FBC Sunday Evening Service

All right, good evening. You had a good afternoon. It was not exactly one of those nice sunny afternoons to get out and enjoy the outside, but it was a good afternoon to take a nap.

Hope you got some rest time in today on this day of rest and refreshment.

Let's begin tonight at number 410 in our hymnals, a hymn, "'Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus."

410, and let's stand together, shall we, as we sing.

410. "'Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, just to take him at his word, just to, upon his promise, just to know, thus saith the

Lord. Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him, how

I've proved him o 'er and o 'er. Jesus, Jesus, precious

Jesus, for grace to trust him more.

Oh, how sweet to trust in Jesus, to trust his cleansing blood, just in simple faith to plunge me neath the healing, cleansing flood.

Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him, how

I've proved him o 'er and o 'er. Jesus, Jesus, precious

Jesus, for grace to trust him more.

Yes, it is sweet to trust in Jesus, from sin and self to cease, and from Jesus simply taking and rest and joy and peace.

Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him, how I've proved him o 'er and o 'er.

Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus, to trust him more.

I'm so glad I learned to trust him, precious

Jesus, Savior, friend. And I know that he is with me, will be with me to the end.

Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him, how I've proved him o 'er and o 'er.

Jesus, precious Jesus, for grace to trust him more.

Shall we? Our Father, we do thank you tonight for our Savior whom we can trust.

We can trust him to free us from sin and its guilt, and we can trust him, we can learn to trust him more day by day.

Oh, may we do so, we pray. And I pray that the service tonight and seeing the work, the power, the authority of Jesus to cleanse and to forgive and to heal would encourage us all the more to trust him.

We pray it in Jesus' name, amen. All right, you may be seated. And let's take our

Bibles and turn to Psalm 5. I wanna read one of the Psalms tonight and then sing it together.

Psalm 5, in my copy of the scriptures, a lot of the

Psalms have like a theme title. And this one is titled,

A Prayer for Guidance. It's not inspired, that's somebody's interpretation of the

Psalm, but certainly fitting here. Prayer for Guidance, Psalm 5. David writes, give ear to my words,

O Lord. Consider my meditation. Give heed to the voice of my cry, my

King and my God, for to you I will pray. My voice you shall hear in the morning,

O Lord. In the morning I will direct it to you and I will look up. For you are not a

God who takes pleasure in wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand in your sight.

You hate all workers of iniquity. You shall destroy those who speak falsehood. The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

But as for me, I will come into your house in the multitude of your mercy. In fear of you, I will worship toward your holy temple.

Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies. Make your way straight before my face.

For there is no faithfulness in their mouth. Their inward part is destruction. Their throat is an open tomb.

They flatter with their tongue. Pronounce them guilty, O God. Let them fall by their own counsels.

Cast them out in a multitude of their transgressions, for they have rebelled against you. But let all those who rejoice put their trust in you.

Let them ever shout for joy because you defend them. Let those also who love your name be joyful in you.

For you, O Lord, will bless the righteous. With favor, you will surround him as with a shield.

Lord, add his blessing to the reading of the psalm together. And let's take our psalter and turn to number 10.

Number 10. And I want to just sing the first, third, and fifth stanzas of this.

And I picked this psalm and it's especially the passage of the section to focus on trusting in the

Lord because of the emphasis of the theme of the message tonight. And these stanzas particularly go along with that.

I think this is a tune we would know. Okay. All right. O Jehovah, hear my words.

So sing stanzas one, three, and five. O Jehovah, hear my words.

Heed the groaning of my soul. Hear my cry, my

King, my God. Let my prayer to you be known.

With the morning light, O Lord, you shall hear my voice arise.

And expectant, I will bring prayer as morning sacrifice.

And the third. In the fullness of your grace, to your house

I will repair. Bowing towards your holy place, in your fear

I worship there. Lead me in your righteousness.

Let my foes assail in vain. Lest my feet be turned aside, make your way before me plain.

Let the ones that trust your care, shout for joy at your command.

Let them sing who love your name, safely guarded by your hand.

For a blessing from your throne, to the righteous you will yield.

You will compass him around, with your favor as a shield.

Very good. I do want to give some opportunity for some testimonies tonight. Just a way of prayer requests.

I want to continue to pray for Chris's sister, who's recovering.

