Lon Solomon Ministries
The Paralyzed Man - People Jesus Met Part 5
Hey, you know, if I were to ask you what was the most distinctive message that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached when he was here on earth, I think most of us would get it right, we'd say, well, it was equality for all people. And if I were to ask you about the most distinctive message that Mother Teresa preached while she was here on earth, I think we'd get that right, too. We'd say, well, poor children in the world matter to God. And if we were to ask what Gandhi's most distinctive message was, I think we'd get that right as well. We would say nonviolence is the best way to bring about political change. But what if I were to ask us, what was the most distinctive message that the Lord Jesus Christ preached when he was here on earth? I wonder what we'd say. Well the answer is this, friends, the most distinctive message that the Lord Jesus preached when he was here on earth was that he had the authority to forgive our sins, as a matter of fact. This is the most distinctive message of biblical Christianity. It's true Christianity offers us a noble way to live. And it's true that Christianity offers us some great role models to pattern our lives after Abraham and Moses and Esther and Ruth and the Apostle Paul. But friends, the central message of the Bible has nothing to do with noble ethics or with great behavioral role models. The central message of the Bible is that God is offering to forgive our sin. But that this offer is only available through the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that's what we want to talk about today, because this is what forms the foundation of an encounter that the Lord Jesus had with a paralyzed man in the Gospels, and remember we're doing a series entitled People Jesus Met, and as Jesus meets this paralyzed man today and interacts with him, this issue, the authority that he has to forgive our sins, this comes to the forefront. So here we go. But before we dig into the actual story of the meeting, maybe we should first ask the question, well, what exactly is sin anyway? I mean, if we're talking about Jesus having the authority to forgive our sin, maybe we ought to make sure we all know what that sin is before we talk about the forgiveness of it. So what exactly is sin? Well, to get the answer to this question, we need to go back all the way to the very first sin ever committed in the universe. You say, oh, okay, so we're going back to Adam, right? No, it wasn't Adam. You say, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. It was Eve. No, it wasn't Eve either. Folks, sin did not begin with Adam or with Eve. Sin began with an angel whom today we all know as Satan or Lucifer. Here's the story from the Bible, Isaiah chapter 14. God says, how you have fallen from heaven, oh, Lucifer, son of the morning. And the Bible goes on to tell us that Lucifer originally was a very prominent angel. Ezekiel 28, 15, God says to him, you were perfect in all your ways until wickedness was found in you. And exactly what kind of wickedness was found in Lucifer? Well, Isaiah 14 tells us, you said, you, Lucifer, God says, said in your heart, God in your heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will raise my throne above God's stars. I will enthrone myself on the sacred mountain and I will make myself like the most high God. Hey, did you pick up to the key word in that sentence? What is it? Yes, the word I, my way, my will, my plans, my glory, me, me, me, me. The essence of Satan's sin was his decision that God was no longer going to be the Lord of his life, but that he, Lucifer, was going to be the Lord of his own life. And this in a nutshell is what sin is all about. And look at God's response to Lucifer's sin. He said, Isaiah 14, 15, but you, Lucifer, will be thrust down into hell to the recesses of the pit. God was not about to tolerate this kind of rebellion in his universe. And so he created a place of eternal torment that the Bible calls hell to be the final resting place for Lucifer and don't miss this now and also the final resting place for everyone in the universe who decided to follow Lucifer in what John Milton called his foul revolt. You say, well, that's all wonderful. I mean, but what difference does any of this make to me? Well, plenty because friends you see sin did not stop when Lucifer instead Lucifer lured Adam and Eve into copying his sin. You remember in the garden, God said to Adam and Eve, don't eat from the tree in the middle of the garden. If you do, you'll die. And Lucifer came along, Genesis 3, verse 4, and said, you shall not surely die. Come on, for God knows that in the day you eat of that tree, you will become like God. Do you hear the appeal he's making to Adam and Eve here? Hey, Adam and Eve, if you'll eat of that tree, you can become your own God. Hey, if you'll do it, you can decide your own destiny. Hey, you can run your own life, your own way, which is exactly how Lucifer got himself in trouble. And Adam and Eve copied him, they took the bait and the Bible says they sinned. But there's more. It gets worse. Romans 5, verse 12, therefore the Bible says, through one man, Adam, sin entered the world and death through sin. And in this way, death came on all men for all sinned. The Bible says because of Adam and Eve's sin, the entire human race has been infected with an inborn and inbred sin nature. Such that every member of Adam and Eve's race, you, me, all of us, we all are born as sinners in the sight of Almighty God. Romans 5, 18, the result of this sin was condemnation for all men, the Bible says, watch, for by the disobedience of one