Disclaimer:This transcription is provided for informational purposes, reference, and convenience. Please note that it may contain errors, omissions, or spelling mistakes due to the nature of live audio transcriptions. While we strive for accuracy, this document should not be considered a fully authoritative record of the sermon. For clarification, we recommend referring to the original source. Thank you for your understanding and patience. 

What a privilege we have to once again open up the inspired and the infallible record of God's self-disclosure to us, his Word. Will you look this morning with me at Luke chapter five? We're going to examine verses 12 through 26.

There's two historical scenarios in this particular passage, and they demonstrate Jesus' compassion to heal and authority to forgive, which is the title of this particular exposition, and as you will see, there are many theological and practical insights that emerge from this text. Let me read it to you, Luke chapter five, beginning in verse 12.

"While He was in one of the cities, behold, there was a man covered with leprosy; and when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and implored Him, saying, 'Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.'

"And He stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, 'I am willing; be cleansed.' And immediately, the leprosy left him.

"And He ordered him to tell no one, 'But go and show yourself to the priest and make an offering for your cleansing, just as Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.'

"But the news about Him was spreading even farther, and large crowds were gathering to hear Him, and to be healed of their sicknesses.

"But Jesus himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.

"One day He was teaching, and there were some Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem; and the power of the Lord was present for Him to perform healing.

"And some men were carrying on a bed a man who was paralyzed; and they were trying to bring him in and to set him down in front of Him.

"But not finding any way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down through the tiles with his stretcher, into the middle of the crowd, in front of Jesus.

"Seeing their faith, He said, 'Friend, your sins are forgiven you.'

"The scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, 'Who is this man who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?'

"But Jesus, aware of their reasonings, answered and said to them, 'Why are you reasoning in your hearts?'

"'Which is easier, to say, "Your sins have been forgiven you," or to say, "Get up and walk"?

"'But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,' - He said to the paralytic -  'I say to you, get up, and pick up your stretcher and go home.'

"Immediately he got up before them, and picked up what he had been lying on, and went home glorifying God.

"They were all struck with astonishment and began glorifying God; and they were filled with fear, saying, 'We have seen remarkable things today.'"

Here we see more of our Savior's miracles and his great compassion for those in need, his authority over the physical realm, as well as the spiritual realm, and of course, all of this affirms, as is his intention, his deity. Plus, of these things strengthen our faith, do they not? And bless our heart, encourage us, and deepen our worship. And we also have here, as we will see, an analogy of how a conscience-stricken, penitent sinner comes to Christ in repentant faith, seeking salvation, and this is rarely seen in evangelicalism today, sadly. We're going to also be exposed to some of the various categories of people that attend Christian churches, as well as people that attack them from the outside, and finally, we're once again going to see our need for the habit of prayer, as well as sacrificial hands-on service to other people in need.

So, under the heading: Jesus' Compassion to Heal and Authority to Forgive, I'm going to give you two points in this whole outline. We're going to first of all see examples of number one: desperation and compassion; and secondly, we're going to see an example of faith and forgiveness.

But let me remind you of the context here. Jesus is still preaching; he's performing miracles all over Galilee, and the events that we have recorded here before us really happened prior to the calling of the of the 12 to apostleship. It happened prior to the Sermon on the Mount. And so, what we read then in verse 12 is, "While He was in one of the cities, behold, there was a man covered with leprosy." Now, this term in the original language, "lepros," it's actually the word for scale. A person inflicted with a cutaneous disease afflicting or affecting the texture of the skin. Often, with leprosy, a person will have kind of a scaly look about them. But the term was also used to describe a variety of skin-related diseases, including psoriasis and other scaly eruptions. But probably here it refers to the actual disease of leprosy, sometimes called Hansen's disease, a Norwegian scientist, actually by the name of G.H.A. Hansen, discovered this bacterium - it is Mycobacterium leprae - in 1873, and that was what causes this disease, and that's probably what we have here. But it is a terrifying, untreatable-at least in that day-untreatable, incurable disease that caused hideous disfigurement, thick, stiff, scaly skin, kind of spongy, tumor-like swellings on the face. People would lose their eyelashes and eyebrows, caused horrible nasal congestion and nosebleeds. It included severe neurological damage, nerve damage, paralysis sometimes, the loss of vision many times, and just the deterioration of the organs and even of the bones. It would cause eventually permanent damage to the hands and the feet. It would cause the fingers and the toes and the feet to shorten and chronic ulcers on the bottom of one's feet that don't heal. And on top of all of that, it would it would weaken one's immune system, making them vulnerable to other diseases. Many of them would die of tuberculosis in that day. Perforating ulcers would often form on the limbs and cause decay to the limbs, and many times a foot, for example, would eventually come off and just leave a stump. And often this would happen painlessly because there was no feeling in the nerves, no warning system, shall we say? So many times, people with leprosy would be oblivious to the destruction of their body that is occurring from within, and often insects and vermin would chew on them at night, undetected. So it's just an absolutely hideous disease.

