Now, Mark's Gospel, chapter 2, I'm not going to preach any sort of a sermon. Of course, Wednesday nights I usually just talk, and that's what I'm going to do tonight. This is always, for me, a fascinating passage of Scripture, as we start at verse 1. And again, He entered into Capernaum after some days, and it was noise that He was in the house. And straightway many were gathered together in so much that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door. And he preached the word unto them. And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was born of four. And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was. And when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay, When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, reasoning in their hearts, why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only? And immediately, when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts? Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee? Or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins. He saith to the sick of the palsy, I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house. And immediately He arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all, insomuch that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion." Amen. The Lord will add His own blessing to the reading of His Word for His name's sake. When I come to this passage, I'm always encouraged just to Think a few diverse. It's been the nicest way to put it. Unconnected thoughts sort of have a butterfly brain and just jump from here to there with what the text suggests. But if I try to put it into any sort of meaningful outline, I don't like to use that word because that's not really what I'm doing tonight. But any meaningful scheme that you could follow it. I'll start at the beginning and say that here we learn some things about the Lord Jesus Christ that should be an encouragement to us in our prayers and in our service. As we start the chapter, we see that His presence grew the people. It was noised abroad that Jesus was in the house and straightway the crowd was gathered. You will know as well as I do that churches have for a long time, ever since I suppose the time when it was not mandatory by law to go to church, ever since then churches have been on a quest for a way to get people to come to church, to get people in the door. We find that is still one of the greatest challenges Doesn't matter how good the singing is or even how good the preaching is. If the people are not there to hear it, it can't do them very much good. So the big thing is, then how do you get them in? Churches have adopted all sorts of stratagems to bring people in. I think of a very famous church where the preacher told the people, And I've mentioned this before and some people looked at me as if I was making it up, but I can tell you this actually happened. Some of the folk here may remember it, getting some ink in certain fundamentalist magazines at the time. But he said if you reach so many people in church this Sunday, that he would swallow a live goldfish. Well, the people brought everybody in to see if he would actually swallow a live goldfish. Unfortunately for the poor little creature that hadn't done anybody any harm, he did. I don't know if he fulfilled the old song and it wriggled and wriggled and wriggled inside him. I sure hope for his discomfort it did. But anyway, that's one way to get them in. I don't think that really counts for very much because if people want to go to a circus, they should go to a circus, not a church. But churches have got up to all sorts of things to get people in. We invite people, we encourage people, and those are legitimate things to do. But you know, ultimately, what will bring people is noising it abroad that Jesus is in the house. People go out and they tell people, why you should come to our church? You like the singing, you like the music, you like this, you like the other thing. That may be true or it may not be true, but the greatest testimony that you can bring to anybody is, here you will meet with Christ. Jesus is in the house. The presence of the Lord draws a crowd. Now, sometimes that can cause a problem. Because we go on to read that in this crowd there came four men bearing one who was sick of the palsy. He was paralyzed, lying on a litter. When you think of a bed, you mustn't think of a four-poster with a canopy. He was not told to take that apart and carry it on his shoulders. So they carried this man on a litter, not finding any way to get in because of the press. Always remember that was one of Dr. Paisley's favorite texts, when he was dealing with newspaper men, he said, you haven't changed. People couldn't get near the Lord because of the press, and you're as bad as ever you were. I think that's using the word in his own peculiar way. But there was such a press of people, they couldn't get in. Stop there for a minute. I said I would have a butterfly brain, and I want you to think of this. How often it is that a lot of people who are gathered around Christ, are more of a hindrance than anything else to getting souls to Christ. Here was somebody who needed to get to Christ and he couldn't get there because of the people who professedly were taking up with him. Let's think of that and make sure we are helps and not hindrances to needy souls getting to Christ. When I read that passage I find that, and I'll look at it in a minute if time permits, I find that preachers are fascinated with the four men carrying the palsied man. Maybe I'm just guilty of having a perverted brain, or what passes for a brain. But every time I read