General Session 9: Triumph through Pardon - Nathan Busenitz
00:00:00.000 | Well, good morning, men, and Bob, thank you so much for leading us in those songs of praise
00:00:09.920 | to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
00:00:12.840 | I want to begin this morning just by expressing my gratitude to the Lord for all of you men.
00:00:22.980 | It is an incredible encouragement to spend this week surrounded by such like-minded brothers,
00:00:31.560 | surrounded by men who share a commitment to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the authority
00:00:37.080 | of His Word, a commitment to the advancement of His gospel and the edification of His church.
00:00:43.020 | And so, I just want to begin by saying thank you for your faithfulness.
00:00:49.480 | It is a joy and a delight to open the Word of God for us this morning, and our text this
00:00:58.100 | morning is found in Mark chapter 2, Mark chapter 2, verses 1 to 17.
00:01:08.600 | In his commentary on this passage, John MacArthur begins with this probing question, "What is
00:01:17.480 | mankind's greatest problem?"
00:01:21.900 | What is mankind's greatest problem?
00:01:24.480 | And the obvious answer to that question, of course, is sin.
00:01:30.320 | It is sin that has separated man from God, and it is on account of sin that man stands
00:01:36.360 | guilty before the law of God, condemned and rightly consigned to death, both in this life
00:01:43.720 | and in the next.
00:01:47.260 | And yet, as Pastor John points out in his comments, mankind's greatest problem is not
00:01:55.120 | merely sin.
00:01:58.880 | After all, those in heaven and those in hell, both heaven and hell, consist of people who
00:02:05.720 | were sinners in this life.
00:02:09.960 | The difference between those in heaven and those in hell is not that one group were sinners
00:02:14.800 | and the other group was not.
00:02:18.240 | It is instead that those who are in heaven have had their sins forgiven, and those in
00:02:25.420 | hell have not.
00:02:29.400 | And so, mankind's greatest problem is not merely sin, it is unforgiven sin.
00:02:40.100 | And if mankind's greatest problem is unforgiven sin, then mankind's greatest need is for forgiveness.
00:02:48.420 | It's for forgiveness.
00:02:54.280 | Our theme of the conference this week is that truth triumphs, and my specific topic this
00:03:00.880 | morning is the triumph of divine pardon.
00:03:05.980 | What I hope to show you from this text here in Mark chapter 2 is the reality that in the
00:03:11.380 | gospel through the person and work of Jesus Christ, that divine pardon triumphs over our
00:03:18.420 | desperate condition and our deserved condemnation.
00:03:24.040 | That divine pardon triumphs over deserved punishment.
00:03:30.380 | That the truth or the reality of our sinful depravity is overcome by the reality and truth
00:03:39.820 | of divine grace, the reality and truth of the gospel.
00:03:47.180 | The power and necessity of forgiveness is such that where forgiveness is absent, no
00:03:56.660 | sinner, no matter how noble or seemingly moral, can ever earn the righteousness necessary
00:04:03.540 | to enter into heaven.
00:04:07.100 | And yet, where divine forgiveness is bestowed by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, any
00:04:14.300 | sinner, no matter how wretched or worthless, can be pardoned, justified, given the hope
00:04:22.820 | of eternal life, and welcomed into the presence of God.
00:04:30.760 | This is the triumph of divine pardon.
00:04:34.900 | A couple months ago, I came across the story of a man named Henry Garricky.
00:04:44.300 | You've probably never heard about him before, but he was a chaplain in the U.S. Army in
00:04:49.940 | World War II.
00:04:52.180 | He was an evangelical Lutheran pastor, and he was in his mid-to-late forties when he
00:04:59.780 | was serving in the U.S. Army during that conflict.
00:05:03.200 | And when the war ended, in part because he had experience working with prisoners of war,
00:05:11.000 | and in part because he had studied German and spoke it fluently, he was asked by his
00:05:15.960 | commanding officers if he would be willing to serve as the chaplain for the Nazi war
00:05:21.780 | criminals who were to be tried at Nuremberg.
00:05:28.520 | He was given time to consider whether or not he would take that assignment.
00:05:34.420 | And as you might imagine, it was a prayerful and difficult process as he considered whether
00:05:44.280 | or not he would take on that ministry.
00:05:49.320 | He had political reasons to be reluctant.
00:05:53.000 | After all, the Nazis had been the enemies of the allied forces throughout all of World
00:05:57.880 | War II, and he was being asked to minister to the enemy.
00:06:04.640 | More than that, he had personal and family reasons to hesitate.
00:06:08.840 | Two of his adult sons fighting for the U.S. Army had been severely injured in their conflicts
00:06:15.220 | with the Germans.
00:06:17.920 | And of course, he had the moral revulsion and aversion that we would all feel.
00:06:24.860 | He had been to the Dachau concentration camp, and he had seen the aftermath of the horrors
00:06:31.620 | that took place there.
00:06:34.020 | According to his biographer, he had leaned his hand against the blood-soaked walls at
00:06:39.600 | Dachau and felt viscerally the horror of that evil.
00:06:47.600 | And yet he was being asked if he would serve as the pastor, the minister, the chaplain
00:06:56.360 | to the men who had been the closest associates and confidants and colleagues of Adolf Hitler
00:07:03.680 | himself.
00:07:06.280 | You can understand why it was a tough decision.
