Well, good morning, men, and Bob, thank you so much for leading us in those songs of praise to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I want to begin this morning just by expressing my gratitude to the Lord for all of you men. It is an incredible encouragement to spend this week surrounded by such like-minded brothers, surrounded by men who share a commitment to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the authority of His Word, a commitment to the advancement of His gospel and the edification of His church.

And so, I just want to begin by saying thank you for your faithfulness. It is a joy and a delight to open the Word of God for us this morning, and our text this morning is found in Mark chapter 2, Mark chapter 2, verses 1 to 17. In his commentary on this passage, John MacArthur begins with this probing question, "What is mankind's greatest problem?" What is mankind's greatest problem?

And the obvious answer to that question, of course, is sin. It is sin that has separated man from God, and it is on account of sin that man stands guilty before the law of God, condemned and rightly consigned to death, both in this life and in the next. And yet, as Pastor John points out in his comments, mankind's greatest problem is not merely sin.

After all, those in heaven and those in hell, both heaven and hell, consist of people who were sinners in this life. The difference between those in heaven and those in hell is not that one group were sinners and the other group was not. It is instead that those who are in heaven have had their sins forgiven, and those in hell have not.

And so, mankind's greatest problem is not merely sin, it is unforgiven sin. And if mankind's greatest problem is unforgiven sin, then mankind's greatest need is for forgiveness. It's for forgiveness. Our theme of the conference this week is that truth triumphs, and my specific topic this morning is the triumph of divine pardon.

What I hope to show you from this text here in Mark chapter 2 is the reality that in the gospel through the person and work of Jesus Christ, that divine pardon triumphs over our desperate condition and our deserved condemnation. That divine pardon triumphs over deserved punishment. That the truth or the reality of our sinful depravity is overcome by the reality and truth of divine grace, the reality and truth of the gospel.

The power and necessity of forgiveness is such that where forgiveness is absent, no sinner, no matter how noble or seemingly moral, can ever earn the righteousness necessary to enter into heaven. And yet, where divine forgiveness is bestowed by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, any sinner, no matter how wretched or worthless, can be pardoned, justified, given the hope of eternal life, and welcomed into the presence of God.

This is the triumph of divine pardon. A couple months ago, I came across the story of a man named Henry Garricky. You've probably never heard about him before, but he was a chaplain in the U.S. Army in World War II. He was an evangelical Lutheran pastor, and he was in his mid-to-late forties when he was serving in the U.S.

Army during that conflict. And when the war ended, in part because he had experience working with prisoners of war, and in part because he had studied German and spoke it fluently, he was asked by his commanding officers if he would be willing to serve as the chaplain for the Nazi war criminals who were to be tried at Nuremberg.

He was given time to consider whether or not he would take that assignment. And as you might imagine, it was a prayerful and difficult process as he considered whether or not he would take on that ministry. He had political reasons to be reluctant. After all, the Nazis had been the enemies of the allied forces throughout all of World War II, and he was being asked to minister to the enemy.

More than that, he had personal and family reasons to hesitate. Two of his adult sons fighting for the U.S. Army had been severely injured in their conflicts with the Germans. And of course, he had the moral revulsion and aversion that we would all feel. He had been to the Dachau concentration camp, and he had seen the aftermath of the horrors that took place there.

According to his biographer, he had leaned his hand against the blood-soaked walls at Dachau and felt viscerally the horror of that evil. And yet he was being asked if he would serve as the pastor, the minister, the chaplain to the men who had been the closest associates and confidants and colleagues of Adolf Hitler himself.

You can understand why it was a tough decision. Well Gehrig, he accepted that assignment, but it was not because of any affection for the Nazi Party or what the Third Reich represented. It was instead because he believed in the power of the gospel. And he knew that if there was any hope for any sinner, including the leadership of the Nazi Party, Nazi war criminals, if there was any hope for them, it could only be found in the forgiveness that is offered through Jesus Christ.

Well, in our text this morning, Mark chapter 2, verses 1 to 17, there are no Nazis. But there are two men, two accounts, one of a paralytic in verses 1 through 12, and one of a tax collector in verses 13 through 17. Two men who lived very different lives, though they were both from the same town of Capernaum.