that, I think of the poor fellow who owned the house. Might have been Peter. Probably was. But just imagine now, these are not grass huts. These were actual houses. And they had solid roofs. So there you are, you're sitting in your house, you think you're doing a great job, we're having a cottage meeting, Christ is in the house, people are coming here to meet with the Lord, and you're very happy with what you're doing with the Lord. Haven't I done a good job? I've opened my house for the Lord. And the next thing you hear, not squirrels on the roof, but you hear men on the roof. And you look up and you see a hole starting in the roof. And I read that they broke it up. They broke it up. Now I think even in that day, that was going to be a pretty big job to fix. It was going to cost time and money and effort. And as I say, every time I read that, I think of the man, probably Peter, but be it who it may, I think of the man who owned the house. And I wonder, what would my attitude be if in order to get a soul to Christ, it cost me like that? Very easy to get so comfortable. in our words about a burden for souls, and a love for souls, and a desire to serve Christ, to get so comfortable in that, that the words just spin off the end of our tongue, and they mean nothing to us, and they mean less to God, or even to the devil. There's a lesson here. When you invite Christ into your life, and into your house, be it your body as a temple, a spiritual temple of the Holy Spirit, or your house, your home, your family, you invite Christ in and say, Lord, I want you to make this your platform. I want you to make this your pulpit. I want you to make this your place from which you will reach out to souls. Use me. Use my life. Use my body. Use my home. Use my whatever, when you turn it over to the Lord, he's going to take it. And in human terms, it may cost you everything. But what's given to Christ is never lost, no matter what the cost may be. I've often mentioned to you The story of the early days of, well, actually fairly early days, the 1950s of the Acre Gospel Mission. That's the mission that Bill Woods went out under, still is a member of. It's the mission that Victor Maxwell served with for quite a number of years. It's the mission that Dr. Paisley wanted to go to Brazil with and head up their work when they had nobody else to head it up. He wanted to leave Belfast and go up the Amazon, but the Lord had pity on the Amazonians and kept them at home. So, the free church and that mission go back a long way. I've told you, I think, before of the young couple from Belfast that God called to go up into Amazonas. Fred and Ina Orr. Fred was a great preacher. Ina had a magnificent singing voice. And they made a great team for God. And out they set. Our little church in Mount Marian, where I went at that time, was the last church in which they had a gospel mission before they set off to go into Brazil. In those days, it was all done by slow boat. They went on a boat, they got to the mouth of the Amazon, and they were going up the river. And there, Ina took ill. And she died. And such was the hostility to these foreigners coming into a Roman Catholic area with no gospel light that he had to get off that boat and dig her grave with his own hands and bury her. It's a big price to pay. Today, there's a thriving church where she was buried. You see, you never lose, but sometimes it costs. Thousands of people have been reached. I can't tell you how many have been saved as the result of that testimony. But I tell you, when we give ourselves to God, be it our bodies or our home, to serve Him, He's going to take them. I wonder, are we really ready to serve Christ individually, in our homes, and as a church? The presence of the Savior drew the people. The preaching of the Savior instructed them. I read that he preached the Word unto them. He preached the word unto them. Now those two things will always go together. The presence of Christ, the preaching of the word. Let's lay this down as an absolute rule. We have many meetings taking place all across America, usually of a charismatic stripe. And they have great claims about the presence of Christ. And they have these wonderful feelings. And this is put down to the presence of Christ. And how you can be absolutely sure in almost every case that it is not the presence of Christ at all that is being experienced is the absence of the pure preaching of the Word of God. Those things always go together. Christ's presence, and His preaching of the Word. Now, I emphasize His preaching of the Word. It's not just enough that we pay lip service to or even give verbal expression to orthodox doctrine and truth. It's not just enough that a preacher gets up to preach. In our services, we must have the presence of Christ in such a reality It is Christ that's doing the preaching by His Spirit. Man is merely the instrument, but that the Lord is really giving out His Word with His power. And when the Lord does that, He instructs the people. Where there's the preaching, when you follow the sequence here, where there is the presence of Christ and the preaching of Christ, then you will always see the power of Christ manifested. And we see the power of Christ meeting their needs. They bring this man who was paralyzed. They break down the roof. They let him down into the midst of where the Lord Jesus was. And what happened? The Lord healed him. He met the need. The power of Christ manifested. Now I want to tell you, this is what we've got to be praying about. It's not enough to be playing at church. It's not enough even to be getting people into the pews. It's not enough to go through