953. Jesus’ Power to Save Men from Sin

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University. Today we're continuing a study series based on the creed that students recite each day in chapel services, which is a summary of the doctrines of our Christian faith. Today's sermon will be preached by Mark Valls, a professor in the School of Religion. He'll be teaching us about the power that Jesus has to save men from sin. Theologically as well as logically building on the ideas that are found at the beginning of Scripture with creation and then the certainty of Scripture and then going into the person of Christ, His virgin birth, His identity as the Son of God, His vicarious atonement for our sins, and then His resurrection from the dead. And all of those things combine to make Him able to save men from sin. So Jesus' power to save men from sin really is the culmination for us of all of these qualities and truths that make Him our Savior.

I want us to focus our attention this morning on the fact that from the very beginning, the idea of Jesus coming to this earth was for the purpose of saving sinners. You see that, for example, in the announcement given to Joseph as Joseph was contemplating putting away Mary, his espoused wife, because she was pregnant and he wasn't the father. And the angel Gabriel comes to him and explains to him that she is with child by the Holy Spirit and that Mary will bring forth a son and thou shall call His name Jesus, Yeshua.

The name means God saves, Yahweh saves for Jesus. This promised one, this Messiah, this Son of God incarnate, virgin born, shall save His people from their sins. And Jesus, as He went about His earthly ministry, explains, for example, in Luke 19, 10, the Son of God is come to seek and to save that which was lost.

That was His purpose. That was His mission to save us from our sin. One of the places where this is very clearly seen as our greatest need, our greatest need in all of life to be delivered from our sin is in Matthew chapter 9. Jesus has been ministering in His home region of Galilee. He had delivered what we know as the Sermon on the Mount. And then in chapter 8 of Matthew, He goes about healing and delivering and showing His power.

In chapter 9, He's back in Capernaum, the city where He's living. And He is teaching in a house and the fame of His power is beginning to spread. And so people are coming from all directions and are wanting to hear Him and the house is filled to capacity. There's no room left in the house. But there's a man who is lame and unable to walk and he has some friends who have heard of Jesus' power and no doubt they told their friend, Jesus can heal you.

Let's go to Jesus and see what He can do. So they gather this man up and they come to the house and they're not able to get in. And you know the story. They go up to the rooftop and they open up a hole in the roof and they lower the man on a stretcher down into the house right in front of Jesus.

And that must have been quite the spectacle. And people looking at this like, who are these people? What are they doing? And the man who owns the house is no doubt thinking, what are they doing to my house? And here comes this guy, little by little down into the middle of the house.

And everybody sees this. And Jesus looks at the man and He has compassion. And He says, the Scripture says, Behold they brought to Him a man sick of the palsy lying on a bed and Jesus seeing their faith, the faith of both the friends as well as the man who is sick of palsy. And He says to the sick of the palsy, Son, be of good cheer.

Thy sins be forgiven thee. I want you to put yourself in your imagination for a moment in that man's place. You're the man now lying on a stretcher, unable to walk.

We don't know for how long he had been disabled. But here he is lying on a stretcher unable to get up, unable to work, unable to play with his children, unable to provide for his family. And some friends come along and they tell him, this Jesus, this carpenter from Nazareth is going about doing powerful things. Maybe he can deliver you, maybe he can heal you.

And so they gather him up, they take him to the house, they lower him down to the ceiling. And now you're the man laying there in front of Jesus, looking up into his eyes. And Jesus looks down to you and says, Son, be of good cheer. And in your mind, in your heart, you are so excited. You got up that day, it was any other day.

It was just a normal day of being a lame man, laying in bed, unable to get up, unable to do normal things, unable to take care of yourself. And your friends come over and they're all excited and they're convincing you, you're like, what? But you go and they carry you and there you are and now you're laying in front of Jesus and your excitement has been building up to a crescendo.

And you think this is it. This is the moment. Maybe right now I'm about to be healed.

Maybe right now I'm about to go back to my normal life. And Jesus looks down and says, great news. Be of good cheer.