man, Adam, we were all made sinners. This is why David said Psalm 51, surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. You say, yeah, well, that makes no sense. How can anybody in the womb commit a sin? He's not talking about acts of sin. No, no, no. He's talking about this inherited sin in nature that he had from the moment of conception that we all have from the moment of conception in our mother's wombs. And because of this sin nature, every one of us enters this world as a rebel against God, determined to go our own way, determined to be our own masters. And if you don't believe that's really the true nature of the human spirit, you just spend a couple of days in the same house with a two year old and you'll see. No, no, no, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine. This is the human spirit in all of its unbridled fury. And it doesn't change just because we grow up, friends, whether we're two or whether we're 82, so long as we reign supreme over our life and not God, God sees us as sinners, as followers of Lucifer in his foul revolt, and that's a big problem. Why? Well, because remember what we said, the Bible said not only is God going to send Lucifer to hell for all eternity, but he's also going to send every one of his followers there for all eternity. So this is the disease and we've all got it. This is why Isaiah 53, 6 says, "All we like sheep, not some of us, all of us have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way." But you know the Bible's got some good news, friends. In fact, the Bible has some great news. And the great news of the Bible is that God has made a way for us to be forgiven as sinners. God has made a way for sinners to be pardoned and to be acquitted for our sin, for all of eternity. The question, though, is who has the authority to do this for us? Well, we're going to get the answer to that question right now. Here we go. Mark chapter 2, verse 1, "When Jesus returned to Capernaum, so many people gathered in the house where he was that there was no room left, even outside the door. My dad used to call this being packed in like sardines, he used to say. And you know, not only was the house full, but people were packed up out into the street. This looked like mass in St. Peter's Square. You understand what I'm talking about? And it's important to know this because it explains what happens next. Verse 3, "Four men came there carrying a paralyzed man on a stretcher, but they were unable to get close to Jesus on account of the crowd." I mean, it takes a big aisle to get four men carrying a full grown man on a stretcher through a crowd, and the people obviously weren't in the mood to move over and make such an aisle. And so, instead, these four men come up with an ingenious solution to this problem. The Bible says, verse 4, Mark 2, "They made an opening in the roof directly above Jesus, and then they lowered the stretcher upon which the paralyzed man was lying. Houses in those days around the Sea of Galilee had flat roofs where people would go up and sit at night in the cool breeze, and they had stairs going up steps on the outside of the house so you could access the roof. And so what these four guys did is huffing and puffing and sweating and straining. They dragged their friend on the stretcher up onto the roof. They figured out exactly where Jesus was down below, and then they started to chop a hole in the guy's roof. Like, can you get the scene here? Jesus is inside the house, teaching. When all of a sudden, pieces of tile and mortar start dropping from the ceiling, you know, people are like this, and it gets worse, and eventually it gets so bad and so distracting that Jesus stops talking, and everybody, including Jesus, start looking up at the ceiling as this hole gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and then suddenly, through this hole, using four ropes, these guys start letting a stretcher down, and when it's all said and done, here's this stretcher lying at the feet of Jesus with this paralyzed man on it. And seeing their faith, the Bible says, and by the way, it wasn't hard to see, was it? And seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, "Son, your sins are forgiven." Now, the word Jesus uses here for "forgiven" is extremely important. It literally means to dismiss something, to remove something, to cancel something, to eradicate something, and the tense that Jesus uses when he says to the man, "Your sins are forgiven" is also extremely critical. It's the perfect tense in Greek, which I've told you before is rarely used in the New Testament, but it is extremely significant. The perfect tense means a past action, a completed action, the results of which go on unchanged for all of eternity. We could diagram the perfect tense by drawing a big dot on a piece of paper, standing for that completed action, and then drawing a line coming out of it that goes into infinity. So what did Jesus really say to this command? He said to him, "Really, son, your sins have been canceled. They are now still canceled, and they will forever remain canceled." Wow. Hey, what we're talking about here, what Jesus gave this man was an absolute, total, permanent dismissal of his sins in the judicial site of Almighty God. Pretty amazing. You know, when the missionaries first went to the Eskimos years ago, they ran into a problem. The problem they ran into is that in Eskimo language, there's no word for forgiveness. Now that's a big problem, because this word, forgiveness, is the central theme of the Bible. So how are you going to communicate the central theme of the Bible to people who don't have a word for forgiveness? Well after a while, the