In Leviticus chapters 13 and 14, we read about how a leper would be considered unclean. Remember, in the Mosaic law, God gave examples of things that were clean and unclean. And by the way, these things had little to do with health or arbitrary obedience, but to illustrate the holiness of God, the sinfulness of man, and so forth. And so, those that had leprosy were considered unclean, and they had to stay outside of the camp. They had to stay away from society for fear of contagion, but also because they were considered ceremonially unclean; and many times, people believed that God was punishing them, that they were somehow evil people, and they would even throw stones at them. So these dear people, on top of all the horrible things happening to their body, they were rejected. They lived in isolation - no friends, no fellowship. I mean, it was a living hell. And the Talmud, which is the primary source of of Jewish religious law and theology, tells us that the leper was not allowed to get within six feet of a person, and on a windy day, if the wind was blowing towards people, you had to stay 150 feet away, and lepers could not even enter a walled city; you read about that in 2 Kings 7:3. And whenever they came around, they had to cry out, "Unclean, unclean!" to warn people so that they would stay away.

We read, for example, in Leviticus 13, beginning in verse 45

"'As for the leper who has the infection, his clothes shall be torn, and the hair of his head shall be uncovered, and he shall cover his mustache and cry, "Unclean! Unclean!"

"He shall remain unclean all the days during which he has the infection; he is unclean. He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.'"

Josephus described lepers as those in no way differing from a corpse, and the rabbis often described them as the living dead, whose cure was as difficult as raising the dead.

And again, many times people thought they were cursed of God, and in fact, at times God did curse people with that disease as a judgment against them. Remember Gehazi in Second Kings 5, Elisha's servant? Remember he deceived Naaman and said, "Hey, Naaman, Elisha needs some money for what he did to heal you. And he got it and came back; Elijah knew about it, and he lied about it, and he got leprosy as a result of that. And then also King Uzziah, Second Chronicles 26. Remember, he became strong and proud? The text says he became unfaithful to the Lord, and he entered the temple to burn incense on the altar of incense, the priest confronted him; you're not supposed to do that, etc. And he got enraged, and God covered him with leprosy. So we see at times it was a judgment of God.

But in Leviticus 11, or I'm sorry, 13 through 14, we even have the mosaic legislations that God gave the priests to assist them in dealing with this in determining the presence of any kind of a skin disease, and there would be a ceremonial washing, a cleansing, which needed to be performed to a person before they could ever be declared clean through the skilled diagnosis of a priest.

By the way, there's no evidence of anyone recovering in those days from leprosy apart from divine intervention. But they did recover from certain other kinds of skin disorders, and in many ways, there's no cure today. But it can be kept in check through medication. I checked with the Cleveland Clinic. It says that it's important to note that most people have a natural immunity to Mycobacterium leprae. In fact, only 5% of all people are truly vulnerable to leprosy, and there are medications to help with that. And you've probably heard that armadillos carry leprosy, and we're seeing more and more of those little critters. They're usually smashed on the highway, but sometimes we see them in our night cameras as they go around digging holes in our yards. But Cleveland Clinic said yes, some do Microbacterium leprae only grows in living hosts, including certain types of armadillos. Research has confirmed that a species of armadillo native to the southern United States and Mexico can carry leprosy and spread it to humans. So, thought I'd throw that out there. Just leave them alone. Don't eat them. I hear they don't gravy up very good anyway. 

