Mark 2:1-12, “Four Men Carry A Paralytic To Jesus To
Be Healed”
By
1.
INTRO:
2.
In our last study, we looked at verses
21-45 of chapter 1.
2.1.
We saw that again
Jesus was in action, as Mark always portrays Him. We saw that it has been said that how great
Jesus loves men and women and has compassion on them is seen not so much in His
teachings, but in His acts. From Mark’s
gospel we see that Jesus was constantly on the move ministering to sinful human
and preparing His disciples and the rest of the world for His death on the
cross for men’s sins and resurrection from the dead, Jesus began His ministry
In Capernaum.
2.2.
Jesus Began
Healing & casting Out Demons.
2.3.
Simon’s
Mother-in-law was healed by Jesus.
2.4.
We discussed how
that all of Jesus’ healings were immediate and complete.
2.5.
W concentrated
upon the authority that Jesus had while He walked upon the earth, and how that
should affect our lives.
3.
In our study
today, we are going to look at verses 1-12 of chapter 2 of Mark.
3.1.
We are going to
look at this incredible story of how four men bring a paralytic to Jesus to be
healed, and we will see how that there are a few important principles that are
taught through this story.
3.2.
We will see how
that the church needs to learn from the hearts and tenacity of these four men
and be encouraged in how to go about winning the lost to Christ following their
example.
3.3.
Both Matthew and Luke
include this story in their gospels, and Luke actually includes more detail
about the story than any of the other gospels.
VS
2:1-12 - “1 When He had come back to
4.
What sets this story apart in Jesus’ ministry is that it is not the man
who is healed who is the center of attention, nor his faith. Rather, it is the friends who brought the man
to Jesus who get the focus, and their faith that is rewarded.
5.
This man was paralyzed and desperately needed Jesus’ healing
touch. Jesus came to the area and was in
a house, and people flocked into this house to see Jesus until it was
jam-packed. Jesus was teaching the
people. There is no record of what Jesus
was teaching the people on this day.
But, everyone had heard of Jesus’ healing power and how since beginning
His ministry He had been healing all who were brought to Him with various
illnesses and casting out demons of all of those who were demon possessed. This paralytic man needed to get to Jesus for
healing. But, there were two things that
hindered him:
5.1.
First of all, he couldn’t get there on his own due to paralysis.
5.2.
Secondly, the house was so stuff full of people that not even one more
person could fit into the house.
6.
This miracle is a story about the persevering faith and love of friends
who are concerned about this man. These
men believed that Jesus could heal this paralytic and because they loved the
man they are diligent to persevere in finding a way to get the man to
Jesus. These resourceful and tenacious
men of faith concocted a way to take apart part of the roof of this house and
then lower the man on his bed down to Jesus.
7.
We Christians have to reach out to the lost and bring them
to Christ because unbelievers don’t have the ability in and of themselves to
come to the Lord due to the depravity of their sinful nature. Paul wrote about or alluded to
this often in the New Testament, for instance:
7.1.
Romans 3:9-19: “9
What then? Are we better than they?
Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under
sin; 10 as it is
written, “There is none righteous,
not even one; 11 There is none who understands, There is none who
seeks for God; 12 All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There
is not even one.” 13 “Their throat is an open grave,
With their tongues they keep deceiving,”
“The poison of asps is under their lips”;
14 “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness”; 15 “Their feet are
swift to shed blood, 16 Destruction and misery are in their paths, 17 And the path of peace they have not known.” 18 “There is no fear of God before their
eyes.” 19 Now we know
that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that
every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God;”
7.2.
Romans 7:18-21: “18
For I know that nothing good dwells
in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of
the good is not. 19 For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I
do not want. 20 But if I am
doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin
which dwells in me. 21 I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to
do good.”
8.
The man’s friends first carry him on a stretcher hoping to bring him to
Jesus. Seeing that the masses are
surrounding Jesus, who is teaching in a house, they came up with the plan of
how to get the man to Jesus and then tenaciously work to see him brought to
Jesus.
9.
Houses in
10.
These men must have used ropes wrapped around this man’s bed on four corners
as they dropped him down.
11.
Note that Jesus was not in the least offended at having His teaching
interrupted by one who is brought to Him who desperately needed His personal
touch and ministry.
12.
Notice here that Jesus says that it is because of the faith of the
man’s friends that He forgave this man, not because of the faith of the man
himself. All three gospel accounts of
this story agree that it was the faith of the men which was commended and led
Jesus to heal this man. This ought to be
an encouragement to the church to be soul winners. Our faith and perseverance in reaching out to
people in this world with the gospel as the Lord leads us will be rewarded by
our bearing of fruit for God’s kingdom.
13.
All of Jesus’ physical healings also illustrate allegorically ways in
which He heals men of their spiritual illnesses. In this story, we should see the parallel
that sin paralyzes people
and on their own they usually cannot and will not come to the Lord. They need good friends who will bring them to
Jesus.
14.
This story illustrates the incredible truth that Jesus always sees the
deeper needs in our lives. This man not
only needed to be healed physically, he needed a spiritual healing by Jesus. He needed to have his sins forgiven and then
be restored to fellowship with the Lord and receive eternal life. Jesus first told this man that his sins were
forgiven him. We can only imagine that
having his sins forgiven must have been to him like having a ton of bricks
removed from his shoulders. Truly, had
Jesus not healed this man of his paralysis, because this man’s sins had been
forgiven him by Jesus this still would have been the greatest blessing that had
ever occurred in his life.
