I don’t know about you but, to be honest, I’m always a little skeptical when I hear about a miracle worker because over the years I’ve been exposed to so many fakes. I’ve seen charlatans talk little old ladies on fixed incomes into sending them hundreds of dollars in exchange for a handkerchief they had prayed over and guaranteed to cure any ailment.
I remember reading that Jim & Tammy Faye Baker of PTL Club fame would wear tiny ear pieces while on the air. A man in the control booth who had interviewed the people in the audience before the show would feed these two “perpetual grinners” information. And as a result Jim and Tammy Faye would seem to “miraculously” know all about the people who were present that day.
Their “inside” information and crocodile tears made it look like they had a direct line to God and antics like this motivated people to give them millions of dollars..
In my college days one of the most popular miracle workers was a toupe-wearing evangelist named Ernest Angley. He wore baby-blue leisure suits and white patent-leather shoes. Don’t get me wrong-I’m not criticizing his attire-in fact I’m pretty sure that in my college days I wore baby-blue leisure suits and white patent-leather shoes! But during his healing services Angley would get deaf/mute people to come on stage with him and he’d hit them in the forehead with the palm of his hand. They’d fall back into his assistants’ arms. Then Angley would mouth the words “BAY-BE.” These people, hungry for a miracle, would mimic Angley’s lip movements and of course a distorted “BAY-BE” sound would come out and Angley would proudly pronounce the person cured. Then he’d signal the ushers to take an offering.
Commenting on people like this John MacArthur writes,
“Their so-called healings run the gamut from psychological ploys to outright fakes to demonic activity. Apparent healings result from mind manipulation or a kind of hypnosis stemming from a strong belief in an authority figure. When that figure tells people they are healed, their emotions may temporarily override their physical symptoms. Such ‘healings,’ needless to say, are short-lived.”
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Sermon:
Now-don’t get me wrong. I believe that God still does miracles. It’s just that the ones that seem to get all the media attention are usually done by fakes who care more about money than ministry. Well-as Christians how can we know if a miracle is real or not? When something amazing happens, how can we tell if it’s God at work or just more of the adversary’s scheming through self-centered, glory-loving people?
I bring this subject up because the next portion of our study of Luke’s history of the early church provides us with information that I think will help us answer this question. Like last Sunday, today we are going to cover a lot of ground-all of the third chapter of Acts and part of the fourth so we’re going to use The Visual Bible once again. But before we look at the text in this way let me give you a little background information.
Now, about a year has taken place since Pentecost Sunday and here in verse 1 of chapter 3 we find Peter and John coming to the Temple to pray at 3PM, and the tense of the Greek verb here indicates that this is something that they did frequently. Like all devout Jews it was the custom of these two constant companions to pray in the temple. In fact, Jews did so three times every day because Psalm 55:17 mentions three hours of prayer, “evening, morning, and noon…” Most of the Jewish people living in Jerusalem took the teaching of this Psalm very seriously and came to the Temple in the morning-at 9AM; then they came back at 12Noon, and then once more in the evening-at 3PM like Peter and John were doing here. I for one, think it is interesting to note that Peter and John-and apparently the rest of the members of the first Christian church-still kept up the Jewish habits and customs which they had learned from childhood. It is just as God says in His word, “train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6)
I also want to point out that during this third hour of prayer the crowds would have been at their peak because it was also the time for the evening sacrifice. No doubt this is why, in His great providence, God arranged for this particular miracle to take place at this particular time-so that the most people would witness it.
Okay-at this point in his narrative, you’ll see that Luke tells us about a beggar-who was over 40 years old and had been lame since birth. (Acts 4:22) Apparently every day his friends would carry him to one of the Temple Gates-Luke says it was referred to in his day as “the Gate Beautiful.” It was probably the Eastern Gate of the Temple that led into the Court of the Women. This particular gate was very ornate and made of Corinthian bronze that looked like gold when polished. According to Josephus, the Jewish historian, it was so large it took 20 men to close it. Well, this same cripple had been sitting here in this same spot every day begging for decades. I mean, he was a regular fixture at this entrance to the temple. Everyone saw him every day. Jesus Himself probably passed by this guy during His ministry in the temple area numerous times. I imagine the disciples wondered why He would not heal this man as He had so many others but Jesus had His reasons for waiting-as we will see in a moment!