00:07:15.580 | Well Gehrig, he accepted that assignment, but it was not because of any affection for
00:07:23.200 | the Nazi Party or what the Third Reich represented.
00:07:28.600 | It was instead because he believed in the power of the gospel.
00:07:35.240 | And he knew that if there was any hope for any sinner, including the leadership of the
00:07:41.840 | Nazi Party, Nazi war criminals, if there was any hope for them, it could only be found
00:07:51.560 | in the forgiveness that is offered through Jesus Christ.
00:07:56.560 | Well, in our text this morning, Mark chapter 2, verses 1 to 17, there are no Nazis.
00:08:06.640 | But there are two men, two accounts, one of a paralytic in verses 1 through 12, and one
00:08:16.360 | of a tax collector in verses 13 through 17.
00:08:21.720 | Two men who lived very different lives, though they were both from the same town of Capernaum.
00:08:29.760 | One a paralytic who was completely incapacitated, likely quadriplegic, unable to move, entirely
00:08:40.480 | dependent on others to do anything, hopeless, helpless, and completely desperate.
00:08:49.840 | The other, a tax collector, a publican, one who had betrayed his own countrymen, was willing
00:08:58.840 | to exploit them and extort them in order to pad his own pockets, considered the worst
00:09:06.080 | of the worst, hated by his own people, he was deeply despised.
00:09:14.840 | And in the minds of the first-century Jewish religious system, the first man, because of
00:09:20.760 | his physical infirmity, would have been considered under some form of divine judgment.
00:09:27.820 | And the second man, because of choices he had made, would have been regarded as outside
00:09:33.160 | the scope of God's forgiveness and pardon.
00:09:40.800 | Yet these two men, though their lives were very different, shared one essential need
00:09:45.920 | because they had one great problem, the same problem that every sinner has, the problem
00:09:53.440 | of unforgiven sin and the need for forgiveness.
00:10:00.400 | And this morning, I want to highlight the glory of divine forgiveness from this passage.
00:10:06.520 | We're going to look at these two accounts, we're actually going to consider them in parallel
00:10:12.320 | fashion, going back and forth between the two.
00:10:18.200 | Both accounts are found together in all three of the Synoptic Gospels, in Matthew chapter
00:10:23.440 | 9, in Luke chapter 5, and here in Mark 2.
00:10:28.200 | And I believe they're placed together because they took place in chronological sequence,
00:10:33.620 | one right after the other, and yet in God's providence, that chronological sequence also
00:10:39.780 | serves to make a powerful theological point.
00:10:45.800 | And I hope to demonstrate that point to you this morning from this text.
00:10:53.140 | Now I've chosen Mark's gospel of the three Synoptic Gospels to convey these accounts
00:10:59.600 | to you, and I've done that in part because, as you know, Mark records the memoirs of Peter.
00:11:10.320 | And I just think it's interesting to consider these accounts from Peter's perspective.
00:11:16.040 | The gospel of Mark really is the gospel according to Peter as written down by Mark.
00:11:23.280 | And the first account took place at Peter's house, and the second account took place near
00:11:28.720 | the seashore where Peter often fished.
00:11:34.840 | Now as we consider the context of these two accounts, here in the book of Mark, Mark of
00:11:41.340 | course begins his gospel with the public ministry of John the Baptist and then the public ministry
00:11:46.840 | of Jesus.
00:11:48.920 | And in Mark chapter 1, what we see highlighted repeatedly is Jesus' authority, His divine
00:11:56.240 | authority to cast out demons and to heal disease.
00:12:03.780 | In Mark chapter 1 verse 22, we see that Jesus had authority to teach, that He taught, unlike
00:12:09.680 | the scribes and Pharisees, as one having authority.
00:12:15.120 | And then in verses 22 or 23 to 28, we see His authority over demons expressed as He
00:12:24.680 | casts out the demon from the man in the synagogue.
00:12:28.920 | Verses 29 to 31, His authority over disease as He heals Peter's mother-in-law.
00:12:37.200 | In the verses that follow, we see His authority to cast out many demons and to heal many diseases.
00:12:43.560 | And the climax of chapter 1 ends with the poignant passage of the leper who comes to
00:12:48.320 | Him in an incredibly moving scene, the leper pleads, "Lord, if You are willing, You can
00:12:57.520 | make me clean," and our Savior responds to him by saying, "I am willing, be cleansed."
00:13:07.960 | And so in Mark chapter 1, you see the authority, the divine authority of our Lord Jesus Christ,
00:13:16.400 | but it is expressed in ways that alleviate the temporal suffering of those who receive
00:13:24.640 | the benefit of those healing miracles.
00:13:30.440 | Christ has the authority to alleviate temporary suffering by bringing physical healing and
00:13:36.080 | by casting out demons, and even by making one who was ceremonially unclean clean.
00:13:44.240 | The question still remains as we come into Mark 2, does He have the authority to accomplish
00:13:49.720 | that same kind of salvation, not in a temporal and physical sense, but in an eternal and
00:13:56.280 | everlasting spiritual sense?
00:14:02.480 | Does He have the authority not only over sickness and not only over the spiritual forces of
00:14:09.360 | the demonic world, but does He have authority over sin itself such that He can pardon and
00:14:16.040 | forgive?
00:14:20.120 | The immediate context of the first scene is found in verses 1 and 2.