And in a great deal of pain, just a lot of pain. Sometimes just sends out one or two word text expressing the need for pain, right?

Need for prayer. And then was a good testimony this morning to hear from Bob about Jodi and how she's progressing.

You could certainly say, boy, I wish you were a lot further along. But he was, he was,

I saw him more excited this morning than I had seen him most Sunday mornings when he's been here recently.

Just enjoying in the progress. So thank the Lord for that. And how long are

Kent and Lori supposed to be? Okay, so they'll be down there all this week.

All right. So pray that this is a good, refreshing week for them, for their family. You know,

Lori has just been through the ringer lately and pretty rung out in taking care of Kent and working and all the rest of that that she's had to do.

So pray for them this week. All right. So the word of testimony tonight, how the

Lord is blessed and taught and helped you this week. Anything to share?

Yeah, Sue. Yeah. Good.

Good. You're talking about pulling weeds when the ground is clay.

We tried to do that the other night and we were out in this one section of the garden that's got a ton of volunteer radishes that are grown in that and right between where Melissa had planted a bunch of potatoes and some of those that she planted were red potatoes.

And so I yanked on what I thought was a radish because they were getting way out of, you know, going to seed, you know, kind of thing.

So I yanked on this thing and I pulled this thing out of the ground and it was literally like that big.

I mean, literally, it looked like a huge Idaho russet potato, but it was red.

And I thought, man, what in the world? And Chris said, that's one of those red potatoes. That thing, that shouldn't be that big already.

And so took it inside and come to find out it was a radish. It's just a mutant, a mutant radish.

Anyways, the Byron nuclear plant has landed. Our neighbor, our neighbor behind us works at the

Byron plant. And so I think maybe he's brought in some radioactivity that kind of affected our garden.

But good. Somebody else? Yes, Chris. Yeah. Right, right.

Okay, very good. Thank you for that. Anybody else? Amen. Good.

Yeah, prayed for little Louis last week. Anybody else?

Yes, Denny. Amen. And what a blessing to have you guys back and getting around decently.

Good. All right, well, let's take a moment and pray for some of these things. And then we'll sing another hymn.

Father, we do thank you for answers to prayer. Thank you for your protection of Louis last week and the situation.

It could have been so much more serious. Thank you for his health and for your just your providential guidance in all the care that was received at that time of need.

We also thank you for Jodi's progress. And we do pray for her continued strengthening of her body.

Thank you for Denny and Kathy and for how you've worked in their lives and are giving some improvement to Kathy.

And thank you for that. And may she continue to strengthen and have greater ability, greater mobility.

We also pray for the naps tonight as they travel. And it's a stretch of road along the highway can be a tiring stretch.

And I just pray that you'd help Tom to stay alert as he drives and give him safety home tonight.

Pray for Kent and Lori this week. Just give them a very restful time.

Give Kent physical strength and pray that there wouldn't be any complications with his health being away from home.

And pray that especially it would be a time of refreshment for Lori, regaining strength and equilibrium in this time.

And Father, we do pray for Jonna. Continue to strengthen her body after surgery. And I pray for the alleviation of pain that she's experiencing.

Father, we pray tonight. Meet with us and speak to us through your word. Ask in Jesus' name. Amen. All right.

In your blue book, the supplement, I was back there and didn't say anything about getting it.

If you didn't pick one up. If you didn't pick one up, Lydia's picking up a bunch of them for you. So just raise your hand and she'll get one to you.

Lydia the usherette. All right. Number 16. In the blue book.

Anybody else need one? All right. Good. Number 16. Dear refuge of my weary soul.

It's certainly the case of the guy on the bed carried by four others.

Let's sing it together. Dear refuge of my weary soul.

On thee when sorrows rise. On thee when waves of trouble roll.

My fainting hope relies. To thee

I tell each rising grief. For thou alone canst heal.

Thy word can bring a sweet relief. For every pain

I feel. But oh, when gloomy doubts prevail.

I fear to call thee mine. The springs of comfort seem to fail.

And all my hopes decline. Just God, where shall

I flee? Thou art my only trust. And still my soul would cleave to thee.

Though prostrate in the dust.

Hast thou not bid me seek thy face?

I seek in vain. Ear of sovereign grace.

