Acts 3

Acts 3:1-26

THE ’ FIRST MIRACLE Acts 3:1-26CHURCH history does not at all follow the lines of the world. World history, as a rule, deals with kings, queens, lords, captains—great men and women. It is supposed that Charles Dickens introduced “The Annals of the Poor” into literature, but not at all so. To Christ belonged that accomplishment. He preached the Gospel to the poor; He healed their sicknesses; He showed Himself to be their friend, and finally, He selected His disciples, destined to become His Apostles, largely from that section of society. This also marks a change from Old to New Testament. The Old Testament is a history of kings, of potentates, kingdoms, and governments; but the New Testament is a history of Jesus and of the common people. The question was once asked if any of the notables had believed on Him, and as a matter of fact, notables were few in His following. In the second chapter of Acts where Pentecost is recorded, plain men and plain women only are mentioned, and this third chapter is but a continuation of a work of a church made up from what Pharisees would have described as “the mudsill of society”. Let it be remembered, however, that when Joseph Cook of Boston was lecturing, he had a habit of reminding his audience that when “the mudsill was lifted, the whole house went up”. After all, plain people constitute the base on which society rests. To save, instruct, and uplift them is to effect society by the most direct route. That is what Jesus Christ did. Now His disciples continue that which “He began”. They deal also with social nobodies.