This is a wonderful day. Your sins are forgiven. And I have to wonder if maybe that man looked up and said, huh?

What? No, no, no, Jesus, I need to be healed. You know, sins, that's about the future, that's about heaven, that's about later, but I need right now to be healed. But Jesus knows that the greatest need that any human being has is forgiveness of sins. Jesus knows that this man has a need far deeper than to be able to walk. Well, the text goes on and tells us that certain of the Pharisees describes reason within themselves and they said, this man blasphemeth. Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, wherefore think ye evil in your hearts, whether is easier to say thy sins be forgiven or to say arise and walk, but that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins. Then he saith to the sick of the palsy, arise, take up thy bed and go unto thine house.

And he rose and departed to his house. So Jesus does go on to heal him, but Jesus is making a point here. He's making a point both to this man as well as to all of those who are gathered around and especially to these unbelieving scribes. The Bible tells us in Matthew chapter 8 that Jesus going about that region had shown his power over disease. In chapter 8, he cleanses a leper and then he heals a centurion servant. And then he comes back to Capernaum and he heals Peter's mother who's sick with a fever and others come and he heals them as well. And then he gets in a boat to cross over the Sea of Galilee and a great storm comes up and the disciples are afraid.

And they're like, Jesus, don't you care? And Jesus gets up and he takes control of the storm. And he shows that the Son of Man has power over nature itself.

And then they land on the other side at Gadara and these two men with demons come out and they're just wild and uncontrollable. And Jesus casts out the demons and everyone is astonished. What kind of man heals diseases?

What kind of man takes over nature? What kind of a man can cast out demons? And then Jesus goes back to Capernaum and he's teaching in this house and the roof opens and the man comes down. And now Jesus is proving to all who are there and for all time that he, and he alone, has power to save men from sin.

You see, the reality is that only Jesus can forgive sin. Let's think of some other religions that claim to have a pathway to God. Let's think for example about Hinduism. Did you know that today in Hinduism is Diwali? Diwali is one of the high festivals of Hinduism. It's a beautiful ceremonial festival celebration of lights and colors and it really does look very happy and very wonderful. Diwali supposedly symbolizes the spiritual victory of light over darkness, of good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance.

But Hinduism offers no answer for sin. Last semester I was teaching the class the gospel in a multicultural world. And in order for us to kind of have a sense of the multicultural world around us, I sent some of the students to the mosque and some of them to the Buddhist prayer house and some to the Hindu temple. Did you know that there's a Hindu temple in Malden? So I went with them to the Hindu temple.

I thought this should be fun. We went to the Hindu temple and we sat through the puja, the ceremony. And it was very different and we didn't quite understand, in fact we didn't really understand anything because it was in Sanskrit.

And I don't know about you but I don't really speak Sanskrit. And so we were respectful, we watched, we listened, and the whole point was for us to kind of see. And then at the end we got to talk to some of the Hindu people. And in particular talk to the priest.

And ask him questions and interact and just to try to understand, okay how do you think? What makes you the way you are? What is it about Hinduism that draws you? What is it that you want us to know about Hinduism? And what is it like to be a Hindu in Greenville, South Carolina? And the priest was very kind, very cordial, and he answered our questions and he tried to promote Hinduism to this group of Bob Jones students.

And one of our students, Garrett Martin, was in the class. And Garrett asked the guy a question, he says, Mr. Priest or whatever the guy's name was, he said, What is Hinduism's answer for sin? How do you get forgiveness in Hinduism? And the priest kind of looked at him with this look like, what? And Garrett asked the question again and the priest looked at him with a puzzled look and said, Well in Hinduism, there is no forgiveness.

And we were all taken aback, like, nothing? You mean you do all of this and there's no forgiveness? And he said, no there's no forgiveness, there's karma. And you can work and you can try to get more karma so that at the end of your life you can be born into a better life. And in the next life you have better karma and eventually if you keep doing that long enough, maybe thousands of times, you'll reach Brahman and become part of the whole.

