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Welcome to the Daily Blade. The Word of God is described as the sword of the Spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

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All right, welcome back. We are in Mark, chapter 2, all week long, one of my favorite texts in the whole Bible for so many reasons. We're going to pick it up in verse four. And it says and when they the friends could not get near him, jesus, because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him and when they made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic by the way, this is a throwback to yesterday, or maybe the first day Do you have enough faith? Maybe that some of your unbelieving friends can't borrow, because Jesus sees the faith of the friends and he credits it to the paralytic. Anyway, and when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic son, your sins are forgiven.

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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? Well, in actuality, their question is right that God is the only one that can forgive sins. But the part of this that we need to know is in Romans, chapter 3, that we've already covered on the Daily Blade, is that for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and a sin is any time we are outside of the commands of God or the law of God, the rules of God or the will of God, any time that we mistreat him, to steal his glory or mistreat one of his image bearers. And so here Jesus is saying that your sins are forgiven.

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And the critics who will talk about it a couple of days. They are like who does this man think that he is to forgive sins? For? Only God can first give sin. Well, winner, winner, chicken dinner. Guess what? Jesus is God. And the reason that he can say to this man your sins are forgiven is because every sin that has ever been committed is against the one true God. This is why Jesus says I forgive your sin. For anybody that ever tells you, like some freshman English professor, that nowhere in the gospels does Jesus ever claim to be God, then this person just doesn't read the words on the page. Over and over and over, jesus will claim equality with God. He says that he and the Father are one. And here he is speaking as the co-eternal second person of the Trinity, god the Son, when he says your sins are forgiven. Now, this is the only way that this makes sense because all sin is against a holy, eternal, everlasting God.

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David talks about this in the Psalms Against you and you alone have I sinned. He says that in Psalm 51. Well, in actuality, what had happened in Psalm 51 is he got busted because he committed adultery with Bathsheba and then had her husband killed, and yet he says his ultimate sin though it was against those two. Ultimately, what he had done is sinned against God. Can you imagine if you and your wife this morning got into a fight? Okay, maybe you were on your way to church one day and you got into a fight. And let's say, you came to my church and you hollered at each other and sinned against each other the entire way to church, and then I were to walk up and go hey, hey, look at me. I know you guys have been fighting, but I forgive you. And you would think what are you talking about? You don't have anything to do with the fight that we have been in. It doesn't pertain to you. That's right, you were correct. Why? Because I'm not God, but Jesus could walk up on you and say if you have sinned, you have sinned against the almighty God.

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And yet what Jesus is doing here is.

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Jesus is claiming equality with God and he has the power to forgive sins.

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And while the religious leaders are critical of what's happening, I want you to see what Jesus does that when these friends get a hole in the roof and they open it up, the first thing that he says to this man is son, your sins are forgiven.

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So, even though the reality, the truth of the scripture, is that every single one of us have sinned against an almighty God, and the truth is we are but sinners in the hands of an angry God, and although we all deserve to be damned to hell right now because we did it, and God would be just to send all of us to hell, but instead he looks at us and if we put our faith in him, he doesn't scream sinner, he says son, your sins are forgiven. This is what it means to serve a merciful, gracious God. What we deserve is death. What Jesus offers is life through him. If you don't hear anything else, hear this that through faith in Jesus Christ, he wants to look at you and not call you sinner, but call you son. Come back tomorrow and we'll see how he does that.

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Thank you for listening to today's episode Before you go. If you want to help equip other men for the fight, share this podcast around and leave us a five-star rating and review. Stay sharp.