1. Art and Diseño

RPM Volume 17, Number 6, February 1 to February 7, 2015
To the End of the Earth (6):
Jumping for Joy
Acts 3:1-10
By Dr. Derek W. H. Thomas
Now turn with me, if you would, to The Acts of The Apostles. We began five or
six weeks ago to look at The Acts of The Apostles together. So far we have
looked at the section where the apostles appoint a successor to Judas, in the
person of Matthias; then, the ascension of Jesus to the right hand of God; and
then in the second chapter, the phenomenon of Pentecost and the
accompanying signs that followed it, in terms of “a rushing mighty wind” and
“cloven tongues of fire”, and the ability of these worshipers in Jerusalem to speak
in foreign languages (something that Ed obviously has not yet developed a skill
in!); then, towards the end of chapter two, the sermon that Peter preaches
following Pentecost by way of explanation for what occurred on the Day of
Pentecost; and last week we were looking at the synopsis that Luke gives us, this
wonderful section in verse 42 that “they devoted themselves to the apostles’
teaching and to fellowship, and the breaking of bread, and the prayers.”
And we now pick up the reading of God’s word in Acts 3, and we’ll be reading the
first ten verses. Before we do so, let’s come before God in prayer. Let us pray.
Our Father in heaven, we thank You now for what we’ve just heard from our dear
friends. We are astonished by the way in which they have obeyed your call to go
to Romania. We thank you for their obedience, are awed by their example, and
we pray for them: for their family, for their children. We pray for their safety. We
pray especially that You would enable them to be the very means by which
instrumentally the gospel is brought to Romania. We thank You, Lord, for this
vision that you’ve given to them, and we ask, heavenly Father, that You would
pour out Your Spirit upon them.
Father, we thank You for Your word, the infallible, inerrant word of God, and as
we read it together we pray Your blessing. Come, Holy Spirit, and endue this
reading of Scripture with the attendance of Your power, that it might be hidden
within our hearts. Give us insight and understanding, we pray for Jesus’ sake.
Amen.
This is God’s holy and inerrant word:
Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the ninth hour, the
hour of prayer. And a man who had been lame from his mother’s womb
was being carried along, whom they used to set down every day at the
gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, in order to beg alms of those
who were entering the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to go
into the temple, he began asking to receive alms. But Peter, along with
John, fixed his gaze upon him and said, "Look at us!" And he began to
give them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. But
Peter said, "I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to
you: In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene—walk!" And seizing him by
the right hand, he raised him up, and immediately his feet and his ankles
were strengthened. With a leap, he stood upright and began to walk; and
he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.
And they were taking note of him as being the one who used to sit at the
Beautiful Gate of the temple to beg alms, and they were filled with wonder
and amazement at what had happened to him.
Amen. May God bless to us the reading of His holy, inerrant word.
This is by any judgment a remarkable story, a remarkable incident. We’re not
sure...Luke doesn’t tell us how long a span of time may have elapsed now since
Pentecost...perhaps only a few weeks, perhaps a little more. We’re told at the
end of chapter two that one of the things that has been happening is that God
has been attending the ministry of the apostles with enormous blessing. “The
Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” Every day
there were men and women, children, putting their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,
confessing Him to be Lord and Savior, and the church in Jerusalem was growing
and expanding.
And here is this incident of the healing of this man who had been born with this
deformity— he was a cripple, born this way. Luke is a doctor. You remember in
Colossians 4 when Paul is making a reference to Luke, he refers to him as “Luke,
the beloved physician.” He’s a doctor. And it’s interesting in The Acts of The
Apostles how often Luke will give us little descriptions of the illnesses that certain
people have. This is a congenital problem; this is something that he had from his
mother’s womb; he was born this way, and Luke is describing now this
astonishing incident where something happens of immense significance.
Dr. Lloyd-Jones, in a series of sermons, a great number of sermons that he
preached on The Acts of The Apostles—he preached probably a dozen sermons
on the text that I was looking at last week—he says of this particular section,
“Here we see authentic Christianity, and nothing else.” This is, he says, authentic
Christianity. There’s something about this particular incident that distills, as it
were, encapsulates, what Christianity is essentially all about...real Christianity,
authentic Christianity...Christianity that shows itself and manifests itself in the
heart and in the life. Perhaps it’s the zeal, perhaps it’s the sense of joy—here’s
this man, and he’s leaping and praising God in the temple. Perhaps it’s the way
in which Peter, especially in a sermon that we’ll look at next week, an explanation
of what has happened, how he focuses all of his attention on Jesus Christ. He’s
the center of their attraction and their gaze.
