3016. Good Cheer From Forgiven Sin

A Sermon Published On Thursday, November 29, 1906.

And, behold, they brought to him a man sick with the palsy lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said to the sick with the palsy; “Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you.” {Mt 9:2}

And they come to him, bringing one sick with the palsy, who was carried by four. And when they could not come near him for the crowd, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed on which the sick with the palsy lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the sick with the palsy, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.” {Mr 2:3-5}

And, behold, men brought in a bed a man who was taken with a palsy: and they sought means to bring him in, and to lay him before him. And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, they went on the house-top and let him down through the tiling with his bed into the midst before Jesus. And when he saw their faith, he said to him, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” {Lu 5:18-20}

For other sermons on this text:

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2337, “Physician Pardons His Palsied Patient, The” 2338}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3016, “Good Cheer from Forgiven Sin” 3017}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3227, “Secret of Happiness, The” 3228}

   Exposition on Mt 8:23-9:13 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2337, “Physician Pardons His Palsied Patient, The” 2338 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Mt 9:1-13 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2493, “Man Named Matthew, A” 2494 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Mt 9:1-17 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3310, “Prompt Obedience” 3312 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Mt 9 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2482, “Unparalleled Cure, An” 2483 @@ "Exposition"}

   {See Spurgeon_SermonTexts "Lu 5:18"}

   {See Spurgeon_SermonTexts "Lu 5:19"}

   {See Spurgeon_SermonTexts "Lu 5:20"}

1. This man was paralysed in body, but he was very far from being paralysed in mind. From the little we know about him, he would appear to have been earnest, resolute, energetic and persevering. You very seldom find people attempting more for you than you yourself desire; and if the four men who carried this paralytic person were so zealous in getting him under the Lord’s notice, we may be morally certain that he himself was even more set on it. His bearers would never have gone to the length of breaking up the roof, and letting him down on the heads of the crowd, unless he had urged them to do so. He was something more than passive under such heroic treatment. If he did not suggest the plan, he evidently entered into it most willingly.

2. Suppose it to be your own case, my dear hearer. Are you not persuaded that if, broken in spirit, you were to say to your friends, “Leave me alone, my case is hopeless,” few would dream of stirring themselves to desperate efforts on your behalf, but would let you lie still in your apathy, according to your request? It is a rule that you must yourself be energetic if you are to make other people energetic on your behalf; and, therefore, it seems to me that this man had a resolute and intense spirit, and had such influence over his friends that he inspired them by his eagerness, having first won them by his persistence. He besought them to aid him in what had become a necessity of life; he must see Jesus. He must be brought before the great Healing One, somehow or other; and because of his personal eagerness and pressing persistence, his friends made up their minds to help him.

3. We may yet discover a little more about this palsied man, and it will not be mere conjecture; for, by certain rules established by observation and experience, we may often learn much about character from very insignificant circumstances. Our Lord Jesus was accustomed to address the people who came to him very much according to their mental condition. When one poor man, half imbecile in spirit, was brought to him, he asked him, “Will you be made well?” He was so listless as barely to have the will to be restored, and Christ’s saying, “Will you be made well?” is evidence to us that even the poor creature’s wishes had begun to slumber. Take it as a general rule that, while Christ regarded the onlookers, and spoke with some view to them, yet, in the main, his first thoughts were concerning his patient, and he generally spoke with an eye to that patient’s case. I gather, therefore, from the fact that Jesus said to this man, “Son, be of good cheer,” that he was very greatly depressed in spirit and unhappy; and when he added, not “Your palsy shall be removed,” but “Your sins are forgiven you,” we are quite safe in concluding that the reason for the man’s sadness was his sin, for which beyond all other things he desired pardon. Our Lord went straight to the roots of the mischief: the man was sad, and he cheered him; the man was sad about his sin, and so he granted him forgiveness. His palsy would, secondarily, be a fountain of bitter grief to the sick man; and, therefore, the Saviour dealt with it in the second place; but, first and foremost, over and above all grief for his infirmity, was his painful sense of unforgiven sin. It is not likely that he told his bearers about that, for they might not have been able to sympathize with such a spiritual necessity; to them he spoke of his affliction, and not of his repentance; for, while they would pity him for his palsy, they might have ridiculed him for his guilty conscience. The Lord, however, knew the heart’s grief without telling; he read it in the sufferer’s looks. The great Sin-Forgiver knew very well that earnest gaze which meant, “Be merciful to me a sinner”; and he met that wistful glance, with a smile, and the cheering words, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.”