Be deaf when I complain. No, still the ear of sovereign grace.

Mourners prayer. Oh, may I ever find access.

Breathe my sorrows there. Thy mercy seat is open still.

Here let my soul retreat. With humble hope attend

I will. And wait beneath thy feet.

Thy mercy seat is open still. Here let my soul retreat.

With humble hope attend I will.

And wait beneath thy feet. And again,

Jesus entered Capernaum after some days, and it was heard that he was in the house. Now, notice the house.

We don't know whose house, what house, just the house. Immediately, many gathered together so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door.

And he preached the word to them. Then they came to him bringing a paralytic who was carried by four.

And when they could not come near him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where he was.

So when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, son, your sins are forgiven you.

And some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts. Why does this man speak blasphemies like this?

Who can forgive sins but God alone? But immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, he said to them, why do you reason about these things in your hearts?

Which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven you or to say, arise, take up your bed and walk.

But that you may know that the son of man has power or authority on earth to forgive sins, he said to the paralytic,

I say to you, arise, take up your bed and go to your house. Immediately he arose, took up the bed and went out in the presence of them all so that all were amazed and glorified

God saying, we never saw anything like this. So father speak to us through this wonderful miracle performed by the

Lord Jesus. We pray it in Jesus name, amen. So in October of 1978, there was a team of 10 women that did what no other group of women had ever done before.

They reached the summit of Annapurna 1 in the Himalayas. That's the 10th highest mountain in the world.

So one of the women in that group, she wrote a book about their experience. Her name is Arlene Bloom. And she tells that the greatest challenge that the team faced was that they had to believe in themselves.

This is what she said. We had to believe in ourselves enough to make the attempt, despite the conventional assumption that this was not something a group of women could do.

Their faith in themselves, she said, enabled these 10 women to overcome a mountain height.

Well, such stories of faith in oneself and the ability to overcome obstacles and achieve great things and so on and so forth, they abound in this day and age.

But you don't see anything of the accomplishment by believing in oneself that you read about here in Mark 2 verses 1 to 12.

And the exciting thing is that in this passage or from this passage, you and I may never, let me put it this way, you and I will never reach the summit of Annapurna 1.

We just won't do it. Let's face the facts, okay?

Well, you know, no, there's nobody here that's gonna reach Annapurna 1. No matter how much you believe in yourself, how much you think you can do it and believe that you can do it, you'll never do it.

But you can, through faith, overcome something that has far greater obstacles than the 10th tallest mountain in the world.

That's what comes out in this passage of Scripture. There is an object of faith in which we need to put our trust and that object of faith, the person of that faith, can accomplish far greater things.

And of course, the object of that overcoming faith in verses one and two is Christ. It's Christ.

And how did he become known in this story? It says, he entered

Capernaum and it was heard that he was in the house. I think this is the

New King James. The King James, I think, says it was noised abroad. It was broadcast that Jesus was in the house.

And when it was broadcast, it was made known that Jesus was in the house, a lot of people came and gathered to him.

He was known because it was made known that he was there.

Well, who is this? Who is this that so many people are attracted to? Who is this that he was in the house and therefore people came and crowded in the house and crowded around outside the house and crowded the door so that you couldn't get in and couldn't get out?

Who was he? Well, he was obviously no ordinary man. No ordinary man could command such attention in that kind of a setting.

There were ordinary men that could be considered orators that would come to town and announce their presence.

And people would show up at the local amphitheater and they'd hear him. But no ordinary man could just show up and it is noised abroad.

Hey, that man from Nazareth, the carpenter guy, he's here. And all kinds of people would flock to hear him.

He's no ordinary man. He is obviously somebody worthy of attention that it can just simply be said, he's here.

That Jesus man, he's here. And people would come to find out more about him and to listen to what he had to say.

He was obviously somebody worthy of attention. And it's clear from this story as it develops that this one that people came to hear is a source of hope.

He's a source of hope. Why else would these five individuals be coming to Jesus under these circumstances?

And what's also clear from what we've already seen in Mark's gospel is that he is an authority figure.

He's an authority figure. Let's go back and review. In verse 22 of chapter one, it says, and here again, he's in Capernaum.

It says, they were astonished at his teaching for he taught them as one having authority.