There’s no doubt these early Christians were fascinated by Christ. They’d
discovered Him as the fulfillment of all the hopes and expectations and
prophecies of the Old Testament. They’ve discovered that it is in Christ that sins
are forgiven, it is in Christ that they’ve been reconciled to God, it’s in Christ that
they’ve found their joy. It’s as though the book of Ecclesiastes with its great and
ponderable questions as to the meaning of life and the reality of our existence
here in this world - that there is no meaning under the sun apart from Christ, and
they’ve discovered that, that “Jesus is all the world to me.”
You notice how, in the previous sermon, in verse 22, Peter describes Jesus
‘delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God; you
crucified and killed Him by the hands of lawless men.’ A man, he says, attested
by God with mighty works and wonders and signs...mighty works, and wonders
and signs...and that’s what we see here in this chapter. We see a mighty work,
and a wonder, and a sign.
They’re in the temple again. It’s interesting, isn’t it, that these early Christians
didn’t immediately forsake the temple. They didn’t come to Jesus Christ and
discover Him as Lord and Savior, and Prophet and Priest and King, and then
draw the immediate conclusion that they should no longer worship in the temple.
They didn’t do that. It took a while before they stopped going to the temple. (Now,
I don’t believe for one minute that they took part in the sacrifices of the temple.
There are commentators who suggested that they did. I don’t believe that; I think
they’re wrong. I can’t imagine that they would have taken part in the ritual
sacrifices of the temple. They had discovered in Jesus Christ that it is by the
shedding of His blood that sins are forgiven.)
But there were other aspects of temple worship – prayer, for example. And that’s
why they are here at three in the afternoon. It is one of the stated times of prayer.
It was the time of the evening sacrifice. And they’re there not for the sacrifice, but
they’re there for prayer. They’ve gathered in the outer courts of the temple. There
are probably large throngs of people who have come to the temple, and they’re
walking through the Colonnade and through the outer precincts of the temple.
And they’ve come to worship God, and they’ve come to pray, and no doubt
they’ve come to talk about Jesus Christ. I can’t imagine but that they were talking
about Jesus Christ. I can imagine some of the consternation in the temple, as
perhaps their prayers are now devoted to Christ: not just in the name of Christ,
but praying to Christ. His name is being mentioned in the temple. We’ll see in a
couple of weeks how this is the beginning of the persecution of the Christians.
We’ll find Peter and John in prison in a couple of weeks. In the very next chapter,
they’ll spend a night in jail because they’re talking about Jesus Christ. They saw
Jesus—do you see?—as the answer the Old Testament had been talking about.
They’d come to understand the Old Testament. They hadn’t abandoned the Old
Testament, they’d come to understand what it really means, and what the
essential part of the temple really means.
Prayer is what they relied on, and you can’t get away from it. We saw it last
week: that they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship,
and the breaking of bread, and in the prayers. Prayer was one of those marks of
the early church, of the early community. They did everything by prayer. That’s
why Paul will say, “In everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let
your requests be made known unto God.” But this is the calm before the storm.
This is the calm before the storm...the storm is going to break, and it’s going to
break in the very next chapter, but this is the calm.
And they’re in Solomon’s Colonnade [you see that in verse 11]. They’re in
Solomon’s Colonnade, a portico called Solomon’s, or Solomon’s Colonnade,
going around the outer wall, the outer edge, of Herod’s temple. (This isn’t
Solomon’s temple, now; this is Herod’s temple.) Herod’s temple was an
enormous structure. It was a colossal structure. It took something like 60 or 70
years to build it. They didn’t finish building it until about 65 AD, and then it was
destroyed again in 70 AD, and they were always working at it...it was a bit like
what’s going on here! It was a building site, and stretching all the way around the
outer edge, 45 feet wide, was a Colonnade, and it went up about 40 feet. And on
one edge of it was a wall and on the other were two rows of what we might call
Corinthian pillars. On one section of this Colonnade, it was a place where they
traded. It was the place where Jesus, you remember, upset the moneychangers
and the tables, as coins used in the worship in the temple were being
exchanged, and it was like a marketplace. In the Colonnade, Gentiles as well as
Jews could walk and talk and mingle, and probably there were large crowds
there at three o’clock in the afternoon.