00:14:24.240 | We see that Jesus has returned to Capernaum.
00:14:27.780 | He has returned to what is the home base of His Galilean ministry, and specifically He's
00:14:33.720 | returned to Peter's house, and He's teaching in the house, and the crowds are flocking
00:14:39.800 | to Him.
00:14:41.480 | No doubt some are convicted by the authoritative weight of His teaching, others are simply
00:14:46.960 | curious because they've heard about the miracles.
00:14:52.420 | So whether drawn by conviction or curiosity, the reality is that He is pressed in by the
00:14:58.440 | crowds.
00:15:01.160 | It is literally standing room only in that small space.
00:15:08.040 | And then if you were to look down at verse 13, you see a very similar immediate context
00:15:13.520 | for the second scene.
00:15:15.800 | Here Jesus has left the house and has gone down to the seashore, and yet He is still
00:15:20.840 | pressed in by the crowds.
00:15:25.500 | And in both contexts, He is teaching them, specifically verse 2, He is teaching them
00:15:32.360 | the Word of God.
00:15:36.620 | And the lesson that He will impart to them on this occasion is a lesson that I am confident
00:15:46.600 | none who were there ever forgot, and one that has direct import for us today, a lesson about
00:15:54.980 | the power of forgiveness.
00:16:00.140 | Now as we work our way through these two accounts, and again we're going to go through them in
00:16:04.500 | parallel fashion, going from one account to the other and back and forth, we're going
00:16:10.620 | to organize our thoughts around five elements in these accounts that help us work through
00:16:18.900 | the unfolding drama, but the point of all of it is to magnify the glory and wonder of
00:16:25.780 | divine forgiveness.
00:16:31.260 | The first of these five elements I have simply called "the sinners," "the sinners."
00:16:42.100 | We meet two different sinners in these two accounts, the first in verses 3 and 4, the
00:16:50.140 | second in verse 14, and the first is the paralytic.
00:16:57.940 | Mark says this in chapter 2 verses 3 and 4, "And they came bringing to Jesus a paralytic,
00:17:06.580 | carried by four men, and being unable to get to him because of the crowd, they removed
00:17:13.700 | the roof above him.
00:17:16.940 | And when they had dug an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was
00:17:23.780 | lying."
00:17:24.780 | A couple of observations jump out from these verses.
00:17:32.460 | First of all, we see the inability of the paralytic himself.
00:17:37.660 | Verse 3, he is completely unable to do anything for himself, unable to move, unable to help
00:17:45.300 | himself to anything, and yet he has heard, no doubt, about the healing ministry of Jesus,
00:17:51.740 | the reputation of our Lord is spreading throughout Capernaum and the surrounding regions of Galilee,
00:18:00.700 | and so desperate for healing, desperate to meet the Savior.
00:18:08.540 | This man has no way to get to Jesus unless someone else helps him.
00:18:15.460 | And the theme of inability is again emphasized in verse 4 because even after this man finds
00:18:25.120 | four friends to carry him to Jesus, the friends are still unable to get to Jesus.
00:18:35.420 | They encounter a wall of people, impenetrable.
00:18:43.780 | The other synoptic accounts indicate that the door was completely blocked, desperate.
00:18:54.440 | These men make their way to the roof, and they begin to dig.
00:19:04.200 | Typical first-century Galilean house was built with crisscrossing timbers to create the roof.
00:19:12.920 | Large timbers that functioned as beams, smaller timbers that functioned as rafters, and then
00:19:19.040 | thatch that was put over those rafters, and then finally a mud and clay mixture that was
00:19:25.360 | laid on top to create a solid and waterproof surface.
00:19:31.280 | It was strong enough that you could stand on the roof, and because the roofs were flat,
00:19:37.200 | oftentimes staircases were put on the outside so that you could access that space like an
00:19:42.800 | outdoor deck or patio.
00:19:47.440 | And these men, in their desperation, in their desire to get to Jesus, they climb those stairs.
00:19:56.540 | And I'm sure it must have been a remarkable moment for everyone in the house below when
00:20:01.960 | all of a sudden they started to hear digging above, as debris began to fall down, and dust
00:20:12.840 | and straw and hardened mud and clay is hitting the ground and getting in people's hair.
00:20:22.480 | And I have to think about this moment again from Peter's perspective.
00:20:26.200 | This is his house.
00:20:30.800 | Nobody wants a hole in their roof.
00:20:35.260 | And then a little bit of daylight, and then the daylight gets bigger and bigger, and suddenly
00:20:40.500 | there's four faces peering down and a crowd below looking up, and everyone in the room
00:20:47.840 | except for Jesus is wondering, "What are you guys doing?"
00:20:54.700 | And then a pallet appears, and it is slowly lowered to the floor.
00:21:02.080 | Well, we're going to have to leave that sinner there suspended in the air and look at our
00:21:15.160 | second scene, the second sinner, to use the old King James, the publican – I like that
00:21:26.300 | because it's alliterated with the paralytic – but the tax collector.
00:21:36.660 | Mark chapter 2 verse 14, the first part of the verse, "And Jesus, or as Jesus passed
00:21:43.020 | by, He saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting in a tax booth."
00:21:54.180 | What are we to make of this second sinner, this man named Levi, the son of Alphaeus?
00:21:59.700 | Well, I think it's significant that his Hebrew name, Levi, is used in this context.