I also want you to note that the extent of this beggar’s physical deformity would have been obvious to everyone, so his cure was obviously genuine. I mean, the people who frequented the Temple would have known that there was nothing fraudulent about this miracle healing. Now, the New Testament indicates that beggars in Palestine favored three locations:
- the houses of the rich. Remember the story of the Lazarus and the rich man?
- the main highways. Remember the account of the healing of blind Bartimaeus in Mark 10?
- and finally the temple gates like we see here in Acts 2.
And, of the three locations the gates of the temple provided the best place to beg because the people who came to the temple were in the mind set to impress God with their piety. As such they were more generous with beggars asking for handouts. As it is today-back then the closer people were to God’s house, the more likely they were to practice their faith. I mean have you ever known someone who acted like a Christian in church on Sunday but very much UNLIKE one on in the office on Monday?
In any case, the temple was THE prime spot for beggars to receive charity and this particular gate was THE prime spot in the temple. I can’t help but wonder how this beggar was able to secure this choice real estate. I mean, perhaps he was the illegitimate son of some high Jewish official or something and his father put him there to assuage his guilt. I don’t know but take a few moments now to put yourself in this beggar’s place. I mean, try to picture his situation. He has lived in despair for so long it is “normal” to him. He can go nowhere without help. He relies completely on others’ handouts; his only purpose in living is survival. Being an invalid since birth, he has never known a healthy day. He’s never stretched out his legs and walked to the market or to a friend’s house. In fact, his legs are just useless appendages-two perpetual reminders of the lifelessness he feels deep within his soul.
Well, as Peter and John approached, this poor wretched man was no doubt calling out the same words he had called out every day for decades, “Alms! Alms! Alms for the poor.” I’m sure this guy was a professional at catching someone’s eye. After all he’d had a long time to master this skill. In fact his survival depended on it. Over the years he had no doubt learned that if he could catch the eye of a by-passer, more often than not the individual would give him at least a few coins. Well, he must have felt a surge of hope that day because when he saw Peter and John, he called out to them and they responded. In fact, Luke says, they, “fixed their gaze” on him. They didn’t avoid making eye contact like most of us do when we pass a beggar or “street person.” No-they stopped and stooped to look this guy in the eye! In fact the Greek word here is the same that was used earlier in Acts when it described the disciples looking up in the sky intently watching Jesus ascend heavenward. (Acts 1:10) And when they locked eyes with him I’m sure this man thought he was about to get a good-sized donation, but then, in verse 6, Peter said what we usually say when people ask for money, “Silver and gold I do not have…” -but unlike most of us, Peter was being truthful. Acts 2:44-45 tell us that the believers had pooled their resources so the two apostles had no money to give. Their pockets were empty, but money was not what this beggar needed was it?!
Well when Peter told this man, “silver and gold have I none” I’m sure this beggar’s hopes were dashed much like the homeless beggars in D.C. who see someone coming to give them something but then they just hand them a tract. But then-just when he was feeling sad-or even angry-at Peter’s first six words, he felt Peter take him by the hand and continue to talk to him, saying, “…but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, WALK!” Ad Dr. Luke says INSTANTLY the man was healed. I mean, in the time it took him to stand up, his tendon’s attached, his muscles grew, his bones straightened, his sockets aligned. In short, LIFE FILLED HIS LEGS. It was an amazing, incredibly powerful miracle! And please note, this man didn’t even need to be taught how to walk! He received his coordination and balance instantly. In fact, Luke says he began to leap! This reminds me of the prophecy in Isaiah 35:6 where it says, “The lame will leap like a deer.” His joy at being healed was so great he couldn’t JUST walk so he leaped and danced into the temple all the time giving praise to the Lord! Verse 11 seems to indicate that after dancing around in the temple for a few minutes he came back to where Peter and John were standing, took each of them by the hand and pulled them into the temple court as well. When I read this part of the story I get this image in my mind of the day Sue and I first took Daniel to Kings Dominion back when he was about 5 years old. He must have thought we were at Disney World, because he mimicked a current Disney commercial and stood between Sue and I and took our hands and excitedly pulled us into the park as he sang, “…zippidy doo da…zippidy day…!”
