Got a very good question put to me during break, which I would like to answer. Question that two different individuals in the class asked was. Now when you say that Jesus atonement brings physical healing, are you taking that position that some of our charismatic friends take, namely that there is all healing in the atonement that sometimes some people put it, or another way of putting it is, is it guaranteed that we have all the power for healing if we just claim it? Is that what you're saying, is that what Matthew was saying? And the answer I think you know I'm going to say is no. Among other things we can look at the simple fact that even Paul didn't heal Timothy, did he, he said take a little wine for your stomach, instead of you know come on over and I'll take care of it, it wasn't as though the power was there on command at all times even in the apostolic age, in fact it even says a couple times when Jesus went to Nazareth that he couldn't perform many miracles there, now to answer a question he was asked earlier, his miracles are not simply something he himself does autonomously, but that there an act of the triune God, and so the spirit gives his power and they're the things that God has appointed for Christ to do. So even there are some limitations we might say are qualifications in Jesus' own ministry, but today what I would rather put it this way, we'll talk about it later at the end of our night tonight, I would rather put it to you this way, every benefit that we have is Christians, comes from the Atonement, it doesn't mean we get everything we want, certainly not an advocate of the health and wealth prosperity gospel, but whatever we do get does not come to us by accident or happenstance or simply by you know by good fortune or something like that or by our hard work, but every blessing comes to the Atonement, and there is no blessing that is ruled out or is impossible, we're not forbidden to ask for anything that we need or really for many hearts desire that's legitimate, but a legitimate desire of course would be a desire for health. So we can ask, and if we receive the basis of the Atonement, but in this life it's appointed for men once to die, and unless the Lord comes first we're all going to die and that means we're all going to have an illness from which we do not recover, and there's no hesitation about that in the Bible, nothing that would undermine that, and I think that a glib idea that it's all there if we just have faith, we can have everything we want, if you don't get what you want, is because you don't have faith overlooks those basic biblical, basic facts of life that are confirmed by the scriptures in various places. So you may have another question maybe on miracles or demonic activity before we move on to the next subject, that was a good question yes, the question is, is Jesus know these things are going to happen like for example, when he gets off the boat that he know that the men he got off the boat, a demonic or two demonic should come rushing up to him, that he know that was you already for that, is that your question, or that's a good hard question isn't it? That's kind of related to the question about the interaction between Jesus deity and Jesus humanity, one of the hardest things when we think about the life of Christ is to try to figure out when is his humanity working and when is his deity working, and I'm not sure we can ever sort that out completely, just for example, we're going to see tonight even that he could read people's minds, right? Now was he reading minds by his divine power or was he reading minds by some human power? Now our quick answer is say, well of course this is divine knowledge of all things, but let me just say not so fast because isn't it true that Jesus was probably the best listener there ever was, and probably the best at picking up clues of any human being that ever lived, among other things because when I'm talking, I'm just looking at Jennifer Jennifer talking to me, I'm talking to her, part of the time when we're talking we're thinking I wonder if I'm making sense, I wonder if she thinks I'm a geek, I wonder if I wonder boy I don't know what I'm going to say to that, that's hard and I'm rehearsing my next answer, and so through those sorts of things it's difficult for us to really listen, right? But Jesus wasn't worried about self-image and self-protection in those ways anyway, and wondering what people thought about him, he could really listen because he wasn't tangled up in sin and trying to look good and sound important and all those things that we do. So maybe, maybe he could pick up on clues that nobody else could pick up on, and in fact isn't it true for many of you if you know somebody well and are really listening, I wouldn't urge you to say, I know what you're saying, I know what you're thinking rather, especially in an argument with your spouse or something, you don't want to say that, but it is true that we can sometimes say, I think I know what you're thinking and you can be right, right? And it's not through omniscience, it's by listening very carefully, caring about somebody. So is it his deity or his