Words of Jesus Podcast - Crippled Because of Sin

Episode Date: October 8, 2021

In this chapter, friends of the paralytic put forth radical effort to get help for their friend. Ignoring protocol, perceived guilt and physical obstacles, they went directly to Jesus for healing.  To their surprise Jesus addressed, the underlying concern, sin.  To this day we believe calamity has to be attached to something we did wrong.  “I don’t measure up to God’s standard.”  Even if we deserve bad things to happen to us, how does that help? We forget. Jesus didn’t come to condemn us. He came to save us.  “Who did sin, this man or his parents?” Jesus continually said, “It’s not like you think.”    According to the Scriptures, “All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean…” We must strive to reconcile with our God in spite of our circumstances.  ***Chapter 12 (Part 1) - Jesus Heals a ParalyticSOON THEREAFTER Jesus was back at Capernaum.  Word spread that he was there and great multitudes came to be taught and to receive favors at his hands. One day, as he was teaching, there was brought to him a paralytic, carried by four men.  So great was the press of people, the bearers of the bed were unable to enter the doors of the house where Jesus was speaking.  Accordingly they climbed with their burden onto the roof, made a hole, and lowered the pallet and paralytic into the midst of the group around Jesus.  When he saw this display of faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man:  “Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.” When they heard this, the scribes and Pharisees who were present reasoned among themselves, saying: “Why does this man thus speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Jesus knowing their thoughts, said: “What reason ye in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, ‘Thy sins be forgiven thee’; or to say, ‘Rise up and walk’?  But, that ye may know that the Son of man hath power upon earth to forgive sins,” – Turning to the paralytic, Jesus said: “Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine own house.” Immediately the man arose before the eyes of all who were there.  He picked up his pallet and departed to his own house, glorifying God. And the multitude who saw this miracle were amazed. They, too, glorified God and were filled with awe, saying: “We have seen strange things today.”

Think Red Ink Ministries presents The Words of Jesus Series with Don C. Harris Hello friend and welcome once again to the Words of Jesus series. I'm Don Harris, your host, and I'm taking you through the red ink of the scriptures and by way of this little book called The Words of Jesus. It's just a handy little book that takes us through everything that Jesus said. And I think that it's important that we know those kind of things. If you're going to think red ink, you're going to have to hear red ink. And you're going to have to understand the tenor of what Jesus had to say.

Soon it will become apparent to you what kind of character he had and how he was thinking, what he was thinking, what he thought was important, what he thought was not important. The warnings that he gave, man, I mean, it just, this is just a treasure trove and I've never really understood why it wasn't more important to people than it is. We are in chapter 12 now. Now, this is a compilation of Matthew 9, Mark 2, and Luke 5. You'll find that this story appears in

these three Gospels. And from these three Gospels this story was combined into what we're reading today. I realize that anytime you combine scriptures there are certain words or phrases and such that are left out and I encourage people, go to your scriptures and read these. That's why I try to give you these references on these chapters. And if you have an interest in learning what the scriptures actually say

and you know I'm not a stickler in learning what the scriptures actually say. And you know I'm not a stickler about you know we all have to read the King James or I happen to like it. It's my Bible. It's the one that I read when I read the Bible. And I encourage people to do so for a lot of different reasons. One of the reasons is just as crass and perhaps as fleshly and as secular as it can be. And that is that people were just smarter back then. People had the ability of expressing themselves. You know

Wycliffe was a hugely intelligent man and he was directly involved in a lot of what we read in the King James Bible. And one of the reasons why the language is so beautiful. But I encourage you to learn to read the King James. You'll be I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. It's like the difference in me telling you to watch some famous movie. I can't think of one right now.

What a wonderful movie that is. Or reading Shakespeare. They're absolutely incomparable. Absolutely incomparable. But you're never going to get that across to somebody who doesn't want to read and they'd rather sit on the couch and eat potato chips and watch a movie. Alright, this is chapter 12, Jesus heals a paralytic. Soon thereafter Jesus was back at Capernaum. Word spread that he was there and great multitudes

came to be taught and to receive favors at his hands. One day he was teaching. There was brought to him a paralytic carried by four men. So great was the press of the people, the bearers of the bed were unable to enter the doors of the house where Jesus was speaking. Accordingly, they climbed up with their burden, which was their friend, the paralytic friend, onto the roof and made a hole and lowered the pallet

and the paralytic into the midst of the group around Jesus. When he saw this display of faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee. A couple of things are very interesting about this. One of them is that if this had happened today, they would have had to have gone through asphalt shingles and three-quarter inch plywood sheathing and wiggled him down through rafters and then went through sheetrock. It's hard for us to really imagine the kind of home conditions that these people lived in, but

these roofs were thatched roofs and roofs that were essentially replaced every year or so because they would dry out and rot and blow away or whatever else would happen to their roofs because the houses were crude. And they were able to make a hole in this roof. And so here we have these four men that evidently loved this poor man who was paralyzed.

