Please remain standing, if you would, for a reading from God's most precious and holy word, found in Mark chapter 2, verses 1 through 12. And when you have the text, look up so I know that I can commence reading. Okay, I think we've got it. God's word said. And when he turned, returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home and many were gathered together so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And Jesus was preaching the word to them. And they came bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him. And when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven. Now, some of the scribes were sitting there questioning in their hearts. Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, Why do you question these things in your hearts? Which is easier to say to the paralytic? Your sins are forgiven or to say, Rise, take up your bed and walk, but that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He said to the paralytic, I say to you, rise and pick up your bed and go home. And he rose immediately, 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. Thus far the reading from God's word. Let us pray. Our most gracious and heavenly Father, you are indeed a father to us. You guide us by your word as a lamp to our feet and a light into our path. Were it not for your guidance, we would stumble and fall. Were it not for your carrying us through difficulty, like a shepherd carrying its sheep, at our greatest times of weakness, Lord, we would fall prey to the wolves of our souls. We would be trapped and serving as fodder for the enemy of our soul. But you see fit to be kind and compassionate. You see fit, O Lord, to stoop to those who are in need. giving them healing, and you see fit to meet us today with your healing word for our souls. Lord, yes, your word penetrates to the very core of our being, dividing joints from marrow that our hearts might be laid bare. Lord, lead us, for those who do not know you, into salvation. Lord, convert hearts, open the minds and hearts of the hearers. For those of us that do know you, Lord, may indeed this be a time of of comfort, conviction, refreshment, and receiving your wisdom that we might grow in the faith. Lord, meet with us here by your Holy Spirit today. Guide me and the hearers. We pray these things with gratitude in Jesus name. Amen. And please be seated. Some of you may remember perhaps being in school and looking at human development. One of those stages of development was called trust versus mistrust. If any of you study the developmental theory of Eric Erickson, you may remember this. And the theory that he put forward was, is that in the stage of trust versus mistrust, infants, when they are brought into this world, if they have not a nurturing care by their mothers will develop poorly. They will isolate themselves from others later in life. They will feel a disconnect and yes, they will fail to thrive. There will be a lack of trust in their very demeanors engraved to them caused by the neglect of their mother and hence They cannot open up and trust their mothers, much less others. And their very development will be hindered. It follows, conversely, that if the child is nurtured, the child will thrive. If he receives that deep care, that though imperfect, does not fail from his mother. his development and his life indeed will be one of success and one where he can reach out and embrace others around him. While there may be some peripheral truths to what is said here from a biological level, that it follows that infants who receive good care from parents have a greater likelihood of thriving, there is a deep problem with this theory if it is taken to an absolute level, and that this theory is not based upon the power and supremacy of God's Word. Indeed, no matter how much nurture we receive from our mothers, both mothers and infants, yes, all of us, sinned in Adam and fell with him in his first transgression. We are all fallen into sin, and by our very sin natures, before we know Christ, We are prone, and indeed not just prone, we are bent by the powers of darkness with the devil as our father against trusting God, against trusting anyone. We are alienated from his life, and so fallen in sin fail to thrive, no matter how good our parenting is, no matter how good we parent children of our own, no matter how good our parents parented us when we were growing up. Yes, there may be a level of earthly trust. There may be a level of bond between mother and child, but fundamentally there is a dissonance of soul against God where distrust thrives and is at home. And that distrust alienates us from the life of God. And so we enter this world with hard hearts closed in on themselves. and not truly bonding with others from a deep spiritual level, nor with God. Our text this morning reveals that. It's revealed to be the case with our own hearts before we know Christ and the case of the religious leaders who confront Jesus. That's the negative side, but for those who know it, this text is a model of the faith that comes from receiving the nurture of our heavenly father, who reaches down from on high and takes hold of us. And in Christ draws us out of deep waters. And if the negativity and the utter sinfulness of the Pharisees, and yes, our own hearts is put on display, the beauty simultaneously of those nurtured by Jesus, who is one with God, the father. and of the trust and of the spiritual health that ensues is also exalted in this text. And so what is the main theme of our text this morning? And that is that believers, those given faith in Christ, trust Jesus's authority and pursue him with determination, while unbelievers distrust