But folks, leprosy is a vivid illustration of the metastasizing corruption of sin. Gradually, the warning system in one's conscience fails to alert a man or a woman to the consequences of their sin that will eventually destroy them, and insidiously at first, sin gradually infects the whole person, and the ugliness imperceptibly begins to manifest in a person's character. If you've been around people who live in gross immorality and various kinds of gross sins, you see that they begin to look sick, diseased. The contamination of sin grows stronger and stronger; the person's resistance grows weaker and weaker, and the isolation and the alienation from God grows with each passing day, and their earthly relationships that were once considered close gradually move away from them. They can't stand being around them. Loneliness, despair, divorce, bitterness, disease, addictions, violence, crime, homicide, suicide. Eventually, the disfigurement of life-dominating sin is so hideous and so nauseating to others that the sinner can only find friendship amongst other sinners, and you see this like the old leper colonies, only today they are in bars and houses of prostitution, LGBTQ communities. Look at all of the the pride and the trans and the furry parades-just unimaginable. In places like Seattle and San Francisco and Portland, Toronto-you see this wickedness now in the democratic, socialist, communist parties-places where the dregs of humanity congregate to ease the gnawing pain of their enmity with God, to somehow enjoy the fleeting pleasures of life, to be a part of something. Their life is really a harbinger of hell. Little by little, the corruption of sin will eat away at them, until they are eventually destroyed. They stubbornly refuse to dip themselves, like Naaman, in the Jordan River of humble repentance, so that they can be cleansed, have their sins forgiven.

So, with that background, let's witness here under the first heading: desperation and compassion. Let's see what's going on. This man, now, he's covered with leprosy. So, think about this now: this pitiful, disfigured, miserable, lonely, helpless man disregards all the social and rabbinic prohibitions, and he comes to Jesus, and he says, "...and when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face." Folks, this is the posture of humility. This is the posture of veneration. In fact, in Matthew 8, verse 2, it says he "bowed down" - "proskyneō" -  in the original language, which means "to worship." He bowed down and "implored Him, saying, 'Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.'" In other words, I cast myself on your mercy in all of my unworthiness and all of my despair, my helplessness. I'm acknowledging you as the Lord, as the Master, and I place my faith in you. I'm begging you to deliver me, as I know only you can do, if you are willing.

Verse 13 says, "And Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, 'I am willing; be cleansed.' And immediately the leprosy left him." Mark's gospel tells us in chapter one, verse 41, "Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, '" am willing; be cleansed.' And so immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed." Oh, what a compassionate Savior! He did not throw stones at him. He did not tell him to stand back, "Don't get near me," like the religious leaders would do. He did not mock him as a man that was somehow cursed by God. He had compassion on him, and he did not avoid human contact with him like everybody else would do. It says that he "touched him." Beloved, this was probably the first time this man had been touched in many, many years. What a profound act of selfless love! I mean, Jesus could have healed him without touching him, but he touched him in front of everybody, whoever was watching. We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, right?

You know, I've counseled many lonely people over the years. I'm sure they're into the hundreds, and many of them are in marriages that are failing - families that are just a dumpster fire - and I can tell you that I've heard many times people in tears saying how they wish that the person, the parent, the husband, the wife, would just touch me with compassion, with tenderness. People are longing for sincere, selfless human interaction.  And this is what Jesus demonstrates. My mind goes to some of the elderly women that I experienced in Siberia when I've been over there to train pastors in Siberia in Russia. They don't have assisted living homes or nursing homes. Basically, old people are just left to die, and they stay with their families if possible. But a lot of the churches would have little shanties that they would build onto their churches, and they would have these older women living in there. They always have coats on because you got eight month winters. It's always cold; always got some heat going on. And I'll never forget the first time, and I was able to do this on a number of occasions, the first time I entered into one of those there were probably four of those dear ladies. They were believers, and the pastor and the interpreter introduced me as a pastor from the United States, and they'd never seen an American before, much less a pastor. And they would begin to weep, and they would want to touch me, and I would hold their hand, and we would sit on the couch, and they would tell me their stories through the interpreter. But I'll never forget the way that they would squeeze my hand with both of their hands. And we see this picture here, do we not, in the compassion of Jesus?

