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“YOU’RE STARVING; HERE’S A MEMORY VERSE FOR YOU”

If God were to give you, right now, one million dollars — would you be set? Would it take care of you for a while? More to the point, would it turn you into a believer? Would it be spiritually good for you to get the money?

Before you rush out to stand in line at “www.vop.com,” let me share a fascinating story we found in the bestseller, For Those Who Can’t Believe. Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis tells us a folk story about a very pious disciple who was bragging to his local rabbi about all of his good deeds. “In fact, I saved the soul of a poor man who came to me begging for food,” he boasted. “How’d you do that?” the rabbi wanted to know. And he told him how, before offering the beggar a meal, he first made the destitute man recite the minchah, the afternoon prayer. Then he made him wash his hands in the prescribed religious way. That took a while. Then he had to recite all of the appropriate blessings of the day, and then, of course, there was the well-known motzi prayer which a good convert says over the bread . . . mustn’t skip that; no sir. Of course, by now, instead of lunchtime it was almost down to the dinner hour. And the rabbi, instead of praising this stalwart spiritual hero, bawled him out. “There are times, my son,” he said, “when one must act as if there were no God in heaven or on earth.” What?! The devotee could hardly believe his ears. “Should I have acted as if there were no God, not have him pray nor wash nor recite benedictions?” he asked. And the rabbi gave the same answer: “When a person is in dire need and comes to you for bread, act as if there were no God in the universe, as if there were no one on earth but you to help him.” Hmmmm. Finally the man asked, a bit more timidly now: “Have I then no responsibility for saving his soul?” And the rabbi told him very bluntly: “No. Take care of YOUR soul and HIS body; not vice versa.”

That’s interesting, isn’t it? Have we often done it that way too, where we would rather preach to someone than give them part of our lunch, or give someone a handbill instead of a coat or 30 minutes of our precious time? My friend Morrie Venden tells about a zealous Christian couple who had a man run out of gas right next to their farm. Since they had a gas pump, it was the perfect witnessing opportunity. The next weekend at church, they said to the preacher, “We told him we wouldn’t fill up his tank for him unless he promised to come to church today.” The pastor looked around. “Is he here?” “No. Can’t understand why.”

Well, friend, we’re going to find here in the book of Luke, chapter 5, that Jesus the great Healer seems to be guilty of this same practice: giving out handbills instead of good health. You remember that the central character in this drama, a paralytic, is so desperate to get well that his four friends actually lug him up onto the roof and then let him down almost right on top of Jesus’ head.

“And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, they went upon the housetop, and let him down through the tiling with his couch into the midst before Jesus.”

That’s the delightfully quaint rendering in the King James — and what a mental picture we get from it! Can you imagine being at prayer meeting some night, and all of a sudden, you look up to the roof and you can see THROUGH the roof, because someone is being lowered down by the light of the silvery moon? And there, not saying a word, but with the word “Help!” shrieking from every broken-down body pore, is this very sick man. He doesn’t even say, “Please make me well,” because that’s just totally obvious. He’s ready for ICU, and Jesus is reputed to be the best ICU doctor practicing in Capernaum. In the Tyndale New Testament Commentary for Luke, by Dr. Leon Morris, we find this observation:

“Apparently nothing was said, but the action” — coming in through the skylight that way — “was a mute appeal. It showed their faith.”

And now what does Jesus do? Here’s a person breathing almost his last breath. He’s in pain. His whole body is wrecked. And Jesus, seeing that this man needs antibiotic medicine and IV fluids and a tracheal insert and immediate open-heart surgery, says to him instead — this is verse 20:

“Friend, your sins are forgiven.”

That’s right. In Luke: “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” The same story’s in Mark chapter two: “SON, your sins are forgiven.” In Matthew 9 it’s two words longer: “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.”

And we have to wonder: what’s going on here? Is even Jesus, the greatest miracle worker the world has ever known, guilty of upside-down witnessing? Giving a starving person a sermon instead of a sandwich, a prayer instead of a pension, a “cup of living water” instead of a cup of REAL water? Is He that insensitive?

I’m reminded of an old Charlie Brown cartoon strip which was featured in the delightful Christian book, The Gospel According to Peanuts, by Robert Short. It’s a cold December day, and Charlie Brown and Linus, all warmly bundled up, see Snoopy the beagle standing outside in the dreary cold. And Charlie Brown, with the sensitivity of a good Christian evangelist, says to Linus: “Snoopy looks kind of cold, doesn’t he?” Linus: “I’ll say he does. . . . Maybe we’d better go over, and comfort him.” So they clump over to him, snow falling all around them, and Charlie Brown says to him: “Be of good cheer, Snoopy.” Linus agrees. “Yes, be of good cheer.” And with that they hike off down the street. Not another word. No follow-up. No Christmas treats for his dog dish. And Snoopy, as cold and lonely as ever, looks at their retreating forms with a question mark in his mind, as in: “What in the world was that all about?”

Interestingly, this expression, “Be of good cheer,” comes not just from the Bible — which many of you already recognized — but from this very story! That’s right. In the King James rendering for Matthew chapter 9, when the sick man comes down through the ceiling tiles, Jesus says to him those exact words:

“Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.”

Again we wonder: is Jesus totally off base here, offering a dying man forgiveness of sins when he would much rather have a pill or a potion? We have to observe that it quickly becomes a moot point, as Jesus immediately heals both his soul and his body. More about that as we continue to study next week. But friend, I really believe that as this sick person lay there on that couch, looking up at Jesus with speechless eyes, the Savior could read right into his soul and see that to get his sins forgiven was REALLY why this guy had come at all. That same Dr. Morris quotes theologian William Manson who maintains that:

“. . . What the incident is intended PRIMARILY to bring out is that the authority of Jesus in religion STARTS with the forgiveness of sins. He comes to deliver souls from the paralysis of moral and spiritual energy.”

Many Bible commentators agree that it’s quite likely this man was sick BECAUSE he was a great sinner, because he had lived a morally wild and reckless life. Maybe he arrived KNOWING that forgiveness was the first and foremost thing he needed. In his New Testament Commentary, William Hendriksen notices something very tender about this initial exchange:

“The very first thing Jesus says to him,” he writes, “is ‘Take courage, son.’ As to ‘son’ or ‘child’ (somewhat more literal), either way this is a term of endearment. Combined with ‘take courage’ we witness here the warmheartedness and tenderness of the Good Shepherd. He dispels the sick man’s embarrassment and gloom and as it were embraces him with the arms of His protecting love and care.” And then this interesting note: “As far as the record is concerned, in the New Testament, with a single exception, the only one who says ‘Take courage’ or ‘Be of good cheer’ is Jesus.”

Isn’t that interesting? And let’s bow at the cross and realize one thing: any healing Jesus does, any comfort He brings to a tired body, comes first of all from the fact that He’s our Savior on the cross. He can only heal because He can first forgive. He can resurrect us because He’s the resurrected Lord. He can only give us mansions because He gave up His. And if you and I pray to Him, asking for a million dollars, or for healing, or for favors large and small, it really IS enough to know that He’s the forgiver of our sins and the Redeemer of our souls. Anything else will be just gospel gravy on top of that.

Over in John 16, Jesus actually describes some of the hard things that might happen to us.

“In the world ye shall have tribulation,” He plainly tells us. But then He adds that same line again. “Be of good cheer.” And why? “[Because] I have overcome the world.”

If Jesus HAS overcome the world — including every enemy, every disease, every destroyer of our joy — then we really can have “good cheer.”