Which Is Easier?

Mark 2:1 And again He entered Capernaum after some days, and it was heard that He was in the house. 2. Immediately many gathered together, so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door. And He preached the word to them. 3. Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men. 4. And when they could not come near Him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was. And when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying.

5. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven you.''

6. But some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, 7. "Why does this Man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone?'' 8 And immediately, when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, He said to them, "Why do you reason about these things in your hearts? 9. "Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, `Your sins are forgiven you,' or to say, `Arise, take up your bed and walk'? 10. "But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins'' He said to the paralytic, 11. "I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go your way to your house.'' 12. And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went out in the presence of them all, so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, "We never saw anything like this!''

Jesus has a way of getting to the heart of a problem doesn’t He? Several things were going in this account of the paralytic man needed healing, and they all needed to be dealt with. This man was in need of physical healing, and yet there was an unbelief problem going on in the room. Sometimes you have to deal with root problems first in order to get to the overlying problem. Jesus took this opportunity to give them and us as well; a lesson in faith. Jesus is the master teacher and wants us to be enlightened. Understanding God’s ways is the beginning of trusting Him. We have to have a firm foundation to believe if we are ever going to see the manifested power of God. To get to the root core of the problem, Jesus asked them a very simple question. The question wasn’t for His benefit, the question was for their benefit. They needed to understand the answer if they were ever going to get beyond their unbelief. He wanted them to understand, yet they were so hard hearted they wouldn’t even consider the question. I would say this same question applies to us today. In many modern churches you have no problem getting people born again, there is not a problem in believing that God will forgive their sin, yet healing seems to be a mystery. They don’t know if God will heal them or not. Most would say I believe He could if he wanted to, but they don’t know if He wants to. If it wasn’t His will in the first place He would never forgive sins, and if it wasn’t His will in the first place He would never heal. My question is this, on what basis does God have to legally heal us, or forgive us of sin? And, what basis do we have to believe God for either if they’re not already covered in the atoning work of Calvary? This is the underlying question that absolutely has to be answered.

We know God is not a respecter of persons because the Word says this, yet so many Christians today are stuck in this kind of mindset where they just aren’t ready to believe. They are just not sure what or how to believe for that matter. There is good news, things can change, and hope can be restored. I would like to share a testimony that may help some get a hold of this truth. About a month ago at the time of this writing, my wife and I went to Bulgaria and held a healing crusade. Our main focus on this trip was to encourage those to whom we were ministering to believe the faithfulness of God. We had a great time there, and saw that God was faithful to honor His Word. The last night of the crusade we had a service where we prayed for those needed healing. One particular man had stage four lung cancer, and was scheduled to have surgery to have one of his lungs removed. I remember him very well, as he was too weak to come up for prayer, we had to go back to him. Several weeks went by and we received a testimony from the pastor there telling us what happened next. One of the dear saints in their local congregation had a word from the Lord for this man. They said that he had not properly judged himself when taking the Lords supper.