Jesus's authority and seek to undermine it. Believers, those of us given faith, by God's grace. We trust Jesus' authority and we go after him with a determination that is healthy, while unbelievers distrust Jesus' authority and seek to undermine it. And so is the lack of health in the soul. We'll see this in two main points. The first point is that believers trust Jesus' authority and pursue him with determination. In verses 1 through 5 and then in verse 12, And then the second main point is that unbelievers distrust Jesus' authority, and they seek to undermine it. We'll see that in verses 6 through 11. Now back to the beginning of verse 1. And when Jesus returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home, and many were gathered together so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them. And so Jesus had been out before this passage begins, teaching and healing and casting out demons and attracting a great crowd. Those who were desperate for a touch from God, those who had recognized his authority, seen something remarkable about this man, and they just kept making a beeline to him for moment after moments that he could scarcely even pray. Even getting up in the wee hours of the dawn between three and six a.m. As the text reveals in Mark chapter one. Jesus had his time infringed upon. Or even trying to seize the day to meet with God, he was chased by those desperate to see him. And now in chapter two, he's returned to Capernaum, which were which was his home base in Galilee, his center of operations. And after some days, having gone far from the crowds, rumors traveled throughout Galilee. Even in that day, time traveled quickly, word traveled quickly, and it was reported that he was at home. The Greek there is like an imperative. And when Jesus returned after many days, he's at home. Look, Jesus is at home. It's like an announcement. It's like there's a flashing sign there is the sense that the Greek gives. And as such, if you can imagine a sign in our day and age blasting free doughnuts with neon lights, the sign was blasting in a spiritual sense that Jesus was there. And they gathered together around Jesus so much that they were coming out the door, busting out of the door of the house. As we'd say in today's common lingo, the place was busting at the seams. And why? And that was because these people had followed Jesus and they had seen his authority. And they had seen his authority in three ways, his ability to teach, his ability to heal, and his ability to cast out demons. We'd seen his ability to teach that he teaches them as one who has authority and not as their scribes. As was said, He was one who, with his teaching, not even arrested the attention because of the divine sublimity of what he said. But also, in his teaching he could command spirits. When he was preaching a sermon at the synagogue in Nazareth, it said that a demoniac came and as he was preaching the demoniac roared And during the service, he commanded the demon to come out of the demoniac. The people marveled. His ability to heal, healing Simon Peter's mother, healing those at death's door when they have no other recourse, and casting out demons, as I've hinted at. And those who truly had eyes to see and ears to hear, as Jesus preached, Those whose eyes were opened by the Holy Spirit would have recalled the passage from Isaiah 61, where Jesus said that the time is fulfilled, saying that he's come to proclaim release to the captive and the recovery of sight to the blind to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. They would have recognized Jesus's authority as the one who was to come, the Messiah. the one of ancient days, that prophet who Moses predicted by the Spirit, who would be raised up among the people, a prophet with the authority like that of Moses, but one with much greater authority. And those who do not listen to this prophet, God would require it of them, Deuteronomy 18 says. And so seeing this man, seeing his authority, they were determined to follow him. pursuing him length after length after length. And they were determined not to give up. And we see the example here, an example of true faith. Because many follow Jesus for the sake of the crowds, no doubt. There were some that were carnal hearers that just saw some amazing signs and they wanted to see the glimmer. But there were those who trusted Jesus savingly, trusted his message as the Messiah. saying, repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near. They believe what he said. And the grace that came from their salvation was irresistible, as we say in Reformed theology. And that grace may not only lead them to make an external beeline, but an internal beeline straight to Jesus. And they knew that no matter what ailed them, Jesus was the answer. And they knew it in their desperation and in their determination. They were willing to do whatever it took because they knew that only Jesus could give them lasting satisfaction and lasting answers. And what is the example of this? It's the man carrying the paralytic. It's the man carrying the paralytic. And it said that as Jesus was teaching the word, verse three, they came bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And verse four, when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him. And when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. Then it says, and Jesus saw their faith. So these men believed in Jesus so much that he was the answer for their friends. and perhaps their friend as well, that they were willing to go to such lengths that they were willing to try to take off a portion of the very roof of the house in which Jesus was teaching. And this was no