Let us open our Bibles today
to Mark chapter 2. We're looking today at the first
12 verses in this chapter. We continue to study from the
narrative of the life of the Lord Jesus that Mark has given
unto us. 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, 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 afore. And when they
could not come down to 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
you 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,
take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house. And immediately
he arose, took up the bed, went forth before them all, insomuch
that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, we never
saw it on this fashion. A few weeks ago, we looked at
the verses which told us of the Lord Jesus coming to Capernaum,
and He entered into the house of Simon and Andrew. He had called
Simon and Andrew, James and John, to follow Him, and He would make
them to become fishers of men. He spent one night in Capernaum
and left the next day to go into other towns to preach. And if
you notice in verse one of our text today, we see the word again. And again, he entered into Capernaum. The title of the message today
is Power on Earth. Power on Earth. And I'm taking
this title from the words in verse 10, where he said, that
you may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive
sins. I do not need to remind us today
that this title, Son of Man, expresses his humanity. The prophecy
in Isaiah, which was approximately 600 years before the Lord Jesus
came into this world, It said, unto us a child is born, unto
us a son is given. He is the son given, for God
so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. But he's also the child born. And that's the reason for the
title, Son of Man. And we shouldn't this morning,
I trust that none of us do, overlooked that very little word us in that
prophecy. Unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. At his birth, the angels told
the shepherds that evening, for unto you, for unto you, for unto
us, For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior,
which is Christ the Lord. He came on purpose to save sinners. He came on purpose to save his
sheep, those whom the Father had given him in that everlasting
covenant of grace. It was for us. Unto you is born
this day. in the city of David, a savior. Think about that. You, every
you here today, you under you is born this day in the city
of David, a savior. That's what we need. That's what
all of us need, a savior. Do you know him as your savior
today? Or is he just some historical
figure? that you've heard about probably
all of your life, but do you know Him as your Savior, as your
Kinsman, Redeemer? I want to point three truths
out to us in this passage, three truths that we should know about
the Son of Man. He said that you may know that
the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, I say
unto thee, rise, take up thy bed, and walk. Here are three
truths about the Lord Jesus Christ that we should know from these
verses. First of all, he hath power on
earth to speak the word of God. Now listen, this is important.
He hath power on earth to speak the word of God, but He preached
unto them the word. Notice that in verse 2. 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. We understand this to mean the
written word of God. The written word of God at that
time was the Old Testament scriptures. Now, I point this out to us,
and I hope every one of us can take this in. When he spoke,
he spoke the word of God, because he is God. When he spoke, he spoke the word
of God. But when he preached, he preached
the word of God. That is, the written word of
God. Later, his apostle Paul would
write to Timothy, considered a young preacher at that time,
and he exhorted him, preach the word. And by that word to Timothy,
it applies to every man who calls himself a preacher. Preach the
word. Paul said, there would come a
time when men would not endure sound doctrine. In other words,
there would come a day when men would not want to hear the Word
of God. But to every preacher, preach
the Word, the written Word. Our Lord did, and we have Him
as an example. Those of us who call ourselves
preachers, we have our Savior as an example. He preached unto
them the Word, the written Word. You're never going to improve
upon the Word of God. I want you to hear what God says
about His Word in the book of Jeremiah. This is found in chapter
23. I'll read it to us. God said,
The prophet that hath a dream. You ever hear a man stand up
in a pulpit Talk about a dream that he's had? Preach about a
dream? Some so-called message that he's
just received from God? God said, the prophet that hath
a dream, let him tell a dream. And he that hath my word, now
listen, he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is chaff to the wheat? You know, when they winnowed
the wheat, they beat it and then they would throw it up into the
air and the wind would take the chaff away. It's no good. It
doesn't serve any purpose. You wouldn't want to eat it,
but you could eat that chaff and starve to death. No, you
need the wheat. You need the word of God. And
that's what the scripture here says. God compares His word with
everything else and calls everything else chaff. No good, no account. In other words, it's not going
to help you. It's not going to feed you. When the Lord told
Peter, feed my lambs, feed my lambs, feed my sheep. Well, what are we to feed them?
