Friends, we cannot see one another’s faith! We may see the fruit of it. Sometimes we think that we can discern the lack of it, but to see the faith itself needs divine sight and His glance, the eye of the Son of man! Jesus saw their faith and now, today, those same eyes are looking upon all of you and He sees your faith. Have you any that He can see? “Oh, yes!” some of you can reply, “we have a humble, trembling faith—not such as it ought to be, but such as we are very thankful to possess.
Some of you, it may be, are conscious of your sin, today, and all the faith you have is just a faint hope, a feeble belief that if He will but speak to you, you shall be forgiven. You believe that He is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him, but you have, in the background, a fear that you cannot come, or that you may not come in a right way. Still, if it is even with such little faith, in Him, our LORD sees it, and as in our early days we used to look for a single spark in the tinder that we might get a light on the cold mornings, so does the Lord look for the faintest gleam of faith in any human heart, that out of it may come a flame of spiritual life! “Jesus, seeing their faith.”
But then, when Jesus saw their faith, observe, next, that He dealt, first, with the chief evil which afflicted this man. He did not begin by curing him of the palsy. The ailment was bad, but the sin is worse than the palsy!
Sin in the heart is worse than paralysis of every single muscle! Sin is death and something worse than death—therefore Christ, at the very beginning of this miracle, to show His Lordship, His royal, his divine power, said to the man— “Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you.” This was laying the axe at the root of the man’s evil nature! This was hunting the lion, the biggest beast of all the foul creatures that lurked in the dense forest of the man’s being. Christ’s words drove the unclean animal from his lair, and by His almighty power, tore him as though he had been a kid!
Now, at this time, you may have many troubles and, perhaps, you are eager to spread them before the Lord. That sick child. Your dear husband/wife who is at home ill. That business which is flagging and likely to fail. That disease of yours which is weakening you and which makes you scarcely fit to be in the Lord’s house, today. Now, waive all those things, for heavy as they are, they are inconsiderable compared with sin! There is no venom as poisonous as that of sin! Sin is the wormwood and the gall— this is the deadly fang of the serpent whose sting infects and inflames our whole being! If this evil is removed, then every ill has gone and, therefore, Christ begins with this, “Your sins are forgiven you.”
Breathe a prayer to Him, now, for the forgiveness of your sin—“Jesus, LORD, forgive me! With a word You can pardon all my sin. You have but to pronounce the absolution and all my iniquities will be put away at once and forever. O my LORD, will You not put them away, today?”
Notice, also, that Jesus did absolutely forgive that man—“Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you.” He did not say, “They shall be forgiven,” but, “They are forgiven; I absolve you from them all. Whatever they may have been, your youthful sins, your manhood sins, your sins before the palsy laid hold upon you, your sins of murmuring since you have been upon that bed—put them all together into one great mass and though they be multitudinous as the stars of heaven, or as the sands on the seashore—Son, your sins are forgiven you.” And the man felt that it was so. He believed that it was so—a load was taken from his heart, and his whole spirit was lifted up by that gracious word—“Be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you.” I pray my Master to deal thus with some who are sitting in these pews who are very heavy at heart. May He speak right into the depths of your spirit,
“Son, Daughter, your sins are forgiven you! They are blotted out, they are all gone.”
Oh, what a dreadful time that is to a man when first he sees his sin! It is the darkest moment of his life, but it is a blessed moment when he sees that Christ has put away his sin and has said to him, “You shall not die in your iniquities; for they are all forgiven.”
Everything grows light and bright round about him! He, himself, is like one who comes up out of a well, or out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, yes, out of the very belly of hell! He seems to leap, all at once, up to the throne of heaven as he sings, “My sins are all forgiven! I am a miracle of grace!” Wonder not if the man can scarcely contain himself—marvel not if he runs and leaps, and dances for very joy!
This is how Christ behaves towards poor, paralyzed, sin-bound men and women. He sees their faith and then puts their sin away where it shall be seen no more, forever, for He is King, He is God and He is able to forgive and blot out all iniquity.
Hear HIM, shout to HIM, having been under a great sense of sin and being relieved of it, could, for a long time, only cry out, “He is a great Forgiver!” When there are other things to be attended to, and you could not see to them, nor speak of any other kind of business but this, “He is a great Forgiver!”
If you receive it, would you say AMEN? God bless you and have mercy upon you. May God show you His Mercy and Peace.