easy task, because roofs in those days, even though they were easier to get into than today's roofs, put up by nails and shingles and firmly cut wood, precisely cut, even in those days, roofs They had several different layers. They had grass, mortar, ashes, sand, and tar. And beneath all of that was a stone-slab tile. And so this would have been quite an operation. They would have had to do some shuffling up above their shoulders. They would have had to do some actual digging. The Greek word implies digging down through that roof. It took some elbow grease. And such was their faith that led them to put forth the elbow grease. They acted on his authority, on the authority of Jesus, on the power of his word. And Jesus saw that faith, that faith that was given him, given them, and he recognized it and seeing their faith, he said to the paralytic, son, your sins are forgiven. your sins are forgiven. And then it says later on, we'll see in verse 12, that he picked up his mat upon that pronouncement and walked. And the people said, we never saw anything like this. You see, in many cases, scripturally speaking, really in all cases on a deep fundamental level, but in some External cases, there is a connection between the sins that we commit. And the illnesses that befall us, you may think in our day and age addiction. People who suffer from perhaps delirium tremens who have drunk too much guilty of the sin of drunkenness for many, many years, suffer tremors. People may have lived recklessly, gotten into a car accident and maimed themselves. As a result. Yes, there's a clear connection between sins committed and suffering endured. Perhaps this was the case of the man. Perhaps he had done something that led him to be paralyzed, fighting on a roof, perhaps he could have fallen off. We don't know. But we also know that even if there is no direct correlation between sins committed that we can discern and results and punishment endured, consequences endured under the sovereign hand of God by virtue of living in this fallen and sinful world. Due to the nature of this, we all suffer sickness and death because of the general principle of sin. And bearing that in mind, that it is a truism that all sickness and illness comes from sin on a fundamental level. Whether this man had committed sins, that directly led to his illness, which seems to be the case, or whether it was the more universal sense, when Jesus declared his sins were forgiven, there was a link. And in that link, the forgiveness of his sins, it led to the healing of his body as Jesus proclaimed him forgiven. And so when we place our faith in Jesus, when he opens our eyes so that we may place our trust in him and in his authority, we find forgiveness for our sins. In some cases, there may be a lightening of where the spirit has depressed certain aspects of our bodies, of our psyche, where there may be relief from addiction and deep depression. And we rise up with a lightness that we have never experienced before. And there are cases of super abundant healing. Much more rare today than the days of the New Testament, where Upon forgiveness, it's as if there are some things physically healed. There are cases of praying for people and they are healed overnight. It's not always clear about whether there's the direct correlation between the link of sins committed and sins forgiven and the bodily healing. But in this pronouncement, the bottom line is this, is that the faith that was given to this man, which this man took hold of, by which he trusted Jesus, it led to his healing. And he acted, recognizing the authority of Jesus. And Jesus, in return, acted on his authority to cleanse him. The authority that the man recognized to pursue Jesus, the authority that first gave him faith to pursue, and the authority that forgave him. brings to mind a beautiful relationship between us and Christ, does it not? Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and he shall find. Knock, and the door shall be open. For everyone who asks, proceeds, and everyone who seeks, finds. And for everyone who knocks, the door will be open. Is your faith like that? Is your faith like the man in this passage and the faith of his four friends? Do you truly believe that Jesus answers prayer? That no matter what straits you are in, that seeking Him first and His kingdom is worth pursuing? And that in seeking Him, not only will all things be added to us, but he who petitions the Lord finds an answer. Jesus talks about the grace of His heavenly Father, giving a parable of a man knocking on the door of a friend who was already in bed with his children with him, the door locked, and Jesus says, because of the impudence of the man's knocking, the friend will open to the man knocking at the door. And he gives an example in Luke's gospel about how much more gracious is God our Father. Our earthly friends groan under the weight of sin, under the sinful dispositions that often bind us, the remaining corruption. When we're in need in the middle of the night, they groan coming to the door. We groan, we're just as guilty. Yet we open to our friend. How much more readily does God help us when we're in need? And the answer is that he does. It says that in Chronicles, that his eyes roam to and fro throughout the earth, seeking to strengthen the hearts of those who are devoted to him. Hearts that are devoted to him by faith. He neither slumbers nor sleep. He searches the horizons when we're in need. Before a word is on our heart, God knows it completely. And in so many times, have you ever been in a situation where you're in a desperate strait and it seems that God just reaches out and swoops down like a hero on a