humanity, well I mean it's the whole man isn't it? And although I might say ordinarily that it's his deity that does have the ability to discern thoughts and the heart, I don't know if we could rule as humanity out of it, you know, he probably used ordinary human means, the way I'd like to put it is this. In some events Jesus' deity is to the forefront, like when he commands the wind and the waves, and other occasions his humanity is to the forefront, maybe in a dialogue, or maybe when he touches the leper, so that's a very human thing, I'm willing, be clean, he touches it. So it's very difficult to separate out which one is which, and I think they're probably foolish even because he was one person, but we can say one or the other is more visible, follow up, yeah, yeah, very good question. He was astonished, we also read that he was at the time a distraught or upset, and you know if he had was drawing, let's put it this way, if he was constantly drawing on his divine omniscience, how could he be dismayed at their lack of faith? Or if he constantly was drawing his omniscience, how could he be astonished and marvel? The answer I believe is that Jesus lays aside some of his divine prerogatives in order to have a genuine human life. If he was constantly drawing on his omniscience and his omnipotence and his omnipotence for that matter, that would almost invalidate the genuineness of his human life. One of the things that he did was get tired while traveling, well, you know, God doesn't have to travel, he's in all places at all times. Jesus was a real man, and it ought to be a real man, he had to lay aside some of his prerogatives. He says that in one place, even the son of man doesn't know the hour, so it seems like we might say he denied himself as flipping two puts it. Some of the prerogatives of deity laid them aside, and part of the reason for that, maybe a lot of reasons, but part of the reason would be to have a genuine human life. Now, I see hands going up, but I'll tell you what I think what I want to do is press on to the next subject and try to catch people at break if possible, and the next subject is methods and themes in preaching, if you're a preacher, most of you aren't, so preaching or teaching the miracles. How do you do it? How do you take them apart, and how do you share what you learned with others? What I want to do in this session is one of the things I'm interested in in this course as a whole, and that is not just to teach you what's in the Bible, but to teach you how to get more out of the Bible, so in this particular session, that'll be an emphasis, gaining skill. I'm not going to go over every miracle here, of course. What I want to do is just go over one or two in detail, and you can go through some others pretty carefully on your own. The one we're going to go over is one you read about for tonight, and that is Luke chapter 5, verses 17 to 26, and I'll allow you to draw on your own work a little bit and mix lecture and your discussion, so let's just start off. One of the things we're supposed to do when we study passage of the Bible is to put it in its context. What is the context for Luke chapter 5, 17 to 26, the healing of the paralytic? To ask that question, let's read the passage, and then the second question is who's there, so we'll read through it, and then we'll work through it together, 5, 17. One day, as Jesus was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem were sitting there. The power of the Spirit was present for him to heal the sectors, by the way, another reference to the Holy Spirit's activity in his ministry, power of the Spirit present from the heal. Some men came carrying a paralytic on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd right in front of Jesus. When Jesus saw their faith, he said, friend, your sins are forgiven. Pharisees and teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone? Jesus knew what they were thinking and said, or asked, why are you thinking these things in your hearts? Which is easier to say, your sins are forgiven or to say, get up and walk. That you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He said to the paralyzed man, I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home. Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God. Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, we have seen remarkable things today. All right, what's the setting? What's the context in which this event takes place? Jesus is teaching. Where is he teaching? He's teaching in a house. What else do we know about the setting here? It's a crowded house. Now part of the setting is not just what's in the text but what comes before the text. What else is going on around that time in Luke 5? Somebody say it loudly. He called his disciples not long before that. What else? He had been healing. So he's calling disciples and he's been performing other miracles. In fact there might even be some connection, the catch of the great number of fish, assure the disciples that Jesus would use his powers for them. They were startled by that catch of fish. Jesus says, you know, don't be afraid from now on you're going to