We have not even the name of the man who sat at the Temple gate called Beautiful. He is just a “certain man”—a social nobody. His estate is made the more humble and even pitiful by the fact that he was “lame from his mother’s womb”, hopelessly lame. They carried and laid him “daily at the gate of the Temple which is called Beautiful”. He could not walk; it is doubtful if he could take even a single step, and they brought him there to ask alms of them that entered into the Temple. I want you, then, to think with me of The Man, The Minister, and The Message of this chapter. THE MAN He was beggared by sickness. Sickness is the first and most terrible effect of sin. It is not always its direct effect, to be sure; the saint can be sick, and the new-born, unstained and unscarred babe can be sick. But it still remains a fact that sickness is in the world through sin and that those who are touched by it are often beggared by it. It is the occasion of most of the world’s sorrow. To a certain degree, it represents the world’s open sore. It is in every land. It rests upon every people. Health excepted, it is the world’s most common sight. It is little wonder then that Jesus wrought with the sick. A careful consideration of the New Testament will show that He somewhat equally divided His time between “teaching” and “healing”; between giving whole minds and whole bodies to men. The miracles of the Bible are an interesting study. They reveal the circumstance that sickness is no respecter of person or station. Christ had to heal the nobleman’s son, to raise from death the daughter of Jairus; and then, on the other hand, He had the poor blind man, the disfellowshiped demoniac, the wretched paralytic, the incompetent impotent, the outcast lunatic—with all of these He dealt. To this writer one of the joys of the millennium will be the health of man. When “the mortal is changed into the immortal, and the corruptible into incorruptible”, that will make earth a sort of first story to Heaven itself. Sin smites it with the deepest sorrows, but second to that stands sickness, and Jesus alone is the antidote of each and of both. This man was brought by friends.“Whom they laid daily at the gate of the Temple which is called Beautiful” (Acts 3:2).Then, though sickness had beggared him to the point where he must stretch out his hand and plead with people for a living, it had not as yet stripped him to the uttermost. It had not left him without friends, or the favor of relatives. Somebody carried him to the gate. Let us hope that that somebody was not animated by the selfish desire to secure from him a portion of the day’s beggings. That men may be unselfish in service is clearly shown in connection with another of Christ’s miracles. One day when He preached, the crowds about Him were so great that four men bearing a cripple could not penetrate to His presence. Climbing to the top of the flat-roofed house, they tore it up and let him down on a sheet, that Jesus might look on His pale face and speak the healing word. They were unselfish men. It is a great thing to be able to bring a man to Jesus whether his need is physical, mental, or spiritual. Mr. Moody tells of one of his meetings into which a great man came, carrying a cripple boy. Night after night he appeared with this boy on his back, bore him down to the front, set him with all tenderness and care possible on a seat, and he literally brought him to Jesus. We are also told that Sir Bartle, an English nobleman, who was once the governor of Bombay, India, and of Cape Colony in Africa, created for himself a name as “the helpful man”. Once when he was on a long trip and was returning, his wife went to the station to meet him, and sent a servant to the train to aid him with his baggage; and when the servant, who was new in the employ, said, “How shall I know Sir Bartle?” the wife answered, “You look for a tall gentleman helping somebody; that will be him,” The answer was sufficient, for when the servant went back to the train, he saw a tall man helping an old lady to descend from the car, and when he addressed him, “Sir Bartle,” he answered, “Yes sir!” The world is full of the sick and of the dependent. It seems sad that it should be so, but in that circumstance is the Christian’s opportunity. When we aid another, we bless ourselves, and there is scarce a turn of life that does not provide us an opportunity. “Look all around you, find some one in need, Help somebody today! Tho’ it be little—a neighborly deed— Help somebody today! “Many are waiting a kind, loving word, Help somebody today! Thou hast a message, O let it be heard, Help somebody today! “Many have burdens too heavy to bear, Help somebody today! Grief is the portion of some everywhere— Help somebody today! “Some are discouraged and weary in heart, Help somebody today! Some one the journey to Heaven should start, Help somebody today! Refrain— “Help somebody today, Somebody along life’s way; Let sorrow be ended, The friendless befriended, Oh, help somebody today!” He himself besought the disciples; he asked alms. His appeal was for the temporary aid, and his prayer to a mortal fellow like himself. That is the common mistake of men, and while it is an excusable mistake, it is none the less serious on that account. The hungry man thinks that his great need is food. The poor man thinks that his great need is money, and each of them imagines that only human fellows can lend him the help so ardently desired. It is a natural but, none the less, a grievous blunder. The sick will appeal to a human physician who at best can give but temporary aid and that against the then active disease, and that is not enough. The rich can give temporary aid against pressing poverty, but that is not enough. However, men seldom see the larger necessity and still more seldom realize the greater source of assistance. You will remember that Isaiah records the sickness of Hezekiah (chap, 38), and you will also remember that Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed unto the Lord and wept sore, and it came to pass that the Lord said unto Isaiah, “Go, and say to Hezekiah * * I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years. And I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria”. And Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Take a lump of figs?”, and they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered. That was the most human of all procedures. Even after we have appealed to the Divine physician and have His promise, we cannot trust it, but must resort to some temporary relief measures. Peter did his utmost to show this poor man the better way. He said, “Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.“And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength” (Acts 3:6-7).The man who is pointed to Christ will be able to provide his own food; the man who puts his trust in Jesus will need no other medicine; the man who is healed of Him will “leap”, “stand”, “walk”, and he will “go into the Temple of God to praise Him”, and the people shall know that he has been touched by the finger Divine, that his paralysis is past, his lameness is gone, and marvel at the mighty power of the mighty God to meet every need and by a single act make one whole, healthy, and happy. But in the twelfth verse we deal with THE even as we began with him. Our opening words were, “Now Peter”; the continued sentence is, “When Peter saw it, he answered unto the people”. Let us study for a little while then the method and ministry of his speech. First, he secured the attention of the impotent, “Look on us!” That is a preacher’s first job. Malcolm James McLeod in his “Letters to Edward” gives a fine illustration of what I mean. In his letter dated Thursday, September 7th, 1912, he wrote: “Well, I have had quite an interesting visit over at the Hill Crest. I met my friends again and spent a delightful day there. There are six in the party—Miss Johnson and her mother, Mr. Graham, and a Miss MacDonald with her father and mother. As I entered, Miss Johnson was in the music room at the piano.