Well this beggar WAS excited-I mean for the first time in his life, he was able to actually GO INTO the house of the Lord. For decades he’d been limited to sitting at the entrance. Now he could go where before he had only been able to look! In that moment I’m sure he understood the meaning of the words to the 122nd Psalm, “I was glad when they said unto me…let us go INTO the house of the Lord.” Okay-with that in mind let’s go to the Scripture via The Visual Bible. We’re going to look at Acts 3:1 through 4:4.
Acts 3:1-26
1 – One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer-at three in the afternoon.
2 – Now a man crippled from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts.
3 – When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money.
4 – Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, “Look at us!”
5 – So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them.
6 – Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you.
In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”
7 – Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong.
8 – He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping and praising God.
9 – When all the people saw him walking and praising God,
10 – they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
11 – While the beggar held on to Peter and John, all the people were astonished and came running to them in the place called Solomon’s Colonnade.
12 – When Peter saw this, he said to them: “Men of Israel, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?
13 – The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus. You handed Him over to be killed, and you disowned Him before Pilate, though He had decided to let Him go.
14 – You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you.
15 – You killed the Author of life, but God raised Him from the dead. We are witnesses of this.
16 – By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through Him that has given this complete healing to him as you can all see.
17 – Now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance as did your leaders.
18 – But this is how God fulfilled what He had foretold through all the prophets, saying that His Christ would suffer.
19 – Repent, then and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,
20 – and that He may send the Christ Who has been appointed for you-even Jesus.
21 – He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as He promised long ago through His holy prophets.
22 – For Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like Me from among your own people; you must listen to everything He tells you.
23 – Anyone who does not listen to Him will be completely cut off from among His people.
24 – Indeed, all the prophets from Samuel on, as many as have spoken, have foretold these days.
25 – And you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers. He said to Abraham, “Through your offspring all people son earth will be blessed.
26 – When God raised up His servant, He sent Him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.
Acts 4:1-4
1 – The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people.
2 – They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead.
3 – They seized Peter and John and because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day.
4 – But many who heard the message believed, and the number of men grew to about five thousand.
Okay, with this in mind, let’s return to the question I posed a moment ago. What does this chapter of church history tell us when it comes to identifying a genuine miracle? How does it help us to recognize and be a part of God’s supernatural power?
1. Well, first off, it shows that true miracles are always done in the NAME of Jesus.
In other words, a genuine miracle will point to Jesus and not to the “miracle worker” himself. And Peter did this, didn’t he! He made sure the people who witnessed what had happened to the lame beggar knew that the power to do this amazing thing came from Jesus and not him. You may remember that in his first sermon, delivered on Pentecost Sunday, Peter had to refute the accusation that the believers were drunk. Well in this one he had to refute the notion that he and John had healed the man by their own power. In fact he in essence said, “This KIND of healing shouldn’t surprise you guys and gals because you’ve seen it before-recently in fact. Let’s see…Who was it that went around doing miracles like this not too long ago? Who was known far and wide for healing the blind and lame?” Then in verse 16 he answered his own question by saying,”…It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through Him that has given this complete healing…as you can all see.” Peter told these guys that Jesus healed this man. In fact he said that the fact that the beggar was healed was PROOF that Jesus had risen from the dead-because Jesus’ power was obviously still at work, the same healing power they had seen Him use over and over again during the three years of His earthly ministry.