missionaries learned a one-word Eskimo phrase that goes like this, the suma jijujangna'i nairmuk, how do you like my Eskimo? There you go. And his suma jijujangna'i nairmuk means not being able to think about it anymore. And that's the word they use to translate forgiveness in the Bible, not being able to think about it anymore, because that's exactly the condition that God says we stand with him in that condition after our sins are forgiven by Jesus. Psalm 103 verse 12 says, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has God removed our sins from us." And Micah chapter 7 verse 19 says that God casts all of our sins into the depths of the sea, and then he puts up a buoy on top of them that says, "No fishing." And finally in Jeremiah 31, God's promise is, "When we've been forgiven by the Lord Jesus Christ, your sins, I will remember no more." This is what the Lord Jesus Christ gave this paralyzed man, and this is what the Lord Jesus Christ offers to give you and me and every human being alive. He offers to a suma jijujangna'i nairmuk, our sin. Pretty cool, huh? You bet. Well, verse 6, "Some of the rabbis were sitting there thinking to themselves, 'Why does this man talk like this? He's blaspheming for who can forgive sins but God alone.'" I love this. For once, the rabbis actually got something right, because who can forgive sin but God alone? Yeah? They were right. The problem is they weren't able to recognize God when he was standing right in front of them. And so what they're really saying here is they're challenging Jesus and saying, "All right, prove to us you have this authority. Prove to us that you really can forgive this man's sins," verse 8, "and immediately Jesus knew in his spirit what they were thinking." And he said to them, "Which is easier?" All right, fellas, going to ask you a question. All right, rabbis, here you go. Which is easier? To say to this paralyzed man, your sins are forgiven, or to say to him, arise, pick up your stretcher and walk. Now, which is easier? Let's just think about it for a minute. Which is easier to say to the man? Well, friends, it's much easier to say to him, your sins are forgiven. You know why? Because how can anybody validate whether that's true or whether it's not true? I mean, I could walk up to you out here in the lobby of the church, and I could walk up and say, "You know, your sins are forgiven. God bless you. Go in peace." And you might say, "Well, thank you very much." But how do I know that that's true? I've got no way to empirically prove whether you can do this. However, if I walk up to a man in the lobby of this church who's paralyzed and lying on a stretcher and I say to him, "Arise, take your stretcher and walk," you know what? It's only going to take about 10 seconds before you and I and everybody else in the lobby know whether I can do that. The guy's either going to stand up, take up his stretcher and walk, or he's just going to lie there, stare enough at you, me, and everybody else. You see, the point here, friends, is that it's much easier to say your sins are forgiven because nobody can prove if you're right or if you're wrong. You got it? Okay, watch. First 10. But so that you may know, I love this, so you may know that I, the Son of Man, have authority, oh, there's our Word, have authority on earth to forgive sins, Jesus said. Jesus turned to the man and said, "Arise, pick up your stretcher and go home." Jesus said, "You know, fellows, I'm going to prove to you that I have the authority to do the easier thing that is forgive the man's sins by demonstrating that, by doing the harder thing, by healing the man." Man, what a, what a, what a dramatic moment this would have been. I mean, Jesus is putting it all on the line here, folks. Either he can do both things, either he can heal this man and forgive his sins, or he can do neither. Verse 12, "Then the paralyzed man stood up, no atrophy, no muscle weakness, no unsteadiness. Total healing is what we have here. He stood up and immediately picked up his stretcher and walked out in full view of everyone. Hey, I'll bet you this guy didn't have trouble getting an aisle to get out of there. What do you think about that? I'll bet you they made way for him to leave." Verse 12, "And everyone was amazed and said, 'We have never seen anything like this before. Well, I guess not.'" Now, the main point here, make sure you get this in Mark chapter 2, is not that Jesus healed a paralyzed man. The main point is what Jesus proved by healing this paralyzed man. He proved that he has the authority to forgive people's sins. He proved that he has the authority to eradicate our sin for good and to wipe our sin out of the memory of God for all time in eternity. And should there be any doubt that he had that authority, he confirmed it beyond all speculation by a couple of years later, rising from the dead. This is the great news of the Bible that Jesus Christ has been granted authority to forgive and eradicate and cancel our sins in the judicial site of God. Now, this is as far as we want to go in the passage today because we want to ask now our most important question and all you folks at Loudoun and all you folks at the Edge and all you folks on the Internet, I want to hear you guys scream just as loud as these folks here. So are you ready? Here we go. One, two, three. Yeah. You say, "Lon, so what?" Say God bless you, man, up there. I mean, you're preaching your heart out, but I mean, really, what difference does any of this make to me? Well, let's talk about that. Back in January of this year in London, you know, there was a campaign that began called the Atheist Bus Campaign. It was supported by