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.