Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Long ago, people connected sickness with personal sin. Jesus used that common perception in healing a paralyzed man, beginning by forgiving his sins and thus infuriating some nearby Jewish scribes. Today, a look at a great miracle. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr.
Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer is showing us portraits of Christ in a series he's calling Come and See Jesus. Pastor, no modern medicine could restore a man's paralysis instantly like Jesus did. I imagine this had a profound impact on those watching. Dave, I have two comments.
First of all, I do want to emphasize that there were times when Jesus did not connect personal sin. with sickness. But yes, in this case he did, and what we need to do is to recognize, secondly. that the Bible gives us enough information. And enough proof that Jesus is the Son of God, that for those who are open to belief, they can believe.
Now if people are close to believing, Well, then of course no information is ever going to change their mind. All that to say, We should be so grateful for Jesus Christ, who does do miracles and still does those miracles today, especially the miracle of redemption. and we here at Running to Win are deeply committed to getting this message of the transformation of Jesus to the world. Perhaps you have heard me say this before, but running to win is in fifty different countries, in seven different languages. Would you consider helping us?
During this month, we have special friends who have said that they are willing to double any gift. that is given. In other words, your gift of fifty dollars becomes a hundred.
Well, you can do the math. What an opportunity it is to make an eternal investment. And at the end of this message, I'm going to be giving you some contact info, but also reading a story of someone's life. who is going through a period of transformation, because of people just like you who support this ministry. For now, let us listen.
Jesus is recorded in the New Testament as having asked more than 100 questions. He was always asking questions. One of the best ways to teach somebody is question, question, question, question, question, because you make them think.
So Jesus is asking them, why do you question these things in your hearts?
Now, here's my question for you: Which is it easier to say to the paralytic, Your sins are forgiven, or to say, Rise and take up your bed and walk? Which is it easier to say? How many of you think that it is easier to say? Rise, take up your bed, and walk. How many of you say it's easier to say your sins be forgiven?
How many of you are not with me at all in this? Time to think, folks. Time to think. It is Let me begin by saying that to forgive sins and to heal a paralytic, both of those are impossible. I can't do either.
And when you're in the realm of impossibility, it doesn't really matter how big the impossibility is, it's just impossible. But what Jesus is trying to get them to see is this: it is easier to say. Your sins be forgiven. Because talk is cheap and you can't prove whether the sins have been forgiven or not. When you have somebody whose sins are forgiven, if you lead them to the Lord, you don't notice these sins just float through the window.
You say, oh, you know, I led somebody to Christ and he had so many sins, you should have seen them all when they left. Oh. Anybody can say to you your sins are forgiven because it is non-verifiable. But To say rise and take up your palate and walk for somebody who's been a Quadriplegic for the last 10 or 15 years.
Now, that you had better produce if you say that, or else you'll be seen to be a fake, which you'd be.
Now, let's follow Jesus' logic a little bit more here. Jesus goes on to say that you might know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins. I say to you, rise. Take up your bed and walk.
Now hang on to that. What Jesus is saying is, on the basis of your own logic. Because you are saying that this person cannot be healed. Unless he is first forgiven. If I heal him, That proves that he has been forgiven.
Because unless he is forgiven, he cannot be healed.
So, that you might know that the Son of Man has power on earth. and authority to forgive sins. He says, rise, take up your bed and walk. And what did this man do? He arose immediately, verse 12, picked up his bed and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, We never saw anything like this.
And that, by the way, leads us to the third picture. The discussion that Jesus had with the scribes, and then the third picture is, of course, Jesus speaking. And the man is healed.
So Jesus is saying.
Alright. You think that I don't have power to forgive sins. You also think that You can't possibly. be healed unless you are forgiven. I forgave him.
And now I heal him. Jesus is saying, in light of the fact that you can see that I can heal him physically, you should believe that I can also heal him spiritually. In light of the fact that I have authority over the material realm, that should give you faith to believe that I have authority also over the metaphysical realm, where issues of sin and forgiveness and all of these matters come up. And so Jesus was saying to these scribes, If you were thinking clearly, You'd have to come to the conclusion that I am God. They themselves said, Who can forgive sins but God alone?
The answer is, nobody can. And Jesus is saying, please realize the logic. of your own theology. I am God. I forgave the sins, and I caused a paralytic.
to walk. Two transforming lessons from this passage. First of all, A lesson for us regarding getting people to Jesus. We have to be creative to do that, don't we? Here you have uh four men who figure out Here's somebody who can't help himself.
How can I help those who can't help themselves? Bound by the paralysis of sin, Incapable of making a rational decision regarding Jesus. How can I get them where they need to be, namely in the presence of Jesus? That's a good question to ask. And we need to think about that creatively.