catch men. My powers for you and I'll take care of you. That made it easier for people to respond to him. He's calling disciples performing miracles. That's probably a pretty good statement of the setting. In a house, on a day when Jesus is teaching with miracles around, all right, what's the audience? Who's there? Now what kind of fear? What are they doing there? I'm just going to put P and S. Pharisees and scribes. What are they doing? Spying? Does it say that? I didn't see that word. What does it say? It says they were sitting there. Yeah. What made you think they're spying? They wanted to hear what he had to say and if they didn't like it, yeah, and if they weren't just interested in some vague sense, they weren't just interested in, let's take a look. Okay, scribes and Pharisees, who else is there? Okay, we certainly have the disciples there. Who else? Got a crowd? Who else? Okay, there's the paralytic in friends, I'm glad you said that. I heard somebody else say something different, very good. The Holy Spirit is there, how are the Spirit is there to heal? What else? Very good, the homeowner, excellent, that's an excellent list and I do believe it is a complete list as of this moment except for one little thing. I heard somebody say, oh yeah, isn't it interesting that we would leave Jesus out. Remember when you read the Bible, God is the hero of every story. God the father, God the son, God is, is a character in every story even if he's not mentioned like in the book of Esther. Okay, that's the audience, that's the setting. I do want to stop and think just for a moment about the language of power that's used there. Power was present to heal. That does remind us that Jesus did heal by power, is a manifestation of his power and Luke stresses repeatedly things like power was at Jesus disposal. He had power to heal. I don't know if it's in your syllabus there, but here's some places where it mentions that force 36, 517, 619, 846, a few others, we found power is present to heal, power to crush the power of Satan to overcome the power of a strong man, you need greater power. Another way it's put is sometimes some miracles, Jesus performs powers or by power that helps him overcome the weakness. One of the common biblical words for a disease is weakness. So people are weak, they're made weak by illness, they're made weak by sin and Jesus power makes them strong again. That's another use of power. Sometimes power is present, power is present seems like in a special way to heal. In other words, Jesus' ministry is not static as though back to the question I was asked a little bit earlier, as though he can do anything he wants anytime he wants. Which is true in a way, of course, because it's God. But in order to have a genuine ministry, it seems to me that he couldn't just say, I'm going to transport myself to Jerusalem, you know, like that, and go to Jerusalem when he was up in Cessary, Philadelphia, 150 miles away. So power was present to heal. All right, the action begins when some friends have a friend who needs to be healed. It's a house, the house is full. They get to the house and they can't get in, they're blocked by the crowd and yet they're determined to get their friend to Jesus. They've walked for hours, maybe they've walked for a day, who knows, maybe not so far. But they can't get in. This idea of an obstacle is an extremely common thing in biblical narratives. When we have this particular obstacle, a crowd keeping away, we'll be reminded of other crowds. It was a woman with a full blood who wanted to get to Jesus, but she couldn't because of the crowd. So all she was able to do was to get a hold of the hem of his garment, or there was a father of an epileptic boy who wanted to bring the boy to Jesus to be healed, but Jesus was being transferred on the mountain. And so all he could do was get to the disciples and the disciples, he never couldn't do anything because that kind could only be cast out by prayer and if they hadn't been fasting in prayer and they hadn't been zealous in prayer. And so he had to keep going and he finally made it to Jesus, but by the time he made it to Jesus, he wasn't so sure anymore, he was confident as it had been shaken. So he said, if you can, I already saw your disciples can't, can you? But he kept going, see. And that's an extremely common thing we saw in the Sarah Phoenician woman as well. Jesus originally allowed his disciples to rebuff her and he himself almost insulted her or put her off to be sure, but she pressed on. It's one of the things Jesus, I believe, wants to do. When people come to him for healing is to test their genuineness, allows an obstacle. So the obstacle is he can't get in. So what happens next? Somebody has an idea. You just have to almost picture it a little bit. We can't get him in. Now what are we going to do? What are we going to do? Now what are we going to do? Man, I don't know. There's no way to get in. We try to push, try to shop, try to call. Somebody gets a bright idea. Why don't we tear a hole in the roof? Well, see almost every house in Palestine, any house of any size at least, had a flat roof on which people slept at