So he stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, "'I am willing; be cleansed.' And immediately the leprosy left him." Folks, this is perfect, unmerited, immediate cleansing. Just like what happens when he saves us by his grace. I trust you've all experienced that. Whenever I think of this passage, I think of the lyrics that we've sung before. "He touched me, oh, He touched me," right? "And oh, the joy that floods my soul; something happened, and now I know; He touched me, and He made me whole."

What an analogy here, of a desperate sinner coming to Christ, covered with the leprosy of sin. We're told in Isaiah 64:5 that even our righteous deeds are like filthy garments. You come acknowledging Jesus as Lord, as this man did, casting yourself upon him in all of your poverty, all of your spiritual impurity. I think too of that great hymn, I think it's the third verse, Augustus Toplady wrote, "Rock of Ages." It says,

"Nothing in my hand I bring,

simply to Thy cross I cling;

Naked come to Thee for dress,

helpless look to Thee for grace;

Foul, I to the fountain fly,

Wash me, Savior, or I die."

“Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean." "'I am willing,'" he says, '"be cleansed. And immediately the leprosy left him." Oh, the joy of cleansing when our sins are washed away by the blood of the Lamb. Titus three, beginning in verse five, says that, "He saved us not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,

"...whom He poured out upon us richly through Christ Jesus, or through Jesus Christ our Savior,

"so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life."

You know, folks, we witness the disfigurement of the leprosy of sin all the time, all around us. And my heart breaks when I see these people. I saw even this week, once again, they had some young man who was trying to pretend to be a woman and some transgender in some big waiting area in a university in Florida and the police had confronted him and he had black and blue hair hanging down over his eyes, and he was just screaming at the top of his lungs, just like he was crazy, like he was possessed, because the policeman misgendered him. And you just look at all of that, and you shake your head in dismay, and you wonder how could a person become that depraved? And they're affirmed by the lunatic left. I mean, that's what's also frightening.

If I can digress for a moment, I want to remind you that that God calls this whole LGBTQ movement an abomination. In fact, he sandwiches his condemnation of homosexuality between the abomination of child sacrifice and bestiality in Leviticus 18:21 through 23, and our culture's obsession with transgenderism is a prime example of a depraved mind; a demonic lie. You know, it's detestable to God - this whole movement - because it eradicates supposedly the image of God in males and females, the way he created us. In fact, God has made it clear that cross dressers, transvestites, transgenders, transsexuals, drag queens, whatever-all of those people are detestable to God. Deuteronomy 22:5, "A woman shall not wear a man's clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman's clothing. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God." Folks, pretending to be someone of the opposite sex is abhorrent to God. But let me tell you, despite being covered with the leprosy of that kind of sin, there is cleansing in Jesus. First Corinthians six, beginning in verse nine, the apostle Paul reminds us under the inspiration of the Spirit, "Do you not know that the unrighteousness will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals.... will inherit the kingdom of God." And then he says this, "Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God." Oh, the amazing good news of the gospel, Amen? Oh, no matter what our sin, Jesus can cleanse us. Isaiah one and verse 18, “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be what as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they will be like wool."