One a paralytic who was completely incapacitated, likely quadriplegic, unable to move, entirely dependent on others to do anything, hopeless, helpless, and completely desperate. The other, a tax collector, a publican, one who had betrayed his own countrymen, was willing to exploit them and extort them in order to pad his own pockets, considered the worst of the worst, hated by his own people, he was deeply despised.

And in the minds of the first-century Jewish religious system, the first man, because of his physical infirmity, would have been considered under some form of divine judgment. And the second man, because of choices he had made, would have been regarded as outside the scope of God's forgiveness and pardon.

Yet these two men, though their lives were very different, shared one essential need because they had one great problem, the same problem that every sinner has, the problem of unforgiven sin and the need for forgiveness. And this morning, I want to highlight the glory of divine forgiveness from this passage.

We're going to look at these two accounts, we're actually going to consider them in parallel fashion, going back and forth between the two. Both accounts are found together in all three of the Synoptic Gospels, in Matthew chapter 9, in Luke chapter 5, and here in Mark 2. And I believe they're placed together because they took place in chronological sequence, one right after the other, and yet in God's providence, that chronological sequence also serves to make a powerful theological point.

And I hope to demonstrate that point to you this morning from this text. Now I've chosen Mark's gospel of the three Synoptic Gospels to convey these accounts to you, and I've done that in part because, as you know, Mark records the memoirs of Peter. And I just think it's interesting to consider these accounts from Peter's perspective.

The gospel of Mark really is the gospel according to Peter as written down by Mark. And the first account took place at Peter's house, and the second account took place near the seashore where Peter often fished. Now as we consider the context of these two accounts, here in the book of Mark, Mark of course begins his gospel with the public ministry of John the Baptist and then the public ministry of Jesus.

And in Mark chapter 1, what we see highlighted repeatedly is Jesus' authority, His divine authority to cast out demons and to heal disease. In Mark chapter 1 verse 22, we see that Jesus had authority to teach, that He taught, unlike the scribes and Pharisees, as one having authority. And then in verses 22 or 23 to 28, we see His authority over demons expressed as He casts out the demon from the man in the synagogue.

Verses 29 to 31, His authority over disease as He heals Peter's mother-in-law. In the verses that follow, we see His authority to cast out many demons and to heal many diseases. And the climax of chapter 1 ends with the poignant passage of the leper who comes to Him in an incredibly moving scene, the leper pleads, "Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean," and our Savior responds to him by saying, "I am willing, be cleansed." And so in Mark chapter 1, you see the authority, the divine authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, but it is expressed in ways that alleviate the temporal suffering of those who receive the benefit of those healing miracles.

Christ has the authority to alleviate temporary suffering by bringing physical healing and by casting out demons, and even by making one who was ceremonially unclean clean. The question still remains as we come into Mark 2, does He have the authority to accomplish that same kind of salvation, not in a temporal and physical sense, but in an eternal and everlasting spiritual sense?

Does He have the authority not only over sickness and not only over the spiritual forces of the demonic world, but does He have authority over sin itself such that He can pardon and forgive? The immediate context of the first scene is found in verses 1 and 2. We see that Jesus has returned to Capernaum.

He has returned to what is the home base of His Galilean ministry, and specifically He's returned to Peter's house, and He's teaching in the house, and the crowds are flocking to Him. No doubt some are convicted by the authoritative weight of His teaching, others are simply curious because they've heard about the miracles.

So whether drawn by conviction or curiosity, the reality is that He is pressed in by the crowds. It is literally standing room only in that small space. And then if you were to look down at verse 13, you see a very similar immediate context for the second scene. Here Jesus has left the house and has gone down to the seashore, and yet He is still pressed in by the crowds.

And in both contexts, He is teaching them, specifically verse 2, He is teaching them the Word of God. And the lesson that He will impart to them on this occasion is a lesson that I am confident none who were there ever forgot, and one that has direct import for us today, a lesson about the power of forgiveness.