But there's no forgiveness. Let's think for a moment about Buddhism. Buddhism has the so-called Eightfold Noble Path. And in Buddhism you don't really have an issue of sin, you have an issue of suffering. And suffering is caused by desire and the fact that you desire, whether good things or bad things, but any kind of desire leads to suffering. All suffering is a result of desire. So if you can just stop having desire, you'll end all of your suffering. This is a path to enlightenment. And so you follow the Eightfold Noble Path, as you see on the screen, and if you follow that successfully and you reach a point of enlightenment, you will escape the wheel of rebirth and you will eventually become enlightened and enter Nirvana. And Nirvana is not Heaven.

Nirvana is not even Brahman. It's not oneness with all. It is absence of life.

It is ceasing to exist. The goal of a Buddhist is to cease to exist by downplaying all desire. Or we could think of Islam. Islam teaches that sin is real and people do sin, but sin is not really the fundamental issue. The fundamental issue is ignorance. And so Adam and Eve in the garden, their problem was not sin, their problem was ignorance. So God sends prophets throughout the ages culminating with Mohammed and the Quran, which gives us the opportunity to know Allah and therefore be submissive.

And if we are adequately submissive by following the five pillars, we will show submission, Allah will be pleased, and He will weigh our good with our bad, and perhaps allow us to enter into Paradise. Or maybe we can think of Roman Catholicism. Some of you think Roman Catholicism is just another denomination. You have Baptists and Presbyterians and Methodists and Roman Catholics.

But I assure you that Roman Catholicism is not in any sense the same as what you understand to be Christianity. That is Jesus forgiving your sins. Now the Catholic Church will talk about the death of Christ and the cross, and they'll talk about salvation by grace. The question is, how do you get the grace? And we understand that grace comes by faith.

We believe in what Jesus has already finished and accomplished for us in His vicarious atonement on the cross and His resurrection from the dead. And the Catholic Church will say, oh that is great. But, grace is the commodity of the church. You don't get that by faith, you get that from the church. So the Catholic Church can dispense grace to you through the sacraments.

And so you have seven sacraments. If you are faithful to the sacraments, you get grace. But, you tend to lose grace.

You're like a car, you run out of gas. So you've got to come back and get more grace, and you keep doing this back and forth, back and forth, back and forth throughout life. You're getting grace, you're losing grace, you're getting grace, you're losing grace. And if when you die, you have enough grace, you're good. You go to heaven.

But if you don't, well there's another plan. But the reality is that the Bible doesn't teach that. The Bible doesn't teach that our salvation is dependent on what we do. It's dependent on what Jesus did. Because salvation is through Jesus who is able to save men from sin. I knew a lady years ago named Maria.

Some of you have had classes with me. I love to talk about Maria because she was such an example of Jesus' power to save people from sin. Maria was a Cuban lady. We had a Spanish-speaking ministry in Tampa, Florida, and Maria was from Miami.

She was Cuban, she was in exile, she was living in Miami. And during her many years in Miami, she was the executive assistant for the archbishop of the diocese of Miami. Maria, I told Maria one time, I said, Maria, I think you are more Catholic than the Pope.

You're the most Catholic person on the planet. And she was very proud of her Catholicism. She was very deeply steeped in Roman Catholicism.

She had no problem. She was a drug addict and she was an alcoholic. And she knew it and she couldn't seem to break it. And she went to psychiatrists and she went to mass every day. And she got the archbishop himself to pray over her and she couldn't get freedom from her sin. And so, she, at the urging of one of her sons, she moved to Tampa to start a new life and she came and we met her. And her son who had become a Christian said, Mom, why don't you go to this church and visit these people? And she's like, I'm not going to that church.

But eventually, she conceded and she came. And I remember the first time she came in, Maria sort of burst into our little Sunday school class. And she comes in and she looks at us. She looks down her long nose at all of us.

She takes a long time to look us over. And finally she says, my name is Maria and I have come here today as a special emissary of the Holy Father in order to free you poor, ignorant Protestants from your delusions. You know, what do you say? And I said, well, thank you very much. We're so honored.

Please have a seat. So, we're going through our Sunday school lesson, whatever it was, and Maria leaps to her feet. And she would say, the catechism says, and she would quote the catechism.