Now you tell me what in the world was on Jesus' mind when he saw they evidently heard all the noise up top while he's down there trying to teach. He's thinking, what's going on up there? And directly the sunshine comes through and they're thinking, what in the world? And then all of a sudden this cot

that had four men and four ropes tied to it was being let down in front of Jesus where he was sitting in this room and teaching these people. He had to smile. He had to have just thought, well, isn't this cool? These guys are not going to be put off by this crowd. They couldn't wiggle him through all these people. Because the room was probably full.

The ante room was probably full. It was full out to the doors. There was probably a crowd around the house, around every window, around every door, trying to hear what Jesus had to say. And so these people coming and seeing this crowd of people thought, this is never going to happen if we don't do something. And so here they decided to at their own expense, I'm sure that they

didn't feel free to tear up the roof of somebody else's home, but they made this hole, they let this man down. Jesus just had to be tickled about this. And so it's interesting to me, and I'm wondering if it's interesting to you, that he didn't look at that paralytic man and say something like

hey these guys care about you don't they or where did you come from or you know what's going on here or somehow communicate to him the nothing perhaps the comedy of the situation. He didn't mention anything, but he jumps straight to thy sins be forgiven thee. I'm wondering, what's that all about? They didn't let him down in front of Jesus for his sins to be forgiven. Hey Jesus, here's a sinner for you. Can you forgive him?

Here Jesus says, my sins be forgiven thee. Why did he do that? Why did he say that? I think that the compassion and the understanding of the day had so infiltrated people's minds with false doctrine, false assumptions

that he was able to look into this situation and remember we talked about how it wasn't necessarily that Jesus had the ability to read people's minds, but that he was instructed of his Father. And it's his Father that speaks. It's his Father that says what to do. And Jesus even said, it's my Father that doeth the works.

And I always do what pleases Him. I can't help but believe that the Father has spoken to Jesus about this person coming through the ceiling and saying, this pitiful man is paralyzed and he's been told his whole life that it's his fault. You must have done something. There must be something in your life.

You know you're a sinner. You know he has to agree. I guess he blinks his eyes. I don't know. He said he's a paralytic. I don't know that he could even nod his head. He couldn't even argue the point with his detractors and say, well, that's not so. But he was probably told by well-meaning people that the reason you're in the mess you're in

is because of your sin. It goes all the way back to Job, the oldest book in the Bible, where you have people who are in dire straits. They have problems in their life. They're being, you know, every 15 minutes, somebody else is running up to Job and saying more of your family's dead

more of your flocks have been destroyed lightning fire fell from heaven and consumed all your crops over and over and over and over these things start happening to Job as the hedge is being torn down around his life and Satan allowed to come in and destroy and so here come Job's three friends. They're going to help Job. What are they going to tell him? You know the story.

You should be very familiar with the story of Job. They're going to tell him, well Job, you know you must have done something wrong. You must have displeased God somehow. No, I haven't. Oh, that's blasphemy. Don't say that. Well, I haven't displeased God. I've done everything I know to do. There are people who say that Job had opened the

door for Satan to come in and destroy him because he was celebrating his children's birthdays. What? What? How do we get to the point that calamity in our life has to be attached to something we've done wrong? It's just a guilt consciousness. It's a has to be attached to something we've done wrong.

You know, it's just a guilt consciousness. It's a sin consciousness. It's playing on one of the most foundational feelings that mankind has that I don't measure up to God's standard. And it's very easy to do. You can do it to anybody. You can do it to anybody. I don't care what it is. You got a flat tire?

Well, what have you done wrong? What do you mean, what have I done wrong? Well, that wouldn't have happened if you'd been pleasing God. Oh, come on. I haven't done anything wrong. Are you telling me that there's no sin in your life? Are you telling me that you've not fallen short? For we've all fallen short.