4. I suppose that the patient was a young man, for the word “son” would hardly have been spoken by our Lord to a man older than himself. I gather that he was a man of childlike faith, for Jesus did not call people his “sons and daughters” unless there was something of the childlike spirit about them. He was evidently a man of simple-hearted faith, who fully believed that Christ could forgive his sin; and so it happened to him, after the rule of the kingdom, “According to your faith, be it to you.”

5. The case stood like this: — The paralysed man was burdened with sin, weighed down and oppressed in conscience. This urged him to seek the Saviour. “I must see the Christ,” he said. His passionate earnestness extracts a promise from the neighbours that they will take him to Jesus. He begs them to do it now. But the Lord could not be reached, for a dense crowd shut him in. “I must see Jesus,” cries the man. His friends reply, “You cannot rise from your bed.” “Carry me on it,” he cries. “But we cannot get in.” “Try,” he says. They reached the door, and they cried, “Make room. Here is a man sick with the palsy, who must see Jesus.” They are gruffly answered, “Plenty of other poor men want to see him. Why should everyone give place to you? What is the use of pushing? There is no room for that bed here! What folly to drag a sick man into all this pressure and heat. The Prophet is speaking: you will interrupt him. Away with you! The bearers cannot enter.” They plead and they push, but all in vain.

6. “Then,” cries the resolute man, “take me up the back stairs. Get me to the top of the verandah, and let down the bed through the ceiling. Run any risk; for I must get to Jesus.” Possibly, his friends demur, and state the difficulties of the suggested procedure. “Why,” one says, “you will be hanging over the people’s heads, for there will be no room for you when we let you down.” “Try it,” he cries. “If I am let down from the top, there will be no fear of my not reaching the ground! They cannot push me up again, or keep me on their heads. They must make room for me.” His earnestness having been ingenious, now becomes infectious. His bearers smile at his eagerness, and enter into it with zest. He will give them no rest until his desire is accomplished; and so they break up the tiling, and let him down before Jesus, with the glad result described in the Gospel, “Jesus said to him, ‘Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you.’”

7. We have before us, first, a doctrine, — the doctrine that it is one of the grandest comforts in the world to have your sins forgiven you: “Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you.” Secondly, we have before us a question. May every one of you have the honesty to ask it, and to answer it in your own case: the question, “Have I had my sins forgiven me?” For, if so, I have a right to be of good cheer, and to be as merry as the birds in spring. But, if not, I am destitute of the greatest comfort which Christ himself can speak to a sinner’s heart.

8. I. Dear hearer, let us give our hearts at once to THE DOCTRINE. It is plainly taught us here that the pardon of sin is one of the richest comforts which the Lord can give to a man.

9. It is so, first, because the pardon of sin removes the heaviest sorrow which a man can feel. Some know little about this grief. May the Lord cause them to mourn with broken hearts, or they will perish in their sins! Those of us who have known the burden of sin can tell you that it is a crushing load. Thoughtful people, who have seen things in their true light, honest people who refuse to be flattered, pure-minded people, who long to be right with God, — all these will tell you that a sense of sin is of all miseries the most sharp and disquieting. To know that you have sinned against light and knowledge with special aggravations, is as a hot iron to the flesh, and as a serpent’s venom in the blood. There is no rest day or night for a soul which carries this hell within it.

   Sin, like a venomous disease,

      Infests our vital blood;

   The only balm is sovereign grace,

       And the physician God.

10. I speak what I know from personal experience, and I only say what many a hearer knows, too, within his own soul. Once let conviction flash in on the soul, and the world loses its fascinations, the music hall, the ballroom, and the theatre are robbed of their enchantments; even business wearies, and domestic joys are deprived of sweetness; for a sense of sin spoils it all. Guilt on the conscience hangs over everything like a funeral pall, it drowns all music with its prophetic knell, and withers every green herb beneath its burning feet.

11. Sin, sin, — what worse evil than you are, can even Satan himself create? A man infected with a deadly disease is never at ease; whatever garments he may put on, or at whatever tables he may feast, he is still unhappy, because he has the arrows of death sticking in him. Such is a man conscious of sin. Nothing can please him; nothing can ease him, until his sin is removed. But when sin is gone, — when he knows that he is pardoned, he is like a bird set free from its cage.

