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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Eric Walsh

Refuse to Be Denied

Good to be back today on a day that seems to have shifted seasons.

If you would turn with me to the book of Luke, the fifth chapter, Luke chapter 5, starting at verse 17.

Luke 5, 17, the scripture says, And it came to pass on a certain day, As he was teaching that there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and the power of the Lord was present to heal them and behold men brought in a bed a man which was taken with a palsy and they sought means to bring him in and to lay him before him.

And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, they went upon the housetop and let him down through the tiling with his couch into the midst before Jesus.

Our message this Sabbath is entitled, Refuse to be Denied.

Father God, we thank you Lord for this opportunity to discuss your word and to stand in your presence.

We just ask for your Holy Spirit to be poured out upon this place that he, your Holy Spirit, would dwell with us as we consider your word.

Lord God, remove Eric Walsh from the situation.

Let the light of Christ shine in this place is our prayer in Jesus's name.

Jesus, in miraculous fashion, had just called Simon Peter and the first of his disciples into his discipleship.

Interesting, this story actually takes place in Peter's home.

As Peter is there and as people are beginning to hear the miracles that Jesus is able to work, all of a sudden, crowds begin to follow him.

You can imagine when people hear the story that the fisherman had been out all night and couldn't catch anything.

And yet this man says, go out again into the deep and throw out your nets.

And so much fish come back that the nets actually break.

People start to say, this is a man I need to be around.

In fact, It can be described that once Jesus starts his ministry and starts working the miracles, there are a lot of people who want to be around Christ for the benefit of what Christ can offer, but not to sacrifice anything for Christ.

1 of the challenges that happens as the story unfolds is that the Pharisees, the scripture says, and the doctors of the law come and we are told in the spirit of prophecy that in fact these are spies.

As they hear about what Christ is doing, the establishment of the religious establishment begins to try and figure out, how do we shut this man down?

Instantaneously, they go to work, trying to find a way to destroy Jesus.

And so they are also present in the company of Jesus.

I give you this background because I want you to understand that when you deal with trying to forge a relationship with Christ and to be in a communion and in covenant relationship with the Lord, There are a lot of people that can get in your way.

There are a lot of folk who have a lot of different reasons for wanting to be in the presence of Christ, and not all of them are pure reasons.

And so when you look at the crowd and the number of people who call on the name of Jesus, you can become quickly discouraged.

In fact, 1 of the fastest ways out of the church of the living God is to go into a place where people claim to know Christ but do not reflect him.

These were the self-righteous, these lawyers and Pharisees, who thought they were better than everyone else.

And I'm always afraid in our church, we have to be careful because you never want to get to a place where you think somehow you have arrived.

You've got to have all of your trust, all of your hope, all of the promise in Christ Jesus, and none in the arm of your own flesh.

In fact, Satan is happy when people begin to think that somehow they are able to live a righteous life on their own.

This was the case with the Pharisees and Sadducees.

And as this crowd, the house is mobbed with people, so many people all around the house that the key figure in the story besides Jesus, a man on a bed.

The scripture says he's taken with palsy, meaning he was paralyzed.

And as a physician, as I read this and I listen to the story, 1 of the things I realize, he probably has a cervical spine injury and probably what that causes is that he's a quadriplegic.

So this is probably a man who doesn't just have an inability to walk.

He probably doesn't even have control of his arms.

But let's stay there for a second so you understand who it is that is looking for Jesus.

In fact, when you look at it, this man, because of his medical condition and the sickness that is upon him, in the time in which they're living, before antibiotics and the knowledge that such individuals need to be turned every couple of hours in order to prevent bed stores, the fact that this man would have been incontinent to bladder and bowel probably, when you begin to look at the condition of this man, his body would have been rotting with sores, the smell and stench of this man would have been terrible.

This isn't simply a man on a couch that can't walk, This is a piece of flesh that has been rejected by the natural laws.

In fact, he's not simply coming so that he can regain his function.