We've all come short of the glory of God. We've all sinned. There's none righteous, no, not one. It doesn't take long for you to get through to people who have a sin consciousness anyway. Well, gee, perhaps this is my fault. Well, so you accomplish what you accomplish. Now where do you go?

Now what do you do? You ask God to forgive you? Well, you just told me that I'm going to sin every day. So what do I do? I ask God to forgive me every day? And if I forget, I'm going to catch a cold? If I forget, I'm going to have cancer? Where does this go?

Where does this end? How does a person live in the joy of the Lord, knowing that he's sitting over you? He's got his bow bent. He's got his arrow on you. All right, come on. Are you going to ask forgiveness? No? I mean, really? Is this our God? This is so sad that we do this to one another. You know this happened to Jesus over and over again? He walked by and saw a man one time that was in a bad condition, in a bad way. His disciples decided to ask him a theological question. So, Master master who did sin

this man or his parents that he was born blind Jesus is thinking are there any other options is there a door number three here this is the only two options we have is that he sinned or his parents not that they didn't even ask

why did this happen they asked why it happened and then gave him two choices both of which are foundationally flawed well Well, it didn't stop Jesus. It didn't even slow him down. He said, it's not because this man is sin or for his parents that he was born blind. This man was in this condition that the works of God might be made manifest

in him. Watch this. Not the only time Jesus said, watch this. As a matter of fact, it happens in this story here. But we have an idea that, well, you know, if something bad happens to you, it's because you deserve it. Well, you know, that might be true to one extent or another, but how is that helping anything? How is that making life better? Well, you know, I got cancer and, you know, the doctor says I got six months to live. I got a kid that's still in grammar school. I got one in college. You know, the house isn't paid off. Cars aren't paid off. You know, I don't have college funds set aside for the other kids.

But, you know, I probably deserve this. So I feel pretty good about it. Does this really fix anything? You know, God didn't come here to condemn us. Jesus didn't come to the world to condemn the world. The world was condemned already. He came to save us. He's the lifeguard. He's the one you want to the world to condemn the world. The world was condemned already. He came to save us. He's the lifeguard.

He's the one you want to latch onto. His intention is to drag you to shore. He's not out there to pull you under. We need to quit thinking this way. Jesus said one time, hey, that tower in Siloam, wow, that was rough, wasn't it? Fell over and killed all those people. The disciples said, yeah, that was rough, wasn't it? Fell over and killed all those people? The disciples said, yeah, that was bad.

He knows what they're thinking. Those Galileans that came over here to give sacrifices and the powers that be decided that they didn't like that for some reason. They went in and killed them. And it was such a bloody slaughter that their blood was mingled with the blood of their own sacrifices. That was horrible. What do you think of that? The disciples were thinking, yeah, that was bad. But they probably deserved it. They were sinners.

Jesus didn't let that go. He says, so you think these guys offered sacrifices? You think they were sinners above all Galileans? The tower in Siloam, do you think that those people were sinners? Is that what you're thinking? He had to dispel this theory all the time because it was very commonly said. And sometimes in our modern civilization, if you want to call it that,

it's not said so much, but it is implied. It is implied. Oh my God, his wife left him. Oh, isn't that horrible? He must have done something horrible. Really? Really? Is that the case? Really? Is that the case? Oh, did you hear his house burned down the other day? That shouldn't happen to a dog. But, you know, he may have deserved it. You know, he may have deserved it. You know, I don't even know if they say that out loud.

It's just kind of implied. This is a horrible way to live. We need to quit doing that. You know what we need to say? That guy's wife left him the other day. Maybe we need to go by and make sure he's got everything he needs. You ever think of that? That person's house burned down the other day.