12. A great fire raged one night in a village, and a large thatched mansion, in which a man of God resided, caught fire. It blazed furiously, but, he and his wife and most of his children escaped. Image their horror, when they counted them, to discover that one little one was missing. Nothing would satisfy them while that dear child was in the burning house. “Mr. Wesley,” his neighbour might say, “we have saved your chest of drawers. We have saved your valuable books from the house.” “Ah, but,” the good man would have said, “my boy is in danger.” What his wife thought of it, when she remembered that little John would be burned to death, I need not tell you; but when, at last, he was lifted out of the window, and brought to his parents’ arms, then be sure that the good man would gather his whole family around him, and bless the Lord, even though all his possessions were consumed. Now, when a sensible man’s soul is in danger, nothing can satisfy him. He prospers in business, his happy children play around him; but what of these while his soul remains in deadly peril? When once, through pardoned sin, his soul becomes like a brand plucked from the burning, then his daily troubles lose all their weight, and his heart is full of joyful song. It is clear to every experienced man that the pardon of sin is an immense comfort, because it removes the bitterest reason for distress and alarm.

13. Next, forgiveness of sin is a comfort of the first order, for, indeed, it is altogether indispensable. You may possess every luxury, but you cannot be solidly happy until sin is forgiven. “Why!” one says, “I am really happy, and yet I am not pardoned.” Yes, but it is a remarkable thing that happy people of your kind are never pleased while they are quiet; they must get up an excitement, and dance, or fiddle, or drink, or play the fool in some way, or they are not happy. I call that real happiness which I can enjoy for hours on end in my room alone, calmly looking into things, and feeling content. I call that real joy which I feel when I wake up at night, and, though full of pain, can lie still, and bless God for his goodness. It was said of old, “Philosophers can be merry without music”; and so can the saints of God; but the ungodly, as a rule, cannot enjoy themselves without external objects to raise their spirits. The truly happy man is satisfied by himself. A spring within him of living water quenches his thirst, so that he never feels the drought.

14. A man cannot be really happy until his sin is pardoned, because sin brings, more or less, a sense of condemnation. Picture a man in the condemned cell. Try to make him comfortable. We provide him with a dainty supper, we sing cheerful songs to him, we show fine pictures to him; but he is condemned to die tomorrow, and he loathes our feast and our fineries. Bring in a thousand pounds, and make him a present of it. He looks at the golden sovereigns, and he says, “What is the use of these to me?” Tell him that a rich man has left him heir to a wide estate. “Yes,” he says, “but how can I enjoy it? I am condemned to die.” He is always in his dreams hearing his death knell, and picturing to himself the dreary scene when he is to be launched into eternity. If you could only whisper in his ear, “Her Majesty has granted you a free pardon,” he would say, “You may take away the feast; I feel too happy to eat. All the gold in the world could not make me more delighted than I am now, as a pardoned man.” When men have come out of prison, after they have been locked up for years everything has been a joy to them. Though they went home, perhaps, and found everyone dead whom they once knew, and saw their own hair turned grey through having lain for so long in a mouldy cell, yet the sweets of liberty made the stones of the streets shine as if they were made of gold, and the fields seemed like a fairyland to them. Such is the joy of pardon when it comes from our God. A man must have forgiveness, or else everything will be emptiness to him; but when he is absolved, he goes out with joy, and is led out with peace.

15. Pardon of sins makes all our sorrows light. If a condemned man is permitted to live, he will not ask whether he is to live like a gentleman or like a peasant. When some kind-hearted men struggle to get the life of a condemned criminal spared, the man’s friends think of nothing but his life. When a judge sentences a man to penal servitude for life, it may be thought a hard sentence; but you never hear of complaints, when a condemned criminal has his life spared, if we find that he is to be kept a prisoner for as long as he lives. The heaviest punishment seems nothing if life is spared. You heave a sigh of relief to think that the gallows will bear one less sad fruit, and you forget all about the servitude or the imprisonment which the convict will have to endure. So, depend on it, if you get sin pardoned, and so are saved from the eternal wrath of God, you will make no bargain with God whether you have food to eat and clothes to put on, or are left hungry and naked. No, Lord, I will shiver in a beggar’s rags with full contentment, if I am only pardoned. I will dwell in prison with a dry crust for my food if I am only delivered from your wrath. So it is clear that the blotting out of sin takes the sting from every other sorrow.