Now as we work our way through these two accounts, and again we're going to go through them in parallel fashion, going from one account to the other and back and forth, we're going to organize our thoughts around five elements in these accounts that help us work through the unfolding drama, but the point of all of it is to magnify the glory and wonder of divine forgiveness.

The first of these five elements I have simply called "the sinners," "the sinners." We meet two different sinners in these two accounts, the first in verses 3 and 4, the second in verse 14, and the first is the paralytic. Mark says this in chapter 2 verses 3 and 4, "And they came bringing to Jesus a paralytic, carried by four men, and being unable to get to him 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." A couple of observations jump out from these verses. First of all, we see the inability of the paralytic himself. Verse 3, he is completely unable to do anything for himself, unable to move, unable to help himself to anything, and yet he has heard, no doubt, about the healing ministry of Jesus, the reputation of our Lord is spreading throughout Capernaum and the surrounding regions of Galilee, and so desperate for healing, desperate to meet the Savior.

This man has no way to get to Jesus unless someone else helps him. And the theme of inability is again emphasized in verse 4 because even after this man finds four friends to carry him to Jesus, the friends are still unable to get to Jesus. They encounter a wall of people, impenetrable.

The other synoptic accounts indicate that the door was completely blocked, desperate. These men make their way to the roof, and they begin to dig. Typical first-century Galilean house was built with crisscrossing timbers to create the roof. Large timbers that functioned as beams, smaller timbers that functioned as rafters, and then thatch that was put over those rafters, and then finally a mud and clay mixture that was laid on top to create a solid and waterproof surface.

It was strong enough that you could stand on the roof, and because the roofs were flat, oftentimes staircases were put on the outside so that you could access that space like an outdoor deck or patio. And these men, in their desperation, in their desire to get to Jesus, they climb those stairs.

And I'm sure it must have been a remarkable moment for everyone in the house below when all of a sudden they started to hear digging above, as debris began to fall down, and dust and straw and hardened mud and clay is hitting the ground and getting in people's hair.

And I have to think about this moment again from Peter's perspective. This is his house. Nobody wants a hole in their roof. And then a little bit of daylight, and then the daylight gets bigger and bigger, and suddenly there's four faces peering down and a crowd below looking up, and everyone in the room except for Jesus is wondering, "What are you guys doing?" And then a pallet appears, and it is slowly lowered to the floor.

Well, we're going to have to leave that sinner there suspended in the air and look at our second scene, the second sinner, to use the old King James, the publican – I like that because it's alliterated with the paralytic – but the tax collector. Mark chapter 2 verse 14, the first part of the verse, "And Jesus, or as Jesus passed by, He saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting in a tax booth." What are we to make of this second sinner, this man named Levi, the son of Alphaeus?

Well, I think it's significant that his Hebrew name, Levi, is used in this context. We of course know him by his more familiar Greek name, Matthew, but here he is called by his Hebrew name, Levi, indicating almost certainly that he was from the tribe of Levi, the tribe of Levi, the Levitical tribe being the priestly tribe.

If Levi had been true to his family heritage, he would have been a spiritual leader in Israel, one who would help in temple worship. Not only that, but we're told that he's the son of Alphaeus, indicating or at least suggesting that he was from a respected Jewish family. And yet, this man had turned his back on that spiritual privilege and on his own family's reputation in order to pursue his own greed and to pad his own pockets.

Capernaum, because it was the largest city on the Sea of Galilee, was a prime spot for Rome to collect taxes. Rome collected taxes on all sorts of things, poll taxes, land taxes, taxes on the transport of goods and even on travel. And given the location of Levi's tax booth near the seashore, it's likely that he collected taxes on those who were transporting goods to the market, including those who had recently caught fish in the Sea of Galilee and were bringing it to sell.

Again, I think about this from Peter's perspective because Peter was a fisherman, and Peter along with Andrew and James and John, they likely knew Levi well. This is the guy that always takes his cut. Tax collectors were the most hated class of people within first century Jewish society. They were viewed as traitors and turncoats, as sellouts, as those who were willing to extort and exploit their own people in order to collect money for the hated Roman oppressors.