She was rendering Mendelssohn’s “Gondellied”. * * She is a beautiful player. When she had finished, she stood up between the stool and the instrument, and gathering the sheets together and without looking around, called, ‘Ruth.’ Ruth, it seemed, was in an alcove not far away, reading. Then arm in arm they walked out on the porch.” Later he repeats the following conversation: “Miss Johnson, glancing across the table at Graham, said, ‘What is a theological seminary for, I would like to know, if not to turn out preachers?’ She continued, ‘I don’t believe a theological seminary is for manufacturing scholars. We have scholars enough. The church is sinking with the weight of her scholarship. Scholarship alone will never bring the world to Christ.

What we want is men who can preach, and when a man can preach he has no right, it seems to me, taking a college chair. The church should not permit it.’ Then she went on and referred to the multitude of preachers who were now professors, and continued, ‘I think they are betraying their calling. Now, for instance, take the man we had a week ago. He preached on the Atonement, and as far as any heart appeal is concerned he might just as well have been reciting the dimensions of Solomon’s Temple. Now preaching, as I understand it, is talking to people’s hearts, and the Atonement is certainly a most tender subject; yet the man never once gripped us at close range. I would not call it preaching at all; it was just lecturing.’ “ ‘Doctor,’ she went on, turning to me, ‘I think the great thing preachers ought to aim at today is to be interesting; first of all to be spiritual and then to be interesting. The little codger, who spent the day fishing and did not even get a bite, gave a first-rate explanation of his hard luck when he said, “We didn’t seem to catch their attention.” And preachers today are not winning the world’s attention. Why, in most city churches, the choir is gradually squeezing out the preacher, will only allow him twenty or twenty-five minutes now, and if the craze continues, by and by the sermon will be pushed out the back door altogether. Then, I presume, the good old command will be changed so as to read, “Go and sing the Gospel to every creature.” Doctor, dullness in the pulpit is an unpardonable sin, and yet, shall I confess it, nine sermons out of every ten to me are dull.’” I do not blame Miss Johnson one bit. I think that she has spoken exactly the truth. They are dull, and the minister who fails “to get the attention” and to hold the attention is a poor apostle of Jesus Christ. Peter did not fail there. He secured attention. Joseph Parker says, “This was probably the first time this man had ever looked with all his soul.” It is a prophet’s privilege to secure such attention. Then he pointed him to the true source of power.“Such as I have give I thee: In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk” (Acts 3:6).Matchless Name! The Name that is above every name; the Name that represents strength and power—“all power in Heaven and on earth” was given unto Him; the Name that represents compassion—He never looked upon the needy without being moved with pity; the Name that represents blessing— “whatsoever ye shall ask in My Name, ye shall receive”!There are preachers who point to the church; that is to fall short of any Gospel. There are people who point to individuals in the church, and say, “They will help you.” That also is a sad abridgement. The Gospel points to Christ and to Christ only. “There is none other name under Heaven given among men whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).Then he lent him inspiring assistance.“And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up” (Acts 3:7).That is why we have a right hand. There may be other uses, but this is its principal use. It may lift other things, but it was made to lift men.

