laid
before the Lord Jesus, we're told that Christ was preaching
the gospel. We saw that in verse two, the
end of verse two there. and he preached the word unto
them. The crowds gathered because they
heard that Jesus was back in town and they gathered to hear
the words that would be spoken. But I think perhaps they gathered
also because of the and notoriety of Jesus, because of the fame
of Jesus, because of the amazing things that the Lord Jesus Christ
had done. And it seems as if they blocked
the entrance to this house. Now, whether that means they
were actually in the house and filling every room in the house,
or whether it was just that they blocked the entrance to the house
and the Lord had to find a way of speaking to them. One of the
writers suggests that it perhaps was an open window that he spoke
to them from. But be that as it may, the people
of Capernaum were there in the presence of the Lord and the
Lord was preaching the gospel to them. Let me put it to you
like this. The Lord was in the very throes
of answering Bildad the Shuhite's question to Job when these people
arrived. He was answering the question.
How can a man be justified with God? How can he be clean that
is born of a woman? We know that because that's the
gospel. We know that because what the
Lord Jesus Christ preached was the gospel of Jesus Christ. We
know that because the Lord Jesus Christ was set apart by God the
Holy Spirit to this ministry. that John the Baptist had recognised
him as being that one who would preach the salvation of grace
to sinners. And so the Lord Jesus Christ,
having embarked upon that ministry, here was continuing to fulfil
it. And certainly it is that the
miracles had generated great attention and we might even make
a point here at this stage and say great religious attention
because Luke tells us that the Pharisees and doctors of the
law and we learn here from Mark that the scribes were present
on this occasion. It's one of the lovely things
about reading these passages in parallel is that you can read
the verses side by side and see the different points, the different
facts that are related by each of the writers upon the same
story. And Luke tells us that Pharisees
and doctors, listen to this, from every town in Galilee, Judea
and Jerusalem were present seated beside this house on this occasion,
listening to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I was going to throw up
the little map and show you this, but you'll remember, it wasn't
a difficult thing to remember. Jerusalem was there at the bottom
of the country, Galilee was a little county or state, province at
the top of the country. And Jerusalem, of course, was
in the province of Judea. From all of these places, and
we're talking about, well, that was the full length, perhaps
a hundred miles as the crow flies maybe a little bit more from
top to bottom and yet all of these towns had a representation
of the Pharisees and the scribes and the doctors of the law. So
the Lord's presence in Capernaum and his ministry and his miracles
had generated a tremendous amount of attention. Religion had come
to Capernaum that day in all of its structure and all of its
organisation, in all of its role in the lives of the people. But
religion and all of those Pharisees and doctors of the law and scribes
that were there were impotent in the presence of the majesty
of Christ. They came, but they couldn't
heal the sick. They couldn't cleanse the sin. It was the Lord Jesus Christ
alone who was able and had authority to save. And he at once took
the attention of those hearers to the problem of sin. Capernaum
was full of people that had been healed already, in the ministry
of the Lord Jesus Christ. You remember, as we read a couple
of weeks ago about the Lord calling his apostles, the fishermen,
Peter and Andrew and James and John, to be his followers. And
then he healed everyone who was brought to him on that Sabbath
night of all their diseases and the possession of devils. He
healed the man in the synagogue. And so Capernaum was full of
people that had been healed. But the Lord Jesus Christ was
pointing them beyond the physical improvements that they benefited
from, to see and recognise that the problem was one of the heart. So he says, as this poor, sick
man is laid before him, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. You remember what the religious
people said? Remember what the Scribes and
the Pharisees then said? Why does this man thus speak
blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God
alone? You know, a little knowledge
can be a dangerous thing. And these men, they knew enough
to know that only God could forgive sin. but they didn't know enough
to know that it was God who was standing before them. They could
not see or recognise or identify God. They could read the Old
Testament scriptures. They could read the prophecies
of Moses. They knew about the Psalms of
David. They knew about Elijah and Elisha. They knew about Daniel. They
knew about the prophetic ministry of Malachi. as he anticipated
the coming of John the Baptist, who anticipated the coming of