Rome generally collected or insisted on a quota to be collected by tax collectors, but then anything that they collected above and beyond that quota they could keep for themselves. And as a result, this model, it bred all sorts of corruption and greed and exploitation. So here we have Levi sitting in his tax booth, hated by his countrymen, likely disowned by his own family, consumed with greed and yet overwhelmed with guilt.

I want you to consider for a moment again the condition of these two sinners. The first, utterly unable, and the second, deeply despised. A cripple and a criminal, one desperate, one detested, the paralytic and the publican. Well, we move then to the second element in these two accounts, from the sinners to the Savior, from the sinners to the Savior.

Let's go back to our first account. We've left this paralytic suspended in midair, being lowered down by his four friends, eventually and slowly being lowered to the ground. Everyone in that crowded room perplexed and perturbed, Peter in particular wondering what has happened to his house, and Jesus alone knowing that what is about to happen is a divine and sovereign appointment.

And as that man is lowered down to the ground, I imagine him looking up at Christ and Christ looking back at him and recognizing this man's true need. He says to him in verse 5, "Son, I say to you, your sins are forgiven. Your sins are forgiven." Rather than focusing on the temporal healing that I'm sure this man desired, Jesus instead focuses on that which is eternal.

He looks past the external to the internal. He looks at this man's heart. And again, within first century Judaism, it was very common to view those who were sick or those who were physically infirm as being the subjects or the objects of God's special divine wrath and judgment, that this man must have sinned in some great way that he would be in this condition.

And what relief this man must have felt in that instant when looking at our Lord he hears the Lord say to him, "Son, your sins are forgiven." What mercy, what kindness, what compassion, what a Savior. Well, there's a similar thing that happens in the second account because with the calling of Levi, we again meet the Savior in verses 14 and 15.

And as Jesus passed by, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting in the tax booth. And he said to him, "Follow me." And Levi got up and followed Jesus. And it happened that Jesus was reclining at Levi's table in his house. And many tax collectors and sinners were dining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many of them, and they were following him.

I want you to notice that it was Jesus who saw Levi. In Luke 5, it says that Jesus noticed Levi. It was Jesus who took the initiative and who called Levi to repentance. And according to Luke chapter 5 again, Levi, having been summoned to follow Christ, left everything and followed him.

Not only did Jesus call Levi to repentance and by implication offer him forgiveness, but Jesus was willing to fellowship with this now former tax collector and all of Matthew's friends. The account from Luke again says that Matthew held a great feast and he called all of his friends, all of the other tax collectors, and all of the other social outcasts, they all came.

And here in Mark 2, we read that they were hearing Jesus and they were following him. And what I think is so interesting is if you look at that first account in verse 5, it says that Jesus noticed the faith of the four friends and of the paralytic. And here in verse 14, we have Matthew now, and Matthew's friends exhibit repentance.

And so we have both faith and repentance highlighted in these two accounts. And yet it is Christ who takes the initiative in both accounts. He sees the paralytic's true need, and He sees Levi in the tax booth, and He offers forgiveness both to the paralytic and to the publican.

And having forgiven Matthew, He not only allows a former tax collector to be one of His disciples, but He's willing to fellowship with Him and His friends such that He would sit down with them and eat a meal together. Well, this is absolutely incredible. No self-respecting rabbi would ever eat with such overt sinners.

But our Lord doesn't care about those kinds of external things. He's focused on the heart. And so you have in these accounts two sinners who meet one Savior. And when they meet that Savior, they are given what they truly need. They are given forgiveness, and they're given the gift of faith and the gift of repentance such that a paralytic becomes a new creature in Christ, and a tax collector becomes a follower of Jesus.

This is the power of the gospel. It is the wonder and the triumph of divine pardon. Well, that brings us to the third element in these two accounts. We move from the sinners to the Savior and now the skeptics, the skeptics. As per usual, the scribes and Pharisees are standing by like hawks.

They're looking for anything that they can use to pounce, to criticize, to call into question the credibility of Jesus and His ministry. We see this in the first account in verses 6 and 7, "But some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts," verse 7, "Why does this man speak this way?