16. Let me add that it makes death itself light. I remember the story of a felon, in those days when they used to hang people for very little indeed. A poor man, who had committed some offence, was condemned to die: while he lay waiting for the sentence, the Lord sent a choice minister of the gospel to him, and his heart was enlightened so that he found Christ. As he was on the way to the gallows-tree, what do you think was this man’s cry? He was overwhelmed with joy; and, lifting up his hands, he said many times, “Oh, he is a great Forgiver! He is a great Forgiver!” Death was no terror now that he had found forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Poverty does not repine when sin is removed. Sickness frets no longer when conscience is at ease. It may cost you many a pang to feel yourself melting away in consumption; but what does it matter now that your transgression is forgiven? Every breath may be a labour, every pulse may be a pang; but, when sin is forgiven, the Lord has created such a spring of joy within the heart that the soul can never faint.

17. Yet again, dear friend, remember that the pardon of sin is the guarantee of every other blessing. When Christ said, “Your sins are forgiven you,” was there any question at all concerning whether that paralytic man would be healed? Certainly not; for the love which had forgiven the sufferer’s sin was there to prompt the Saviour to say afterwards, “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” So, dear friend, if your sin is pardoned, it is true concerning you, that no good thing will God withhold from you who walk uprightly, and that all things work together for good for you who love God, for you who are the called according to his purpose. Everything between here and heaven is secured by the covenant of grace for your best benefit, and you can sing, — 

   If sin be pardon’d, I’m secure;

      Death hath no sting beside:

   The law gives him its damning power;

      But Christ, my ransom, died.

Your every need God will assuredly supply, since he has already bestowed on you the major blessing, the all-comprehending blessing of forgiveness. Covenant mercies follow each other like the links of a chain: — “Who forgives all your iniquities; who heals all your diseases; who redeems your life from destruction; who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies; who satisfies your mouth with good things; so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” Do you think that God forgives men their sins, and then leaves them to perish? Such cruel “mercy” would be more worthy of a demon than of the Deity. Pardon is the pledge of everlasting love, and the pledge will never be forfeited.

18. “Alas!” one cries, “perhaps, after the Lord has forgiven me, he may yet turn again, and punish me.” Listen: “The gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” That is, God never repents of what he does in the way of grace. If he forgives, he forgives once and for all, and for ever. It would be blasphemy to represent God as making a transient truce with men instead of an eternal peace. The Lord casts the iniquities of his people into the depths of the sea, and their transgressions he remembers against them no more for ever. Is this not a blessed act of grace? It secures the removal of all the evil results of sin, and is the guarantee for all that will be needed this side of heaven, yes, and of glory for ever. If you only hear Jesus say, “Your sins are forgiven you,” you may also hear him say, “Be of good cheer,” for there is everything in the fact of pardon to make your heart dance for joy.

19. We will not linger longer on the doctrine, but make our meditation personally practical by pressing home the work of self-examination.

20. II. So, now, let us consider THE QUESTION, Are you forgiven?

21. Has God, for Christ’s sake, forgiven you? “Ah!” one cries, “do not judge us.” I shall not attempt to do so, but I would ask you to judge yourselves. “We cannot be sure of our salvation,” answers another. Can you not? Then you ought never to be happy; for a man who is in doubt about a matter so vital as this, which involves his all, ought never to enjoy a moment’s peace. How can we rest in fear of hell, in danger of eternal wrath?

22. Do you not long for certainties? A great novelist began a favourite story with the sentence, “What I want is facts.” In that short sentence, he expressed the longing of many a thoughtful soul; many of us feel that we want indisputable facts. Our proverb has it, “Fast bind, fast find.” Prudent men will take double care about this weightiest of all concerns, and will not be content until they are infallibly assured. I will help you to answer this question by remarking that there is a way by which we may know if we are not forgiven.