This past week, a colleague here at the church and I were at the National Religious Broadcasters Meeting, and we stopped by a new facility. Uh but one of our uh partners in radio ministry. And the man in charge is 70 years old, but I have never seen anyone with such a nimble mind and such a focused desire to use technology to win people to Christ. He's on the cutting edge of all technology because he believes that technology has been raised up to share the gospel.
So one day he and his son-in-law were at a computer and they decided to enter into a chat room.
Now I have to tell you that I have a computer, I write books on a computer, I have never entered a chat room. I always figure, good night, I don't know what in the world happens in those chat rooms. But what they will do is they'll go into an atheistic chat room. And then they'll type into the computer, of course God is alive. I talked to him this morning.
Um Immediately, you know, you've got all these emails, all these, I mean, that'll even waken atheist up. I mean, you know, and they begin dialoguing. And as these dialogues develop, I guess, I don't know, you can somehow spin off and have a private chat with somebody. And so they end up They end up praying with people and leading them to Christ. He'll go into a Into a room, a chat room of, say, a different religion.
I'll just choose one arbitrarily without naming the one that he gave us. And he'll type into the computer: unless you believe in Jesus Christ, you're going to hell. Everybody wakes up at that point. And you have some people who get angry and they get off, but there are others who dialogue. And so his vision is: if you can get this, in his new facility.
He pointed us to an area, perhaps I don't know how many he'll have, five or six people, whose full-time job is to enter chat rooms. to share the gospel. And I thought to myself, Now, you know, that's creativity. That's creativity. I mean, that's...
That's awesome. Because there are people out there who don't know about Jesus, they're not able to make a rational decision about Jesus, and we have to try to figure out how do we get this person confronted with the only person who can speak him clean and grant him the forgiveness that you and I know he desperately needs.
Now what about you? Maybe it's giving somebody a book and asking them to read it and then telling them, you read it and we'll have a discussion about it later. You know, there are so many different creative ways, and we don't have to do it all in the same way because what we're saying is there are people who need to get to Jesus. and they're never gonna get there. on their own.
That's the first lesson. Second lesson is What we really need at the end of the day is of course the miracle. of forgiveness. It is a much greater miracle. Then saying, Rise, take up your palate, and go home.
The gift of forgiveness, which Jesus gives us, is a gift that That is great.
Now, when you watch television, And you see these healing services. and I've watched my share of them to glean. characteristics of false teachers. As you see many of these, what you notice is everybody's supposed to come forward for a miracle. Everybody's supposed to be healed.
There's never anything seldom said about the need for repentance and forgiveness and everything. It's just come one, come all, be healed. We don't care exactly what you believe, and the healing is for you. That's nonsense. It's nonsense and it's also unbiblical, which makes it nonsense, by the way.
And so, what you have is this great emphasis on healing, but no emphasis on holiness. What you have is this idea that all these miracles are going to be performed. The power of an evangelist to be able to touch someone and have them collapse on the platform. You've heard me say from this platform that that is not of God. We can show that.
And so, what you have is this great emphasis on that. Listen. It is much more important that you be forgiven than that you be healed. And I say that with sensitivity because it's no fun being sick or being in pain. But there was a young woman, something like Johnny Erickson Tada.
Who became paralyzed for life, who in that paralysis came to know Christ as Savior. and said it was worth this. Just to know Jesus. It's worth this just to know that it is the contrast, you know, between time and eternity. time and eternity.
Your body can be healed in this life. But the question is your soul forever. Where will it be?
Now listen carefully. One of the things that you and I cannot do is we can't forgive ourselves. Oh yes, there's a sense in which we can say, yeah, you know, I did this and this and I have to come to terms with what I've done and so I forgive myself. But ultimately, these scribes were theologically accurate, totally accurate, when they said, no one can forgive sin except God alone. You're a postmodern person.
You think that you hold within your heart your future and your fate. I want you to hear me carefully when I say that your sin. is sin. against God. And only God Can speak you clean and to say, your sins are.
forgiven. What beautiful words. for sinners.
Now if you're not a sinner, you don't need to hear them. But if you think that you're not Come up to me later. And I'll try to straighten out your theology a little bit. Or talk to your wife, it'll do the same thing. Nietzsche, who died in the year 1900.
Proclaimed the death of God, and though he lived obviously before the time of Hitler in the Holocaust, he in effect predicted it because he says once God is dead, everything will be permissible. But one thing that he said about God was this: He said, regarding God, we have killed him. He proclaimed the death of God. He said, We have killed him. But then he asked this question.
But now who will wipe the blood? from our hands. We've done away with God. And if we've done away with God, there's no one to say thy sins. Be forgiven.
I want you to know today that Neither Nietzsche nor no one else did away with God. They only thought so. Today, Jesus. Jesus, who has the power of life and death. Can look you in the eye, figuratively speaking, and say to you, Thy sins be forgiven.
Some of you need desperately. to hear those words. Would you bow as we pray? Our Father, we want to thank you today that Jesus. Could both heal this man physically.
