So starting in Luke chapter five,
verse 17, it says, now it happened on a certain day as he was teaching
that there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by
who had come out of every town of Galilee, Judea and Jerusalem
and the power of the Lord was present to heal them. And then
behold, men brought on a bed a man who was paralyzed. whom they sought to bring in
and lay before him. And when they could not find
how they might bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on
the housetop and let him down with his bed through the tiling
into the midst before Jesus. And when he saw their faith,
he said to him, that is the man on the bed, man, your sins are
forgiven. And the scribes and the Pharisees
began to reason, saying, who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God
alone? But when Jesus perceived their
thoughts, he answered and said to them, why are you reasoning
in your hearts? Which is easier to say, your
sins are forgiven you, or to say, rise up and walk? but that you may know that the
son of man has power on earth to forgive sins, he said to the
man who was paralyzed, I say to you, arise, take up your bed
and go to your house. Immediately he rose up before
them, took up what he had been lying on and departed to his
own house, glorifying God. I had an excerpt last time I
was going through these verses and it came from Matthew Henry,
found a great little pearl in verse 17. And it's about the
phrase there that says, there were Pharisees and teachers of
the law sitting by, sitting by. And Matthew Henry said, how many
are there in our assemblies where the gospel is preached who do
not sit under the word, but sit by. It is to them as a tale that
is told them, not as a message that is sent to them. Or in other
words, they never hear his doctrine for his doctrine declares free
salvation apart from the law. They never pursue the Messiah
to be healed for they don't believe they're sick. They never listen
when he speaks of his father, for they believe in a different
God, one who looks on the outside only and who considers a man's
station, a person's station, and who respects man's works
and gives even a small amount of glory to the man for a job
well done. They will not sit under his word,
and I capitalize that, God's word, his word. but will only sit by. And I say
this, God's wrath is approaching. Are you content to just sit by? Now in verses 18 and 20, this
is where those four men bring a man who's paralyzed, bring
him on his bed. And they bring him up to the
house where Jesus was. He was inside the house. There's
a crowd. And they can't get in. And Matthew, Mark, and Luke,
they all write about this event. And the story goes here that
these four men, that doesn't say if they're friends or caregivers
or brothers or whatever, but they got this paralytic and they
take him to see Christ. And they take him on his bed.
They don't just over the shoulder there, they take him on his bed.
And when they arrive, that house is so filled, it's just standing
room only. And if I remember right, there's
people even along the outside. So they can't get through the
door. And the windows are, if it had them, they're blocked
too. Yet they are undaunted. They must see the Lord now. They
might not be granted another chance. And according to other
commentators, it was a common thing for houses to actually
have ladders up to their own rooftops. And the roofs were all flat,
and they contained a trap door to reach from the inside. And these four men, they carry
the paralyzed man and his bed, or whatever it was, up a ladder
onto the roof, and they start removing the tiles from the roof. And I just gotta think, this
can't go unnoticed. There's gotta be noise, there's
gotta be dust. I mean, these five gate crashers
gotta be causing a racket. And the owner of the house must
notice the sunlight suddenly adorning his floor. Yet Jesus
doesn't stop him. I mean, imagine a hole just opening
up over our heads right now, and a man's lowered down. But it is for this reason, or
is one of the reasons, Jesus is at the house. These men are doing good in pursuing
the Savior, and Matthew Henry again writes, observe the duties
taught and recommended to us by the history, right here, by
this story of the paralytic. In applying to Christ, we must
be very pressing and urgent, very pressing and urgent. That
is an evidence of faith and is very pleasing to Christ and prevailing
with him. And as I mentioned earlier, every
writer except John, they wrote about this event. And they all
agree that four men carry a paralytic on his bed up a ladder to the
roof of this house, and they remove the tiling so that a man
and a bed can fit through. And then they lower the paralytic
right in front of Jesus. And where they diverge, though,
is right here in verse 20. Luke, when he recorded the words
that Jesus spoke, He uses the Greek word that means human male
or man. And that's not wrong. There's
no dispute here. I'm just noting that. But Mark
and Matthew, they use a different Greek word. And in their telling,
Jesus calls him child or son, child or son. And I'm not trying
to create new theology here. But I want you to notice this
important distinction, especially considering who it is that calls
him that. Now, which one is he? Is he a
human male or is he God's son or child? And he's both. He's both. And we know this because
Jesus said, your sins are forgiven. And it is only to the children
of God that the forgiveness of sins is granted. All people are children of Adam,
son or a daughter of Adam, but not all people are children of
God. But if you are his, your sins
are forgiven. and you are counted as one of
his children. So yes, this man is both man
and son. And these four men, they have
just carried another paralyzed man to this house and up a ladder. Do you think they came all this
way for the forgiveness of sins? Just to picture that scene in
your mind. When did they even start? I don't
know, did it take these guys an hour, 10 minutes? Did they
have to hoof it across town? I don't know. But do you think
their goal was forgiveness of sins? When they got together and decided
to carry this man and his bed, was it because they saw the condition
of this man's body Or had they seen the condition of this man's
heart? Obviously his body, obviously his body. They know of this man's
paralysis, but they could not see the estate of his soul. All they knew at the time was
that he was paralyzed and that a great healer was in town. And
so they did as anyone would, and they sought to bring an end
to this man's suffering, his outward suffering. Yet God has
an order to things. Jesus does not first heal the
man's body. The first words out of his mouth
were, man, your sins are forgiven you. This in itself does not allow
the man to walk. He remains lying down. He's not upright
