The Book of Mark
James J. Barker


Lesson 6
THE MAN WITH THE PALSY HEALED

Text: MARK 2:1-12


INTRODUCTION:


1.     We are going to look tonight at how our Lord healed the man with the palsy. 

2.     The Bible teaches that God does heal in answer to prayer, but these modern-day so-called “faith-healers” like Oral Roberts and Benny Hinn are all crooks.

3.     I have read two books about Hinn - The Confusing World of Benny Hinn and Blinded by Benny.  Both prove beyond a doubt that the man is a deceiver.

4.     I read a good book about Oral Roberts, written by the man who produced his television broadcasts.  When Oral Roberts discovered that the author was writing the book, he had his chief of staff offer him a substantial sum of money not to write the book. 

5.     The author refused the money and went ahead and published the book. After publication, Roberts had the author beaten so badly in a Tulsa parking lot that plastic surgery was required to repair his face.

6.     The book is entitled, Give Me That Prime-Time Religion, and the author is Jerry Sholes.  It is over 200 pages and you can purchase it for $1 on the Internet.  It is an eye-opener!

7.     If these false prophets truly had power to heal, they would be down at the hospitals and not in these big basketball stadiums and civic centers.

8.     Our Lord did not go into the big coliseums of His day. (They had them back then.)  He went up and down the streets and into peoples’ houses (Mark 2:1).

9.     Our Lord went down by the seashore and up on the hills and mountains.

10. Mark 2:1 says, “And again He entered into Capernaum after some days; and it was noised that He was in the house.”  That’s some good “noise.”  We could use some of that kind of noise around this neighborhood. 

11. “And again He entered into Capernaum” (2:1; cf. 1:21).  Capernaum became His headquarters.  Early in His public ministry, our Lord moved from Nazareth to Capernaum.  It was here in a home in Capernaum that a man sick with the palsy was lowered down through the roof (Mark 2:2-4).

12. We are not told the name of this young man with the palsy.  That is not important.  Let’s just look at him as a picture of a sinner saved by grace. 

 

I.                  THE NEED AND THE HELPLESSNESS OF THE SINNER

II.               THE INCURABLE DISEASE OF SIN

III.           THE POWER OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST TO FORGIVE SIN

 

I. THE NEED AND THE HELPLESSNESS OF THE SINNER

1.     Right off the bat we see several important things here, regarding this man’s helpless estate.  First of all, he was “sick of the palsy” (2:3-5, 10).

2.     In other words, he was paralyzed. He could not come to Jesus on his own.  He was totally helpless and hopeless.

3.     He is a picture of a hopeless sinner.  Ephesians 2:1 says unregenerate sinners are “dead in trespasses and sins.”

4.     Ephesians 2:11 says they are “without Christ” and without hope, “and without God in the world.”

5.     This man with the palsy had to be carried by four other men (2:3).  Christian friend: there are lost sinners everywhere, and they are paralyzed by sin, paralyzed by false doctrine, paralyzed by worldly pleasures, paralyzed by indifference and prejudice, and many other things that are keeping them from getting right with God.

6.     There are paralyzed sinners all about us and they cannot get to Jesus.  We must go and get them and bring them to Jesus. 

7.     If we only could see sinners the way Jesus sees them.  Jesus sees them as hopeless and helpless - just like this man sick of the palsy.  Let’s see sinners the way God sees them (cf. Isa. 1:4-9, 18; Rom. 3:10-18, 23).

8.     Before moving on, let me say this: these men were willing to tear off a roof in order to bring their friend to Jesus.  The man who owned the house (Peter?) was willing to let his roof be torn off. But many Christians today will not even cross the street to try and help a lost sinner.  And many Christians would never allow four men to tear open their roof!

9.     What is a roof compared to a sinner getting saved?  What is a little inconvenience if it means seeing someone saved?  Remember this man was “sick of the palsy.”  He was paralyzed by sin.  And there are multitudes just like him all around us. 

10. This was their only way to get their friend to Jesus.  It would have been wrong to give up.  It would have been wrong to wait for another opportunity.  Perhaps there would never be another opportunity. 

11. Thank God for their determination to get their paralyzed friend to Jesus. Let us be just as determined!

12. There will be a great reward in heaven for these four men who carried the man sick with the palsy to Jesus.  We do not know their names but God certainly does.

