Luke's Gospel, chapter five,
and we're reading from verse 17. And it came to pass on a certain
day as he was teaching that there were Pharisees and doctors of
the law sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee
and Judea and Jerusalem, and the power of the Lord was present
to heal them. And behold, men brought in a
bed a man which was taken with a palsy, and they sought means
to bring him in, and to lay him before him. And when they could
not find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude,
they went up, they went upon the housetop, and let him down
through the tiling with his couch into the midst before Jesus.
And when he saw their faith, he said unto him, Man, thy sins
are forgiven thee. And the scribes and the Pharisees
began to reason, saying, Who is this which speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God
alone? And when Jesus perceived their
thoughts, he answering said unto them, What reason ye in your
hearts? Whether it is easier to say,
Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, Rise up and walk? But that ye may know that the
Son of Man hath power upon earth to forgive sins, he said unto
the sick of the palsy, I say unto thee, arise and take up
thy couch, and go into thine house. And immediately he rose
up before them, and took up that whereon he lay, and departed
to his own house, glorifying God. And they were all amazed. And they glorified God and were
filled with fear, saying, We have seen strange things today. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. Here is another wonderful miracle
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you remember, from last
week, it is hard on the heels of the Lord's curing a man full
of leprosy. And I think that the proximity
of the two miracles serves to demonstrate the divinity of the
Lord Jesus. He is God. This is what Luke
was showing. Remember what Luke said at the
very beginning of this gospel, that he was writing to this man
called Theophilus. He was writing to show, to prove,
to demonstrate the things that were most surely believed amongst
us. And what the apostles, what the
evangelists, what the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ believes
is that Christ, the God-man, is truly God and truly man. And this is why and how we believe
these things. We see this evidence, we see
this testimony, and that's what Luke is conveying to us. So let
me repeat, the proximity of the two miracles serves to demonstrate
the divinity of the Lord Jesus. He is God who heals the leper
as only God can, and he is God who forgives sin as only God
can. And in addition, these two miracles
reinforce the connection between Christ's miracles and spiritual
healing, physical healing and spiritual healing. He who has
power to heal the body can heal the soul and he who heals the
soul can heal the body. And I think that, taken together,
these two delightfully reveal how faith is the motivator in
the Lord's people as they come to the Lord for help. We don't
come to the Lord for faith, we come to him by faith. And it is that gift of faith
that enables the Lord's people to approach him, to seek his
help, and to call upon his blessings. The Lord is back in Capernaum. Mark tells us that. Luke doesn't
tell us he's in Capernaum. He says he's in a certain city,
but he's in Capernaum. That's Mark's prerogative to
tell us that little detail. But all three synoptic writers
relate this miracle. The Synoptic Gospels are Matthew,
Mark and Luke and they're called Synoptic because there's a similarity
between them all. They speak about the same kinds
of things, not all of them exactly the same, but there is a large
body of the historical narrative concerning Christ which is the
same in each of those three. John is often slightly different
and takes a different perspective on some aspects of the Lord's
life. But once again, all three, Matthew,
Mark and Luke, recount this particular miracle. And we find that he's
in a house. perhaps at Simon's house where
he had been before and he had healed Simon's wife's mother. And we find that he is teaching
and he is preaching. Sometimes people like to think
or suggest to us that there's a difference between teaching
and preaching and some people will say, oh I'm a teacher, I'm
not a preacher or I'm a preacher and I'm not a teacher. The scriptures
don't allow us to make that distinction. Teaching and preaching is what
the Lord was doing here. We're told by one writer that
he was teaching. Luke says he's teaching. Mark
tells us that he was preaching the good news of the kingdom.
And a preacher teaches and a Bible teacher preaches. So here we
have the Lord Jesus Christ teaching and preaching the gospel of sovereign
saving grace. However, this time, as well as
the common people who thronged to hear the Lord, there is a
large contingent of scribes and Pharisees who are also present. And we are told that they have
come out of every town of Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem. Let us just say that there was
one scribe or Pharisee from every town of Galilee, every town of
Judea, and the city of Jerusalem. No wonder the house was packed.