yet. Concerning his body, he is the
same at this moment as he was that very morning. Yet things are about to change. And they just had as well. Nobody
could see it. It wasn't outward. It was inward. And things always change after
God intercedes in a person's life. They always do. But the
first step is the declaration that God in Jesus Christ has
forgiven your sins. Walking by faith comes after. And one final thing to consider
is whose sins were just forgiven? Whose? Remember, there's a crowd. And not only that, there are
four men who just carried a man across town. Again, and I'm repeating
this for emphasis here, they carried this guy up a ladder
onto a roof of a house And then they lowered him all the way
down to set at the feet of the great physician. And they do
not receive recompense. They don't get paid for that. Yet, the man who did not participate
in this journey, except to play the part of the burden, has been
granted forgiveness of all his sins. Does that not turn reward for
hard work just right on its head? And it does in human understanding,
it does. But repaying work with salvation
is not God's way. He freely gives and he will not
be obligated to anyone who submits the works of their hands. I am
not condemning these four other guys, but this is a great illustration that the man or woman, the boy
or the girl who comes to Jesus Christ begging nothing except
the cross is guaranteed to receive the Savior's pardon. Now in the final verses here,
21 through 25, this is when the Pharisees, they get lit up. They say, who is this who speaks
blasphemies? If you needed a swear word for
that time, that was it, heresy, blasphemy. And they said, who can forgive
sins but God alone? And Jesus answered them, why
are you reasoning in your hearts? Which is easier to say, your
sins are forgiven you or to say, rise up and walk? And then he says, but that you
may know that the son of man, me, has power on earth to forgive
sins. He turns to that paralyzed man
and he says, I say to you, arise, take up your bed and go to your
house. And that's what he does. Now this man is not only forgiven
of his sins, he can now walk. That was the original goal, wasn't
it? But it illustrates for us the conversion in every believer. At one time they, or we, we lie
in darkness, unwilling and unable to beg God for forgiveness. But
then others, through the gospel preaching, they brought them
to God. Or another way of saying that
God goes to them through the preaching of the word. And then
their sins are forgiven. That darkness they were in gives
way to light because they see. They see everything through the
lens of Christ. A lot of people, they'll say
at least sensory things after they claim to have been saved. The sky is bluer, right? The air is more crisp, more clear. The birds sing more sweetly. And while some of them might
be disingenuous in that, I understand. When you come from a place of
darkness and suddenly the light's shown, oh, you kind of understand. You kind
of understand. I get it now. That's why that
tree looks the way it is. That's why that sky looks the
way it does. And you think, God made all of
this for his glory and for his people.
So yes, things do look different. And then once that person has
been found, God lists that person onto his feet for the express
purpose of walking. But not just anywhere, it's walking
to follow him. Forgiveness and grace first,
and your walk by faith second. Now I already asked this question,
but what had these four men set out to do? And that was, Possibly
to help a friend or brother, to make his condition a little
bit better maybe. Maybe they hope for more complete, completely healed I would say. Maybe they went to see if a paralyzed
man could be made to walk. But what do they see instead? They see a lost sheep who has
been found and who is given strength to follow the good shepherd.
Now, when we believers were still walking in darkness, why did
we go to church? Why did we go to church? And
it doesn't matter what type of church you went to. The question
is still valid. It could have been to help ourselves
out a little. You know, everybody goes to get a little better at
least. I remember after 9-11, church attendance, they said,
went through the roof. The sky was falling. Better get
right with God. Well, maybe people go to church
to feel better about their decisions and Unfortunately for many people,
preachers will gloss over bad decisions. They'll say, yeah,
you're doing okay. Well, if the preacher says I'm
doing okay, I don't have to change. Maybe it was to stave off banishment
to hell. That is a big one. What did we end up seeing instead? We saw that our sins had been
forgiven by the redemptive work of Christ Jesus, and we were
hoisted out of our deathbeds and given strength and a desire
to follow our Lord. And I tell you, it is a good
day when God interrupts what you were set out to do. Now what Jesus has done, it doesn't
sit well with those Pharisees. And they rightly ask, although
disdainfully, who can forgive sins but God alone? They don't perceive that they
stand mere feet away from God in the flesh. And that lack of
understanding is the danger of unbelief. If you don't believe
that God was made manifest in the flesh, that he dwelled among
the human race perfectly, and that he died on the cross, was
made sin for us, and rose, not only just rose, he rose again
to glory, then you won't perceive God in the flesh, even when he's
close enough to touch. And this is more evidence against
him. They know, they just admitted,
they know that only God can forgive sins. They just said it in public. And yet they will not come to
him for the free gift of salvation. And nor will they allow anyone
else It says in Matthew 23, they bind heavy burdens hard to bear
and lay them on men's shoulders. It's all because they cannot
see, they cannot hear, they cannot perceive of spiritual things,
and they cannot help others to God. All they can do is burden
men and women with more works. Works, works on works. Lastly, Jesus not only has power
to forgive this man's sins, but also the power to heal his infirmity. He can both restore the spirit
to life and restore the body to health. You may think one
is more miraculous than the other. They are both miracles. I would
not try to put one above the other, but one is definitely more sought after. You know, Lazarus, when he was
brought back from the dead, that was a great miracle. Do you think the next time he
died that he would wish while on his deathbed and say, oh,
I wish I could be raised again? To a believer, that first death that we will
all suffer through will result in us rising to glory
because, like Jesus said here, our sins are forgiven us. That's the important part. What
men call impossible is possible with God. May God be glorified
by the message. Bruce, would you close us?