13. A few weeks ago I was at a special meeting in the Philippines.  The young people there worked hard to get their unsaved friends to come to the meeting, and 20 of them came forward to accept Christ as their Saviour.

14. Some church members think, “What can I do around here?  I cannot teach SS, I cannot play the piano, I cannot sing, I cannot preach, etc.”  You can do what these four men did - they brought a man to Jesus, and that man was saved, and then he was healed.

 

II. THE INCURABLE DISEASE OF SIN

1.     Sin is the most awful disease that ever took hold on man.  Cancer is bad, but sin is far worse. Tuberculosis is bad, but sin is far worse. There are dreadful diseases, and we are familiar with many of them, but they are nothing compared to the paralysis of sin!

2.     Perhaps there are some here that think I am exaggerating.  Not so!  Sin blinds and paralyzes.

3.     Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness” (Eph. 4:18, 19).

4.     But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (II Cor. 4:3, 4).

5.     Bro. Mercado reminded us the other day that behind the word “sin” is the hiss of the serpent - “ssssssin.”

6.     The sinner has the wrath of God upon him (John 3:36; cf. 3:18).

7.     The sinner is spiritually dead (Eph. 2:1, 5).  What could be more hopeless and helpless!  

8.     In the OT, physical healing and forgiveness of sin were closely connected (cf. Ps. 103:1-3; Isa. 58:8; 53:4).  This is carried over into the NT (cf. Matt. 8:16, 17).

9.     Peter says in Acts 10:38 that Jesus “went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil.”  And He still heals today in answer to prayer, according to James 5:16.

10. Sickness is the result of sin. Sin came into the world first, and this brought sickness and death (cf. Rom. 5:12). 

11. Israel had been promised immunity from sickness if they would obey God (Ex. 23:25).  But they failed God (Deut. 28:58-61).  

12. The healing of this man with the palsy’s body is an illustration and demonstration of the healing of his soul. We need to emphasize that sickness of the soul is far more serious than sickness of the body.

13. Sin brought sickness and death into the world, and throughout the Bible they are all closely related.  But the most important thing in the world is salvation, not physical healing (Rom. 5:12; 6:23).

14. In the case of the man sick with the palsy, he was saved first, then he was healed (Mark 2:5, 9-12).  If you can get both salvation and healing, by all means get both, but if it is a choice between the two it is far better to choose salvation.

15. Some Christians teach that man has no choice.  They say man has no free will.  But man can choose, and man must choose. 

16. Joshua said, “Choose you this day whom ye will serve” (Joshua 24:15).

17. Elijah said, “How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him” (I Kings 18:21).

18. The apostle Paul stood before Agrippa and said, “King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest” (Acts 26:27).

19. But King Agrippa refused to make the right choice.  He said to Paul, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian” (Acts 26:28).

20.  If there are any unsaved here tonight - you may not have the palsy, but you have a spiritual paralysis that only Jesus can cure.

 

III. THE POWER OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST TO FORGIVE SIN

1.     Our Lord said to the wicked scribes and Pharisees, “But that ye may know that the Son of man (Messianic title - cf. Dan. 7:13) hath power on earth to forgive sins” (Mark 2:10).

2.     The Jewish religious leaders accused our Lord of “blasphemy” (Mark 2:6, 7). They said, “Who can forgive sins but God only?” (2:7). 

3.     Actually, they were half-right.  Only God can forgive sins (Mark 2:6, 7).  But they were seriously wrong in not recognizing that Jesus Christ is God, and therefore He has the power to forgive sin.

4.     We can see right here that Jesus is God because He “perceived in His spirit that they so reasoned within themselves” (2:8).  Only God knows what is in a man’s heart (2:6-8). 

5.     Psalm 94:11 says, “The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity.”

6.     The paralytic man was helpless.  He was unable to move, but when Christ commands, He gives the strength to obey (Mark 2:11, 12).

7.     The cure was immediate.  The man was healed, and the people “were all amazed” (2:12).

 

CONCLUSION:

1.     I mentioned in the beginning of my message that Capernaum became our Lord’s adopted hometown (cf. Matt. 9:1).  He performed many great miracles in Capernaum (Mark 2:12).

2.     But despite all these wonderful miracles, and despite all the preaching they heard, the people of Capernaum “repented not” (Matt. 11:20-24).

3.     Therefore they were “brought down to hell” (Matt. 11:23).

4.     Another lesson: We need Christians like these unnamed “four” (Mark 1:3b).



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