She had it down word for word. I mean, she was so Catholic. And she's spouting the catechism.

And this went on. She didn't come every week, but she came on and off for about six months. And every time she came, it was this battle, you know. We'd give the scripture and she'd give the catechism. We'd give the scripture and she'd give the catechism. And one Saturday afternoon, Maria calls about, I don't know, 4, 4.30 in the afternoon. She calls and she says, oye, pastor Marcos, this is Maria. I said, hello, Maria. She said, I've made dinner and it will be served at six o'clock and you and Kari will be there, Kari, my wife.

And my wife says, who was that? I said, that was Maria. What does she want? She made dinner and it's at six. Oh, Maria invited us to dinner?

I said, not exactly. She summoned us. So we went and we had dinner. And after dinner, we had the back and forth. Now you have to understand Cuban people.

Cuban people can be very animated. And this was very animated and very close in your face. And if you saw it, you'd think we were having a big fight. It wasn't a big fight. It was a discussion. Right?

But it's very animated. You can't do this sitting down. And you're on your feet and you're moving around and you're just going at it, going at it for three hours.

We're going at it. And I keep giving the scripture over and over and over and over and over and over. And finally, after three hours, Maria looks at me and she says, OK, let me get this straight. If everything you're saying is true, then I'm not really even a Christian at all, am I? And I said, Maria, all I've ever done to you or with you is give you the Bible, what the Bible says.

I've never told you what to think or how to think. I'm telling you, this is what the Bible says. And with tears in her eyes, she felt her knees and she said, I want to be a Christian.

I want to have my sins forgiven. And she prayed a beautiful prayer of repentance. And that woman was transformed.

Transformed. I remember coming to church one morning and Maria's on her hands and knees in the bathroom scrubbing the floor. And I said, Maria, you know, somebody's already done that. And she looks up with tears in her eyes.

She says, I know, but I want to do it again. I want to do something to serve Jesus who took away my sin. And she became a glorious sister in Christ.

Jesus and Jesus only has power to save. And you say, well, you're putting up all this stuff about all these other religions. The problem is you're just intolerant. I had a guy one time tell me, you know, it's like climbing a mountain. Doesn't matter where you start, doesn't matter what path you follow, you still reach the top of the mountain. And I said, look at me, do I look like a mountain climber to you?

I said, I'm not climbing any mountains. I'm putting my faith in Jesus Christ. And the Bible says there is no salvation in any other. For there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. It was the apostles who said this to the Jewish council. The council that had power over life and death.

The council that had crucified Jesus. And these apostles boldly look at them and say, look, here's the deal. You are not right with God and you cannot be right with God except you come to Jesus.

Because he has power to save men from sin. Well, all that is wonderful. All that is doctrinal.

All that is true. But I want to ask another question. Does Jesus have power to save you from sin? On a practical level, can you say Jesus has power to save me from sin?

In your life, in your experience today, is Jesus saving you from sin? It's been a while ago, some years now. But I was teaching Bible here at Bob Jones, teaching missions. And I was frustrated. To be completely honest, I was sort of bitter and angry about some things in life. Things had not turned out the way I expected. And I wasn't happy. And maybe it was a mid-life crisis.

That could be it. But I looked at my life and I said to myself, Okay, Viles, here's the reality. You have the same stupid sin habits and same stupid sin problems that you had when you were in high school. Where's the power to save you from sin?

Where's deliverance? And that just weighed on me. And I wrestled with that. And my sin was affecting me.

It was affecting my family, my wife, my children. And I finally came to the conclusion, If I can't, as a former pastor, as a missions guy, as a professor at Bob Jones, If I can't understand and experience his power to save me from sin, then what's the point of this? Because like you, many of you at least, I'm a goober. Somebody who grew up born again. This is all I've ever known. And I started wondering, maybe if I had been born a Muslim, I would believe all that. Or if I was born a Buddhist or a Hindu, whatever. Maybe I only believe this stuff because it's what I've been taught, what I've been told. And maybe, maybe, maybe none of this is even real.