00:22:07.740 | We of course know him by his more familiar Greek name, Matthew, but here he is called
00:22:12.980 | by his Hebrew name, Levi, indicating almost certainly that he was from the tribe of Levi,
00:22:20.740 | the tribe of Levi, the Levitical tribe being the priestly tribe.
00:22:25.820 | If Levi had been true to his family heritage, he would have been a spiritual leader in Israel,
00:22:32.380 | one who would help in temple worship.
00:22:36.500 | Not only that, but we're told that he's the son of Alphaeus, indicating or at least
00:22:42.180 | suggesting that he was from a respected Jewish family.
00:22:48.880 | And yet, this man had turned his back on that spiritual privilege and on his own family's
00:22:57.620 | reputation in order to pursue his own greed and to pad his own pockets.
00:23:06.620 | Capernaum, because it was the largest city on the Sea of Galilee, was a prime spot for
00:23:19.160 | Rome to collect taxes.
00:23:22.560 | Rome collected taxes on all sorts of things, poll taxes, land taxes, taxes on the transport
00:23:28.720 | of goods and even on travel.
00:23:33.460 | And given the location of Levi's tax booth near the seashore, it's likely that he collected
00:23:41.340 | taxes on those who were transporting goods to the market, including those who had recently
00:23:48.680 | caught fish in the Sea of Galilee and were bringing it to sell.
00:23:54.940 | Again, I think about this from Peter's perspective because Peter was a fisherman, and Peter along
00:24:03.980 | with Andrew and James and John, they likely knew Levi well.
00:24:08.060 | This is the guy that always takes his cut.
00:24:16.060 | Tax collectors were the most hated class of people within first century Jewish society.
00:24:24.520 | They were viewed as traitors and turncoats, as sellouts, as those who were willing to
00:24:31.040 | extort and exploit their own people in order to collect money for the hated Roman oppressors.
00:24:41.180 | Rome generally collected or insisted on a quota to be collected by tax collectors, but
00:24:47.860 | then anything that they collected above and beyond that quota they could keep for themselves.
00:24:52.860 | And as a result, this model, it bred all sorts of corruption and greed and exploitation.
00:25:04.380 | So here we have Levi sitting in his tax booth, hated by his countrymen, likely disowned by
00:25:13.960 | his own family, consumed with greed and yet overwhelmed with guilt.
00:25:22.800 | I want you to consider for a moment again the condition of these two sinners.
00:25:31.800 | The first, utterly unable, and the second, deeply despised.
00:25:42.720 | A cripple and a criminal, one desperate, one detested, the paralytic and the publican.
00:25:54.440 | Well, we move then to the second element in these two accounts, from the sinners to the
00:26:03.760 | Savior, from the sinners to the Savior.
00:26:07.600 | Let's go back to our first account.
00:26:10.640 | We've left this paralytic suspended in midair, being lowered down by his four friends, eventually
00:26:21.640 | and slowly being lowered to the ground.
00:26:30.500 | Everyone in that crowded room perplexed and perturbed, Peter in particular wondering what
00:26:37.000 | has happened to his house, and Jesus alone knowing that what is about to happen is a
00:26:43.800 | divine and sovereign appointment.
00:26:48.500 | And as that man is lowered down to the ground, I imagine him looking up at Christ and Christ
00:26:54.560 | looking back at him and recognizing this man's true need.
00:27:02.740 | He says to him in verse 5, "Son, I say to you, your sins are forgiven.
00:27:15.860 | Your sins are forgiven."
00:27:22.620 | Rather than focusing on the temporal healing that I'm sure this man desired, Jesus instead
00:27:29.760 | focuses on that which is eternal.
00:27:33.060 | He looks past the external to the internal.
00:27:37.180 | He looks at this man's heart.
00:27:40.740 | And again, within first century Judaism, it was very common to view those who were sick
00:27:47.980 | or those who were physically infirm as being the subjects or the objects of God's special
00:27:54.500 | divine wrath and judgment, that this man must have sinned in some great way that he would
00:28:01.740 | be in this condition.
00:28:05.940 | And what relief this man must have felt in that instant when looking at our Lord he hears
00:28:12.700 | the Lord say to him, "Son, your sins are forgiven."
00:28:23.020 | What mercy, what kindness, what compassion, what a Savior.
00:28:32.020 | Well, there's a similar thing that happens in the second account because with the calling
00:28:44.020 | of Levi, we again meet the Savior in verses 14 and 15.
00:28:50.540 | And as Jesus passed by, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting in the tax booth.
00:28:57.620 | And he said to him, "Follow me."
00:29:02.160 | And Levi got up and followed Jesus.
00:29:04.460 | And it happened that Jesus was reclining at Levi's table in his house.
00:29:12.700 | And many tax collectors and sinners were dining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were
00:29:19.620 | many of them, and they were following him.
00:29:26.300 | I want you to notice that it was Jesus who saw Levi.
00:29:34.260 | In Luke 5, it says that Jesus noticed Levi.
00:29:37.860 | It was Jesus who took the initiative and who called Levi to repentance.
00:29:46.420 | And according to Luke chapter 5 again, Levi, having been summoned to follow Christ, left
00:29:52.700 | everything and followed him.