Feed them the word of God. God's written word is truth. When the Lord Jesus Christ was
praying, you know, when he stood before Pilate, Pilate asked that
question, what is truth? What is truth? And some people
today will say, well, there is no truth. And you respond, is
that true? Is that true? What you just said,
there is no truth. Is that true? No, when the Lord
Jesus Christ was praying in John chapter 17, speaking to his heavenly
father, he said, thy word is truth. Thy word is truth. Hear what God says about his
word in the Psalms. In Psalm 119, it's all about
the word of God, isn't it? The written word of God. Forever,
O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. No debate. No question. It's settled. It's settled. It's certain. It's
the truth. The truth doesn't change. Another
verse there. The entrance of thy words giveth
light. When God's word comes into the
heart of man, it gives light. Gives light. Gives understanding. We use that term sometimes when
we say, well, the light came on. We don't mean that someone
flipped a switch necessarily, but we mean that all of a sudden
we could understand. Verily, verily, the Lord Jesus
Christ said to Nicodemus, except a man be born again, he cannot
see, he cannot understand the things of God. The carnal mind
is enmity with God. Preach the word, preach the word. We're not told what part of the
Old Testament, 39 books in the Old Testament. We just read here,
he preached the word unto them. We don't know what part of the
scriptures or how many of those books that he preached from that
day. But I'm just going to say that
maybe, maybe, Maybe he preached from this passage
of scripture I want you to turn to with me, in Isaiah chapter
46. Just maybe. I know this, when
he preached the word, he preached himself. Because the scripture
says, he said this, he said, search the scriptures, for they
are they which testify me. All of the scriptures, you began
in Genesis and come all the way through Malachi and then start
in Matthew and go through revelation. And what is it? It is a revelation
of Jesus Christ. Just maybe he preached from these
last two verses here in chapter 46. Hearken unto me, ye stout hearted
that are far from righteousness. I bring near my righteousness,
it shall not be far off, and my salvation shall not tarry. And I will place salvation in
Zion for Israel, my glory. Now I chose this passage of scripture
because it speaks to us of man's natural condition. It speaks
to us about righteousness. It speaks to us about salvation. And it speaks to us about the
fact that salvation is of the Lord. Maybe he chose these verses. He came to save sinners. It speaks
about salvation. Notice these things. First of
all, here is the condition of all men as we come into this
world, stout hearted, far from righteousness. You see that in
that verse? Hearken unto me, you stout-hearted
that are far from righteousness. That's your condition. If you're
here today without Christ as your Lord and Savior, that's
your condition. You're stout-hearted and you
are far from righteousness. You have no righteousness that
God will accept. That word stout means hard, hard-hearted,
stubborn. desperately wicked, you will
not bow to the claims of Christ. You're stout-hearted, you just
say, no, no, I will not have this man to reign over me. That's
the condition of all of us when we come into this world, stout-hearted,
stubborn, hard-hearted, and we are far from righteousness, far
from God. alienated from God. Now you know
when the scripture speaks about a person being far from God,
it's not talking about far in distance because we live and
move and have our being in Him. He's omnipresent. He's here.
He's everywhere. No, no. When it speaks about
man being far from God, it's talking about our character.
God is absolutely holy and man is absolutely sinful. There couldn't be any more distance
in that sense between light and darkness. God is light and man,
when we come into this world, Paul says this in Ephesians,
we are darkness. Not only are we in the dark,
but we ourselves are darkness. We're far from God. And then notice the verse tells
us that God brings near his righteousness and his salvation. God does this. When we read that He brings near
His righteousness and His salvation, that's speaking of Christ. That's
speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is righteousness. He is salvation. And don't you just love that
passage of scripture that speaks about Mary and Joseph when they
presented Jesus was just about six weeks old, I believe, and
brought him into the temple. And there's that old man, Simeon. And God had told him, you're
not going to leave this world until you have seen my salvation.