night. No air conditioning to understand, so that's the way you cooled off. And so they also dried vegetables up there and stored things up there and so forth. And so they had steps on the outside going up. You've probably seen pictures of that. And so they went on up there, onto the roof. And then could be pictured in this class right now. Can you imagine somebody, this class is actually pretty full. And imagine the seats are all taken and the aisles are full and somebody says, I've got to get in there and they'll do what it takes. And so they get a crowbar and they start doing their work and they start smashing and banging and you see debris drifting down through and one of the lights comes swinging around and crashing and people are clearing out and shattered shards of glass are here and bare wires are sizzling and then the hole gets bigger and bigger. You know, the class would probably stop, be looking what's going on here. And then there comes a man lowered down on a little stretcher with maybe a rope on each corner and four heads, doesn't say four, but we can just imagine. Four heads looking down, there's a shaft of sunlight breaking through, right, there's the dust moats all floating everywhere and now what? What do you think the man and his friends expected to hear besides cut it out, leave my roof alone, what do you think they expected to hear? What were they hoping for? They're hoping that Jesus would say, you're healed, rise and walk, right? Something like that. I mean the leper heard, I'm willing to be clans, boom, be clans, there it is. But what does Jesus say instead? He says your sins are forgiven and you know, if you're one of those four of friends, you'd say, now wait a minute, that's really nice of you, I'm glad you're forgiving my friend is sins, but that is not why we're here. Now that's what they might say, it was also somebody else there, the Pharisees, what did they say? I said he can't do that, taught are you willing, are you willing, all right? Let's just suppose for a moment that taught has been irritating me for the last couple weeks, he's in my class, he's chewing gum, great big, great big bubbles, multi-colored bubble gum, just sitting there chawing away and blowing bubbles and I've asked him once or twice to stop and he just has not stopped and really almost nobody notices that he's doing this. And finally I just walk up to him and I'm just pretending I'm talking like I was, you know, touching, and I just go bam, just give him a flat out sucker punch, just imagine that. I stayed two inches away. And then I walked over here and I said, Dwayne, would you forgive me for, oh, me, I want to do that, Dwayne, would you forgive me for punching, taught, sure, is there anything wrong with that picture? What's the problem, wrong person, if Dwayne forgives it's easy and it's irrelevant, right? Because I didn't hurt Dwayne, why does taught have to forgive me? Because I offended taught, now do you see what's going on with the Pharisees? What are they picking up on, somebody say it, what's the issue here? Well, that's true, but let's take the intermediate steps first, go ahead, there was no offense, how Jesus are you forgiving this man who is a stranger to you? That doesn't make any sense. You can only be offended by somebody whom you know, but there's one exception to that. See, if I sin against taught, I have offended taught me a problem between us, my sin against him between him and me, but there's always one other party involved in every sin. And that is God, God is offended by every sin. So when Jesus says, I forgive you and everybody knows it's a stranger, they're not dumb. They realize that Jesus is saying, this man did something to offend me even though I don't know him and therefore he is claiming deity. They are very perceptive on that score, they might be thinking of Isaiah 43, 25, I even I am he who blocks out transgressions for my sake and remembers sins no more, God is one who forgives every sin, Isaiah 43, 25. And so when they perceive this, they say, what do they say? He is blaspheming me because he's claiming deity who can forgive sins but God alone. Now we all know that and that brings what, if you went ahead and did this assignment, that brings what's the first crisis, sort of crisis A, you got the storyline going like this and you know you get your setting and then here comes somebody that's interesting, a paralytic and then you have a difficulty getting into you're interested and then and then when he says, oh, your sins are forgiven then you're really interesting, you can't get in there and you're interested and then he's your sins are forgiven, oh that's odd, I'm interested in that and then and then he's blaspheming me so that's the crisis or that's the climax of the story. But in fact it isn't quite yet the climax, it's preliminary climax, there's more to come and Jesus breaks off, can you imagine you're the paralytic for a moment? The first of all you want to be healed, Jesus says you're forgiven because that's not what I wanted. Then while he's dangling there in midair with dust all over him probably hoping his friends hands aren't getting tired, they