00:30:03.000 | Not only did Jesus call Levi to repentance and by implication offer him forgiveness,
00:30:14.220 | but Jesus was willing to fellowship with this now former tax collector and all of Matthew's
00:30:22.900 | friends.
00:30:25.720 | The account from Luke again says that Matthew held a great feast and he called all of his
00:30:31.580 | friends, all of the other tax collectors, and all of the other social outcasts, they
00:30:36.700 | all came.
00:30:39.360 | And here in Mark 2, we read that they were hearing Jesus and they were following him.
00:30:45.420 | And what I think is so interesting is if you look at that first account in verse 5, it
00:30:51.380 | says that Jesus noticed the faith of the four friends and of the paralytic.
00:30:58.900 | And here in verse 14, we have Matthew now, and Matthew's friends exhibit repentance.
00:31:04.840 | And so we have both faith and repentance highlighted in these two accounts.
00:31:13.120 | And yet it is Christ who takes the initiative in both accounts.
00:31:17.420 | He sees the paralytic's true need, and He sees Levi in the tax booth, and He offers
00:31:24.960 | forgiveness both to the paralytic and to the publican.
00:31:31.560 | And having forgiven Matthew, He not only allows a former tax collector to be one of His disciples,
00:31:38.560 | but He's willing to fellowship with Him and His friends such that He would sit down with
00:31:42.800 | them and eat a meal together.
00:31:46.800 | Well, this is absolutely incredible.
00:31:54.220 | No self-respecting rabbi would ever eat with such overt sinners.
00:32:00.700 | But our Lord doesn't care about those kinds of external things.
00:32:05.720 | He's focused on the heart.
00:32:09.200 | And so you have in these accounts two sinners who meet one Savior.
00:32:15.040 | And when they meet that Savior, they are given what they truly need.
00:32:19.080 | They are given forgiveness, and they're given the gift of faith and the gift of repentance
00:32:25.280 | such that a paralytic becomes a new creature in Christ, and a tax collector becomes a follower
00:32:31.420 | of Jesus.
00:32:36.500 | This is the power of the gospel.
00:32:40.440 | It is the wonder and the triumph of divine pardon.
00:32:44.540 | Well, that brings us to the third element in these two accounts.
00:32:51.780 | We move from the sinners to the Savior and now the skeptics, the skeptics.
00:32:58.940 | As per usual, the scribes and Pharisees are standing by like hawks.
00:33:06.120 | They're looking for anything that they can use to pounce, to criticize, to call into
00:33:14.340 | question the credibility of Jesus and His ministry.
00:33:19.760 | We see this in the first account in verses 6 and 7, "But some of the scribes were sitting
00:33:26.480 | there and reasoning in their hearts," verse 7, "Why does this man speak this way?
00:33:32.440 | He is blaspheming.
00:33:34.960 | No one can forgive sins but God alone."
00:33:39.040 | What's interesting about this response is that the conclusion is almost theologically
00:33:53.600 | orthodox.
00:33:55.600 | It is true that no one can forgive sins but God alone.
00:34:03.180 | And yet there is one glaring problem.
00:34:08.000 | Blinded by their own unbelief and their hard-heartedness, the scribes and Pharisees are unwilling to
00:34:14.840 | acknowledge the obvious, and that is that the man standing before them, Jesus Christ,
00:34:22.080 | the Son of Man, is God the Son.
00:34:26.620 | But in their unwillingness to believe, they conclude He must be blaspheming.
00:34:31.720 | No one can forgive sins other than God, and this man is claiming to do what only God can
00:34:41.660 | do.
00:34:42.660 | Well, let's look at their skeptical response in the second account because in a similar
00:34:48.880 | parallel fashion, we have in this second account again the arrival of the skeptics, verse 16,
00:34:56.140 | "When the scribes and Pharisees saw that He was eating with the sinners and tax collectors,
00:35:02.500 | they said to His disciples, 'Why is He eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?'"
00:35:11.240 | They see what's happening and they are incredulous.
00:35:17.060 | They assumed, in keeping with their first-century legalism, that no righteous person would ever
00:35:24.740 | associate with such obvious miscreants.
00:35:34.340 | In the first account, we have the paralytic and his four friends respond in faith.
00:35:40.620 | In the second account, we have the tax collector and his friends respond with repentance.
00:35:48.300 | Such is not true of the scribes and Pharisees.
00:35:51.040 | Instead of responding with faith, they question Jesus' claim.
00:35:56.160 | And here, instead of responding with repentance, like Levi and his friends had done, they respond
00:36:01.760 | with judgmentalism, self-righteousness, and offense.
00:36:14.480 | If Jesus were from God, He would not associate with such people, would He?
00:36:20.640 | And you'll notice in verse 7, they ask the question, "Why?"
00:36:24.920 | And here in verse 16, again, they ask the question, "Why?
00:36:30.840 | Why would He speak this way?
00:36:32.760 | Why would He eat with such people?"
00:36:35.360 | But their question, "Why?" is not motivated out of some sort of genuine curiosity.
00:36:42.200 | It is condemnation and indignation and judgmentalism that motivates their question.
00:36:49.760 | Why would He do this?
00:36:53.200 | And although their question stems from a heart of unbelief, it nonetheless sets the stage
00:36:57.560 | for the next element in our outline, what I call the showdown.
00:37:04.040 | The showdown.
00:37:06.040 | It's almost like one of those old westerns.