But especially, we want to thank you that He could heal him spiritually. and that he had authority to say Your sins be forgiven. Today I'm speaking to people whose consciences are polluted with moral failure. people whose consciences Have a great sense of dullness and emptiness. because of sins that plague them.
Oh Father, we pray today, may they hear the words of Jesus. And for those of us who know him as Savior, thank you that we can keep coming to be cleansed. to be forgiven. And we pray that in our culture and in our day, give us the creativity to take this world. and bring them.
to Jesus.
Now, what do you have to say to Jesus today in light of this message? Let's just have a moment of silence. You've never received him. You can receive him right now. Receive his forgiveness.
As a Christian, Has your heart gone cold as you've wandered away from Him? Say, Jesus, I come home today. to your forgiveness and love. Father, whatever work you've begun in us, continue it. In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen. Oh yeah. Um Well, my friend, this is Pastor Luther, and I need to emphasize that I never tire of preaching the gospel. Imagine having a Savior who can say to us, thy sins be forgiven. It's a message that the Ministry of Running to Wind seeks to emphasize throughout the whole world.
but we can't do it without you. It's people like you who support this ministry. By the way, I'm holding in my hands a letter from someone who has connected with us from Russia. I say Russia because, yes. running to win.
is heard in Russian. I have another letter here from a listener in West Africa. But let me read a few lines. This person says, realistically, thank you for your ministry. Thank you for running to win.
I can stop and understand many things and try to look at God even more. and move with him. every day, every hour, every minute, I can think about him. And so it goes on to talk about the power of sowing the word of God. Would you help us?
During this month your gift to this ministry can be doubled. We have some generous friends who have said that as the ministry continues to expand. As the Ministry of Running to Win goes around the world, we want to encourage people to contribute. to make an investment.
So your investment, thanks to them, will be doubled. I hope that you have a pen or pencil handy, because I want to give you some contact info. Here's what you can do. Go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888.
218 ninety three thirty seven I want you to visualize the ministry of running to win being held up by the people of God all contributing praying and becoming a part of this ministry that, as I have already emphasized, goes around the world. Once again, that contact info Go to rtwoffer.com. or call us at 1-888-218-10. 9337. Thank you so much for praying for us.
We depend upon people just like you to intercede that even as this ministry continues to expand, it will do so with God's special favor. Thanks in advance. It's time now for another chance for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life. During the Reformation many churches got rid of the statues and artwork that depicted God, in accordance with the Bible's commands about idolatry. Dr.
Lutzer, a listener named Shirley, has this question. I'm a new Christian trying to share my faith with others. I've been talking to a friend about how Hindoo people worship idols. And she replied that we as Christians also commit idolatry because of the cross of Jesus in the front of our church. is having statues of saints and crosses idolatry?
Well, Shirley, I want to thank you for this question because I think it is a very good one. and I need to say that I really do think that there is a difference between having a cross in a church You don't bow before the cross it's simply a symbol reminding us that Jesus Christ died for us. I think that there is a big difference between that and having statues in churches. that people oftentimes will bow before, as if to say that somehow that object becomes a point of contact. between them and God.
That, I think, is idolatry. For example, if you go into the Vatican in Rome, there is a statue there of Peter. It was actually a melted down statue of Zeus. but remade into a statue of Peter, People go before it, they bow before it, they touch Peter's toe. I asked a tour guide why people do that, and she said, Well, there is this tradition that.
If you do that and you die, you go directly into heaven and you bypass purgatory.
Now I need to say very quickly that Catholic theologians would say that this is only mythology. But the point is still this, that it is very easy for us to sometimes think that salvation is mediated somehow through an object Through a statue or even through a piece of wood. But when you have a cross, I think people understand. that this is not an object that somehow grants grace. It is simply there to remind us that Jesus died for our sins.
By the way, before I conclude, Do you remember the story in the Old Testament where Moses took a serpent of brass and put it up? And the people who looked at the serpent, they were healed from their disease? Later on we discover that that serpent of brass became a snare to the people. Because they began to think that somehow it had special power. And you remember how the serpent of brass was taken, and it was smashed, and it was destroyed.
because people had begun to think that it was the object that is important. That is idolatry.
So let us make sure that we understand that God connects with us directly in our hearts, without any objects, without any statues, and for that matter without any crosses. But I think that most of us don't use pictures of the cross in that way. It's only a symbol. It is not a means by which grace is received.
Some words of counsel, wise words from Dr. Erwin Lutzer. For you, Shirley, and for all of us. If you'd like to hear your question answered, go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on Ask Pastor Lutzer or call us at 1-888-218-9337. That's 1-888-218-9337.
You can write to us at Running2Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. Running to win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life.
Next time on Running to Win, our next portrait of Jesus finds him facing rising discontent. Not from the crowds, but from the religious power structure of his day. Don't miss, come and see his enemies. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister.
Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.