break into a theological discourse, let's talk about theology for a while they say and he's probably saying what about me, I came to be healed. So it goes like this, who can forgive sins, Jesus says I know what you're thinking, why are you thinking them in your hearts? Which is easier to say your sins are forgiven or to say get up and walk or which is easier to say? It's easier to say your sins are forgiven, why? Because no one ever really know, so in some ways it's easier to say your sins are forgiven. Of course in the other hand if the sins really are forgiven you can never be proven to be right, can you? Because that's invisible. So he says all right in order that you may know that that thing that maybe seems to be easier but really isn't easier to say your sins are forgiven is something I can say I'll give you the proof, he's going to get up and walk. Now Jesus says the word turns to the Pharisees for the man and says to him I tell you take your mat, get up, go home. The mark of the climax in a narrative in the Bible is this, what is the moment when you're holding your breath, asking the question what is going to happen next? And that's why this is the climax because over the other moments are interesting, this is the true moment because if the man doesn't get up, what does it mean? He's Jesus is a blasphemer but if he gets up what does that mean? It means he does have the right to forgive sins, now there's one little thing we have to make sure we understand here and that is that in the biblical world people believe that there was a connection, an intimate connection between sin and suffering or sin and disease. We might say that back then they overdid it, remember the man who's born blind? The sin, this man or his parents, Jesus said nobody, the connection is not iron clad, you can't say to somebody who's suffering, well we just have to find the sin that you committed and then we'll work from there. Today we actually go the other direction and say there's no connection whatsoever. And I would say that we're probably making a mistake there too, but I do believe that God does sometimes chastise and I don't ask me how often I have no idea but I do believe that there is sometimes a connection between sin and illness, some of them are very obvious I mean if you drink alcohol and massive quantities, you suffer liver damage and kidney damage, that's pretty obvious and you take drugs and whatnot, you're going to harm your brain, your central nervous system and so on and maybe abuse alcohol tobacco, you can damage your lungs, but there's probably even more to it than that is what I'm saying. Yes, that's right, that's right, very good. Corinthians, chapter 10 and 11, the description of Lord suffering the various abuses that goes on there, one of the results is that they've gotten sick, even have died because of it, that's a good point. So we have here then the climax and the proof that Jesus indeed can forgive sins, so that you may know and what's happening is something like this, what we should conclude at the end is Jesus has forgiven, he does claim to be God and that is now demonstrated by a sign, there is a token, more than a token, a very concrete sign that Jesus can indeed heal, the man got up and went home and that brings the story both for the man and for the scribes and Pharisees to a climax, everything's resolved. The man who came to be healed is on a quest for healing is healed and those who are criticizing Jesus should learn that his authority to forgive sins is established and your reading I pointed out that it's vital after a miracle is over to look at the following sayings, the following words and see what light they shed, if you want to get the main point of a miracle you look two places, you look to the climax and you look to the following sayings, after you find the core message if you're a preacher, if you're a teacher, you're studying for yourself, so the core message comes in the climax, Jesus does have the right to forgive sins, he is divine, he is God and he has proven it, he's given a tangible sign of his power, but there's another place to look and that's in the following action and that's another question somebody asked me at break, I said in your reading that I wasn't so pleased that it was kind of a defective response to say what they said, they were amazed, they praised God and they said we've seen remarkable things, what's wrong with saying we've seen remarkable things, they didn't say they saw God, what should they have done, what should they have said, they should have worshipped, that's exactly right, they should have said he is God, he is Lord, he does have the authority to forgive sins, instead they said wow, awesome, awesome dude, well I mean awesome is better than it was a trick, right, but it's a long ways from faith, yes, yes then you have your hand up, I forget your name, Linda, yes, okay, they praised God, we've seen remarkable things today, no one will tell you just a couple things about praising God, one is you're absolutely right, there is a praise to God but not a praise to Christ, if they were really praising God in Christ, what they would have said