23. We may know that we are not forgiven if we have never felt that we need forgiveness. Where guilt has never been perceived, it has never been removed. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” If I feel that I am as good as most people, and perhaps a little better; if I try to justify myself, and think of gaining heaven by my own endeavours, then I am under condemnation. God has never healed the man who was never wounded, nor has he made the man alive who was never dead. If you have never been humbled before God so as to acknowledge your sinnership, then you are still abiding under his wrath. Think of that, please, you who are at ease, wrapping yourself up in the garments of your own deservings! “Because you say, ‘I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing,’” you may be sure that, in God’s sight, “You are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” Dear friend, I hope it is not so with you.

24. Again, he has never been forgiven who does not at this moment hate sin. Jesus never came to save us in our sins, but to save us from our sins; and wherever he takes away the guilt of sin, he also kills the love for it. Sin never seems so black as when we see it put away by Jesus’ blood. At the sight of the cross, we grow angry with ourselves for having slain our Lord by our transgressions. Never dream that you can be pardoned, and then be allowed to live as you did before; the very wish to do so would show that you were still under condemnation.

25. Again, you are not forgiven if you have never sought Christ and his atoning blood. If you have laboured by other means to procure mercy, you have not found it; for no one else can give it except the one appointed Mediator. Can your “priest” grant you pardon? Did you offend the priest? Then the priest can forgive you for offending him; but he cannot forgive you for offending God. No one but God in Christ Jesus can blot out sin, and you must go to him; and if you do not, you are not forgiven, whatever you may dream.

26. Once more, have you forgiven everyone else? This is a poignant question for some minds; but remember how necessary it is to answer it. If you do not forgive everyone else their trespasses, neither will your Heavenly Father forgive you. There it stands, “Forgive us our sins; for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.” If you cannot pardon everyone, no matter how grievous the offence, neither has God pardoned you. A malicious heart is an unrenewed heart. A revengeful spirit is completely contrary to the Spirit of God, who passes by transgression, iniquity, and sin. This truth may be preached very little, but Holy Scripture makes it very prominent, and you will be most unwise if in any measure you ignore it. You are not forgiven if you cannot forgive.

27. Let me now help you, by some positive test, to see whether you are forgiven. Only one is needed: you are pardoned if you are a true believer in Jesus Christ. It is written, “Jesus seeing their faith,” — that is, the faith of the four bearers, and the faith of the man who lay on the bed, — said to him, “Your sins are forgiven you.” The poor palsied man so believed in Jesus that his very face beamed with confidence when he came into Christ’s presence; and so Jesus, seeing his faith, said to him, “Your sins are forgiven you.” Do you believe in Jesus? I know that you believe that Jesus Christ is God and a great Saviour; but is this a mere matter of doctrine to you, or do you really believe in him? You know what it is to believe in a man so that you can trust him, and leave your affairs in his hand: do you in this way believe in Jesus? That is the faith which saves. When a man believes in Christ so as to commit himself to Christ for salvation, he believes properly; for believing is only another word for trusting, relying, depending on.

28. Do not trifle with this question. It is my hope that you can answer, “Yes, unless I am awfully deceived, I am trusting the blood and merits of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I am so trusting him that I endeavour to follow in his footsteps, and to copy his example.” Then you are saved, for “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Dwell on that word, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God.” If you really trust Christ, though you have only done so during the last hour, your transgressions are put away, and your iniquity is covered, for he immediately pardons those who come to him. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” If you have confessed your sin to him, and trusted in him, you are most assuredly cleansed by his blood.

29. Now for my last word; it is this. Jesus said, “Be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you.” Come, then, let us be of good cheer of our sins are forgiven. Let us be happy. Let us be merry in the Lord. Let us begin to sing for very joy of heart, because our sins are forgiven us for Christ’s sake. We are very poor, but our sin is forgiven us. We are very weak, but our sin is forgiven us. We are, perhaps, getting very old, and near to our end, but our sin is forgiven us. We are full of infirmity, and vexed with temptations; but our sin is forgiven us for his name’s sake. “Son, be of good cheer,” said the Saviour, and shall we be otherwise? What if our room is a very small one, what does it matter if our sin is forgiven? “Ah, but there is a sick one at home!” “Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you.” You know how the Master, when the disciples found another source of joy, turned them back to this: “Notwithstanding in this do not rejoice that the spirits are subject to you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven”; and so, when you find a multitude of troubles, follow the same good advice.

