Mark 2:1-12  Have you ever doubted whether God really forgives? Listen as Pastor David shares this encouraging study from the story of the paralytic. 

<div>Mark 2:1-12</div> <div></div> <p>Have you ever doubted whether God really forgives? Listen as Pastor David shares this encouraging study from the story of the paralytic. </p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Hillside O’Malley SDA Church

David Shin

Instantaneous Forgiveness

And I'd like to invite you this morning to turn with me in your Bibles if you have not already to our scripture reading found in Mark chapter 2 verses 1 through 12.

It's page 1152 and 1153 in the pew that is in front of you, or in the Bible, that is in the pew that is in front of you.

And what I'm gonna do here this morning is I'm gonna read through this passage, make a few comments as we go through it, and then make some observations and go to the thesis of our presentation this morning.

Mark chapter 2 verse 1, I'm reading from the New King James Version, you can follow along in whatever version you have there.

And again, he entered Capernaum after some days And it was heard that he was in the house Jesus had just crossed over The lake and gone into Capernaum and the Bible says that it was heard it was noise to brah About that Jesus was in the house of this particular individual Evidently he had done many miracles prior to this point and the people wanted to see Jesus.

They wanted to hear him because of the things that he had done.

Verse 2, 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.

Incidentally, Jesus believed in the preaching of the word.

He recognized that in order to transform mankind, it came from the preaching of the Word of God.

Verse 3, Then they came to him bringing a paralytic who was carried by 4 men.

This individual was physically incapacitated.

He was a paraplegic or possibly even a quadriplegic.

He was unable to come to Jesus of his own volition.

He was dependent upon 4 individuals to bring him to Jesus.

He was not able to come to Jesus on his own, his connection to Jesus came from these 4 friends who had to literally carry him to Jesus.

By the way, this makes us think, what are we willing to do to bring our friend to Jesus?

You may be the only connection that someone has, the only access, because they are not physically incapacitated, they may be morally incapacitated.

Verse 4, and when they could not come near to him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where he was.

They let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying.

Jesus is preaching a sermon and this is the classic or I should say the nightmare interruption to a sermon.

He's preaching And suddenly they look up, there's perhaps dust falling from the roof and there's skylight.

And suddenly in the midst of the room comes down this stretcher and there is this physically incapacitated paralytic that is looking into the eyes of Jesus.

The crowd is wondering what is happening.

And what follows is a fascinating exchange between the paralytic and Jesus.

Now in 3 of the gospels in which this account is recorded, there is no dialogue between Jesus and the paralytic.

Meaning that Jesus is the only person speaking.

Now I don't know why, but I would guess that it's probable that this paralytic could not express himself possibly because of his palsy.

Nothing is stated or nothing is recorded as being stated in this miracle.

The stretcher comes down and something happens.

Jesus looks into the eyes of the paralytic.

In verse 5, Jesus, the Bible says, when Jesus saw their faith, by the way, you can have faith for somebody else.

It did not say when Jesus saw his faith, when Jesus saw their faith, plural.

When you intercede on behalf of someone else, you are having faith for someone else.

And in this case, Jesus did not only see the individual faith of the paralytic, He saw the collective faith of the people that brought the person to Jesus.

The Bible says when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, without a word being recorded as being uttered, son, what beautiful words, Son, your sins are forgiven you.

Verse 6, and some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts.

Meaning that this was not something that they had vocalized or verbalized.

It was not something that was made audible to the people that were there.

This was the thoughts that were in the inner consciousness of the scribes and Pharisees that were in the room as this miracle of forgiveness was taking place.

Verse 7, and this is what they were thinking according to the Bible, why does this man speak blasphemies?

Who alone or who can forgive sins but God alone?

By the way, the claim to forgive sins is only an attribute that can be given by God.

God is the only person that can forgive sins.

And Jesus, of course, was not guilty of blasphemy because he was indeed God.

But when a man claims to forgive sins, the Bible considers it as blasphemy.

Verse 8, but immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, he said to them, by the way, Jesus knows what we're thinking.

This is a particular case because all along Jesus could read the thoughts of the individuals but in this case the thoughts that these individuals were thinking was so bothersome, if I could use that word in regards to Jesus Christ, it just did not sit well with him.

They're thinking this in their hearts about this concept of blasphemy.

Who does he think he is anyway and Jesus decides look this is inappropriate so inappropriate that I'm going to call these individuals out and he does this in verse 8.

He said to them why do you reason about these things where?

In other words I know what you are thinking.

I know what you're processing in your inner sanctum of your hearts and your mind.

In verse 9, which is it easier to say to the paralytic?

Your sins are forgiven you or to say, arise, take up your bed, and walk.

In verse 10, here comes the punchline, here's the point.

But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, he said to the paralytic, I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.

Jesus performed the second miracle so that they would know that he had the authority to forgive sins.

Verse 12, immediately he arose, took up his bed, and went out into the presence of them all so that they all were amazed and glorifying God, saying, we never saw anything like this.

There are so many lessons that we can bring out of this story.

We could probably do a series on it, just this account, but I wanna make a few observations before we get to the thesis that we have chosen.

In this story, there is a particular exchange that takes place between Jesus and the paralytic.

When you observe this miracle, there are actually 2 miracles that take place in Mark chapter 2.

Many people may think it's just 1 miracle, the healing of the paralytic, but there are actually 2 miracles.

The miracle of forgiveness and the miracle of the physical healing.

Both of these miracles happened because of the words of Jesus.

These miracles are interrupted by an exchange that takes place.

There's a pause between these 2 miracles.

Jesus could have combined the 2 miracles.

He could have said, look your sins are forgiven, and by the way, rise, take up your bed, and walk.

But in this particular miracle, the first miracle has a pause.

There's an exchange in between the 2 miracles.

Between the miracle of forgiveness and the miracle of physical healing, there is an exchange that takes place between Jesus and the Pharisees.

Now, when we look at the exchange, I want us to notice what Jesus does in the exchange.

So you have miracle number 1, the miracle of forgiveness, the miracle of physical restoration.

In between the 2 miracles, Jesus does something that connects the 2 miracles.

Instantaneous Forgiveness

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