Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2337
“And, behold, they brought to Him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus, seeing their faith, said unto the sick of thepalsy; Son, be of good cheer;your sins are forgiven you. And, behold, certain of the scribes said within themselves, This Man blasphemes. And Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, Your sins are forgiven you; or to say, Arise, and walk? But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, (then He said to the man sick of thepalsy), Arise, take up your bed, and go to you house. And he arose, and departed to his house.” Matthew 9:2-7.
I REMARKED in the reading that the Gospel of Matthew is especially the Gospel of the Kingdom and of the King. All through Matthew’s writing, the title of King constantly occurs in connection with Christ, and His kingliness is prominent from the opening chapter to the close. Here we see the King exercising His royal prerogatives. In this passage we have several instances of Christ acting as He could not have acted if He had not possessed a royal and Divine Power.
I. I will go at once to my text and note, first, that JESUS DEALT WITH THE PALSIED MAN IN A TRULY ROYAL AND DIVINE WAY.
The bearers of the man sick of the palsy, had broken through the tiling, whatever that may have been, to get him near the Savior. They had dropped him down over the heads of the eager throng and there he lay upon his pallet before Christ, unable to stir hand or foot, but looking up with that gaze of eager expectancy which Christ so well understood.
You will notice that our Lord did not wait for a word to be spoken—He simply looked and He saw their faith. Matthew writes, “Jesus, seeing their faith.” Who can see faith? It is a thing whose effects can be seen—its signs and tokens are discernable and they were eminently so in this case—for breaking up the roof and putting the man down before Christ in so strange a way, were evidences of their belief that Jesus would cure him. Still, Christ’s eyes not only saw the proofs of their faith, but the faith, itself. There stood the four men, speaking with their eyes, and saying, “Master, see what we have done! We are persuaded that we have done the right thing and that You will heal him.” There was the man, lying on his bed, looking up, and wondering what the Lord would do, but evidently cheered by the belief that he was now in a position of hope where, in all probability, he would become a man favored beyond everyone else. Christ not merely saw the looks of this man and his bearers, but He saw their faith.
Ah, 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—this needs Divine sight, this needs the glance of the eye of the Son of Man! Jesus saw their faith and now, tonight, those same eyes are looking upon all in this audience 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, tonight, 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 ever so little faith in Him that you have, my Master 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 tiniest gleam of faith in any human heart, that out of it may come a flame of spiritual life! “Jesus, seeing their faith.”
Now then, my dear Hearer, Christ’s eyes are looking at you, tonight. Whatever faith you have, exert it now! Believe in Jesus! He is the Son of God—believe in Him as able to save you, for He is able, and He is willing as well as able—and now trust your soul to Him, sink or swim. Determine that if you must die, you will die at the foot of Christ’s Cross, and you will go nowhere else for salvation! “Jesus, seeing their faith.” His royal and Divine sight could perceive that which was hid from all mere mortal men.
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. That was bad enough, but 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!