scientists Richard Dawkins and by the British Humanist Society, and what these guys did is they put ads on 800 buses in London, and here's how the ad read. It says and I quote, "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life," end of quote. You know, we need to think for a moment what this ad is really saying. There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life. What is this ad really saying? Well, this ad is saying that if there is no God, then absolute right and wrong don't exist because there's no divine being in the universe to define it. You're saying, number two, if no God exists, then sin, there's no such thing as sin. They're saying if there really is no God, then number three, eternal accountability for sin is an empty threat. And finally, number four, if there is no God, then hell is just a myth that the writers of the Bible invented to intimidate people and manipulate people and scare people, all of which means, according to them, that we can stop worrying and we can start enjoying life because we don't have to have any fear as sinners of standing before a holy, righteous God at the end of our life because there is no such being. Now, there's only one problem with this ad, only one. And that problem is that it's completely wrong. That's the one problem with it. The Bible says Psalm 19 1, the heavens declare the glory of God and the skies declare the work of his hands. The Bible says just look at the sky, look at the stars, look at the galaxies, look at the planets, anybody who's got any sense has to look at that and say there's got to be a mighty creator God who did this because I certainly didn't do it and you certainly didn't do it and nobody we know could do it. So who did it if there's not a God out there? This is why Psalm 14 verse 1 says, "Only a fool says in his heart, there is no God." And I love what David said on this same subject, reflecting on his human body. David said Psalm 139 verse 14, he said, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made." I was with a doctor the other day, one of my daughter's doctors, and we were sitting in his office and as we were just talking, I said, "Hey doc." I said, "You know, I don't see how any doctor, medical doctor can be an atheist." And he said, "How so?" I said, "Well, because once you've seen all the incredibly complex systems that make up the human body, there's no way you can possibly believe that all of that happened by chance you can't possibly believe that these things just took place and there's not a God out there." And he said, "Well," he said, "You know, I never really thought about it that way." And I said, "Well Doc, with all due respect, you need to listen, the endocrine system, the digestive system, the reproductive system, the neurological system, the cardiovascular system of the human body, all we've got to do is look at that and any body with any sense realizes all of that stuff couldn't happen by itself. There has got to be a mighty creator God who did all of this. And if there is such a God, listen to me, then number one, sin is real and every one of us is a sinner in God's holy sight. If there is such a God, then number two, eternal accountability for sin is going to be enforced for every single human life. And if there is such a God, then hell is a real place because he says it is where real sinners really go, which means that as sinners contrary to these bus ads, we have every reason to worry. You say, "Well, Alon, you know, I really appreciate this. I came to church this morning and you thoroughly depressed me. I really appreciate that. Thank you for doing that. That's just what I needed this morning is to be completely depressed. Whoa, whoa, whoa. There's no reason to be depressed. No, no. Because there's another way for us to stop worrying and enjoy life than the way this bus ad suggests. It's not by denying God and minimizing sin the way the bus ad tells us to do. It's by embracing Jesus Christ and being forgiven for sin the way the Bible tells us to. Folks, remember what God does when the Lord Jesus Christ exercises his authority, which he has, and forgives our sins. Remember what the Bible says happens. God, number one, remembers our sin no more. God, number two, removes our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. God, number three, casts our sins into the depths of the sea. And he writes our names in the Lamb's book of life and heaven for all of eternity. God, number four, grants us an absolute total permanent pardon for our sin. And finally, God sets us free from the bondage of sin and the guilt of sin and the eternal consequences of sin. Okay. Now, when all of this has happened to us by the authority of the risen living Christ, now we can stop worrying. And all of this happens to us by the authority of the risen Christ, now we can start enjoying our lives, except that now we don't just have some hope so stupid reason to do that like, oh, there's probably no God. Now we have a factual, now we have a biblical, now we have a legitimate basis on which to stop worrying about eternity and to begin enjoying life. It's the forgiveness of sin, the remission of sin, the eradication of sin in the sight of God by the authority of the risen Christ. Now on that basis, you can stop worrying and enjoy life. You know, I was at dinner with some friends a while back and we were laughing and talking and just having a great time and then the food came. And so they turned to me and they said, Hey, Lon, how about praying for the food? Now see, when you're a pastor, this is what happens wherever you go out to eat. You know, you just know they're going to ask you to pray for the food. So that