white horse and answers you? I know I have. Many of you know our brother Sundar Singh Amos, who visits here often. And I was going through a job loss where it seemed like just at the end of last year, everything was falling apart after Harvey I was so low and calling out to God for some comfort. And sure enough, the kind of fellowship Sundar brought me to a friend of his and the kind of fellowship, so tired I could barely call out. And it's just as if God renewed my soul on a deep, deep level. A friend who had survived World War II Germany talking about his trials, meeting with me and how God was faithful. And in that very moment, he calls me to remember the faithfulness of God. We call out and God answers, even though we can barely mumble a prayer. When we call out, Abba, Father, God hears that. It's our faith that leads us to call out, Abba, Father. It's our faith to give our last groan, even when we can go no further. And so do you have that faith? Are you willing to go and cut through the spiritual layers of the roofs that get in your way to get into Jesus, the doubts, the despair, The slew of despond. Do you know? As Psalm 77 says, though you may be tempted to remember God and groan and think, has he forgotten to be faithful? Will you recount the deeds of the Lord? Will you do that? Psalm 77. When I remember God, I moan when I meditate, my spirit faints and the night my hand is stretched out without weary. Will the Lord spurn forever and never again be favorable? Have his promises ceased? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Then I said, the psalmist says, I will appeal to this the years of the right hand of the most high. I will remember the deeds of the Lord. Will you remember and keep seeking? You may remember an old Him. That refers to God's wrestling with Jacob when Jacob was in the wilderness. And it says this, wrestling I will not let thee go till I thy nature know. And it's as if Jacob in his troubles in the wilderness, preparing to meet Esau, when he knew that Esau could kill him the next day, he was fighting fears. He had sent all that baggage ahead of himself. did not try to appease Esau, yet his soul was in turmoil. He felt that it was hopeless for the first time he was in a situation out of which he could not trick someone else. In his anxiety, he wrestled with God. He said to God, I will not let you go until you bless me. With thee, O night, I mean to stay, and wrestle till the break of day. Another line of that hymn goes. And Jacob did not let God go, and God let Jacob win, but he ended up bruising Jacob's hip. It was injured, and he limped for the rest of his life. But he found spiritual rest, and Jacob, the patriarch, experience greater transformation. His faith that was given to him by God to pursue God, Jacob got his answer. And in his faith, there was a measure of healing in his life, a deeper trust. So my brothers and sisters, it says in our confession that one of the ways by which we make forward progress in the faith is a diligent use of the means of grace. So many times we fail to recognize that that sanctification as we grow requires work and the trials that we face. It requires taking pains to seek God. It requires sacrifice, time and prayer, even when we feel like we're at the end of our rope. If you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. That's a secular phrase, but a spiritual phrase is, if you're at the end of your rope, recognize that God's rope is longer, tie the end of your rope around God's knot and hang on. We must keep going, trusting that God is faithful, recalling his deeds if we're tempted to despair. Recognizing that as we keep reaching out to him, the answer may be coming around the next bend. And that's the case for believers, but for unbelievers, if you are seeking salvation, if you are seeking healing for your soul. To even have an interest in seeking. God has to first give you an interest. It may be a carnal interest. We don't know. But if it is a true spiritual interest. Remember this great verse from John 6, 37, all that the father gives to me will come to me and he who comes to me, I will never cast out. I will in no wise cast out, the old King James says. And so if you have a desire for salvation, that is a desire that is truly born to seek God on God's terms, to trust in God on God's terms. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. We confess with our mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God has raised him from the dead. You will be saved. That's a truism. That is a promise. It is a gospel truth upon which we can take hold. So know that. But are you seeking him on his terms, trusting him? And if that is truly the case, he will receive you. He will receive you. Trusting him on his terms, terms that are willing. to turn from all sin and instead and trust in ourselves and is said to place trust in Christ. Not to work this up on our own accord. That's not what repentance is, to somehow work up, doing penance, feeling sorry enough. It's merely a recognition that we cannot do it of our own. In and of ourselves, we are poverty stricken. In and of ourselves, we are nothing but despair, darkness, and distrust. But in Christ, repentance is turning to him and seeing that our futile ways are indeed futile and seeing in him and his healing, trusting him by faith that he is greater than we, trusting in his alien righteousness to fill us and to heal us when we in ourselves are all blackness. So trust Christ, turn to him. Believe by faith and he will answer. So that's our first point, that believers trust Jesus' authority and pursue him with determination. And then that is also a call for unbelievers to recognize his