00:37:10.280 | As the drama unfolds, we have conflict, and that conflict will be resolved in remarkable
00:37:18.940 | ways in both of these accounts.
00:37:24.040 | Our Lord's response in both accounts is stunning.
00:37:30.520 | Let's consider the first, Mark chapter 2 verses 8 through 12.
00:37:36.440 | How does Jesus respond to the first question, "Why does He speak in this way?"
00:37:44.400 | "Immediately, Jesus, aware in His Spirit that they were reasoning this way within themselves,
00:37:51.040 | said to them, 'Why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts?'"
00:37:56.920 | Verse 9, "Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get
00:38:04.760 | up, pick up your pallet and walk?'
00:38:08.400 | But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, He
00:38:13.000 | said to the paralytic, 'I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home.'
00:38:20.980 | And he got up and immediately picked up the pallet and went out in the sight of everyone,
00:38:27.240 | so that they were all amazed and were glorifying God, saying, 'We have never seen anything
00:38:32.240 | like this.'"
00:38:36.680 | What an astonishing miracle.
00:38:40.760 | A paralyzed man, a quadriplegic, completely incapacitated, unable to move, so incapacitated
00:38:51.120 | that it required four other friends to move him anywhere.
00:38:59.800 | With a single word, the Creator of the universe gives this man full health, and legs that
00:39:12.600 | had atrophied over time were suddenly given full strength so that he is able to stand
00:39:19.480 | up, and arms that had not been used perhaps for decades are given the stamina to pick
00:39:27.520 | up his bed.
00:39:29.720 | He doesn't need physical therapy.
00:39:31.920 | He doesn't need time to recover.
00:39:34.340 | He doesn't need to learn how to regain his balance.
00:39:37.440 | He's just told, "Get up and walk," and he jumps up.
00:39:46.300 | Because when the Creator of the universe makes something that is broken new, it is ready
00:39:53.160 | to go.
00:39:56.020 | And he stands, and the man who couldn't get into the room, even being carried on a stretcher,
00:40:03.420 | leaves the room by walking out the front door, and I'm guessing, jumping and skipping and
00:40:10.040 | dancing and singing and being very excited.
00:40:19.100 | And what is the response now of Peter and the others in the house?
00:40:25.780 | They're not thinking about the hole in the roof anymore.
00:40:30.140 | They're thinking about a broken man who was suddenly made whole.
00:40:34.000 | And Capernaum was a small enough place that probably everybody knew this man.
00:40:39.740 | They knew his story.
00:40:41.580 | They knew what he had suffered.
00:40:43.740 | And for the one who had been afflicted for so long to leave that room in this way, this
00:40:49.300 | was a miracle that was astonishing, and they were astounded, and they responded by praising
00:40:55.860 | God in verse 12, saying, "We have never seen anything like this before."
00:41:05.780 | And what did this prove?
00:41:07.420 | Well, it proved that Jesus' claim to be able to forgive sins was a valid claim.
00:41:16.220 | Jesus' claim to forgive sins is something that only God can do.
00:41:20.680 | And Jesus proves that He has the authority to do what only God can do by healing a man
00:41:25.700 | in a way that only God could heal that man.
00:41:31.400 | And in that moment and with that miracle, our Lord proves that He is God the Son and
00:41:38.860 | that He has the authority on earth to forgive sins.
00:41:47.060 | The second scene, also an ending that at least for those who were there would have been surprising.
00:41:57.500 | And, of course, we are familiar with these accounts.
00:42:03.620 | I'm sure many of you men have preached through this passage or one of the parallel accounts.
00:42:09.100 | We know how these stories end, but imagine yourself in the shoes of those who are experiencing
00:42:14.800 | these things in real time, how astonishing this must have been.
00:42:20.260 | In verse 16, the scribes asked the question, "Why," similar to what they did in verse 7,
00:42:26.460 | "Why is Jesus eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?
00:42:32.500 | Why is He associating with the dregs of society?"
00:42:37.340 | Well, Jesus responds in a way that would have been shocking because in a first century context
00:42:46.860 | there was no one more spiritual, no one more noble than the scribes and the Pharisees.
00:42:56.660 | And Jesus answers their question, "Why," in verse 17.
00:43:01.020 | And hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not those who are healthy who need a physician,
00:43:07.500 | but those who are sick.
00:43:09.460 | I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
00:43:17.060 | The words "to repentance" are actually from the parallel account in Luke chapter 5, but
00:43:23.860 | again it underscores Matthew's genuine and sincere response.
00:43:33.580 | Our Lord here uses an illustration from the medical world to make an important spiritual
00:43:40.120 | point.
00:43:42.420 | People who don't think they are sick, people who assume they are healthy, don't seek help
00:43:50.980 | from a doctor.
00:43:53.900 | Only those who know they are sick, who recognize that they need help, ask for that help.
00:44:03.660 | Blinded by their self-righteousness, the Pharisees didn't think they needed help.
00:44:09.880 | They didn't think they needed forgiveness.
00:44:13.560 | They didn't need the mercy, the compassion, the grace that Jesus Himself offered.
00:44:22.480 | And in a way that would have seemed so paradoxical to those in the first century, the group that
00:44:28.680 | understood that they needed divine mercy was the group that recognized that they were sinners,
00:44:35.600 | the tax collectors, Matthew and his friends.