that Jesus the scribes and Pharisees was we're sorry, you were right, we were wrong, that would be in there, now somebody may say well it doesn't say all that much about the scribes and Pharisees, listen it's not hard to tell that the scribes and Pharisees didn't change, in the next chapter and the next chapter and the next chapter, they're still skeptics, they saw the signs and they still don't believe, so even if this passage by itself doesn't tell you read on and you know that all they did, they never got any better than that, this was maybe the best they ever did, second thing is that the statement to praise God is kind of an idiom, and in fact there are some Christians today that even use praise God exactly the same, and basically I don't mean to put anybody down here, but there are some people who say praise God so much that what it really means is wow, that's interesting, you know what I'm saying? So it appears to be praise the God but really it's almost mindless and in fact praise God wasn't used exactly like that, but it actually was a way of saying it was an idiom that meant I'm telling the truth, or tell the truth, it's true, praise God means tell the truth, so when they praise God all they were saying was you know what really happened, it did have what we saw it, did you see it, I saw it, yes it happened, that may be all they were doing when they said praise God, you can see that I forget the verse, it's in John chapter 9, the man who's born blind, and they say to him praise God that the man who healed you, and they ask him a series of questions, meaning tell the truth right now don't lie to us, so we see a response that is cordial or vaguely positive, but a long ways from an ideal response, let me keep on going and ask you some questions, so I see questions coming up, but now what is the point of this miracle, what's the point of this miracle, if you're going to teach somebody, you're going to make the most you can out of it, the question we have to ask is what's the point, and I gave you some ideas, one idea is when you want to get the point of a narrative, a story, a miracle story, one thing you want to do is list the various characters right, well let's just list, we had a list of all the characters, what would you say are the main players in this story, okay we got Jesus certainly, okay we got the Pharisees and the scribes, we've got the paralytic and friends, that's probably it, those are probably the main characters right, and we've got the homeowner and so on, and he's maybe trying to decide what to do in the crowds and so on, what would be the main point for each one of these characters, there's another way of doing this, and that is to analyze the different types of narrative right, one of the three types remember that, three types of narrative, somebody said it, quest, a quest, a test, and a choice, there's this match up to these, for this, in this episode, what is this episode for Jesus, it is a test, it is a test of his power to forgive sins, what is this episode for the Pharisees and the scribes, it is a choice, what's the choice that they face, will they believe or not, what is this for the paralytic and the friends, it is a quest, very good, now I'm not going to tell you that every time you go through a story, you're going to have a nice match up like that, in fact, it'd be pretty rare, it'll be that clear, but that's one reason why I want to study this passage because it illustrates a lot of principles for us, what is, do you need to say more about Jesus and the test, Jesus passes the test, Jesus is who he says he is, Jesus is God, Jesus has the authority and the power, for the Pharisees and the scribes, it is a choice that they face between sticking with the path of their pride and their position and their status in Israel, what they should do now is eat their words, and they don't
to pass live before them, and they choose the path of preserving their own dignity instead of telling the truth, how about for the paralytic and friends, don't they show again how vital it is to persevere, this isn't a great story about that, we talked about quest, you know what I like to say about this, I like to say Christians get a little too caught up in the open door closed door thing, you know they say well I'm praying about becoming a missionary or maybe going to seminary or starting some new ministry or getting married or trying some new job or learning some new skill, and I'm going to see if the Lord opens the door closes the door, well you know sometimes the door is open, sometimes the door is closed, and sometimes you need to tear the door off the hinges, sometimes you have to say there's a closed door and this is not, you know God isn't going to make it easy for me, if you look at all the quest stories in the Bible, we just went through them earlier about a half an hour ago, time after time, God throws up one obstacle or maybe two obstacles, puts people off, makes them face some some barrier, and after they face that barrier and persevere then God gives it through, now these these men didn't tear the door off the hinges, they tore a hole in the roof,