30. Does someone say, “I am head over heels in trouble, for I am in great straits?” Let me lay my hand on your shoulder, and say, “Brother, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you.” “Oh, but I have very little to live on!” True, but you have this comforting message, “Your sins are forgiven you.” Be of good cheer; your Lord tells you to be so, for your sins are forgiven you.

31. If you are not happy, it will be disobedience to Christ, for he commands you to “be of good cheer.” It will look as if you did not value the blessing that cost him his blood. “Your sins are forgiven you.” It cost him his life to buy you this redemption; and are you going to groan when you get it? No doubt you are pleased to give good things to poor people; and, if so, you like to see their gratitude. I gave something, not many days ago, to a man, and he just put it in his pocket, and walked off without a word, as if he would say, “I thought you would have given me at least ten times as much.” I thought, “If I had seen the way you would take it, my man, I should not have been in such a hurry with my gift.” When you give your children a little treat, you like to see them pleased and thankful; but if they sit down and fret over your kindness, you are disappointed, and are in no great hurry to indulge them again. Our Heavenly Father’s gifts must be valued and delighted in: if he has forgiven us our sins, let us be happy.

32. “Son, be of good cheer.” Have some regard for the outside world, for, if they see pardoned men and women with gruesome countenances, they will infer that there is not much comfort in the grace of God, after all. “My wife,” one says, “declares that her sins are forgiven her; yet I am sure, when there is a little trouble in the house, she is more downhearted than I am.” “There,” cries a woman, “my husband tells me that his sins are washed away, but he grumbles and murmurs until we are all made miserable by him.” Do not let it be so. If we have a cross to carry, let us bear it joyfully for Christ’s sake. If we have work to do for Christ, let us do it with delight. Let us live to music. Let us march to heaven to a happy tune, rejoicing in the Lord because our sins are forgiven, and let each one of us say, — 

      All that remains for me

      Is but to love and sing,

   And wait until the angels come

      To bear me to the King

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Mr 2}

1, 2. And again he entered into Capernaum after some days; and it was heard that he was in the house. And immediately many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as around the door: and he preached the word to them.

It is a very exceptional fact that, although man, in his natural state of heart, is opposed to the gospel, yet he is drawn to hear it. Even though he abhors it, yet often he cannot help listening to it. Wherever Jesus Christ is, whether he is present in person, or in the preaching of the Word, it will be certain to be known abroad, and multitudes will come to hear. The grandest attraction either inside or outside of heaven, is still the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.

3-5. And they come to him, bringing one sick with the palsy, who was borne by four. And then they could not come near to him for the crowd, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed on which the sick with the palsy lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the sick with the palsy, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.”

In Luke’s account of this gathering, we read that “the power of the Lord was present to heal them”; and when we ask, “Why was that power so remarkably present?” we think that one reason was, because there were people present who were anxious about the good of others; and, today, wherever four people come together praying for some poor soul, you may rest assured that the power of the Lord will be present there to heal. I do not think that so much of the success of sermons depends on the preacher, as on those model hearers who are all the while praying for a blessing, and who are making other members of the congregation — those who are unconverted, — the constant subject of their supplication. Christ blessed this man because of the faith of the four who carried him, and possibly because of his own faith.

Notice that our Lord did not at first say to the sick man, “You are healed of your palsy”; but he said, “Your sins are forgiven you.” This was laying the axe at the root, because sin is the reason for sorrow; and where sin is pardoned, even the effects of sin will be removed.

6-9. But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts. “Why does this man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God only?” And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they reasoned so within themselves, he said to them, “Why do you reason these things in your hearts? Which is easier to say to the sick with the palsy, ‘Your sins are forgiven you’; or to say, ‘Arise, and take up your bed, and walk’?

Whichever is spoken, Omnipotence is implied. Only the presence and power of God could give efficacy to either sentence; but, for him, the one is as easy as the other.

10-14. But that you may know that the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins,” (he says to the sick with the palsy,) “I say to you, ‘Arise, and take up your bed, and go your way into your house.’” And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went out before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying “We never saw anything like this before.” And he went out again by the seaside; and all the multitude resorted to him, and he taught them. And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the receipt of custom, and said to him, “Follow me.” And he arose and followed him.