00:44:40.960 | And so Jesus says to these stubborn, hard-hearted Pharisees, "I came to seek and save that which
00:44:47.720 | was and is lost."
00:44:50.280 | "I came to bring forgiveness to those who recognize they need forgiveness."
00:45:00.200 | And like the tax collector in Luke 18 who recognizing his own spiritual bankruptcy cried
00:45:06.960 | out for mercy, "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner."
00:45:12.840 | God is pleased to answer that prayer because that man went home justified.
00:45:25.520 | So you have this incredible miracle, the healing of this paralytic, and then this incredible
00:45:34.400 | rebuke from our Lord denouncing the self-righteous blindness of the Pharisees and underscoring
00:45:44.860 | the reality of the gospel that it is only those who recognize the desperateness of their
00:45:50.400 | condition who are given eyes of faith and a heart of repentance and the gift of forgiveness.
00:46:01.240 | So we've seen these two sinners who meet one great Savior, and that one great Savior meets
00:46:09.880 | their greatest need, and yet they're criticized by the self-righteous skeptics, which leads
00:46:17.080 | to this showdown between Christ and the Pharisees.
00:46:23.840 | Brings us to our final point this morning, what I am simply calling the significance,
00:46:31.200 | the significance.
00:46:34.680 | What is the significance of these two accounts?
00:46:39.880 | And really, I want us to consider this final point with three considerations.
00:46:47.440 | First, I want us to consider the picture of our fallen condition, the picture of our fallen
00:46:57.480 | condition that is depicted in these two accounts.
00:47:03.600 | Again we go back to the two sinners that we meet in this passage, one a paralytic completely
00:47:10.600 | unable and the other a tax collector totally despised, one helpless and the other viewed
00:47:19.640 | as being outside of the reach of God's grace and therefore hopeless, one utterly unable
00:47:28.240 | and the other totally depraved, consumed by his greed and consumed by his guilt, total
00:47:36.160 | inability and total unwillingness.
00:47:42.800 | Are not these two sinners, brothers, a picture of us?
00:47:49.640 | That before Christ saw us and healed us, that we were totally unable and totally unwilling,
00:48:03.080 | that we were desperately, desperately incapacitated and deeply, deeply detestable and despicable
00:48:14.960 | in the sight of a holy God.
00:48:22.040 | And so I love how these two stories place those two sinners side by side because we
00:48:27.800 | see in both of them pictures of ourselves, unable and unworthy.
00:48:35.600 | Second consideration is the price of our redemption, the price of our redemption.
00:48:45.020 | Look again at verse 9, because in verse 9 Jesus asks the Pharisees, "Which is easier?
00:48:57.960 | Is it easier to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say to him, 'Get
00:49:05.020 | up and walk?'"
00:49:07.420 | Well, clearly from a human perspective, it's easier to make a claim that doesn't require
00:49:15.500 | any immediate validation.
00:49:17.180 | In other words, it's easier to say, "Your sins are forgiven," because there's no real
00:49:21.020 | way to prove whether or not that's happened.
00:49:23.900 | It's harder to say, "Get up and walk," because if you say that, it requires an immediate
00:49:29.100 | miracle in order to validate what's just been said.
00:49:35.740 | But I want to ask a different question this morning as we consider the price of our redemption,
00:49:40.940 | and that question is this, "Which is easier to do?"
00:49:49.220 | Not which is easier to say, but which is easier to accomplish?
00:49:55.860 | You see, for God the Son, the Creator of the universe, for Him to say to a paralyzed man,
00:50:01.540 | "Get up and walk," He doesn't even break a sweat.
00:50:07.780 | But for Him to offer that man forgiveness, for Him to offer that sinner forgiveness,
00:50:14.260 | or the tax collector forgiveness, or you and me forgiveness, for Him to offer any sinner
00:50:19.740 | forgiveness, what does that require of Him?
00:50:26.700 | On the one hand, He doesn't even break a sweat.
00:50:29.540 | On the other, He sweats drops of blood, blood, sweat, and tears, and He dies on a cross.
00:50:40.140 | Because when He offered that man forgiveness, it was conditioned on His own sacrifice.
00:50:48.980 | So which is easier to say, "Yes, your sins are forgiven," but which is easier to do?
00:50:55.700 | For the Creator of the universe, it is far easier to grant this man His physical health
00:51:02.740 | than it is for Him to redeem His soul from eternal condemnation in hell.
00:51:10.300 | So consider, brothers, the price of our redemption, that the forgiveness that is offered in these
00:51:17.300 | two accounts is not a cheap forgiveness, but a forgiveness that was won through the ultimate
00:51:23.580 | price, an infinite price, the death of our Lord and Savior on the cross.
00:51:33.580 | And then thirdly, I want you to consider the provision of our salvation.
00:51:41.220 | The picture of our condition, we were unable and unwilling.
00:51:47.860 | The price of our redemption, the ultimate price, and the provision of our salvation.
00:51:56.220 | I noted earlier that I believe these two accounts are placed together in all three synoptic
00:52:02.000 | gospels because they make one compelling theological point.
00:52:08.940 | And that point is simply this.
00:52:11.620 | In the first account, we see that our Savior is able to forgive sins.
00:52:18.860 | He has both the authority and the ability to forgive sins.
00:52:25.340 | And in the second account, we see that He is willing to forgive sinners.