Jesus Christ. There were men and women in Jerusalem
at that time who were eagerly expecting and anticipating the
coming of Christ, but religion and religious people were not
amongst them. And here we see a great aspect
of religion. Religion says that it's dealing
with spiritual matters. but the reality is that it cannot
see and recognise and discern and understand the very presence
of Jesus Christ in its midst. The Lord Jesus Christ is God
and God is able to forgive sin. He is able to forgive sin being
the one sinned against and having in his possession power to forgive. But we emphasise the power of
God to forgive because we understand also that forgiveness is not
arbitrary and forgiveness is not without justice. The work of redemption which
God envisaged, which he planned and purposed, which he brought
together in that great everlasting covenant of grace and peace by
which the three persons of the Godhead determined the accomplishment
of the way of salvation for those loved of God, chosen by God and
sanctified by God the Holy Spirit in eternal purpose. required
a substitute to be found and required that the very Son of
God as the Son of Man would enter into this world, take upon Himself
the flesh of fallen man and represent His people under the judgment
of the law, bearing their sins and dealing with their sins and
carrying their sins away. Forgiveness is not arbitrary
or unjust. Forgiveness honors God's holiness. It honors holiness and it upholds
righteousness. God's forgiveness is just and
gracious. It requires satisfaction and
it supplies redemption. The Lord Jesus Christ has the
right to forgive sins because he is the sin bearer. by his atoning work. The Lord Jesus Christ carried
the sins of his people in his own body on the tree we're told.
He bore our sins and carried our sorrows. He took our sins
and the guilt of those sins and the punishment for those sins
and he bore them all in his own body at Calvary when he died
under that weight of sin and punishment. There the justice
of God was vindicated. There the glory of God was revealed. There the holiness of God found
propitiation in the death and shed blood of our Redeemer. The Lord Jesus Christ had come
into the world to deal with sin graciously and judicially, and
he did so by bearing our sin personally as the great substitute
and intercessor for his people. And it is this cross-working
of Christ, this blood-spilling by Christ, this sin-carrying,
sacrificial work of the Saviour that effects the forgiveness
of sin upon those to whom God is pleased to be gracious by
His love and His mercy. This palsied man was helpless,
but a saviour had come to his rescue. The sinful world is helpless,
but a saviour has come to deliver. You and I have no one else to
turn to, but the one who is able to save to the uttermost. The first point that I made there
was that this man had a problem with sin. The second point was
that the Lord Jesus Christ had the right as the sin bearer to
deal with that sin and to grant forgiveness. The third point
I want to make is the response of this sinner to the words of
Christ. I wonder if you noticed with
me here that on this occasion, which was distinct from the last
couple of miracles that we studied together of the Lord healing
someone, is that you'll remember that the Lord took the hand of
the fevered woman, Peter's wife's mother, Peter's mother-in-law.
He took her hand, though she had this fever, and he raised
her. It was just a word that was spoken
to this man. You remember how that, as far
as the leper was concerned, that the Lord touched him. He touched
a man who was full of leprosy. But it was just a word that was
spoken to this man. But that word came with power.
That word was arise, rise up. That word brought power. to that man's arms and legs and
back and muscles. I don't know how long he had
laid there. It is very likely that that palsy was an encroaching
thing that came upon him over a period of time more and more
gradually. We still see those kind of diseases. We sometimes talk about cerebral
palsy even today. But it doesn't matter how long
he had laid, how long it had taken, that man was helpless
until power was imbued back into his wasted body. And that palsy
could not withstand the power of Christ's word, not the atrophy
of his muscles, it could not withstand the enabling grace
that energized that man's body. and gave him the ability to stand. Listen to the words of Christ
again. I say unto thee, arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy
way into thine house. You see, the power was not with
the man, but the enabling bestowed an obligation. What do I mean? I mean this, that the Lord had
the strength, but he called upon the man to act. The Lord gave
the power, but he called from the man the action of rising,
taking up his bed and going to his house. He was called upon
to act according to the word of Christ. And that's important. This is the response of the sinner. The spiritual new birth is not
with the sinner. It is a divine work. It is a Holy Spirit activity. It is the Holy Spirit who quickens.