So there's authority in his teaching. Verses 26 and 27. There was an unclean spirit that had convulsed this man possessed by the unclean spirit and cried out with a loud voice and he came out of him.

And then verse 27 says, then they were all amazed so that they questioned among themselves saying, what is this? What new doctrine or teaching is this?

For with authority, he commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him. He has authority in his teaching.

There's authority in his command over unclean spirits. Verses 33 and 34.

Again, the whole city is gathered together at the door. He healed many who were sick with various diseases.

He cast out many demons, didn't even allow the demons to speak. He's demonstrating his authority over the physical realm of individuals as he heals them of their sicknesses.

Over the spiritual realm, as he casts out demons and forbids the demons to speak.

And he's obviously, from verse 34 here, one who cares.

Someone who cares. He healed many that were sick with various diseases, cast out many.

If anybody came to him in this setting with a physical, spiritual need, he showed compassion upon them and he healed them.

He dealt with that need. All of this, of course, causes us to ask ourselves and assure ourselves of whom we are trusting.

Are we trusting this individual? Are we trusting him? This Jesus, who is a man of hope, of authority, of one who cares.

And so what did he do? What did he do? In verse 34 here, chapter one, verse 34, he dealt with physical problems.

People who were sick, he dealt with their physical ailments. And he dealt with spiritual problems, casting out the demons.

In chapter two, verse two, he also declared spiritual truth.

And remember, Jesus had said earlier, when people came out, he went into a quiet place by himself early in the morning and the disciples came out looking for him.

He says, hey, everybody wants to see you. Come on, we gotta go deal with their needs, with their problems or whatever. He says, no, let's go to other towns and villages to preach the gospel of the kingdom because that's why

I've come. So he didn't come into this world just to deal with spiritual needs and to deal with the demonic.

He came to preach and to teach the truth, the gospel of the kingdom. And verse two tells us that's what he did.

At the end of verse two, he preached the word to them. He preached the word to them.

So this is the object of that overcoming faith, Christ, Jesus, the

Christ. The objective of the faith of these individuals who come to him in verse two and verse three and four, the objective is multiple, but we could summarize it as simply this.

Their objective is the impossible, the impossible. They hope to solve a problem that is, from a human standpoint, a hopeless situation.

Verse three tells us, I think in the King James, it says that he was a man with palsy.

The New King James translates it paralytic. He was a paralytic. Think of, you know her, you think of Johnny, Johnny Erickson Tada, quadriplegic, uh, unable to, on her own, with her own power, you know, move her limbs.

She's a paralytic. She's paralyzed from the neck down. This individual is apparently paralyzed from the waist down.

He couldn't walk. But this is a hopeless situation. And there is no, there is no mind over matter solution to this thing.

There is no faith in myself, I can overcome this kind of thing. This man can't say, you know, my inability to use my limbs is my anapurna.

If I just believe in myself, I'll be able to get up off this mat and I'll be able to walk.

No, he can try as hard as he wants and he can believe in himself as much as he wants, but he ain't going anywhere.

This is a hopeless situation. There's no self -made solution.

And there are no medical doctors that he can go to to solve his problem either.

Now, we don't know, again, we don't know what this man's condition was. We don't know if in our modern medicine technology that there could be something to help him.

We don't, we don't know. But we do know that at this time, and in this culture, and in this place, he is, he's facing and dealing with a hopeless situation.

And the objective of the faith of these who come to Jesus is for him to solve this hopeless problem.

But it's also this situation, it's a desperate situation.

Verse four, and they want this desperate situation alleviated. Verse four says, when they could not come near to him because of the crowd.

So they get there, and you can kind of imagine this. You know, these, this is not a large house.

This is a, this would be a house in the city of Capernaum. So it would be a small place, probably at most two rooms in the whole structure.

There would be, you know, a doorway, a main doorway off the street, and the little room inside that would serve as like a living, dining room, area, kitchen, all, you know, one room.

Probably the size of, you know, comparable to the size of a small bedroom in our culture, in our day and age.

Very small. And people are crowded inside the room, and Jesus is sitting there teaching.

And people are crowding the door. There's no way to get in through the door. And people are crowded outside of the house trying to hear.

And, you know, they're standing at the window looking in, and trying to hear anything that he has to say.

I'm reminded of, I'm reminded of the preacher Charles Simeon, who was a pastor in Britain somewhere.