00:52:31.860 | He has the willingness and the desire to pursue and to redeem the worst of the worst.
00:52:42.240 | If He was able but unwilling, we would be lost in our sins.
00:52:48.020 | We would be like that tax collector before Jesus saved him.
00:52:54.900 | And if He was willing but not able, we would be equally lost.
00:53:03.500 | Our hope would be disappointed because He would not be who He claimed to be.
00:53:13.980 | But do you see the glory of the gospel in this text?
00:53:16.940 | Because He is able and because He is willing, He offers forgiveness to all who cry out to
00:53:24.780 | Him for mercy, including those who are utterly unable and those who are totally despicable.
00:53:34.940 | And so, again, we say what we said at the beginning, the power and necessity of forgiveness
00:53:39.420 | is this, that without it, no sinner, no matter how noble or moral, no matter how pharisaical
00:53:48.260 | or self-righteous, no sinner can achieve the righteousness necessary to enter into heaven.
00:53:53.700 | And yet with forgiveness, through the work of our Lord Jesus Christ, through divine pardon,
00:54:01.060 | any sinner, no matter how helpless or hopeless, can be pardoned, can be justified, can be
00:54:09.700 | given the hope of eternal life and welcomed into heaven and the presence of God.
00:54:19.180 | So we began this morning by talking about Henry Garricky, U.S. Army chaplain who was
00:54:29.620 | appointed as the chaplain to the Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg.
00:54:37.020 | The Nuremberg trials took place from November of 1945 through October of 1946.
00:54:44.660 | There were 21 Nazi leaders who stood trial during those trials.
00:54:51.260 | Garricky, being faithful to his calling, met with each man who was under his spiritual
00:54:59.020 | care.
00:55:00.700 | He met with them frequently.
00:55:02.100 | He met with them individually.
00:55:03.780 | He gave them Bibles.
00:55:05.100 | He gave them gospel tracts.
00:55:07.100 | He shared with them the good news of forgiveness available through Jesus Christ.
00:55:12.960 | He held chapel services.
00:55:17.780 | And wouldn't you know, one by one, many of those men repented.
00:55:26.220 | In fact, according to Garricky's testimony of the 21 men who stood trial, there were
00:55:32.220 | 10 who repented of their sins and embraced the Lord Jesus Christ in faith.
00:55:40.420 | Now not all of the Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg were executed.
00:55:45.120 | There were 10 of them who were executed on October 16, 1946.
00:55:53.160 | And Garricky would walk with the condemned all the way to the gallows, praying with them.
00:56:02.360 | And the first man to be executed was a man named von Ribbentrop.
00:56:06.960 | He was Hitler's foreign minister.
00:56:10.940 | And just four weeks before he was executed, he had professed faith in Christ.
00:56:18.420 | And according to Garricky, he had demonstrated the fruits of repentance, a genuine hunger
00:56:22.520 | for the Word, a genuine desire to commune with God in prayer.
00:56:28.220 | And Garricky walked up the 13 stairs to the platform of the gallows with von Ribbentrop.
00:56:36.100 | And as von Ribbentrop stood there above the trap door, he gave his formal final last words,
00:56:44.060 | which included a prayer for God's mercy.
00:56:48.940 | And after giving his official last statement, he turned and he looked at Garricky.
00:56:56.260 | And as the noose was being fitted around his neck, he said to this man who had ministered
00:57:02.420 | to him over the last 11 months, "I will see you again one day."
00:57:12.420 | Now, brothers, that sends shivers down my spine, in part because it exposes the limitations
00:57:23.080 | of my own understanding of what grace can accomplish.
00:57:26.220 | We're talking about Nazis.
00:57:32.840 | And yet it's a powerful illustration of the truth of Mark chapter 2 verses 1 to 17.
00:57:41.500 | Because if Jesus can forgive one who is desperately unable, and if He can forgive one who is deeply
00:57:51.400 | despised and detestable, if He can forgive a thief on a cross, if He can forgive a former
00:58:00.660 | Pharisee who persecuted the church, if He can forgive you and if He can forgive me,
00:58:14.100 | and that's the wonder of the gospel.
00:58:19.060 | And that's the triumph of divine pardon, that the truth of God's grace in Christ triumphs
00:58:29.860 | over the truth of what we deserve as those who are both utterly unable and desperately
00:58:41.500 | wicked.
00:58:44.300 | Let's pray.
00:58:49.220 | Heavenly Father, thank You for the truth of Your Word here in Mark chapter 2, for the
00:58:54.200 | glory of the gospel, and for the magnificence of Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:59:03.540 | For the wonder of what He accomplished at great personal sacrifice, that He would be
00:59:08.700 | the substitute who paid the penalty for the sins of all who would believe in Him such
00:59:14.120 | that He could tell that paralyzed man, "Son, your sins are forgiven."
00:59:19.940 | And even earlier tell a leper, "I am willing, be cleansed."
00:59:25.440 | We give You all the thanks, and we know that all of the glory goes to You, and we look
00:59:31.060 | forward to the day when we will enter the presence of our Savior and sing praises to
00:59:36.480 | His name for all of eternity.
00:59:39.660 | We pray this in His name, amen.
00:59:41.520 | Amen.
00:59:42.520 | Amen.
00:59:42.520 | you
00:59:44.580 | [BLANK_AUDIO]