He is blaspheming. No one can forgive sins but God alone." What's interesting about this response is that the conclusion is almost theologically orthodox. It is true that no one can forgive sins but God alone. And yet there is one glaring problem. Blinded by their own unbelief and their hard-heartedness, the scribes and Pharisees are unwilling to acknowledge the obvious, and that is that the man standing before them, Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, is God the Son.

But in their unwillingness to believe, they conclude He must be blaspheming. No one can forgive sins other than God, and this man is claiming to do what only God can do. Well, let's look at their skeptical response in the second account because in a similar parallel fashion, we have in this second account again the arrival of the skeptics, verse 16, "When the scribes and Pharisees saw that He was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they said to His disciples, 'Why is He eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?'" They see what's happening and they are incredulous.

They assumed, in keeping with their first-century legalism, that no righteous person would ever associate with such obvious miscreants. In the first account, we have the paralytic and his four friends respond in faith. In the second account, we have the tax collector and his friends respond with repentance. Such is not true of the scribes and Pharisees.

Instead of responding with faith, they question Jesus' claim. And here, instead of responding with repentance, like Levi and his friends had done, they respond with judgmentalism, self-righteousness, and offense. If Jesus were from God, He would not associate with such people, would He? And you'll notice in verse 7, they ask the question, "Why?" And here in verse 16, again, they ask the question, "Why?

Why would He speak this way? Why would He eat with such people?" But their question, "Why?" is not motivated out of some sort of genuine curiosity. It is condemnation and indignation and judgmentalism that motivates their question. Why would He do this? And although their question stems from a heart of unbelief, it nonetheless sets the stage for the next element in our outline, what I call the showdown.

The showdown. It's almost like one of those old westerns. As the drama unfolds, we have conflict, and that conflict will be resolved in remarkable ways in both of these accounts. Our Lord's response in both accounts is stunning. Let's consider the first, Mark chapter 2 verses 8 through 12. How does Jesus respond to the first question, "Why does He speak in this way?" "Immediately, Jesus, aware in His Spirit that they were reasoning this way within themselves, said to them, 'Why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts?'" Verse 9, "Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, pick up your pallet 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, pick up your pallet and go home.' And he got up and immediately picked up the pallet and went out in the sight of everyone, so that they were all amazed and were glorifying God, saying, 'We have never seen anything like this.'" What an astonishing miracle.

A paralyzed man, a quadriplegic, completely incapacitated, unable to move, so incapacitated that it required four other friends to move him anywhere. With a single word, the Creator of the universe gives this man full health, and legs that had atrophied over time were suddenly given full strength so that he is able to stand up, and arms that had not been used perhaps for decades are given the stamina to pick up his bed.

He doesn't need physical therapy. He doesn't need time to recover. He doesn't need to learn how to regain his balance. He's just told, "Get up and walk," and he jumps up. Because when the Creator of the universe makes something that is broken new, it is ready to go. And he stands, and the man who couldn't get into the room, even being carried on a stretcher, leaves the room by walking out the front door, and I'm guessing, jumping and skipping and dancing and singing and being very excited.

And what is the response now of Peter and the others in the house? They're not thinking about the hole in the roof anymore. They're thinking about a broken man who was suddenly made whole. And Capernaum was a small enough place that probably everybody knew this man. They knew his story.

They knew what he had suffered. And for the one who had been afflicted for so long to leave that room in this way, this was a miracle that was astonishing, and they were astounded, and they responded by praising God in verse 12, saying, "We have never seen anything like this before." And what did this prove?

Well, it proved that Jesus' claim to be able to forgive sins was a valid claim. Jesus' claim to forgive sins is something that only God can do. And Jesus proves that He has the authority to do what only God can do by healing a man in a way that only God could heal that man.

And in that moment and with that miracle, our Lord proves that He is God the Son and that He has the authority on earth to forgive sins. The second scene, also an ending that at least for those who were there would have been surprising. And, of course, we are familiar with these accounts.

I'm sure many of you men have preached through this passage or one of the parallel accounts. We know how these stories end, but imagine yourself in the shoes of those who are experiencing these things in real time, how astonishing this must have been. In verse 16, the scribes asked the question, "Why," similar to what they did in verse 7, "Why is Jesus eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?