There is a change in the method of displaying Christ’s power, but his power is always the same. To the palsied man, he said, “Arise, and take up your bed, and walk”; but to the man engaged in a calling which degraded him, Christ said, “Follow me”; and “he arose and followed him.” Blessed be God, we still have in our midst the living Lord, who is as able to work miracles of mercy today as when he was on the earth; and we have not merely to exhort, to persuade, and to entreat, though we have to do all that, but we have also to speak with authority in the name of this glorious Son of God, and to command men to repent and believe in him. He is with us, by his Spirit, to make his Word mighty, so that, to this day, palsied men do arise, and walk, and sinful men are led to turn from evil, and to follow Christ.

15-17. And it came to pass, that, as Jesus sat eating in his house, many tax collectors and sinners sat also together with Jesus and his disciples: for there were many, and they followed him. And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with tax collectors and sinners, they said to his disciples, “Why is it that he eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard it, he says to them, “Those who are well have no need of the physician, but those who are sick: I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

For ordinary Christians to associate with those who are like the tax collectors and sinners of Christ’s day, might be dangerous, for “bad company corrupts good character”; and Christians should be careful concerning the company in which they are found; but for Christians to go among such people to try to do them good, is Christ-like. The Church of Christ always fails in her duty when she looks at any class of people as being beneath her observation, or too far gone for her to reach. Our Lord’s mission was to find out, and to supply the needs of mankind, and he seems to have paid particular attention to the very worst of men because they needed him most; and his Church should always be guided in her choice of work by the necessity of the objects that need her care. And brethren, you and I, who are in the ministry, will do well to choose, not that sphere in which we may be most happy and comfortable, but that one in which we are most needed. If I were a lamp, and had my choice of where I would be hung, I should prefer to be hung up in the darkest place in London, where I could be of most use, and I think that every one of us would make just such a choice if we judged properly, and desired to be where we were needed, and to do as the Saviour did when he was on the earth.

18-20. And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees used to fast: and they come and say to him, “Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the children of the bride-chamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then they shall fast in those days.

While Christ was with his people in person, they could not help having joy and gladness; but when he was gone from them, they must lament his absence.

21, 22. No man also sews a piece of new cloth on an old garment: otherwise the new piece that filled it up takes away from the old and the rip is made worse. And no man puts new wine into old bottles: otherwise the new wine bursts the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles.”

The bottles were made of skin, and the wine put into them must be of a suitable kind. To prescribe fasting to his disciples, while he was making them glad with his personal presence, would have been incongruous and absurd; and there are some things that we ought not to expect from young Christians, and other things that we ought not to expect from old and mature Christians. We should not expect to find new wine in old bottles, nor old wine in new bottles. “A place for everything, and everything in its place,” is not only a rule for the home and the merchant’s office, but it is also a rule which should be observed in the Church of Christ; for God, as a God of order, always puts things in their proper places, and in due order.

23. And it came to pass, that he went through the grain fields on the Sabbath day; and the disciples began, as they went, to pick the ears of grain.

They had offended the Pharisees by not fasting, and now they were offending them again in a similar way, though with reference to a different matter.

24. And the Pharisees said to him, “Behold, why do they on the Sabbath day do what is not lawful?”

According to some Rabbis, you might pick an ear of wheat on the Sabbath day, but if you rubbed it between your hands, they said that was a kind of threshing which was a kind of labour that must not be performed on the Sabbath. They made all kinds of ingenious restrictions, too ridiculous for us to quote. These disciples were therefore, according to them, chargeable with sin, because they had picked ears of grain, and had performed the operation of threshing them on the Sabbath day; and we have some of that kind of folk living now who take the smallest matter, which is altogether insignificant, and in which there is neither good nor harm, and magnify and distort it, and then make a man a grave offender all for next to nothing. We have learned not to be very much troubled by anything that they choose to say.

20-28. And he said to them, “Have you ever read what David did, when he had need, and was hungry, he, and those who were with him? How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the showbread, which is not lawful to eat except for the priests, and gave also to those who were with him?” And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath: therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.”

He has made it to be no longer a day of bondage, but a day of blessed rest and holy service for God. Works of necessity, works of piety, and works of mercy, are not only allowed to be done, but are commanded to be done on the Sabbath day.

Other sermons by Mr. Spurgeon, upon this Miracle: — 

{See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2337, “The Physician Pardons his Palsied Patient” 2338}

{See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2417, “First Forgiveness, then Healing” 2418}