authority and repent. So our second main point is unbelievers distrust Jesus' authority and seek to undermine it. I'm gonna go further down. So Jesus says, son, your sins are forgiven in verse five. And then down in verses six through 11, we read this. Now, some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? The scribes see this miracle. They see this divine man of authority, the God-man. But of course, they don't recognize him as divine. They see this and they reason in their hearts. Continuously, they're ruminating in their hearts. They've been following him around, but they just don't see. They have eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear. They are like those whom the Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3, verse 14, and in chapter 4, verse 4, that there is a veil over all Israel or over much of Israel until the time of the Gentiles has come in. It is a veil to keep them from believing the truth. The God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the glory of Christ. And of course, isn't it glorious that Jesus was healing, that he was doing this with power, and yet all they can focus on is their own despair, their own doubt, their own distrust, their own distrust with which they were born, fallen into sin. And that's because they are carnal seekers of Jesus. And how do we know this about those who were teaching, about those who were there? How do we know this? about these religious leaders. Well, we read in Mark chapter 12, 38 through 40, that Jesus pronounces warnings against them because the religious leaders, they like to walk around in flowing robes and be called rabbi and be greeted at the marketplaces and the synagogues. And when, when Jesus came in and the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, They're the ones that wanted the crowds to be silent, and yet Jesus told them, and yet if these crowds are silent, the very stones would call out. These men loved the praises of men more than the praises of God. And they were so focused on maintaining the status quo, so focused on building up and bolstering their own fragile egos, that they could not see glory when it passed by, being slaves to sin. They were slaves to their desire for power. Their affections were stuck in sin. And why do I say affections? Well, let's look back at the text. When they began to question within themselves, why do you question these things in your hearts? Hearts are the seat of the appetites and the affections and of the will, as good theology defines it. It is the heart that is hurt. It is the heart that does not recognize glory when it's passed. It is the heart that blinds the mind so that the eyes, they cannot see. And of course, due to the veil that is over their minds, if their eyes had truly been open, had their hearts been made soft by faith and the Messiah to come, they would have recognized him. They would have been like Simeon and Anna as they awaited Jesus being born in the temple, saying the salvation of Israel is here. But they missed the very scriptures that were before their eyes. Isaiah 9, 6, it says that the Messiah was to come. That he is to be called Mighty God. For unto us a child is born and unto us a son is given. And the authority should be on his shoulders. He should be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God. So a son who is born, who is at the same time Mighty God. He was right there in front of their faces. So they would have known there would have been a God-man coming. They would have known that if they had juxtaposed that, if they had placed this text alongside Psalm 103, verse 3, the benefits of the Lord, he who forgives sins, that this very Messiah, this God-man, would have to be, by deduction, one with God. The Word was with God and the Word was God. They should have known this. They should have recognized the completion of the fulfillment of the scriptures that Jesus brought, but they did not. It's kind of like the rich young ruler. He had followed, he had tried to follow the teachings of scripture. He asked Jesus, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said, you lack one thing. Sell all that you own to the poor. Follow me. and you will have treasure in heaven." But the young man couldn't depart from it. He had seen the scriptures, he had seen the glory of God, but he did not see that the very author of the scriptures was there, one who could enable him to forsake that which he clung to so tightly. And if he had truly seen the beauty of Christ, had his eyes been opened, he would have had the power to lay this stuff down. And the religious leaders would have had the power, if they had faith, to lay this incessant questioning down, this distrust, this enmity towards God and His power, but they could not. They would not. Such was the bondage of their hearts. And of course, Christ opened many of their eyes. Other religious leaders like Nicodemus later went on to place faith in the Savior. What is impossible with man is possible with God. And he can take distrust and authority and make it trust. Such is the nature of his grace in Jesus Christ. And Jesus, seeking to minister to them, angry, yes, but seeking to minister to them, lovingly points out their point of need, their fundamental distrust. And what does he do? He says, why do you question these things in your heart? So he points to the heart. He points to the place where the bondage and the stronghold is. Which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or to say, rise, take up your mat, and walk? Which is easier to say? He kind of does a sort of a tricky route here, but it's really to show That the harder thing is to say, your sins are forgiven. It's