And a man—they’ve seen it every day...every day this happens—his friends, or
perhaps his relatives, bring him in. We’re told in the sermon that follows that this
man is over 40 years old, and from the time, possibly, of his youth – certainly
since he was a teenager – he has been brought into the temple for one reason:
he’s put in a strategic place where people have to pass by him. [You’ve seen folk
(and look the other way now) – you know, you’re going somewhere and you see
somebody, and they’re begging for money and you want to look somewhere else.
Or you’re at the traffic light at County Line Road, and there’s somebody there
and the lights are red, and they’re coming right up to your window, and you’re
sort of saying, “I wish these lights would turn green!”]
This man is known to them. He’s begging for alms. He’s poverty stricken. It’s the
only way that he can survive. He’s there every day. Every day, they’d have heard
him. Perhaps he would have had a piece of garment before him, or maybe a
bowl of some kind with a few coins, and he would cry out “Have mercy!” He’d cry
for alms. Perhaps he’d make gestures with his hands, because he’s crouched on
the floor. He can’t stand; he can’t walk, he’s a cripple.
And he’s by the Beautiful Gate. We’re not sure where that is. There are three
possibilities in the temple structure where the Beautiful Gate might be. It might be
one of the main gates into the temple. There were twelve gates into the temple.
There are some – not many, but there are some – commentators who suggest
this is one of the main gates into the temple, the Shushan Gate. Others suggest,
because this is what Josephus tells us and he lived pretty much near that
time...Josephus tells us that it was the gate that led from the Court of the
Gentiles to the Court of Women, and Jewish men and women could go into the
Court of Women, but Gentiles could not go into that area. And it was at that point
that he was. And others think it was the gate that led from the Court of Women
into the Court of Israel, a little further on in the precincts of the temple.
He’s by one of the gates, and people have to pass by him, and Peter and John
are passing by him, and he cries out for alms. And Peter fixes his gaze on him
(and John, too) and says to the man, “Look at us!” - calls to his attention, and
says to him, “Silver and gold have I none, but in the name of Jesus Christ, walk!”
And you can imagine, as Luke describes this and he describes it in some detail,
verse 7: “He took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his
feet and ankles were made strong.” There are physicians here who probably can
give a fairly accurate medical description of what might have been wrong here,
and what might have been needed to enable this man to stand and walk and leap
about in the temple. Something extraordinary happened; something out of the
ordinary happened; a miracle happens here. The power of God is manifested
here.
Luke describes these miracles using these three words, and we’ve already seen
them in verse 22 of chapter two. He speaks of Jesus being attested by God “with
mighty works and wonders and signs.” Mighty works, wonders, and signs—that’s
what this is. It’s a mighty work.
I. A demonstration of God’s power.
It’s first of all a demonstration of the power of God. Peter didn’t heal this man. It
wasn’t something inherent within Peter to heal this man. This was the power of
God. Peter was an instrument. Even though Peter may have had what Paul
refers to in I Corinthians 12 as “the gift of healings” (using the plural). The gift of
healings...maybe Peter has the gift of healings, but at the end of the day, this is
not Peter; this is God who has done this. This is a miracle. This is what C.S.
Lewis calls “an interference with nature by a supernatural power.”
Peter tells him to do something that he cannot do. He commands him to do
something that’s impossible for him to do: to walk. That’s the very thing he
cannot do. And God puts forth His power. It’s a sovereign demonstration of the
omnipotence of God, and you either believe that or you don’t. There’s no way of
trying to explain this scientifically. This is a supernatural act. This is something
that doesn’t happen. This is something that only a forth putting of power from
outside can explain. It’s a mighty work; it’s a mighty power.
II. A picture of how God works.
But it’s also a sign...it’s a sign; the miracles were signs. The Lord of creation is
here. This is an act of re-creation. What is this deformity? Why is there sickness
in the world? Well, sickness is in the world because of sin. If there had been no
sin in the Garden of Eden, there would be no sickness. One of the great glories
of the final chapter of the Bible is to say that in heaven there will be no sickness.