I suggest that at the very least, this shows that these religious
leaders had become aware of the Lord and his ministry as never
before. I'm also going to suggest to
you that it's perhaps due to the healing of the leper that
we've just been reading about in the previous verses because
the fact of a leper's healing as we showed last week was significant
in as much as the Jews understood that the healing of a leper was
God's work. It was the work that only God
himself could do. And so that must have generated
a lot of recognition on the part of the common people. And I suspect
that all of these religious people were wondering who this was. And I think that what this particular
miracle also shows us is the need for faith in coming to Christ. Hebrews chapter 11 tells us,
You know, I think that if Paul was the writer of that verse,
I think he could not have described these four men more particularly
and suitably as as he did when we reflect upon
what they did here. Here we find these four who have
a love for their friend. They dedicate their time, they
dedicate their labour and their ingenuity to bring him to Christ. And we note from the reading
of this passage in Luke that all five appear to be men of
faith. And I've wondered as I've read
it over and thought about it, perhaps some of the four had
already encountered Jesus and maybe even been healed themselves
by him. It's a lovely testimony to be
able to say to a friend, I know that he can help you because
he has helped me. And these men knew the Lord's
power, and they were determined to bring their lame, paralysed
friend for healing to Christ. They believed if they could set
this man before Christ, then they would surely succeed in
their endeavour. They believed that Christ would
graciously reward them that diligently seek him. and they were right. The crowd was a barrier and it
was a deterrent. Another man might have turned
around and said, not today, we'll try again tomorrow. But their
faith drove these men on. And in fact, their ingenuity
and originality in the way in which they placed this man at
Christ's feet is attributed by the Lord to their faith. They knew that they would accomplish
their purpose if they could place this man at Jesus' feet. And
I think there's a fine lesson here for us, for the church. It isn't our job to make converts. How can we do such a thing? But we do what we can to bring
our friends and family to hear the ministry of the Word. Our
faith in the power of Christ to save and to heal encourages
us to employ the means at our disposal to bring men and women
and boys and girls under the sound of His voice in the Gospel. the great difference between
us and those who preach free will and works is that we know
where the healing power lies. These four friends, they did
not constrain or convince the palsied man to come to Christ,
rather by their importunity, their determination, their ingenuity,
they constrained Christ to grant their friend healing mercy. Like the leper, they said by
their actions, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make him whole. Like the woman with the issue
of blood, they pressed, as it were, to approach the Lord and
to touch the source of power, to put this man at Christ's very
feet. and they knew Christ could if
he would. And upon that well-grounded hope,
they faithfully applied to him for the healing grace that they
sought. And we'll never be able to impose
salvation on any who do not want it, nor can we obtain of God
what he is not willing to bestow. what we can do is to supply and
enable the means that God uses to bring spiritual healing. In
this little fellowship that we have, this little fellowship
that labours together, this little fellowship that worships together,
this little fellowship that prays together, we are like those four men who
each take a corner of that man's bed, doing what none of us can
do alone. We employ the means such as gospel
preaching, prayer and fellowship, personal witness, sharing, and
we come together and we wait upon the mercy of the Lord to
grant his good gifts and to do his will in his good time. And here's another thing that
we notice about this. And I think it's very striking. I've put it like this because
I think this is a nice way to emphasize it. The Lord Jesus
Christ provoked these religious hypocrites. All these scribes
and Pharisees that had come out of every town and city of Galilee,
Judea and Jerusalem, the Lord Jesus Christ provoked them. There's no doubt that these men
were sitting in judgment of the Lord. They were watching critically. looking for an opportunity to
find fault and to condemn him. And I suspect that they had been
sent out to see what was going on in the provinces and report
back to their superiors about this new healer and his teaching. Had the Lord been eager to hide
his divinity, he would not have spoken as he did. A simple cure
would have been sufficient as he had cured so many previously. But this time there was more
to it. His words were a direct challenge to these men. This
man came for healing. It was the Lord who mentioned
his sins. The Lord said, man, thy sins
are forgiven thee. The bed gets dropped down from
the ceiling before the Lord where he's standing. And without anything
else being said, the Lord says to him, man, thy sins are forgiven
thee. Had the Lord simply healed the
man, it would have been a miracle worthy of wonder. But to make
reference to the forgiveness of sin was another matter altogether. These Jews were wise enough to
know that forgiveness of sin, like the healing of leprosy,
was a divine prerogative. And they rightly concluded, who
can forgive sins but God alone? But then they wrongly denied
the Saviour's true identity. They could not conceive that
a man who stood before them, despite the evident power that
he possessed, despite his God-honouring teaching and preaching, could
be the Messiah that he was rumoured to be. And yet, by this blunt
approach, the Lord also taught something else. He taught that
the forgiveness of sin is our greatest need. No matter what
our lot and life is in this world, no matter what advantages or
disadvantages we have or feel we have to bear, nothing matters
more than knowing that our sins are forgiven. If you know that
your sins are forgiven, you are blessed beyond measure in this
world and the next. The Lord says, it is better for
thee to enter halt into life than having two feet to be cast
into hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched. So that
whatever our state, whatever our circumstances, whatever the
challenges that we face in this temporal age, Our eternal state
is much more important and that requires that our sins be forgiven
by God and cleansed in the blood of Jesus Christ. Let me just
make one more little point and then we'll soon be finished here.
The word of God is a two-edged sword. It gives assurance of
grace to the elect and it brings down coals of fire on the heads
of the reprobate. Let us never forget that everything
that the Lord does in this world is for the good of His people
and the condemnation of His enemies. The Lord did not speak in this
way. in the presence of all these
men, to that man on his bed, he did not speak to the
Jews in this way, revealing his identity and displaying his power
for their good, but for their censure and to expose their hypocrisy. At the same time he displayed
his mercy and his kindness to this lame man and his four friends
because they were the elect children of the kingdom of heaven. The
gospel is a double-edged sword. The same message that blesses
the elect condemns the reprobate. This lame man was brought to
Christ on a bed and he left the Lord's presence that day, healed,
transformed, walking on his own two feet and praising God. He came paralysed and completely
dependent, with a great need, and he left with joy in his heart.
and there's a lesson there for us as well. When we are the Lord's
people, we face all manner of trials and challenges in this
life. For some, it's loneliness. For
some, it's sickness. For some, it's temptation. For
some, it's anxiety. But none of these will overwhelm
us, and none of them will last any longer than is useful to
serve God's purpose and do us good. Had these Jews not murmured,
had these Jews not murmured and opposed the Lord, would he have
healed the palsied man? Be that as it may, we shall note
it was the blatant opposition and unbelief of the Jews that
moved the Lord to heal the lame man. So too, the tests and the
trials and the opposition that we face in our own souls and
in our life's experience will lead to our greater good and
our greater blessing. Because the world opposes the
Kingdom of God and the people of God, the Lord chooses to bless
us. And may he do so today. Amen.