easier to say, take up your mat and walk. There could be many people who would say that because they would try to say, one who could say, your sins are forgiven belongs only to God alone. Yes. In a sense, these religious leaders were right to ask the question because only God can forgive sins. But in making this pronouncement, Jesus is showing them the blindness of their hearts. pointing them to the very place to which they do not see. And so by putting before them the very harder thing to say, he just exposes the double-dog nature of their blindness. And that is what Jesus does so lovingly. He tries to bring our hearts to where the rubber meets the road. And good preaching will try to do that too. And he was preaching at the moments of this healing, and he was preaching to them out of his very care for the religious leaders, as difficult as their hearts were. Because Jesus knows their hearts. And there's one more level of authority here, and that is, if they had truly known Jesus' authority, they would have recognized that he had the power to forgive sins. They would have recognized that he had the power to heal, to proclaim sight to the blind, And lastly, they would have recognized something in Jesus that only he has the power to do. A third thing, you know, it says in Jeremiah 17, 10, that I, the Lord searched the mind and heart. So these religious leaders had three things in front of them. They had the forgiveness of sins being mentioned here. They had the healing that was before their eyes and, and missing. and missing, that Jesus could look into a person. It said in other scriptures that Jesus knows what is within a man. He could reach in and tell man what they were thinking. As he is one with his father in Psalm 139, verse four, says, before a word is on our tongue, you know it completely. That God knew us from our mother's wombs. These religious leaders would have known that if Jesus could read their minds, isn't this only God we're dealing with here? Isn't this only the Son of God, the God-man to come? But that's like the final nail in the coffin that shows the hardness of their hearts, their blindness. They had all of these different signs that showed Jesus' authority, yet they chose to distrust in being turned in on themselves. And they sought to undermine Jesus' authority. Not just distrust, but undermining. Because you see, In the authority that they had, which they should have been exercising justly as Israel's leaders, in a room full of people who were loving on Jesus and enjoying his presence, they tried to find a way to trap Jesus. They followed him later on and later on trying to catch him. They didn't speak out loud just yet, but Jesus unmasked them in the scheme of their hearts. Had they been able to voice it out loud, had they just not been thinking, Their very nature would have been to undermine Jesus' authority. And the reason I say that is that religious leaders around the world, Romans chapter one is a good example of this, that it talks about those who once knew the truth and knowing the truth, they suppressed it and turned to lesser things. Rather than taking the glory of God in his in his oneness, worshiping God alone, they sought to set up lesser gods, false gods, idolatrous behavior. And indeed, the idols of power at stake here. It says there is active suppression of those of the truth by those who do not like it, who those who do not want their authority violated. And it comes out in in subtle ways, we noted the past few weeks, you've been going through the text on Balaam. And although Balaam would not speak a word against God out of fear, he later sought to have the Israelites practice sexual immorality. subtly by enticing women to seduce the men of Israel. And so even those who seem to be religious are often those who hate God and don't want to have anything to do with his authority. And we see that today. If we've seen the power of faith that relentlessly makes a beeline for Jesus, we see the power of those who like an appearance of it. The so-called power of those who like an appearance of it. but really hate Jesus deep down. They don't like his true words. You have your liberal seminary professors of today. They try to take the words of the Bible and they twist them to say things that the Bible doesn't really say. The Bible doesn't really condemn homosexuality. The Bible doesn't really say Jesus is the only way. The Bible doesn't really speak of hell. They say that it's just a trash pit called the Valley of Hanoam, even the Jehovah's Witnesses say that. All the while ignoring the book of Revelation about eternal fire. All the while ignoring other authoritative signs where the word of God does not contradict itself, but they seek to seize upon one thing and twist it in their blindness. They prefer their own egos to the truth. to make a wave. You know, we looked at this morning, even those of us that are not liberal seminary professors, we looked at question 105A in the larger catechism, and it talks about a bold and curious searching into the secrets of God as one of the sins forbidden in the first commandment. One of the things about idolatry is that we seek to try to uncover something that's never been known about God before. Even people who try to be orthodox, they seize a certain area and try to See, well, this might be something new about God. I might be able to get away with this and make a sensational name for myself. And then they try to promote something new that's never been heard of before. You get certain thinkers, you know, you look at even Norman Vincent Peale, which would be seemingly innocuous, promoting positive thinking, but yet it's positive thinking apart