And there they come, carrying that little baby. Simeon took
him up in his arms, and he said, now, Lord, Let thy servant depart
in peace, for I have seen thy salvation. He saw God's salvation
in Christ. That's where salvation is. It's
not things about him. No, it's him. He is salvation. And God brought him near. No
one could have, no one can force God to do anything. No one could
have forced God to send his son into this world, send the Savior
into this world. No, he did it. He purposed it
from before the foundation of the world. He planned it. And everything is happening in
my life, in your life, according to God's determinate will. What confidence. What confidence,
right? What assurance it gives us. God's
in control. And God sent His Son into this
world to be the Savior, to be the propitiation for our sin. God brings Him near. God brought
Him near. And then the third thing, it
says that God places His salvation in Zion for Israel. Now the Israel
of God here is not the national nation of Israel. No, this is
the spiritual Israel. God places his salvation in the
heart of his chosen people. He's the one that does the work,
and that's the reason all the praise and all the glory we give
unto him. If he has saved you today, Eternity's too short, my friends. Eternity is too short to give
thanks unto Him for saving you. He didn't have to. He doesn't
save everyone. But according to His own sovereign
will, if you're saved, He did it on
purpose. Sometimes, you know, people come
into churches like ours and they say, well, he doesn't give people
a chance to get saved. You know what they mean by that.
We don't sing an invitation hymn at the end and beg sinners to
come to the front and pray and kneel and all of that. Oh, they
don't give sinners a chance to be saved. Men are not saved by
chance. Men are saved on purpose, God's
purpose. Yes, when He saves you, confess
Him, follow Him in baptism, absolutely. But He's the one who does the
work. He's the one who reveals Christ in you, to you. What is God's salvation? This
verse speaks of salvation. What is God's salvation? Well,
you know that word salvation is what we like to call an umbrella
word. I mean, there's so much, it's
incomprehensible, all that's included in that word salvation. We begin with forgiveness of
sins. What a blessing, right? What
a blessing. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and
all that is within me. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and
forget not all. his benefits, who forgiveth all
thine iniquities, all thy sins. That's just one thing. What about
adoption? Adopted into the family of God. God is your father. What about pardon? All your sins, pardon, put away.
Reconciliation. We who were enmity with God,
now we are reconciled and we have peace with God. Salvation. He preached unto them the word. Now here's the second thing I
want us to say in this passage back in Mark. Second, he hath power on earth
to know the thoughts of men. He knows your thoughts today.
He knows my thoughts. I'm sure we're all very familiar
with what took place. I remember hearing this story,
history I should say, when I was just a little child in Sunday
school about the These men bringing this man and taking the roof
loose and letting him down. We're all familiar with this.
There were four men along with their paralytic friend. They
had no doubt heard of the Lord Jesus, his power to heal, and
they believed. We know they believed because
the scripture says he saw their faith. They believed that if
they could bring him, They didn't have the faith that that centurion
had. Remember when he said, Lord,
just speak the word. I'm not worthy that you even
come under my roof. You don't have to come to my
house. Just speak the word. Now they didn't have that great
faith, did they? They felt like they had to bring
him. They had to bring him and present
him physically before the Lord Jesus Christ. But they met a
challenge. and getting their friend to Christ.
The scripture says they could not come into the house through
the door. I assume when they went and picked
him up and carrying him on his pallet, they just figured, well,
we'll get there and they'll open the door, the door will be open,
we'll just walk right in. But no, they got there and Pete
was all outside. Why? Because he was healing people. He was healing people of physical
infirmities. And so they met an obstacle.