And I know some of you think that because some of you have come to my office and told me that. And I came to a crisis. And I made up my mind, if I couldn't get through this crisis, I was going to quit. I was not only going to quit Bob Jones, I was going to quit everything. I was going to quit church. I was going to quit trying to pretend to be a Christian.

I was going to go out and live my life for whatever I could get out of it and stop following any of this stuff. Here I am, I'm teaching Bible at Bob Jones and this is what's going through my mind. So I decided, okay, let me see if I can really come to experience His power to save me from sin. So I went to Romans because Romans, if any place in the Bible there's an answer for this, I figured I had to be in Romans.

I started in Romans and started working my way through Romans very slowly, very carefully. And I came to certain truths which I can only very quickly summarize for you here today. But I came to understand that the crucifixion, that vicarious atonement for the sins of mankind by His death on the cross, the crucifixion frees me from the slavery of sin because I was enslaved to sin.

Flat out enslaved. Romans 6, 6 and 7 says, Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin, for he that is dead is freed from sin. And I said, that's what I want, to be freed from sin. And I came to really wrestle with what does it mean to reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin. And then I also came to understand that justification frees me from the tyranny of the law.

Romans 6, 14 says, sin shall not have dominion over you. You can be free. You can be free today. Why?

Because you are not under the law. You are under grace. And I stopped trying to do everything that was expected of me and just try to be a good Christian and try to fit all the norms and fulfill all the obligations. And I had grown up my whole life knowing how to do that.

And I said, enough. And I turned to Jesus and I said, give me grace. And I came to understand what it was to live by grace and not by the law. And I can't even begin to take time to explain that to you.

But there are lots of people here who would love to have that conversation with you more in depth. And when you come to understand the power of grace every day, every day, every day, a Niagara fall of grace that is absolutely endless and abundant and more than you could ever need, you can stop living for the law and trying to do things in order to be right and understand that you are right because Jesus saves. And then I came to understand that sanctification frees me from the misery of the flesh. Paul wrestled with his flesh. He says, a wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death.

I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind, I myself serve the law of God but with the flesh, the law of sin. Paul understood that this battle, this struggle is never gonna go away. I'm always gonna have the flesh.

Look, I'm 57 years old. I was saved when I was four years old. And I've come to understand, I'm never gonna stop having this battle. There's never gonna come a time when I don't wrestle with my flesh.

I've wrestled with my flesh every day and many days I lose. But it doesn't change the fact that Jesus frees me from sin. His death, His resurrection has the power to save me from sin. And then I understand that the Spirit filling empowers me for righteousness. What we've been looking at here on Mondays in Galatians, Romans 8, 3, and 4, Paul says what the law could never do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the lightness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. And I came to realize that if I was going to experience His power to save me from sin in a daily, one day at a time walk with Him, it was gonna be because every day I needed to be filled with the Spirit. And the reality is you are either filled with the Spirit or you're not. And Galatians 5, 16 tells us that if we walk in the Spirit, we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. So, the Spirit filling empowers us for righteousness so that we can say, I believe in His power not only to save men from sin as a general doctrinal, creedal truth, that we would agree with and say, yes, I agree, yes, I believe He has power to save men from sin. But can you say, I believe in His power to save me from sin? I'm not gonna try to change the creed.

I don't think that would go very far. But I will confess that most days as we say the creed and chapel, this is what I say. His power to save me from sin.

Not that I'm more important than anybody else in the room. But if He doesn't have power to save me from sin, then what's the point? And I'm here to tell you today that He has power to save me from sin. He has power to save you from sin.

Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. And He will save you and continue saving you from sin as you trust Him and walk in the Spirit living in the power of grace. Let's pray. Father, thank you today for each of these folks. We do pray that you will give us faith to believe and confidence in your word and a walk with your Spirit. And we pray, Lord, that you will make us messengers to the people around us as we experience your power in our lives, as we walk in the freedom from sin and deliverance from darkness, that you will make us messengers of that good news and that we can be of good cheer because our sins are forgiven. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.