And when he first went to his church, the elite in the congregation didn't want him as their pastor.

This was a Church of England church, I'm sure. And they didn't want him as their pastor. And so they controlled, the elite controlled the pews.

They had purchased the pews, and they locked the pews. So that the, you know, nobody could come in and sit in the pews.

You and I would say, well, why didn't they just climb over the locked doors and say, well, you could get arrested for that, because that's not, you don't own that pew.

So you couldn't do it. So what ended up happening is the pews would all be empty. And people flocked to hear

Charles Simeon preach, because he was an excellent preacher. And so they, some lined up along the side of the building.

And when they couldn't get in, they stood outside. They crowded outside the building with the windows open so they could hear him preach.

This is the kind of thing that is going on here. This is just a packed situation.

There's a crowd that is blocking, completely blocking access. It's a desperate situation.

These men need to get to Jesus, and they can't get to Jesus. Solve this problem, they want to see.

So the objective is to solve a hopeless problem. The objective is to alleviate a desperate situation.

And the objective that they don't even realize at the time is to meet an unknown need, to meet an unknown need.

They bring this paralytic to Jesus because they think the greatest need is for him to be able to walk.

But what is the need that Jesus addresses in verse five? He says to the paralytic, son, your sins are forgiven you.

What Jesus is communicating, I mean, he's doing some several things here. There's several layers of what Jesus is doing here. But one of the things

Jesus is communicating here is, listen, if this guy goes out of this room, out of this house, still unable to walk, his most important need has been supplied.

His sins have been forgiven. So there are multiple objectives to these individuals as they bring this man to Jesus.

But essentially, we could say that the objective of their overcoming faith is the impossible.

It's the impossible. And I would suggest to you who have come to Christ, you've come to him expressing faith that he would do the impossible, that he would deal with your sin, he would forgive you of your sin, which is something that nobody else can do for you, and you can't even do for yourself.

The objective is to accomplish the impossible. Well, there are some obstacles, as very evident in this story, and you're very familiar with them.

But we want to note them anyway. There's some obstacles to this overcoming faith. One of those obstacles is the condition of the man himself.

He is so paralyzed and incapacitated that he can't get to Jesus on his own.

Now, that isn't the case with most of the people who would come to Jesus. We saw back in chapter one, verse 32 and following, when the sun set, they brought to him all who were sick and were diseased or were demon -possessed.

There were some who, they were so sick, they needed to be helped in being brought to Jesus.

Others, in their condition, their condition wasn't such that they needed someone to carry them to Jesus.

They made their way to him on their own. Remember the woman who interrupted Jesus and Jairus on the way to healing

Jairus's daughter? It's coming up in this book where, you know, the woman with the issue of blood for a dozen years, nobody could deal with it.

She didn't need anybody to help her to get to Jesus. She got there on her own. But this guy, he has this condition that serves as an obstacle to getting to Jesus and to having his need met.

Another major obstacle, of course, is the crowd in verses two through four, the crowd.

And we could spiritualize this a little bit and say that, you know, the crowd always stands between the seeker and the savior.

The crowd always does, you know. The crowd will prevent access to Jesus, as you see at verse four.

They couldn't come near because of the crowd. And, you know, how many times have we experienced that in our

Christian life where, you know, we want to move forward.

We want to walk with the Lord. We make decisions to serve the Lord in particular ways. And you make that decision and you resolve in this, to carry out this decision, to live out this decision.

And then you go to work, you know, you go to work. And, you know, you get the crowd starts to pick on you a little bit because you're living out this decision.

I've known some few people through the years who made it their decision.

They made the decision that the best time for them to have their own devotions, their personal devotions, was during their lunch hour at work because they had to get work early, really early in the morning.

And, you know, they're getting up as early as it was. So that was their resolution. They were going to have their devotions and do it on their lunch hour.

So they'd take their Bible into their workplace or a New Testament or something. And they'd try to get alone, get away from the crowd of the workplace.

And in some cases got a little bit of ribbing for it. You know, the crowd tried to stand in the way, preventing access to the seeker, for the seeker to get to the

Savior. And you can imagine this scene as the four men who are carrying the poor guy.

They come onto the scene and they can't get in. They want to get into the door. Do you mind, let us get in.