Why is He associating with the dregs of society?" Well, Jesus responds in a way that would have been shocking because in a first century context there was no one more spiritual, no one more noble than the scribes and the Pharisees. And Jesus answers their question, "Why," in verse 17.

And hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." The words "to repentance" are actually from the parallel account in Luke chapter 5, but again it underscores Matthew's genuine and sincere response.

Our Lord here uses an illustration from the medical world to make an important spiritual point. People who don't think they are sick, people who assume they are healthy, don't seek help from a doctor. Only those who know they are sick, who recognize that they need help, ask for that help.

Blinded by their self-righteousness, the Pharisees didn't think they needed help. They didn't think they needed forgiveness. They didn't need the mercy, the compassion, the grace that Jesus Himself offered. And in a way that would have seemed so paradoxical to those in the first century, the group that understood that they needed divine mercy was the group that recognized that they were sinners, the tax collectors, Matthew and his friends.

And so Jesus says to these stubborn, hard-hearted Pharisees, "I came to seek and save that which was and is lost." "I came to bring forgiveness to those who recognize they need forgiveness." And like the tax collector in Luke 18 who recognizing his own spiritual bankruptcy cried out for mercy, "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner." God is pleased to answer that prayer because that man went home justified.

So you have this incredible miracle, the healing of this paralytic, and then this incredible rebuke from our Lord denouncing the self-righteous blindness of the Pharisees and underscoring the reality of the gospel that it is only those who recognize the desperateness of their condition who are given eyes of faith and a heart of repentance and the gift of forgiveness.

So we've seen these two sinners who meet one great Savior, and that one great Savior meets their greatest need, and yet they're criticized by the self-righteous skeptics, which leads to this showdown between Christ and the Pharisees. Brings us to our final point this morning, what I am simply calling the significance, the significance.

What is the significance of these two accounts? And really, I want us to consider this final point with three considerations. First, I want us to consider the picture of our fallen condition, the picture of our fallen condition that is depicted in these two accounts. Again we go back to the two sinners that we meet in this passage, one a paralytic completely unable and the other a tax collector totally despised, one helpless and the other viewed as being outside of the reach of God's grace and therefore hopeless, one utterly unable and the other totally depraved, consumed by his greed and consumed by his guilt, total inability and total unwillingness.

Are not these two sinners, brothers, a picture of us? That before Christ saw us and healed us, that we were totally unable and totally unwilling, that we were desperately, desperately incapacitated and deeply, deeply detestable and despicable in the sight of a holy God. And so I love how these two stories place those two sinners side by side because we see in both of them pictures of ourselves, unable and unworthy.

Second consideration is the price of our redemption, the price of our redemption. Look again at verse 9, because in verse 9 Jesus asks the Pharisees, "Which is easier? Is it easier to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say to him, 'Get up and walk?'" Well, clearly from a human perspective, it's easier to make a claim that doesn't require any immediate validation.

In other words, it's easier to say, "Your sins are forgiven," because there's no real way to prove whether or not that's happened. It's harder to say, "Get up and walk," because if you say that, it requires an immediate miracle in order to validate what's just been said. But I want to ask a different question this morning as we consider the price of our redemption, and that question is this, "Which is easier to do?" Not which is easier to say, but which is easier to accomplish?

You see, for God the Son, the Creator of the universe, for Him to say to a paralyzed man, "Get up and walk," He doesn't even break a sweat. But for Him to offer that man forgiveness, for Him to offer that sinner forgiveness, or the tax collector forgiveness, or you and me forgiveness, for Him to offer any sinner forgiveness, what does that require of Him?

On the one hand, He doesn't even break a sweat. On the other, He sweats drops of blood, blood, sweat, and tears, and He dies on a cross. Because when He offered that man forgiveness, it was conditioned on His own sacrifice. So which is easier to say, "Yes, your sins are forgiven," but which is easier to do?

For the Creator of the universe, it is far easier to grant this man His physical health than it is for Him to redeem His soul from eternal condemnation in hell. So consider, brothers, the price of our redemption, that the forgiveness that is offered in these two accounts is not a cheap forgiveness, but a forgiveness that was won through the ultimate price, an infinite price, the death of our Lord and Savior on the cross.