So Jesus touched the leper and healed him completely. Then in verse 14 he says, "And He ordered him to tell no one." It doesn't say exactly why, maybe you know, don't try to be a celebrity here, and and certainly don't try to bring more crowds. Already, you know Jesus was, you remember, he was already pushed out into the water and had to get in a boat. Remember, the crowds were massive. In Mark one verse 45, we read that Jesus could no longer publicly enter a city, but stayed out in unpopulated areas; so they were coming to him from everywhere. But instead, he says, "Go," verse 14, "'Go show yourself to the priest and make an offering for your cleansing, just as Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.'" So, in other words - mind you, now they're out in Galilee, so the guy's got to walk all the way to Jerusalem to the temple - go to the temple, be examined. If you study that, you'll see this is an eight-day process. There's washings, there's multiple animal sacrifices along with grain and oil sacrifices and so forth. And, again, what a testimony this would be to the priest! Like, "Yeah, I had leprosy; I was covered with it." "My, it's all gone. How did this happen?" "Jesus did it." That's the testimony, and certainly he wanted him to demonstrate that to the priests and be obedient to the law, and also prove to the priests that Jesus was obedient to the law, and it was a false claim that he was violating the law and coming up with some new religious system.

Luke goes on to say in verse 15 that the, ".... news about Him was spreading even farther..." And part of the reason why is because of what the leper did. Let me tell you what he did in Mark 145. And by the way, I can understand this, it says, "He went out and began to proclaim it freely and to spread the news around." I mean, I can understand that. It's like, well, didn't Jesus tell you..."I can't help it, I'm just so excited," you know. So that's what happened.

So Luke says in verse 15,

"But the news about Him was spreading even farther, and large crowds were gathering to hear Him and be healed of their sicknesses.

"But Jesus himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray."

Beloved, what an example he gives us here. May I remind you that without prayer, you will never be effective in your Christian life. You will never have power in your Christian life, and in many ways, you will forfeit blessing because you refuse to be in communion in an intimate way with the lover of your soul. You know, I encourage all of you to have secluded places where you go alone to be with God. You all need that. You often hear the word "closet" - that's what they used to call it, "the closet of prayer." That may be the place to go; my closets are filled with junk. I couldn't get in there, but I have other places where I can go; the secluded places where you can have uninterrupted communion with him. In fact, I like to be so secluded that I talk out loud to the Lord. There we can go and offer our petitions and praise. Beloved, prayer should be the very air that you breathe, as it was Jesus.

So we've seen desperation and compassion. Secondly, notice faith and forgiveness in this second illustration. Notice verse 17. "One day He was teaching..." Now let me pause there. Mark says in chapter 2:2, "And many were gathered together, so that there was no longer room, not even near the door; and He was speaking the word to them." So he's opening up the word of God to the people, all right? That's what he's teaching them, even as I am endeavoring to do here this morning, and he's doing this now in a home, a large home, as we will see. So again, verse 17, "One day He was teaching; and there were some Pharisees and teachers of the law..." - these would be the scribes, they were also Pharisees, but they were especially trained in the law, so, "...some Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem." So, mind you, word has gotten around, and these guys are, "All right, we've got to go see what's going on here." And so you can imagine now: there's this large house, and there's standing room only, except for the religious elite that always had the chief seats, right? And so they've got some seats right up here in the front row, and I'm sure that's just the way the Spirit of God wanted it, so they could have a front row view of what was about to happen. 

So they're coming from all over the place, and then the phrase says, "And the power of the Lord was present for Him to perform healing." I don't want to skip over this. Let me dwell on this just for a moment because it's so precious and it has such implications in our lives. I want you to remember that Jesus' obedience to the will of the Father was not animated by his intrinsic divine nature as God, because he had voluntarily set that aside, right, when he took on the nature of a man; but rather it was solely through his human nature as he relied upon the power of the Spirit of God, the same power that we have. Now he doesn't give us the power to heal in this dispensation. Those gifts were for basically communicating to people the authenticity of the message and the messenger. We already have the message now; it's in the closed canon of Scripture; but we have the power of the indwelling Spirit to be obedient. And so he did not depend upon his divine nature, for example, to resist sin or to perform miracles. He did this through the power of the Spirit.