Have you ever been in a crowded situation like that where you are wanting to see something or somebody and there's a big line of people and there's a fence and you want to get up to the front of the fence and you can't get there because of all the people and you're trying to worm your way through the crowd to get up to the fence and they're not letting you in.

You can imagine this, right? No, look, we're trying to hear. Get away, get away, get away.

So the crowd is an obstacle in this situation. But the biggest obstacle, it's not the condition of the man and it's not the crowd.

The biggest obstacle are the critics in verses six and seven. Jesus deals with this paralytic's greatest need which is the forgiveness of sin and the critics, the critics, they start to reason.

And this is, you notice in verses six through eight the emphasis on reasoning here.

Verse six, some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts.

Verse eight, when Jesus perceived that they reasoned thus within themselves, he said, why do you reason about these things in your heart?

So the critics, the critics that serve as an obstacle to this paralytic having the needs met that he's there to have met, the critics are an obstacle who rely upon their reason.

Who are these critics? Well, Mark tells us that they are the scribes.

Luke, in his account of this same situation, Luke chapter five, verse 17 says, it happened on a certain day as he was teaching that there were

Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by who came out of every town of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem and the power of the

Lord was present to heal them. All right, so on this occasion, you've got not only the common people who love to hear

Jesus and wanted to be taught but you had these critical skeptics.

They weren't even skeptical, they were just critical. They wanted to catch Jesus so they'd have something to accuse him of and this includes

Pharisees and you know who they are, guys who've got all the extra laws and traditions and rules that are added to the law and then the scribes who are the teachers of the law.

They're the ones who are supposed to be experts at the law and they go through a rigorous training, these scribes do, to find out all of the ins and outs of what the rabbinical teaching is on the law and it's their responsibility to make sure that you know this is what the law says.

You've got to do this, this is what the law says and they came from all over the place.

Galilee which is where Capernaum was, Judea which is the region where Jerusalem was and Jerusalem itself and the point about Jerusalem is to communicate to us that there are some bigwigs in the crowd, you know, maybe members of the

Sanhedrin are in this crowd and what are they doing? They're relying on reason and they're rejecting the person.

Their rejection is very clear in verse seven because they hear what Jesus says and they say this man is speaking blasphemy, speaking blasphemy.

Why do they reject him? Because they're relying upon their reasoning and here's their reasoning, all right?

Think of the syllogisms, you know how syllogisms work? You got a major premise, a minor premise and a conclusion.

Here's their major premise. Only God forgives sins. By the way, is that true or false?

I mean forgive in the sense of, you know, true, major premise.

Minor premise, this man is forgiving sins.

Therefore, here's the conclusion, this man is claiming to be

God. That's in their mind, blasphemy and there are a few additional thoughts that go along with that.

A man, a man claiming to be God is blasphemous.

If you or I or any other human being said, I'm God, I'm God, well, that's blasphemous and we would agree that a mere man claiming to be

God, that would be blasphemous and this man because he's claiming to be

God is therefore blasphemous but they missed the point, they missed the point and the point is when they ask the question who can forgive sins but God alone?

The point is, yeah, yeah, this one can because he is

God. They fail to see that. They do not have the eyes of faith to see what the paralytic and those who carry him could see that this must be the

Messiah. They don't see it. Well, how are these obstacles overcome?

How are they overcome? Well, they're overcome in the first place by ignoring the crowd at the end of verse four.

They couldn't get in through the door so they went up on the roof, broke through the roof and let the man down through the roof, went down on his bed through the roof.

The other way that these obstacles are overcome is that they reject the critics in verses eight through 11, reject the critics.

And here's how Jesus helps them reject the critics. Jesus perceives what they're reasoning and he asks them this question.

Why do you reason these things in your heart? Which is easier? Is it easier to say and the emphasis, notice the emphasis on speaking, saying.

Is it easier to say your sins are forgiven you or to say, take up your bed and walk?

The answer is it's easier to say your sins are forgiven. Why? Because it's something that happens internally.

It's something that happens spiritually and it cannot be verified, right?

You can't verify it. But if I were to say to, well, we had a lady here this morning.

She wheeled herself over from Sterling Tower. She has an electric wheelchair thing, you know, scooter.