14.1. We Christians need to
recognize that just as Jesus knew what this man’s real needs were that He knows
what our real needs are also. When
things happen in our lives which we don’t understand why He would allow them to
happen, we need to recognize that God’s wisdom is infinite and He knows what He
is doing and whatever happens it will work together for our good. Difficulties, trials, and persecutions should
never dissuade us from continuing to serve Christ and doing good deeds.
15.
We see here that Jesus intentionally forgave the man’s sins first so
that He might then heal the man physically in order to give confirmation to the
fact that He indeed has the power to forgive people of their sins.
16.
Note that the scribes correctly discerned what Jesus meant when He told
the man that his sins were forgiven.
This was a complete pardon from all sin issued by Jesus, and it is much
like believers in Christ today who are justified before God through their faith
in Jesus Christ.
17.
It was good that the scribes were skeptical to accept the claims of
Jesus, this was their responsibility.
However, the problem was that they refused to consider even for a second
that Jesus might in fact be who He claimed to be. This negativity, prejudice, and
closed-mindedness by the scribes and Pharisees was the result of the general
hardness of their hearts against the Lord.
18.
In this story, the scribes were correct when they reasoned among
themselves that only God can forgive sin.
The scribes refused to even consider that Jesus was in fact God in the
flesh (the Son of God), and therefore they believed that He had blasphemed by
declaring to this man that his sins were forgiven him. The scripture teaches us that only God
forgives sin, for instance:
18.1. Psalm 103:3: “Who pardons all your
iniquities, Who heals all your diseases;”
18.2. Isaiah 43:25: “I, even I, am the one who
wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, And I will not remember your
sins.”
19.
Knowing the reasonings of the Jewish religious authorities at Jesus’
claim to forgive the sins of men, Jesus asks the people there which was harder for
Him to do, to forgive sins or to tell the man to get up and walk? The obvious answer is that anyone can claim
to have the ability to forgive someone’s sins, however to heal a paralytic is a
much harder thing to do. Only God can
perform such a work.
20.
In order that the people might know that He has authority to forgive
sins, Jesus tells the man to get up, pick up his bed, and go home. The man is immediately and completely healed
and then proceeds to carry out Jesus’ command and carry his bed home. This is an incredible complete and
instantaneous healing of the man which even reversed the atrophy of his muscles
which had occurred over time.
21.
Notice that for the first time in Mark that Jesus refers to Himself
with that somewhat obscure title of “Son of
22.
I had a friend once who was in a comma for a year and when she came out
of the comma her muscles had atrophied to the point that she couldn’t talk,
walk, or even crawl. She had to relearn
how to do all of that stuff, starting with learning how to crawl and make
sounds with her vocal chords. For this
man to be able to now carry his bed and go home reveals the fact that not only
has the man’s infirmity been healed, but even the atrophying affect of his
illness has been removed by Jesus. Plus,
the man is strengthened so that he is able to carry his bed he has been lying
upon for so long.
23.
The man who was healed had his faith tested by Jesus when Jesus told
him to take up his bed and walk. The man
had to determine if he really believed in Jesus’ power and ability to forgive
sins and perform healing, whether or not he would stand up and take his bed
home at Jesus’ command.
23.1. Have you ever noticed as a
believer that the Lord teaches you something from His word, and then the next
thing you know He asks you to act upon what He has taught you. He too asks you to take up your bed and walk
after He has healed you.
24.
The Bible Exposition Commentary points out some admirable
characteristics in these four men which we as believers ought to emulate:
“We
must admire several characteristics of these men, qualities that ought to mark
us as “fishers of men.” For one thing, they were deeply concerned about their friend and
wanted to see him helped. They had the faith to believe that Jesus could and would meet his need.
They did not simply “pray
about it,” but they put some feet to their prayers; and they did not permit the difficult
circumstances to discourage them. They worked together and dared to do something different,
and Jesus rewarded their efforts. How easy it would have been for them to say,
“Well, there is no sense trying to get to Jesus today! Maybe we can come back
tomorrow.””
1.
These men worked together to reach and bring this man to Jesus to be
healed, and in that sense they can be looked at as representing or being a
microcosm of the church as she fulfills the Great Commission that Jesus gave us
to fulfill before He ascended up to heaven.
We in the church must work together in various ministries in order to
bring those who are lost to Christ.
2.
As happened continually when Jesus healed, Luke tells us here that the
people were ‘all amazed’ Not
only so, the people also ‘were glorifying
God.’
3.
The people went away knowing that they had ‘never seen anything like this’ seen on this day.
4. The Pharisees and scribes went away believing that Jesus blasphemed the Lord by claiming to forgive sin since this is something that only the Lord can do. Jesus will begin soon to have many confrontations with the Pharisees and scribes and it is the charge of blasphemy for which Jesus will eventually be crucified.
5.
CONCLUSIONS:
5.1.
Because unbelievers
don’t have the ability in and of themselves to come to the Lord due to the
depravity of their sinful nature, we Christians need to be committed to
bringing sinners to Jesus.
5.2.
We Christians
need to care enough for the eternal state of people’s souls that we will pray
about how to reach them with the gospel, and then make feet to our prayers and
let the Lord use us to win them.
5.3.
We believers need
to be willing to work together to bring the lost to Christ.
5.4.
We Christians
need to be tenacious in our bringing of people to Christ, and not give up when
we face difficulties, trials, and persecutions in the process of seeking to win
others to Christ.
5.5.
We need to
recognize that just as Jesus initially forgave this man of his sins, revealing
that He knows the deeper and real needs that we have, we need to trust our
lives to Him knowing that in everything He knows what is best for us.