It is the Holy Spirit who makes alive. It is the Holy Spirit
who calls forth life. It is the Holy Spirit who regenerates
the dead soul and spirit of the sinner. The new birth, however, comes
with an obligation to respond to the calling of the Gospel.
It brings an enabling by which a response is sought in the preaching
of the Gospel. The action of the Holy Spirit
in bringing a dead sinner to life elicits from that sinner
a reaction when the gospel is preached. And therefore, when
we believe the gospel, it is not us that is acting unilaterally,
and therefore we have not to doubt our faith, we have not
to doubt our belief. But we are to see that the ability
to believe, the ability to exercise faith is itself a God-given work. It has already been placed in
us and it draws forth from us that action in response. I say
unto thee, arise and take up thy bed and go thy way into thine
house. Faith bestowed calls forth a
willing response to the gospel proclamation and the gift of
grace provokes the effect of gratitude in the heart of the
sinner. When the Lord Jesus Christ says
to us, your sins are forgiven, it is incumbent upon us to rise
in worship and thanksgiving and gratitude and like that publican
at the tabernacle, in the temple, to go down to our house justified. because God has done a work in
us, but he calls forth a response from us. So the Lord Jesus Christ
says, rise, take up your bed and walk. It would be the height
of ingratitude. Had that sick of the palsy replied,
no. I'm quite comfortable here, thank
you very much. I don't want to make any assumptions. I don't want to be disappointed. I don't want to try and get up
in case I can't. That's not your call. The Lord
gives the strength and the Lord calls the response and we rise
and we worship him. The fourth point and the final
point is this. I want us to think about the
results of this encounter that we see here. The Lord Jesus Christ
demonstrated his power to save, and I want to think about the
individuals who were here around about at this time. The man,
the sick of the palsy, he received the healing that he sought, and
Christ gave him a testimony, not only to his physical well-being,
but the eternal deliverance of his soul from the guilt of sin. The Lord Jesus Christ gave him
a testimony to the everlasting love of God. The Lord Jesus Christ
showed him his part and his portion in the sin-cleansing accomplishments
of Christ's atoning work on the cross. On his substitutionary
atonement, the Lord Jesus Christ says, you have part and portion
in my work because I declare your sins are forgiven. No one ever comes to Christ seeking
help, seeking forgiveness, coming to him in faith. No one ever
comes and will be turned away. And there is great encouragement
in this little miracle that is recounted for us here in Mark's
Gospel. for us to have the largest requests
as we go before the Lord Jesus Christ in the knowledge that
he is able to do great things for us in dealing with the greatest
problem of our soul, the problem of sin. And if he can deal with
our sin, is it not just as easy for him to say, arise, take up
your bed and walk? So it is that having felt the
power of God in our lives and the forgiveness of sins, we are
encouraged to take our requests, our largest requests, to the
Son of God and leave them at His feet. So much for the man. Let's think about these friends
that brought him to the Saviour. It's lovely to see these men
being recognised and identified by the Lord and rewarded for
the faith that they demonstrated in bearing their friend to the
Saviour. And I think that this is a delightful
dimension to this miracle because it shows us that their motivation
was faith. They brought this man to Christ
because they believed that Christ could help their friend. And
it seems to me that the Lord commends all four of these men
and the man himself, the sick of the palsy, for their faith. Faith is a God-given gift. It is spiritual and it is precious
and it is prized by God. It is noticed by Christ. Christ
notices the faith of these people. And if we have faith, it is because
Christ has given us that faith. It is a gift from God. It is
a spiritual understanding awareness, but Christ also notices that
faith in the life of his people. And he notices that faith when
we come to him with our requests. He takes note of our faithful
approaches to him. And the Lord is pleased to bless his people with those
things that they request when he sees their faith. There is a potency in faith as
there is a power in the Lord Jesus Christ to give good gifts
to his people. And see how faith drove the ingenuity
and the creativity of these people in their approach to the Lord?