She got herself here. She apparently can't walk, I'm guessing. But she came in, she came, sat down right there in the middle of the, if I stood up and said to her, ma 'am, stand up and walk.

And if she's, I can't, I can't. I'll try, but I can't.

And I said, stand up and walk. And she tries to do that because I told her to do it and she falls flat on her face.

What would you conclude about my power? That I, you know, what

I say is nonsense. I don't have the power to heal her of her inability to walk.

So it's easier to say your sins are forgiven than it is to say, take up your bed and walk.

So then Jesus, Jesus says, okay. So in verse 10, so that you may know that the son of man, and here he uses a code word for the

Messiah and all the, believe me, the scribes and the Pharisees, they got the message that he's claiming to be the

Messiah is the son of man. But so you may know that the son of man has power or authority on earth to forgive sins.

Here's how you can verify that I have authority to forgive sins. He says to the paralytic, take up your bed and go to your house.

And the man's legs are completely healed. He can immediately get up and walk.

And listen, if anybody were to question whether that's really miraculous, talk to Bob Knapp, right?

Jody's been, you know, out for almost three months lying on a bed.

Some of that time in a medically induced coma. And in that kind of a condition, the muscles atrophy and the legs will not function because just because you want them to function, they won't do it.

And it's taking a long process to two steps this week.

And that was progress. If she can take 10 steps this coming week, that'll be progress.

Jesus said to this man, take up your mat, take up your bed and walk.

And immediately he arose and took up his bed and he walked.

So Jesus overcomes this obstacle of the critics for the sake of and in the mind of the paralytic and those faithful individuals who brought him to Jesus.

He overcomes their obstacle of potential unbelief. He overcomes the critics in this interchange and makes it clear.

Not only do I have the authority to heal a man, I have the authority to forgive sins.

What's the conclusion of the matter? This one, this one must be

God because only God can forgive sins. Only God can forgive sin.

And in all of this, and I found this fascinating, I read this little statement this afternoon.

In all of this, Jesus put these scribes, I mean he just tied them up in knots and put them in a bind.

Because here's the scribes thinking, if you have an affliction like this, it's because of sin.

And you cannot be healed unless the sin is taken care of. This was their thinking.

Jesus capitalized on their reasoning. And he said to the man, your sins are forgiven you.

Then he said, take up your bed and walk. And who can forgive sins but God only?

Well, the outcome of this overcoming faith is powerful. The sins are dealt with in verse five.

The needs are supplied in verses 11 and 12. He's told, take up your bed and walk. He takes up his bed and walks.

He's no longer paralyzed. The very thing that the one thing that the guys brought him there for is taken care of.

The critics are silenced in verse 12. He arose, took up the bed, went out in the presence of them all so that they were all amazed.

They were all amazed. Wouldn't you have loved to seen that?

Wouldn't you have loved to been a fly on the wall? Don't you wish there was YouTube back then?

You know, somebody could have their cell phone and videoing this thing the whole time and we could just pull it up on YouTube and watch as these pious critics are just like deer in headlights.

Look, the critics are silenced. And most importantly,

God is glorified. They glorified God saying, we never saw anything like this.

We never saw anything like this. This is our savior. This is the one in whom we trust.

This is the one in whom our faith is centered. I trust yours is.

You've come to faith in Jesus Christ as your personal savior. He is a savior who has authority to deal with the physical maladies and afflictions and needs of life.

But more importantly, he has the authority to forgive our sins.

Our father in heaven, we thank you tonight for our savior. Thank you for his authority.

Thank you for the forgiveness of sins that is found in Christ Jesus. And I pray, encourage us in our faith to look up to him.

We pray it in Jesus name. Amen. Let's take our hymnals and turn to number 407.

I believe it is. Yes, 407. And sing stanzas one and two.

My faith looks up to you. Let's go ahead and stand together as we sing. And then we do have a business meeting here we need to get into for a few minutes.

So we'll take care of that after we sing. 407 stanzas one and two.

My faith looks up to thee Thou lamb of Calvary Savior divine

Now hear me while I pray Take all my guilt away

O met me from this day Be holy thine

May thy rich grace Empaul and zeal inspire

As thou hast died for me O may my love to thee

Pure, warm, and changeless be All right, thank you.

You may be seated. All right, let me call us to order for this business meeting tonight.