Now, let's join the crowd, all right, that's in the house. I want to. I want you to come with me. We're gonna. We're gonna go in here, and I don't know, we're gonna kind of go upstairs, we're gonna look down and see what's going on in that big room. And you're gonna find that there's three kinds of people that are following Jesus. I've labeled them. You have first of all the selfless truth seekers. These are the ones that have probably already been saved. I mean, they're there, they're worshiping Christ. They love him, they can't wait to hear more from him. But then you also have the selfish miracle seekers. They care nothing for the truth. They don't really care for the gospel. They're only looking for physical healing, or maybe for some more entertainment. These people are ruled by their emotions, ruled by the flesh, etc. We have the same kind of groups of people in evangelical churches today. And then finally, you have the self-righteous self-seekers. These are the arrogant, envious, factious fault finders. They're looking for their own following, for their own platform. These, of course, would be the scribes and the Pharisees, and they hated Jesus. They wanted to kill him. I mean, they were there to destroy; Jesus wants to deliver. They were there to deceive; Jesus is there to disclose the truth of the gospel and so forth.

Now, the Pharisees and the scribes, remember, are absolutely obsessed with rituals, with law keeping, which included a myriad of absolutely ridiculous man-made rules and regulations that they wanted to force on everyone. And if you're ever around legalists, you will see that they're obsessed with doing the same thing. They want to make sure that everybody's obeying the rules. And by the way, there's no end to the rules. Once you obey them, now there's more, because this is what gives you the illusion of spirituality. Now these guys were also notorious hypocrites. In fact, Jesus reserved his most scathing denunciations for them. Remember in Matthew 23, verse 23 and following, Jesus says, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You blind guides who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence." Now, of course, you're always going to have these kinds of people, even in the church. I'm sure there's some here. I call it churchianity. Phony Christians will always exist in the sphere of the true church. In fact, in Second Peter 2:1, we read about them when Peter says they will secretly introduce destructive heresies. Doesn't mean they're always teachers or preachers, just people that will do this. I mean, by the way, think of this unimaginably wicked woke agenda that is now in evangelical churches. Somebody has secretly introduced those destructive heresies.

In Acts 20, Paul warns in verse 29, "...savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore, be on the alert." These people are always looking for a following. That's what was going on with the Pharisees and the scribes. More people were following Jesus than them. You know, how come everybody's going after this guy? I mean, this is just a man. I mean, he's from Nazareth. He's a carpenter's son. I mean, what is the deal?

By the way, Paul also says in First Corinthians 11 verse 18, "I hear that divisions exist among you, and in part I believe it, for there must also be factions among you." Why? "So that those who are approved may become evident among you." In other words, divisive, factious people are necessary in God's plan for the church. He has a reason for that. He allows them to exist in the church for the reason of contrasting the genuine from the false; the godly from the ungodly, those that walk by the Spirit versus those that walk by the flesh, and so forth.

Well, anyway, you got all three groups now gathered here in that house with Jesus, and then notice what happens, verse 18,

"And some men were carrying on a bed a man who was paralyzed; and they were trying to bring him in and to set him down in front of Him. 

"But not finding any way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down through the tiles with his stretcher, into the middle of the crowd, in front of Jesus."

Oh, I can see that flannel graph right now when I was in Sunday school. In fact, I hope I'm not making this up. I think I remember, you know how the teachers would say, "Well, why don't you come up here?" I think I remember once letting the guy down on the flannel graph. I may be wrong. Maybe that's in my imagination, but it's a good story, anyway, right? But that's what happens here. Now you've got to understand the houses in those days. They would have beams that would span the house and go all the way over to the walls, but the walls would continue up. So you would have maybe a floor and then another floor on top of where the beams were, with the walls that would extend up and kind of form, shall we say, a deck or a patio type of a thing. And by the way, they still have this in Israel. I don't think they're allowed to build anything over three stories, and they all have patios up on the top, and you'll see big black plastic water tanks. That's how they heat their water. You know, you always have lots of sun, so the water is heated by the tanks, and people go up there and they eat. And I've been on top of many of those places with folks. So larger homes then would often use tile for roofing on top of some other things that they would have underneath that. Typically, then they would also have a stairway that would be attached to the outside so that you could go up to the top without going from the inside and so forth; and so this is what's going on here. They can't get in because of the crowd, and so they've got to come up with another way. So they probably then go up on the stairway, and they remove some of the tiles to somehow get their paralytic friend down there, and I'm sure I can kind of see people like, what's this falling down here? What what's going on here? And then all of a sudden, they see this dude coming down. I mean, it'd be an amazing sight, wouldn't it?