they did anyway, it struck me that we were laughing and enjoying ourselves. And so as I, here's what I prayed, I said, Lord Jesus, thank you that as followers of Christ, we can laugh. Thank you that as followers of Christ, we can enjoy life. Thank you that we can live without fear because we know that our sins are forgiven and canceled and revoked for all of eternity by the direct authority of the living risen Christ. And thanks for the food, amen. That's exactly what I prayed. Listen, this is the so what of today's message, the so what of today's message is the son of man. The Lord Jesus Christ has the authority to forgive sin and the great news of the Bible is that the Lord Jesus Christ exercises that authority for every single person who embraces him as their personal Lord and Savior and once he has done that for us, as I said, then we have a legitimate, then we have a factual, then we have a biblical reason to stop worrying about eternity and to start enjoying life. And if you're a follower of Christ and you're here today, I want to challenge you to begin reveling every day to begin rejoicing every day in the amazing forgiveness that the Lord Jesus Christ has granted you and me. I'm reminded of the story, Luke chapter 10, where the 72 early disciples come back from their first missionary trip and the Bible says Luke 10, 17, then the 72 disciples return with joy and said to Jesus, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name. Now you say, well, that's great. Yeah, but see there was a problem here. The problem is here these guys are, they're all happy and excited, but the basis for their happiness and excitement is the way things are going here on earth. Human circumstances, human events, and look what Jesus says to them. I love this. And Jesus said to them, do not rejoice in this. He says, hey, fellas, the circumstances of your life are going to go up and down and up and down and up and down. And if that's the basis upon which you rejoice every day, you're going to have some really bad days in that whole thing. Look what Jesus says, do not rejoice in this, but put your eyes on eternity, Jesus says, and rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven. Wow, now there's a perspective. And let me say in closing that I know there's a lot of us here today that are going through some really rough times. I know that some of us here, our finances are really tight and some of us here, we've lost our jobs or we're afraid we're going to, and some of us here, we've lost our houses or we're worried about that happening to us. Some of us here, our 401(k)s have been decimated, our retirement funds have been decimated, our savings have been decimated, some of us here, our marriages are struggling, or we have loved ones that are chronically ill. And we know, listen, as followers of Christ, we know God's made us promises that He's going to keep. We know God's going to be faithful to get us through this, but that doesn't change the fact that these are real problems that produce real stress that can really get us down. All right. The message of Jesus to His disciples in Luke chapter 10 is the message I want you to walk home with today, friends. Jesus said, hey, no matter what else is going wrong or right with you today, no matter how human events are going, fellas, this is what He said to them, so long as your name is recorded in heaven, so long as your name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life, so long as your sins are forgiven and canceled and eradicated for eternity by my personal authority, as long as that's true, then fellas, I don't really care how it's going here on earth. There is always something to rejoice about. Friends, take your eyes. He said to them off of human events as the source of your rejoicing and put your eyes on the truths of heaven and eternity, and you'll have a reason to rejoice every day. I don't care what happens here on earth. And that's my challenge to you and to me, to all of us. I have rough days too, where I've got to drop back and just say, Lord Jesus, this day is horrible, but my name's still recorded in heaven and my sins are still forgiven and my name is still written down in the Lamb's Book of Life and I'm still coming there for all of eternity to be with you, and so you know what, Lord, there's still a lot of good with this day. May God change our perspective, the very basis upon which we rejoice, and make it based on Jesus' authority to forgive our sins and not on human events. Your day will go better, let's pray. Lord Jesus, thank you for reminding us today that the Bible contains great news, that there is a way for sinners to be forgiven, a way for us to be acquitted for all of eternity in God's sight, but that that authority belongs only to the Lord Jesus Christ, and that He exercises it in His mercy and grace for every single person who embraces Him as their Lord and Savior. Father, I want to pray you would use this great reminder today to lift our spirits and restore hope to our life, Lord, may the basis of our rejoicing every day not be human events because they go up and down and all around, but may it be on the truths of eternity that we learn from the Word of God. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you have the authority to forgive sins, and thank you for every one of us who know Christ, you've exercised it for us. We love you for doing this, Lord, and may we revel in this great truth every day, and we pray these things in Jesus' name. What do God's people say? Amen. Amen. Amen. the Lord. the Lord. Amen. Amen. Amen. the Lord. the Lord. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. the Lord. You [BLANK_AUDIO]