And then thirdly, I want you to consider the provision of our salvation. The picture of our condition, we were unable and unwilling. The price of our redemption, the ultimate price, and the provision of our salvation. I noted earlier that I believe these two accounts are placed together in all three synoptic gospels because they make one compelling theological point.

And that point is simply this. In the first account, we see that our Savior is able to forgive sins. He has both the authority and the ability to forgive sins. And in the second account, we see that He is willing to forgive sinners. He has the willingness and the desire to pursue and to redeem the worst of the worst.

If He was able but unwilling, we would be lost in our sins. We would be like that tax collector before Jesus saved him. And if He was willing but not able, we would be equally lost. Our hope would be disappointed because He would not be who He claimed to be.

But do you see the glory of the gospel in this text? Because He is able and because He is willing, He offers forgiveness to all who cry out to Him for mercy, including those who are utterly unable and those who are totally despicable. And so, again, we say what we said at the beginning, the power and necessity of forgiveness is this, that without it, no sinner, no matter how noble or moral, no matter how pharisaical or self-righteous, no sinner can achieve the righteousness necessary to enter into heaven.

And yet with forgiveness, through the work of our Lord Jesus Christ, through divine pardon, any sinner, no matter how helpless or hopeless, can be pardoned, can be justified, can be given the hope of eternal life and welcomed into heaven and the presence of God. So we began this morning by talking about Henry Garricky, U.S.

Army chaplain who was appointed as the chaplain to the Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg. The Nuremberg trials took place from November of 1945 through October of 1946. There were 21 Nazi leaders who stood trial during those trials. Garricky, being faithful to his calling, met with each man who was under his spiritual care.

He met with them frequently. He met with them individually. He gave them Bibles. He gave them gospel tracts. He shared with them the good news of forgiveness available through Jesus Christ. He held chapel services. And wouldn't you know, one by one, many of those men repented. In fact, according to Garricky's testimony of the 21 men who stood trial, there were 10 who repented of their sins and embraced the Lord Jesus Christ in faith.

Now not all of the Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg were executed. There were 10 of them who were executed on October 16, 1946. And Garricky would walk with the condemned all the way to the gallows, praying with them. And the first man to be executed was a man named von Ribbentrop.

He was Hitler's foreign minister. And just four weeks before he was executed, he had professed faith in Christ. And according to Garricky, he had demonstrated the fruits of repentance, a genuine hunger for the Word, a genuine desire to commune with God in prayer. And Garricky walked up the 13 stairs to the platform of the gallows with von Ribbentrop.

And as von Ribbentrop stood there above the trap door, he gave his formal final last words, which included a prayer for God's mercy. And after giving his official last statement, he turned and he looked at Garricky. And as the noose was being fitted around his neck, he said to this man who had ministered to him over the last 11 months, "I will see you again one day." Now, brothers, that sends shivers down my spine, in part because it exposes the limitations of my own understanding of what grace can accomplish.

We're talking about Nazis. And yet it's a powerful illustration of the truth of Mark chapter 2 verses 1 to 17. Because if Jesus can forgive one who is desperately unable, and if He can forgive one who is deeply despised and detestable, if He can forgive a thief on a cross, if He can forgive a former Pharisee who persecuted the church, if He can forgive you and if He can forgive me, and that's the wonder of the gospel.

And that's the triumph of divine pardon, that the truth of God's grace in Christ triumphs over the truth of what we deserve as those who are both utterly unable and desperately wicked. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank You for the truth of Your Word here in Mark chapter 2, for the glory of the gospel, and for the magnificence of Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

For the wonder of what He accomplished at great personal sacrifice, that He would be the substitute who paid the penalty for the sins of all who would believe in Him such that He could tell that paralyzed man, "Son, your sins are forgiven." And even earlier tell a leper, "I am willing, be cleansed." We give You all the thanks, and we know that all of the glory goes to You, and we look forward to the day when we will enter the presence of our Savior and sing praises to His name for all of eternity.

We pray this in His name, amen. Amen. Amen. you