By the way, I'm impressed with this man's loyal friends, aren't you? Oh, to have loyal friends! Oh, and I have so many of them. We, Nancy and I, with so many of you. Oh, we rejoice in that. I mean, think about that. They're ignoring the stigma from other people that this man's being cursed by God. No, no, no. We're not buying that. They're faithful. They're determined to help. And if I can put it very practically, they're not paying other people to go do the work of ministry. They're rolling up their sleeves and they're doing it themselves, and that's what we see happening here. A friend in need is a friend indeed, right? And that's what this man has.

Mark tells us in his gospel in chapter two, verse three,

"And they came, bringing to Him a paralytic, carried by four men.

"Being unable to get Him in because of the crowd, they removed the roof above Him; and when they had dug an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying."

 And then notice what happens back to Luke's gospel in verse 20, "Seeing their faith, He said, 'Friend, your sins are forgiven you.'" In fact, in Mark's gospel, Mark two verse five, it says, "And seeing their faith," in his omniscience, he saw their faith; he knew that they wanted something more than just physical healing here, they wanted forgiveness of sin. And I think we have every reason to believe that all of those men, including the paralytic, were saved.

I want to pause here for a moment as well to remind you that Jesus knows who is among the elect, who is part of the bride that the Father has given him. John six makes that very clear. So Jesus could discern who is sincere, who is insincere. We can't do that. He could. In fact, you will recall in John two beginning in verse 23, it says,

"Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing.

"But Jesus," - they believed in his name, they believed he could do these miracles - "But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man." So he saw what was in their hearts, and Jesus sees their faith. Jesus sees their faith. Faith is a gift from God, is it not? (Ephesians 2:8).  And may I remind you just some of great theology here. It is the result of regeneration. That instantaneous supernatural impartation of spiritual life to the spiritually dead, that raises a spiritual cadaver to spiritual life; a resurrection, if you will. So there is an opening of blind eyes.

Let me get a little bit more technical here. Remember, the act of faith does not initiate the Spirit's work of regeneration. Just the opposite is true. The Spirit's work of regeneration initiates the act of faith, even though they may occur, shall we say, simultaneously as we think about it. Remember in Second Corinthians 4:4, Paul illustrated this by comparing regeneration to giving spiritual sight to blind eyes of a sinner, so he can see the light of Christ's glory. I won't take time to read that whole passage but think about this: as soon as blind eyes are open, they instantly perceive the light. However, seeing the light did not cause him to open his eyes. His sight was the consequence of his eyes being open? That's the same as in the case of regeneration. So that's what we have here. And oh, what precious words! My mind cannot move away from them. "Your sins are forgiven." Yes, you're guilty, but you've been pardoned. Oh, what glorious words! Aren't you thankful that we have a forgiving God? Acts 10 verse 43, "Through His name, everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins." Beloved, this is the greatest need that we have every single day of our life, because as Psalm 130 verse three says, "If you Lord should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?" None of us could. "But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared." Thus we sing,

"My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought

My sin, not in part but the whole,

is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more.

Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Oh my soul!