I think it's just lovely the way in which they couldn't get
in through the door. So they weren't stopped. They
weren't distracted. They weren't prevented. They
weren't bound by the hurdles and the barriers that were placed
before them. They became ingenious. They became
creative. They thought to themselves, how
are we going to succeed here? And they pressed upon the kingdom
of God. They pressed upon the door of
need. and they pressed upon the Lord
Jesus Christ. They were like that leprous man
in the previous chapter who came with a pressure upon the Lord
Jesus Christ and said, what are you going to do about this problem
that we have? And I think that this little
passage here ought to be more precious still as it is one of
those examples in the Gospels where the faith of one person
benefits the needs of another. Did you hear what I said there?
It is one of these lovely passages, one of these lovely examples
in Scripture where it's not the faith of the individual that
gains the benefit, it is rather the faith of a third party. that benefits the needy one.
What an encouragement we have here to take our family, our
friends, our neighbours before the Lord in their need and ask
Him for help. Confessing our own inability,
confessing the inability of those who have need. Like the father
of the demon possessed child, who for the love of the child,
like Jairus, who for the love of his daughter went to the Lord
and said, come and help my daughter. Like the centurion who came on
behalf of his servant and said, come and help my servant. We
have the right. This is our encouragement, those
of us who have a love for others who are yet strangers to grace,
who are still in the need of their sins, to bring them before
the Lord, to intercede for them, to pray for them, and we are
encouraged by passages like this to do so. You love your children? Take their need before the Lord. You love your grandchildren?
Take their need before the Lord. Let's think about the third group
of people that were here, these Pharisees. Just a couple of points
with respect to the Pharisees. First, The Lord showed them that
he knew their hearts and that he knew their minds. That was
clear evidence of his divinity. But here's the reality. Without
faith, dead is dead. And there can be, though there
is so much evidence granted to the natural understanding
of men and women, No true spiritual response, because dead is dead. The Lord knew these men's hearts
and showed them that he understood what only God could have known,
and yet they could not and did not believe. This is the second
point about these men. He showed them his power to heal. Neither of these miraculous works
had any effect. Miracles cure the body. And it is evident from the way
in which all these men, from all the towns and villages of
Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem, as Luke says, gathered in order
to find out what this fellow Jesus was all about. and he enthralled
the people of Capernaum and he entertained the people of the
town. But no one is ever saved because
of a miracle. Where God saves, he first gives
faith. The evidence of the miraculous
in the absence of faith merely aggravates condemnation. The evidence of the miraculous
in the absence of faith merely aggravates condemnation. And that's what these Pharisees
were under. They were condemned already for
they believed not the testimony of God. Another group of people
that were here were the townspeople. And we're told at the end of
the passage that they marveled and were amazed and they glorified
God. And they declared, we have seen
strange things today. And yes, they had. They had seen
strange and wonderful things. And yet that opening testimony
that we had with respect to Capernaum and their position in the day
of judgment, With all it suggests that it is only when faith is
given that there will be lasting blessing brought. And people
can have their churches and people can have their preaching and
people can have their rallies and their crusades and their
big events and their altar calls and they can testify to the work
of God amongst them. and it doesn't have any lasting
effect except that God has implanted faith in the life of the unbeliever
and brought them to the forgiveness of their sins. And that brings
me to the very last point that I have. What about us? Because
we are witnesses to this miracle too. What is our reaction to
this miracle? We see the power in the healing
but do we see the divinity in the forgiveness of sin? We see
love in action in Christ's merciful provision for this man's body,
but do we see the grace of God in helping this poor man to the
forgiveness of his sins? We see Christ who is able to
save with a word of his power But will we rise in obedience,
gratitude, and worship to serve Him who hath done all things
well? May the Lord grant us both that
faith to believe and that insight and understanding of these spiritual
things by which we may hear these words by faith. Your sins are
forgiven. Arise. Take up your bed and walk. And may the Lord enable us to
walk in the light of his grace and his mercy, in the knowledge
of our sins forgiven, through the blood of Jesus Christ. Amen.