There will be no work for doctors to do in heaven, but only to praise God and give
Him glory, because creation will be re-created; because that which is out of joint
and out of sorts and torn apart will be put back together again, and this is a sign
of it. This is what Jesus has come ultimately to do. Not just, you understand, to
save souls, but to bring about a re-creation: the new heavens and the new earth.
Those dry bones will come to life again. Isn’t that what Paul talks about in the
eighth chapter of Romans when he talks about creation “groaning and travailing
in birth pangs, waiting” [for what?] “...waiting for the regeneration of all things.”
As you read the news, and you read your newspapers, and you watch the
headlines on CNN or Fox or whatever, what do you hear? You hear the world
groaning and travailing in birth. It’s out of joint. It’s out of sorts. It’s disordered.
And Christ has come to bring about the recreation of all things, and this is just a
sign of it. Do you remember what Jesus said to John the Baptist when John the
Baptist was languishing in his prison cell before he was executed? You
remember he seems to have lost his assurance, and he sent word to Jesus by
other disciples asking for confirmation that He truly was the One. And do you
remember what the word Jesus sent back to him was? It was that beautiful text
from Isaiah 35, the little apocalypse of Isaiah 35. And what does that little chapter
tell us? This very thing: that “the eyes of the blind are opened, and the ears of the
deaf are unstopped, and the lame...the lame leap like a deer.” And this is a little
glimpse of it.
Now, you understand, this is not what Jesus has come to do in this world. If that
had been the case, Jesus would have healed everybody. The fact of the matter is
that miracles like these happened, but they happened only infrequently. Even the
apostles, even Peter and John, and even the Apostle Paul didn’t heal everybody.
The Apostle Paul was sick himself. Isn’t that the explanation that’s often given for
“the thorn in the flesh”? When he writes his Epistle to the Galatians, he talks
about “writing with large characters.” Why? Because he had some sort of eye
problem that wasn’t healed, that wasn’t cured. He talks about leaving Trophimus
behind in Miletus, sick. Even the great Apostle Paul wasn’t able to heal him.
Jesus hasn’t come to bring healing to everybody in this world, and that’s why this
is a sign not just of the healing of the body, but it’s a sign of something more than
that. It’s a sign of what Jesus had actually come to do not just for the body, but
for the soul: to restore; to bring back together that which is broken apart. And as
a consequence of what Peter does, he stretches forth his hand and raises this
man, and as he does so, strength comes into the sinews and muscles, and
perhaps even the very bone structure of his ankles and feet, and he’s able to
stand for the first time in his life. And you have to imagine...I was kidding with
someone earlier that this was going to be a ‘charismatic’ service, and we would
have one or two people leaping about and dancing for joy. Well, you can imagine
this man in the temple, and you can imagine the consternation of some. Who
does this man think that he is? Well, this man has discovered that he can walk!
This man has been healed, and he’s praising God for it! And the people are
filled...do you notice what Luke says in verse 10? He says they recognized him.
They knew who it was. Do you remember when the blind man in John 9 was
healed, when they asked him who healed him, there were some who said
perhaps he wasn’t the man, after all. Well, there’s no doubting here that this was
in fact the cripple that they had seen on so many occasions in the temple, and
they were filled, Luke says, with wonder and amazement. They had seen the
mighty power of God, a sign of what Jesus had come to do, and they were filled
with wonder. They were amazed, because every time we’re in the presence of
the mighty power of God, we, too, are amazed. When you hear of the conversion
of a soul from darkness to light, there should be goose pimples on the back of
your neck, because it’s a demonstration of the mighty power of God; because
what you have here, you see, are what I want to call “gospel adumbrations.”
Now, I need to explain that, and I need to be careful in what I’m doing here. I’m
not saying that you interpret this story in the way the Medievals interpreted
Scripture - in a variety of ways, but in allegorical ways. I’m not saying that. But
I’m saying in the gospels and in The Acts of The Apostles, these healing miracles
are often signs indicating what it is that Jesus has come to do. Blindness, for
example...the restoring of hearing to those who are deaf...this man who was able
to walk and leap about in the temple and praise God...it’s a little glimpse of what
Jesus does in the souls of men and women. Because what does the gospel do?