The human touch often effects a Divine contact. We act as the trolley pole between the source of all strength and the wheels of action. A gentleman asked a Christian man who had been saved out of a criminal life, how it happened. He answered, “It came from a talk with the Earl of Shaftesbury.” “What did the Earl say?” “It was not so much anything he said, but he took my hand in his and said, ‘Jack, you will be a man yet’. It wasn’t his word that saved me; it was the touch of his hand that electrified my soul, because I believed in his love.” It is reported that a man watched one of his fellows molding clay, and asked him, “Why do you do this by hand? Why not by machinery?” to which the man answered, “Up to this hour there is no tool discovered that can shape the clay as we desire it. We have tried a number of them and found that it requires the touch of the human hand”. So, also, in the clay that is being Divinely molded into vessels fit for the Master’s use. Peter, in ministering to this man, delivered what we denominate THE MESSAGE and we now call attention to the definite features of the same. This is the Apostle’s second sermon. His first great appeal is recorded in the second chapter, and he speaks to the multitude. Here he deals with the individual and in both instances he appeals to the same Book. In the second chapter, the sermon was born of the outpouring of the Spirit; in this third chapter, it is born by the appeal of a poor and needy man. In both chapters, the message delivered was taken from the Book. It sought to turn Israel to the Lord.“Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk? “The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified His Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied Him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. “But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; “And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses” (Acts 3:12-15). It reminded them of their own prophetic Scriptures and also of their faithlessness. They had forgotten their own Prophets; they had themselves helped in the fulfilling of the prophecy that looked to certain judgment, and they had despised even that which referred to the coming of their own Messiah, and with wicked hands, had crucified and slain the Lord. “And killed the Prince of Life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses” (Acts 3:15). The words of David had been either overlooked altogether or misinterpreted, but now in the history that Christ was making through His crucifixion, death, resurrection, and ascension, they were coming to full meaning. The twentieth century modernism is treating Jesus after an identical manner. It also is trying to make it out that He was not God manifest in the flesh, but merely a brilliant mind, a great heart, and a social reformer. Such is the fresh crucifixion of Christ, the Lord! Peter was a fundamentalist indeed. He believed all that the Book had said about Him; he saw its direct application; he knew that Christ was the scientific demonstration of prophetic truth, and he pled with his own people to turn from their infidelity to faith, from reason to revelation, and from the doctrine of self-determination to the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit. It pointed to Christ as the Prince of Life.“And His Name, through faith in His Name, hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by Him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.“And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers.“But those things, which God before had shewed by the mouth of all His Prophets, that Christ should suffer, He hath so fulfilled” (Acts 3:16-18).The present trend of learning is in the direction of atheism, and yet it seeks an explanation of all things in “energy”. The scholar of the day will tell you that “energy” accounts for the universe. It created all things and is active still. But what is “energy”? Why seek new names for God, particularly when they are far less meaningful than His old Name? Of Christ, John wrote, “In the beginning was the Word * * and the Word was God * * All things were made by Him * *.

In Him was life” (John 1:1; John 1:3-4).George Stuart, the great Methodist pastor and evangelist, said that he was holding a meeting at Huntsville, Alabama, and they took him down to see their great spring, the most famous thing near the town. He said, “I watched the clear water gushing from this marvelous fountain, and heard them say, ‘This spring supplies the whole town with pure, fresh water.’ I asked, ‘Where is the engine that pumps this water into the homes?’ They said, ‘We have no engine. Do you see that wheel yonder run by the water of this spring? It pumps the water into the homes.’ I answered, ‘Do you mean to tell me that this spring has not only water enough to supply every home in that town, but power enough to force the water into the whole town?’ My informant answered, ‘That is exactly the case,’ and then I thought of the great river of life.” Christ is that Fountain, and that is the fact that Peter was trying to impress upon God’s ancient people. But Peter had to make another point. He declared the relation of repentance to restoration.“Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord;“And He shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you:“Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy Prophets since the world began.“For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; Him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever He shall say unto you.“And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that Prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.“Yea, and all the Prophets from Samuel, and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days.“Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed.“Unto you first God, having raised up His Son Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities” (Acts 3:19-26).Since that day that relation has never changed. The man who would have remission of sins must repent; the man who would receive the promise of the Spirit must repent; the man who would be saved from himself and this untoward generation must repent; the man who would be fitted for baptism must repent; the man who would be added to the fellowship of the Church must repent; the man who would come to the understanding of the Apostles’ doctrine, who would be able to partake of the communion bread and unite with his brethren in prayer, must have preceded it all by repentance; and the man who would see signs and wonders must first have seen himself as he is in God’s sight, loathe his sin, and turn from the same. That is the man whose contributions will be found in the common treasury; that is the man whose service will be continuous; that is the man who, with gladness and singleness of heart, will praise God and find favor with the people; that is the man and only man through whom the Lord can do effective personal work and “add to the Church daily such as are being saved”.