Now it's fair to ask: Okay, wait a minute! How could these men understand what Jesus is going to do? That he would be the sacrifice for their sin? Well, certainly they couldn't at this point because that hadn't happened yet. Jesus had not yet gone to the cross. So the question is: How are people saved before the cross? How are Old Testament people saved? And these would still be in that category. Well, the answer is all people are saved by grace through faith in God's mercy, which was later demonstrated at the cross. So these people are saved, shall we say on credit. God saves them; when a person confessed their sin, and they came to God in repentant faith and cried out for mercy, knowing that they deserve nothing, God saves them, or God saved them. You will recall the contrast between the self-righteous Pharisee; remember how he was bragging, how he does all of these things before God, so everybody could see what a great spiritual man he was? And then you've got the penitent sinner, right? Luke 18, verse 13 says, "But the tax collector, who was the penitent sinner, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, the sinner. I tell you, this man went to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he humbles he who humbles himself will be exalted.'" That's Old Testament salvation right there. That happened before Jesus went to the cross. And after Christ's atoning work on the cross and his resurrection from the dead, the penitent sinner must now place his faith in the only object of saving faith, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. And this faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ, (Romans 10:17). Acts 4:12, "And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved." Romans 10 verse nine, "If you confess with your mouth 'Jesus as Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead,  you will be saved."

Well, Jesus forgiving sin was just too much for the religious elite. They couldn't stand it. The Pharisees and the scribes could see their power slipping away. Verse 21,

"The scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, 'Who is this man who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?

"But Jesus, aware of their reasonings," in other words, he knows what they're thinking,  "answered and said to them, 'Why are you reasoning in your hearts?'"

Now, he knows they're conflicted here because it's like, okay, wait a minute, if this guy is just a mere man, how did this guy get healed? So he capitalizes on their biased quandary by challenging them to answer a question. Verse 23, "'Which is easier, to say, "Your sins have been forgiven you," or to say, "Get up and walk"?'" Well, obviously, it's easier to say your sins have been forgiven you, because there's no way you could affirm or deny that. But if you're going to tell somebody that's paralyzed to get up and walk, I mean the proof is in the pudding, as we would say, right? Now, to be sure, a man could do neither one of those things. So for Jesus to demonstrate his authority over the physical realm and the effects of sin, namely in this case the paralysis, would also demonstrate his authority over the spiritual realm. It's because of sin that we even have these horrific things, all of these diseases, and so he had authority and power to forgive sin in the inner man that causes disease and death in the outer man.

So he says to them in verse 24, "'But, so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,’ - He said to the paralytic - "'I say to you, get up and pick up your stretcher and go home.'" You imagine the scene? Oh, to have seen the look on their faces! What a magnificent illustration of faith and forgiveness.

Verse 25,

"Immediately he got up before them, picked up what he had been lying on, and went home glorifying God.

"They were all struck with astonishment and began glorifying God; and they were filled with fear, saying, 'We have seen remarkable things today.'"

Oh, dear friends, please hear me. The fear of the Lord, we are told, in Proverbs nine and verse 10, "is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." I hope these great truths grip your heart - the fear of the Lord - this is what gripped their hearts. It is the beginning of knowledge. But Proverbs 1 says that "fools despise wisdom and instruction." Let me tell you what else fools do according to God's word. Fools deny God, blaspheme God, mock sin, feed on foolishness, die for a lack of wisdom, display their folly, make sport of mischief. They are corrupt and abominable, self-sufficient, self-confident, self-deceived, mere professors of religion, full of words, given to quarreling, slanderers, liars, slothful, angry, contentious, proud, a grief to their parents. They worship idols. They trust in their own hearts. They depend upon their wealth, and they will hear the gospel, but they will not obey it. Sound familiar? Oh, dear friend, don't be a fool. Ephesians 5:17, the apostle Paul says, "So then, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." What is the will of the Lord? That you come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and cry out to him for his saving grace, and he will cleanse every leprous spot of sin, on the inside and on the out.

And for those of us who know and love Christ, may we celebrate the cleansing that we've experienced, and tell others the good news, like the leprous man did, that was healed. We just need to tell everybody, "Hey, I've been healed by God's grace." Amen? Amen.

Father, thank you for the glorious truths of your word. May they bear much fruit to the praise of your glory in each one of us. And for those that have never come to saving faith in Christ, O Lord, won't you break their heart, cause them to see the reality of their sinfulness and all that it is doing in them and to them and through them, and help them to see what awaits them in an eternal hell, unless they repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? We ask these things for his sake, Amen.