so it's not just the saying you see it comes from the Bible, and there is a lesson in each of these today, as we look at Jesus today, what's the application right now for somebody who sees studies this miracle, and maybe you're teaching a group of people who would need to focus on Jesus today,
absolutely a bunch of you said unbelievers, an unbeliever needs to be acquainted with the claims of Christ and the fact that he validates them, he makes out he makes very strong, he doesn't claim to it great man, he claims to be God and he gives proof, what would be the point for the scribe and the Pharisee today, through to apply this miracle now, who needs the he who needs to focus or if you're a teacher who's kind of like the scribe and the Pharisee didn't needs to learn the lesson that they should have learned, they didn't but they should have, who's there today, could be a believer, so when there's a calling on their life, what do you mean by that? Okay, somebody who needs, I think I'm hearing both you, maybe saying the same thing, somebody who needs to consider the evidence of God's claim on their life, and it also, yes, go ahead, yes, yes, it's kind of, yeah, kind of get caught up under theologizing, and what we need to do is draw the conclusion from our theology, we might say, the evidence is there, act upon it, and that applies to a believer, I would say it also applies to an unbeliever, it applies to people, the many, many people in this world whom you know, who've gone to church, been to church, no, a little bit about the Bible, you know, maybe you've been catechized, a little bit joined some church at some point, they would say, I was a Christian, if you know what I mean, that is the sad ones believe that stuff, and yet they never really decided it was wrong, they just kind of drifted away, they need to be real men and women and confront the evidence and act upon it, and then of course you've got a third group today, like the paralytic and the friends, most obviously I've already made the application there, is that we need to persevere, press on, not give up at the first obstacle, and probably also, I think there's a second point as well, maybe in several points that are, another cluster of ideas, it just strikes me that Jesus saw, the text says, not the paralytic faith, did you notice the pronoun, doesn't say his faith, it says, saw their faith, the group of them together, do you think one of those, any one of those by themselves could have pulled that off, not only in the matter of just the courage to tear a hole in the roof and all that, I mean, just, I mean not the physical side of it, but also just the willingness to take such a risk, to do such a rash thing, and to believe that God would actually, Jesus would actually bless it, sometimes it takes a community, and maybe one person had the idea, and the other person did it, you know, and it took a group to come together, the point of obeying the impulse of faith to bring their friend to Christ, it takes a group to bring someone to Christ, it takes a group, often to create real healing, so encouragement there, question or comment that remains. Okay, the question is, a lot of the things that came out of our discussion that I said came from knowledge or backgrounds, language, customs, construction, and so forth. Is there a source? Yes, there is. If you get one source, the new Bible dictionary, which just came out again, is about $20, and that's probably the best one volume, maybe $25, the new Bible dictionary that came out in 93, 95, maybe it was, just out for not very long. There is another one that's from the 70s, which is fine, but it's, you know, by the new one. If you have a little more money than that, the best, serious, large source for those who are earnest, is the new international standard Bible encyclopedia, edited by Brahmaley, B-R-O-M-I-L-E-Y, not the one edited by Orr, the one edited by Orr is wonderful, but it came out before World War I was over. So some of the things in there are dated, it's wonderful in many ways, but you want the one that came out in the 80s, and if you're willing to go something a little bit farther back, Zandervin pictorial Bible encyclopedia came out in the 70s, these are all listed by the way in the back of getting the message, but it doesn't hurt to say yes. You know, that's a very good question, how about a very good observation. It says, the paralytic went home praising God and everyone was amazed and gave praise to God, and you know, I kind of ran rather rapidly through something, and that is that it really takes a little bit more observation than what I told you about right now, by itself praising God can be good and can be excellent. The reason why I have a little bit of doubt about everyone who was amazed and praised God is what else is in that verse. So to be filled with awe, to say we saw remarkable things to be amazed, those are three words that are expressions that appear here and there throughout the gospel of Luke, and they are never connected with faith, never. Praising God is sometimes, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, generally speaking very often it is, but it doesn't guarantee it by