all the ritual. We have got to have the presence of the Lord. We have got to know the preaching of the Word in the authority of Christ Himself. We have got to know the power of Christ actually changing the lives of men and women and touching people at the point of their need. We have got to know that. That's what we've got to be praying about. The Lord Jesus, when he manifested his power, along with it, went his pardon. And one of the most beautiful parts of any of the Gospels, you have this story of the Lord Jesus looking at this man who was palsied. Now, I don't know how it came about that he came to be paralyzed, but it must have been, in his case, the direct result of sin. It was sin that had brought him there. It was sin that had caused this. For Jesus said, Thy sins be forgiven thee. And in proof of that, He healed him. That was not the normal way for the Savior to deal with someone who was physically sick. Usually, it is not a matter of a direct connection between sin and sickness at all. At least specific sin, specific sickness. We all get sick because we're born sinners, but that's a different story. But in this case, whatever the connection, we're not told. But this man's biggest need was his sin. Notice how the Lord dealt with him as he manifested his power to meet the need. What did this man really want? He wanted to get rid of paralysis. But Jesus said, you need to get rid of your sin. When the Lord's power starts to work with people who are either in a service or brought into a service, when the Lord's power starts to work with people according to His wisdom, He will give them not what they want merely, but what they need. And what they need may cover what they want. In other cases, it may not. But the Lord went to the root of His need, and as He manifested His power, He gave him his pardon. Of course, you're always going to get naysayers, and this should encourage us a little bit. We get a bit discouraged when people say rotten things about us, lie about us, and all sorts of things. The number of lies that you come across against anybody who's trying to do a work for God, just incredible. But then look at what they said about Christ, questioning Him. What right has He to say your sins are forgiven. But why does he have to say that? Well, you know, the Lord Jesus could have given them a theological lecture. He could have proved from scripture. He could have overcome them just with the power of words. He did that on other occasions. But on this occasion, he said, you want to know that I have power to forgive sins, which is easier to say your sins be forgiven you. And then putting it that way, he's indicating that if they had just Stop their carping for a minute that has seen that man rise up from a paralyzed state Because God had forgiven his sins He says which is easier for me to say your sins are forgiven you or to say arise take up your bed and walk We would set six of one half a dozen of the other But Jesus said in order that you may know that I have the power to forgive sins He turned to the man rise take up your bed walk This is the power of Christ in operation, bringing His power to bear on the needs of men and women. If there's one thing in church life that we have got to abominate, it's a word that Martin Lloyd-Jones loved to use and I think it's a great word. If there's one thing we need to abominate, it is everybody coming together to church. And we say all the right things, and we do all the right things, and we go through all the right rituals, and we nod our heads at the right places, and everybody goes away untouched, unmoved, unchanged. That's something we have got to abominate. We must be praying about that. I will be honest with you, it worries me greatly when I see young people come to the church year after year and then grow up, go away unsaved. And I'm not saying that to blame them, though they're to blame for their own sin. I'm saying that as I examine my own heart before God, somewhere somehow, I have missed the power that was necessary to move those people for Christ. We've got to take this seriously. Now, will we invite the Lord into the house? Will we say, Lord, come, no matter what the cost is, and remember, he'll take us at our word. The cost of seeing Christ work like this is often a whole lot more than breaking up a roof. But are we willing to invite the Lord and say, Lord, here's my home. Here's my life. Here's our church. Take it. Enter it. Possess it. Fill it. Use it. Are we willing to do that? I believe that Christ is still willing to enter hearts and homes and churches. I don't believe that he promises in vain. I don't believe he holds, dangles out, as it were, like a carrot in front of a donkey and it can never be reached. There's the possibility just to mock us. I don't believe he deals like that. I believe we're dealing with a sincere Christ. Let's forget about it all and go home. But I believe we're dealing with a sincere Christ. And if we are willing to have him come in, he'll do it again for us. Let's pray. We need his presence. We want to see the crowd, but that's just in order that he may work and that he may preach the gospel and that he may win people for himself. We want to see the people, we want to see the needs met. Most of all we want to see, and this is the great climax of this passage, we want to see the person, the authority, the dignity, the honor, and the glory of Jesus Christ clearly established and expressed in the teeth of his enemies and despite all their wicked naysaying. So that's what we're looking for. Let's ask the Lord to come in our midst and do such a thing for the honour of his own great name.