from the power of the gospel. You get the word of faith movement that twists Seeking Jesus by faith and going after him with abandon. It twists that all prayer is only answered by God's authority. If God wills, but it says saying that your words of faith can control God. Can command God to do certain things rather than asking God and he grants if he wills. This little twisting is dangerous and it's it seeks to undermine Jesus authority. Whether they're outwardly aware of it, which is the greatest evil, or committing evil by being unaware of it. They seek their own corners on the gospel, which the only corner of the gospel that should be held is the corner owned by Christ, as the cornerstone. And we ourselves are just stones built on that, lesser stones. We have no corner. Jesus is the corner. And so our job, as believers is to promote Jesus' authority, to proclaim His word. Now those of us in this room, do we love Jesus' authority? Do we love the truth of the word of God for its own sake? Do we love the picture of God that's portrayed in the word? Rejoicing in that, making that our own, making first of all our satisfaction in Christ. But second of all, as we read his word that comes from him, is that our satisfaction? Do we delight in that authority? Or do we try to find some other way to promote ourselves, our own opinions, our own ideas? Making a splash. And also, which is also equal to evil, when God commands us to do certain things. And he commands us by way of application. To do something that may be hard for us to do, something that may grate against our flesh, that remaining corruption within us. Do we recognize that Jesus is right? Or do we seek subtly to evade the commandment? Unbelievers only chafe completely to Jesus teachings. They hate them and prefer their own ways. We as believers, There is a little bit of that. There's that remaining corruption within us, even though our hearts have been changed. And sometimes, even though the general tenor of our hearts is God's commands are not burdensome to us. There are times when. You know, Jesus was about to face the cross and he said, if it be possible, take this cup from me, get not what I will, but your will be done. There can be a chafing to the body. There can be. A chafing to those of us who are to those of us who are not perfect like Jesus, to the flesh, where the flesh will roar, the flesh will groan. All the while our inward man delights in the law of God. It wants to do his will, yet there's just something, Thomas Brooks calls us this, there's that unmortified part of our affections that when God tells us something authoritative, deep down we hate that that part of us is rebelling, but it just, it wants its own way. It says, mine. Yet all the while, that part of our soul that loves God says no. Our deepest sense says no. That chafing is a temptation. It can lead to a temptation wherever we do not want to let go. We do not want to give God the authority that He's due. When there's a crook in our path, when there is a crook in our lot, as the Puritans say, As they said, we often seek to evade it. We often seek to find other lesser means or idols that can distract us rather than putting God first as the first commandment says. And instead of resting in God's authority, we seek to find some lesser means, whether it's a sinful behavior, indulged in something to take the edge off, whether it's an addictive behavior, whether it's losing our temper, in short, anything. We're tempted to go to the lesser authorities that we knew in our former way of living, then go to the ultimate authority who is Christ. And we need to ask his forgiveness for that this morning. For the times when we have failed. Christ will give us the authority. Christ will give us the forgiveness. He will also give us the strength to seek his authority anew. If that seeking of him in our hearts has flagged, he will do that. And if you have only chafed at Jesus' authority, that is your way of living. If you have heard his words and you have despised them, yes, he can even soften your heart. If you hear this message this morning and you feel like your heart is so hard that there's no recourse for you, you want it to be soft, and you know that apart from the softening of your heart, you have no eternal life. You have only your own empty ways. And you're hearing this as a way out. Believe that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. And he will move your heart as you call upon him, asking him to save you, turning from what you know is darkness and trusting in him who is the light. He will renew you. He will. He will save you. He'll change your heart and he will give you a heart that trust a heart that is healthy, trusting him who is above as our greatest authority and instead being born again, rather than sliding into hell, and instead, beginning on a path of true spiritual development, a true stage of development, and that is the developmental stage of sanctification. Going in the process of dying to sin and living under righteousness, and trusting the God, the Christ, who goads us on, who loves us, and who has called us. Our Heavenly Father, He's our rock. He's our shield. He's trustworthy. Amen. Let's pray. Our God and Father, we thank you that you are our shield, that you are our source of strength, that you are our trustworthy authority and our only authority. We pray, God, that you might convict our hearts of the times when we have chafed. Help us to return to our first love. If we do not know you, God, give us salvation. Make our hearts alive to see you as you are and to bow and worship before your holy authoritative throne. These things we do pray in Jesus name. Amen.