itself, but then you put it with those other words that are sort of the wow, that's interesting, that's amazing sort of response. All those others are short of real faith, then we say okay, praising God is with three others that are just, I'm interested, that's significant, and so we say okay, the other three show us that it's not strong faith, especially when next time we see the scribes and the Pharisees, they're not obeying, they're not telling their friends, they're still opposing Jesus. The other one, the truth is, you know, I'm not, we might say the paralytic might have still had a ways to go himself, you know, he might not have been a full-blown, rip-roaring, ace theologian, that might not have had a perfect picture who Christ was yet, in fact, you know, he probably didn't yet, but he was a man of faith. I want to move to something else for a few minutes, just to summarize, not summarize, but to give you some ideas for reading and studying the miracles, and some things that we need to notice in all the miracles, or in a lot of the miracles at least, as themes, so here goes, reading the miracle stories in a theologically informed and Christ-centered way. First of all, all miracles are Christ-centered, or Christ-o-centric. God is the hero, Christ is the hero, of all of the miracle stories. They all, in some way or another, point to who Jesus is, and what he does, what his ministry is all about. They all show that he is Lord and God, as we've already seen, he's Lord of nature, he's Lord of disease, he's Lord of demons, he's Lord over all things, a rich and poor, male and female, sin of disease, Jew and Gentile, you name it, his miracles cover all things. Second, Jesus miracles force us to think about that, or at least they encourage us very strongly to think about that. The Gospels record many occasions when people see a miracle and then turn to Jesus' identity. John 6.14, surely this is the prophet who is to come into the world after Jesus' feeds the 5,000. Feeding, he must be the prophet, not a prophet, but the great prophet. Or John 7.31, when the Christ comes, will he do more miraculous signs than this man? Or Luke 8.26, who is this? He even commands the winds and the waves and they obey him. Or after Jesus feeds the 4,000. Truly you are the son of God or John 3.2. We know you are a teacher come from God for no one could perform or act of the signs that you are doing if God were not with him. Now that's just 5. There are a number of other times where people see what Jesus does and they say, who is this? How can this be? This must be some great agent of God. They may not know the answer but they have to think about the question when they see his powers. He is specifically shown by his miracles to be the Messiah. You are not going to turn to it with you but simply to tell you in Matthew 11 and in Luke 17, 7.19 and following. Remember John the Baptist has doubt just to whether Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus says, you go tell John what you see. The lame walk, the blind sea, the deaf here. These restorations are all things that were predicted of the Messiah and Isaiah 35 especially and also Isaiah 61. Jesus miracles prove he is the Messiah. So they prove his God, they prove he is the Messiah but they also tell us about we might say his human side back to that discussion. Why if a motive is given, why does Jesus heal? What motive is stated in the Gospels? The answer is compassion. Repeatedly we hear Jesus compassion moved him to heal the crowds. He had compassion on the thousands of people who were falling for days without food so he gave them bread. He had compassion on the blind man. It called out as he was on the road to Jerusalem. He had compassion on the widow whose only son had died. Think a widow whose only son died, Luke 7. He had compassion and went. The question, did Jesus always know what was going to happen? You almost get the feeling that he said, I'm going to follow my emotions, my love for these people and that was as much on his mind as any divine plan was. He's sheer love of this woman. Jesus miracles are four men and four women. If you look at the miracles of the Bible, many of the miracles in the Old Testament are punitive. Think of the ten plagues. Think of fire coming down from heaven and burning up God's adversaries, the earth opening up and swallowing up the enemies of Moses and so forth. The sea closing on Moses adversaries, Pharaoh and the armies. Jesus miracles are always four men and women, always bringing healing, always bringing restoration. They always point furthermore to the redemptive work of Christ. They're always suggesting that Jesus is the one who has the right to heal. He has borne our equities. He has done what it takes to save us. Our salvation is global. We're not just saved from sin in the sense of punishment. We are saved entirely. There is no end to the scope of Christ's redemption work. We don't get it all now. We only taste it often. But there is no limit to it. There's no realm of life where we say God's love, Christ's redemption cannot touch that. That's too far gone. That's too secular. It's as broad as the world itself.