Precisely this. The gospel commands men and women to do something that they
cannot do: to repent and believe the gospel. And the fact of the matter is that
men and women in their natural state, in their Adamic state, cannot do that. The
natural man cannot believe. The natural man cannot repent. He’s dead in
trespasses and in sins. His will is bound and enslaved to the disposition of his
character. To be sure, he has what theologians these days call “free agency”—
that...you know, I chose this particular tie; whether you like it or not is irrelevant,
but I chose it and I’m responsible for that—but I don’t have “free will;” I don’t have
the ability to choose all of the moral options in any given situation. I don’t have
that ability by nature, because I’m dead in trespasses and in sins.
Do you remember that great, great prayer that Augustine writes in his
Confessions? In chapter 29 of his Confessions? “Command,” he says, “what You
will, and give what You command.” Because what upset Pelagius so much?
“Command what You will, and give what You command.”
The gospel, my friend, comes to you. You may not be a Christian tonight, or you
may be a Christian in the Mississippi sense of the Christian: that is, you belong to
a church somewhere, you were born in a family that calls itself Christian. But I’m
talking about a real Christian. I’m talking about somebody whose heart has been
transformed by the power of the gospel. And the gospel comes to you and
commands you tonight, this very night it commands you, to repent and believe in
Jesus Christ. But you know, by your own strength and by your own ability you
cannot do that. And you know what the gospel does? It reduces us. It reduces us
to cry out the very prayer that Augustine prayed: “Command whatever You want,
but give what You command. So if I must repent and if I must believe, God must
do something within me. I must experience the mighty power of God. The Holy
Spirit must come down and transform and take away the stony heart of unbelief
and give to me a heart of faith that I might be able to believe and lay hold of
Jesus Christ as He is freely offered to me in the gospel.”
And you see, in this miracle I think we’re being given a little sign, a little glimpse,
a little picture, if you like, of how the gospel operates, of how Jesus operates in
His grace: He commands, but He gives what He commands. He enables us to
repent and believe.
III. The joy of discovering the power of God in the gospel.
But it’s a picture, too, of something else. Surely this is a picture of the joy of
discovering the power of God in the gospel. This man is beside himself. I would
love to have seen him! I can’t imagine but that it was an extravagant affair as
he’s running about in the temple and causing a mayhem, and people are—well,
in Britain they’d say gob-smacked at the antics of this man. But you can
understand it!
But, my friends, and let me put it bluntly: this man was healed, but he died. You
understand that. He was healed, but he died. How much more you and I should
experience the joy of the gospel that speaks of sins forgiven and peace with God,
and everlasting life: that “He that believes in Me,” Jesus says, “though he dies,
yet shall he live.” The resurrection and the life is here, and this is a little picture of
the true and lasting joy that none but Zion’s children know.
One of the greatest teachers in the nineteenth century of Hebrew in the Church
of Scotland was a man by the name of Rabbi Duncan. They nicknamed him
Rabbi Duncan because of his ability in Hebrew. And as a young man, he was a
devout atheist. He did not believe in the existence of God. And in his biography,
when he discovers the existence of God, when the power of God captures him, it
captures him when he’s walking in the streets of Aberdeen by night, and he’s
crossing the bridge that goes over the River Dee, and he says in his biography, “I
danced on that bridge that night. I danced on the Brig O’Dee that night,” because
he had found the Lord Jesus Christ to be the altogether lovely One, and fairer
than ten thousand.
My friend, if you’re not a believer tonight, if you’re not a Christian tonight, in the
name of Jesus Christ, I command you to repent and believe. And though you
cannot believe in your own native strength, you must cry out to God tonight to
give you that ability, and give it He will, because He promises in His word that
“whosoever comes to Me, I will in no wise...in no wise...cast out.”
Let’s pray together.
Father, we thank You for this remarkable story. We thank You for the joy that it is
of knowing Christ as Lord and Savior, and Prophet and Priest and King. So grant
that it might be true of every single individual in this building this evening, we
pray for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
Please stand and receive the Lord’s benediction.
Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be with
you all. Amen.
This article is provided as a ministry of Third Millennium Ministries. If you
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