You think they've got a place to sleep? Maybe we ought to offer him our guest room, our little cottage out back. Maybe we ought to help him. Does that ever hurt anybody? No, we just want to fix blame. We don't want to fix the problem. We want to fix blame. We are so pitiful. I wonder sometimes when I go to thinking about things like this and see the common

reactions of other people and see what they're thinking and so on, I'm thinking, why doesn't God just wipe us off the face of the earth and start over? There's nothing salvageable here. These people hate each other. They're always looking for problems in people's lives, looking for sin and looking for reasons to blame them. You know what I love about Job? Job says, I haven't sinned and you're not going to get me to confess the sins that I haven't committed. I'm not going to do it. You might do that to other people, but you're not going to do that to me. Miserable comforters you are. You're all physicians

of no value. I like Job. I love Job. His attitude was, I don't care what you are. you're blaspheming god i will maintain my own ways before him and let come on me what will you're talking about a guy that's got confidence here where does that kind of confidence come from by not listening to all the naysayers all the people that are willing to assign sin and assign motive to everything and to find something that's hugely significant and something that's just minuscule in nature. You don't listen to those people. Who cares what they think? Get on with life. Get on with it. You know Jesus says if you don't change, if you don't change this attitude in your head, you're going to perish by everything that

happens to you. All these horrible things, they're going to absolutely kill you. When did he say that? Well, he said that clearly. You think they were sinners above all Galileans? You think those people upon whom the tower of Siloam fell, you think they were sinners? I tell you, nay. What does that mean? I tell you, no, they weren't sinners above anybody else. But except you repent, you're all going to likewise perish.

I've always wondered what that meant. Well, there you go. Bad things happen to bad people. And bad things happen to good people. Just like good things happen to bad people. And good things happen to good people. This is what the preacher in Ecclesiastes was saying. You know, I'm an old man. Here's something I've seen. Good and bad things happen to good and bad people.

But see, we don't have to perish by them. We don't have to get worse because of somebody else's calamity or by ours. Except you repent, except you change. You're going to have to change the way you're thinking. But boy, as soon as you do, you know what you're going to find out? These things don't have to affect me. These things don't have to affect me. These things don't have to destroy me.

I try to tell people that if you will just live by your conscience, you know what I tell you? That's the second rule, right? Never disobey your conscience. Keep the commandments of God. Listen to the Lord every day. Let Him tell you what He wants you to do. Do you know if you'll live by this and you'll stop your sinning ways, all your inventions of coming short and making excuse and asking God to forgive you and all this stuff, Do you realize that if you will live that way,

where you have a conscience that is clear before God, an answer of a good conscience toward God, you live in that way, you're not disobeying your conscience, and you're taking time every day to hear the voice of God. Do you know it will not matter how drastic, how deep, how horrible the disaster is in your life. It will never even cross your mind. What did I do to deserve this? It'll never cross your mind.

I'm telling you, you know what will happen is strength will rise up in you and you will deal with this situation and you'll have people around you that think my goodness, didn't your house burn down last week? Yeah, it did. It was a mess well, how are you doing? Everything's fine. You'll walk into your secretarial pool and somebody say, my goodness, I heard you lost your baby. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was,

that was bad. And when did that happen? Day before yesterday. What? You know what they see in you? They see an unnatural, a supernatural hope within yourself that is not subject to what happens in the world. How are you coping with this? You know what just happened to you? You just stepped into, not the twilight zone. You just stepped into the witness zone. You're just about to engage yourself in evangelism that you've

never heard of before. Not out there knocking on doors asking people if they know Jesus. No. You know what you're doing? You've just run into an opportunity to give an answer to them about the hope that is in you. It's a wonderful part of the Christian life when the change that is being made inside you starts to appear to others

around you. You know what? If you do that, you've got their attention because they have those kind of problems too. There are women who are on mind-altering drugs and have been for the last 15 years because of a miscarriage. There are men who have never surmounted the financial disaster that incurred in their business or because their home burnt down or because of something that happened in their life. And they're just never able to get over it.

It's the subject of every conversation. And they want to tell you how horrible it is. Well, why do you think these things happen? Well, you know, I guess I deserve it. I mean, there was a time when, you know, I was unfaithful to my wife. Or there was a time when I did something wrong or I beat a guy up in a bar or whatever.

Friends, we've got to move above this. These people have no hope other than you. As soon as you see that, the better off you're going to be. Come on, let's have some hope. Time is gone for today and we're going to see you next time on the next Words of Jesus series. I want to hear from you. Write to me at Don at ThinkRedInc.com or if you would like, you can write us paper mail. And that's done at ThinkRedInc Ministries. P.O. Box 718 Pytown, New Mexico.

It's my privilege to bring you these words of Jesus. And I hope they can change your life and most of all tomorrow I want you to start something perhaps new to you. I want you to think ready. We'll see you next time. Bye bye. Thank you. ¶¶ you've been listening to don c harris of think red ink ministries ThinkRedInc.com. That's ThinkRedInc.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you