They couldn't get in the house. I don't know how they did this,
but I know they didn't reason like some people. Well, we did
our best. We tried. Maybe we'll come back
tomorrow. They didn't do that. None of
those things. And he said, there's a way. There's
a way. Going to open up the roof. Oh,
don't you know that made a mess? Have you ever had a party and
put a roof on a house? And this house, I don't know
what it was made of, the roof, mud or straw or whatever, but
don't you know it just made a terrible mess falling down on people's
head and everything else? Oh, but they were on a mission.
They were on a mission. They had a friend. And I might
say this, that man, he had four friends, didn't he? I mean, these
were friends. They're going to get him, if
it's humanly possible, before the Lord Jesus Christ. And they
heard something. They got him there. Let him down.
Let us bow it down before the Lord some way. And they heard
something they never, ever expected to hear. They heard the Lord
Jesus Christ say unto him, son, thy sins be forgiven thee. They never expected to hear that.
And I tell you, they were not the only ones who heard something
they were not expecting to hear because there were scribes there.
Now a scribe was a man who was charged with copying the word
of God. And they heard that, and they
reasoned in their hearts, he speaks blasphemies. They were
not aware of this one who was here, of who he is, that he knows
the thoughts of all men. David said this about him. He
said, thou understandest my thought afar off. God knows every thought you've
ever had and every thought you ever will have. Mine too. What if God just judged you for
your thoughts? What if you had to answer to
God for your thoughts? Not your actions, just leave
those aside for a moment. If God just judged you, if you
stood before God Almighty in that great day, And you were
going to be judged just for your thoughts. Is there anyone here
today who would feel comfortable? Oh, I'm okay. I'll be okay. No problem there for me. No, I've never had an evil thought
in my life. I don't think there's anyone
here who would say that. I hope not. But I know dead is dead, and
men are dead in trespasses and sins, and some people, they say
that. Well, I've never had an unclean thought, evil thought,
never said a bad word in my, never criticized, never hated,
never told a lie, or maybe a little white lie. He knows our thoughts. He knew
their thoughts. And I tell you, there's one thought
that every man, every son of Adam has about God. And that's given to us. God speaks
this in Psalm chapter 50. And he said, thou thoughtest
that I was altogether such and one as thou art. All men think
God is like us. We can overlook a trespass. We
can sweep something under the rug. God's like us. Yeah, we've done a few things
that we shouldn't have done, but all in all, everything's
going to be okay. God's not like you. God must
punish sin. Why? Because he is holy. If he did not punish sin, he
would cease to be absolutely holy. That brings me to the third thing. He hath power on earth to forgive
sin. He hath power on earth to forgive
sin. He forgave this man his sins. And that we may know, he said,
that you may know who can forgive sins but God only. Now if he
actually forgives sin, that means he's God. That you may know. Take up your bed and walk. What'd the man do? Immediately
took up his bed and headed home. Let me close this morning by
reminding us of these two very important truths. Number one, it is only on earth that sin is forgiven. That you may know the son of
man hath power on earth to forgive sin. It is only on earth that
sin is forgiven. If a man leaves this world unforgiven,
unforgiven will he be for all eternity. We're all familiar
with that saying, you can't take it with you. And I know usually
that refers to money and that's true. But I tell you, there's
one thing you will take with you. If you leave this world
unforgiven, if I leave this world unforgiven, one thing we will
take with us is our sin. And we'll take it to judgment
and take it to hell. It's only upon this earth that
sins are forgiven. And number two, it is only for
Jesus' sake that sin is forgiven. Only, not mostly, only. It's only for Jesus' sake that
sin is forgiven. The Apostle John writing in his
first letter said, I write unto you little children And, you
know, he goes on to speak about the young man and the older man.
But here's the very beginning, the little children, because
this is true of every child of God, no matter what our age,
mature wise, maturity may be. This is still true. It's true
at the beginning. It's true at the end. I write
unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for
his name's sake. That's the only reason, for Christ's
sake. Don't you know that man, when
he left that house, he went out of there jumping, praising God. Oh, what the Lord has done for
us. if He's forgiven us our sins.
And He's only done it for Christ's sake. Amen. We're going to sing a hymn.