The truth of the matter is, in his current condition in those times, his life would have been incredibly abbreviated.

We're told that this man probably did something to bring this on himself.

I don't know, maybe he fell and broke his back, or Maybe he was a violent, drunk man, and he got into a fight, and someone broke his neck in a fight.

Somehow, something about this man says that he was involved in whatever happened.

1 of the beautiful things about the story is, as you think about this man in his condition is that when he wants to meet Jesus so bad, he clearly has no way to get to Jesus.

So in fact, what happens is His friends, His friends are willing to walk and carry Him all the way to where Jesus is.

I hope you don't miss the power of Christian friendship.

I hope you get what happens when we are believers together and when we see our brothers and sisters in need.

And you don't always have to physically carry a brother or sister, but let me submit to you that spiritually on your knees, You can intervene for your brothers and sisters.

The way the great controversy is laid out, in fact, Satan loves to try and tell God that this person isn't praying for themselves, so you can't do anything for them.

When people are suffering in drug addiction and alcoholism and disease and despair and depression and all of the things that this world will throw at you and they're suffering by themselves there, the devil as God in his mercy would love to reach out and help the individual.

The devil can make the argument, you can't help them, They're not asking you for your help But I'm gonna tell you something powerful when someone else Who knows God begins to pray for that individual?

It gives God I don't like using the word permission, but it gives God the authority, in a sense, to work on the behalf of someone who isn't even in a spiritual place to know they need it.

This is the power of us praying for individuals who we know are in trouble in life and have gone astray away from the church and are living a rebellious life.

And it's critical that we lift them up in prayer like these friends lifted this man up off the ground.

I don't know if you can imagine what it would have been like to get to the house and see the house totally surrounded by this massive crowd.

They probably walked miles carrying this guy.

They're probably exhausted when they get to the house.

They're probably just ready to lay him at Jesus's feet and see the miracle happen.

But just like the devil will try to do to us, there's all these roadblocks it seems to getting to Jesus.

And had their faith been weak, You know what they would have done?

They would have packed up, turned around, went home, told him sayonara, and left it at that.

But I submit to you that as Christians, When life tries to throw hurdles in the way of our relationship with Christ, our knowing Him as our personal Savior, when life begins to do this to us, it is critical that we refuse to be denied.

It's critical that we make up our minds that we will serve him no matter what happens.

That we refuse to let the devil block us because doubt is 1 of the ways that he'll do this.

He'll come up and he'll start to tell you that you're not really right enough, you're not good enough for God, you can't live the way he wants you to live, you're messing up in all of these things, and the devil will try and convince you that somehow you're failing God and you should stay away from him.

I'm here to tell you today, refuse to be denied.

I'm here to tell you that you can't outsin God's mercy.

I'm here to tell you today that the blood of Jesus Christ is the most powerful force on planet Earth.

I'm here to tell you today that if you take 2 steps towards him, he will come running towards you.

I'm here to tell you today that if you take 2 steps towards Him, He will come running towards you.

I'm here to tell you today that you serve a God who loves you more than you can even comprehend.

When the man see this though, and they get there and there's this multitude and they can't get to Jesus.

They come up with the idea to climb on top of the house, open up the roof, and lower him down into the house.

Now this is a probably pretty dangerous operation.

The gentleman probably cannot help them even in controlling his own body weight.

So you can imagine how difficult it would have been to rig some kind of a harness to lower it.

They had to figure out a way to lower him.

They couldn't just open the roof and slide the poor guy in.

They would have had to figure out a way to actually lower him down.

I mean, they would almost have to set up a little engineering concept here to lower him down.

And we're told that he's lowered down, and when he's lowered down through the roof, he just comes down right in front of Christ.

I'll tell you, some of us need to open the roof.

Look at where you can get to God and make it a point to be there, no matter what it takes, to get into the presence of a saving God.

Now, Jesus is in conversation as all of this is going on.

He's discussing things with the scribes and the Pharisees.

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Refuse to Be Denied

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