This reminds me of one of the episodes from the first Star Trek series in which Captain Kirk was accused of murdering one of his crew members. Kirk and Spok knew that he was innocent and they suspected that the victim was still alive, hiding somewhere on the Enterprise. Well they beamed most of the crew to the surface and beamed the judge and the lawyers up to the bridge of the ship. And then Spok used his Vulcan know-how to rig the computer so that it would “listen in” to the sound of the heart beats of everyone on board. In fact, he flipped a switch and you could hear the hearts beating on the ship’s PA system. Next he took some high-tech gadget and went to the judge and then Kirk and then to each lawyer and then to each of the handful of crew members still at the controls and when he touched them with this gadget the computer would remove the sound of their heart beat from the speakers. Well, after he had silenced everyone’s heartbeat-you could still hear one heart beating, indicating that one individual was still somewhere on board. They searched the lower decks and found the “murder victim” sill alive and well. He had staged his own murder in an attempt to ruin Kirk but his heartbeat gave him away. Well, Peter told his listeners that this miracle was proof that Jesus’ heart was still beating-because His healing power was still available. So understand, Peter used this miracle to spotlight the redeeming power of the resurrected Jesus not to make himself or John look good. This tells me that if an individual ever uses a miracle to point to himself or to bring himself glory or to fill his bank account-then you can be sure it is either a fake or an act of the devil because that’s not the way God does things.
2. And then, the second, thing this portion of Acts shows is that true miracles are a MEANS to an end and not an END in themselves.
I mean, Peter’s miracle was basically the introduction to his second sermon. Watching this man whom they knew to be lame leaping and running around the temple court well, it made the people in the Temple that day WANT to listen to what Peter had to say…as once again he delivered the basic facts of the Gospel to thousands of lost people who desperately needed to hear it.
You know, the most important part of any sermon is the introduction. Every Sunday after noon and all day Monday I study and take voluminous notes, then I begin to work on my outline. My goal, before I go to bed every Monday night is to get my sermon out line done including a good INTRODUCTION. I can’t sleep until I’ve got that crucial part of the sermon under my belt. You see, I’ve learned that you can have a great sermon but if you don’t have a good introduction that gets the people’s attention at the beginning, they won’t listen to what you have to say. Well, I must confess a bit of covetousness here because Peter has only delivered two sermons so far in his preaching career and BOTH times God has provided THE BEST introductions. In his first message God sent the Holy Spirit-remember the loud wind and tongues of flame that brought thousands of people, literally running to hear what he had to say! And in this one, He provided the power to heal a man that everyone knew was crippled from birth! Sermon introductions don’t get any better than that! Who wouldn’t listen after things like this happened?!
So you see, this man wasn’t just healed because of God’s great compassion for his situation. He was also healed to give Peter an opportunity to proclaim the eternal truth of the Gospel to thousands of people who needed to hear. His healing was a means to an end. We see this same principle in Jesus’ healings. He never healed just to heal-but rather to bring Glory to God or to teach an important truth or to authenticate Who He was. Think about it. Physical healing is temporary. Jesus brought Lazarus back to life after being dead for four days but Lazarus still died eventually. But because Jesus did this, people who were present were able to understand that Jesus was and is the Resurrection and the Life. They put their faith in Him. Our Lord always performed His miracles-even though their affects were not permanent-in order to impart eternal truth. He healed people’s bodies to have a chance to heal their souls. This reminds me of something Amy Carmichael once said, “One cannot save and then pitchfork souls into heaven.
Souls are more or less securely fastened to bodies and as you cannot get the souls out and deal with them separately, you have to take them both together.”
And the same principle is in force today. When God in His great omniscience chooses to break His own laws of nature and intervene to heal someone’s body, it is always for some eternal purpose, like healing their soul. So remember, genuine miracles are always a means to an end and not an end in and of themselves.
3. A third thing I think we should note here is that if we want to be a part of one of God’s miracles we must be INTERRUPTIBLE.
Think of it-Peter and John were on their way to evening prayers. They could very easily have made the same mistake the priest and the Levite did in the parable of the Good Samaritan and ignored this poor man by using the excuse that they were on the way to commune with God. But Peter and John didn’t do that did they? No, they stopped. They were INTERRUPTIBLE. They were open to the leading of the Holy Spirit and stopped to minister to this man.
This aspect of the miracle is a good illustration of something we learned in the 40 days. Remember? In his best-selling book Rick Warren points out that most of Jesus’ ministry and most of Jesus’ miracles were basically interruptions. All the people he healed.the blind man, the lame man, the sick people, the paralyzed man, the dead child.all of them were interruptions. His first miracle – interrupted at a wedding. He second miracle – interrupted on the way to Galilee. Well Peter and John are continuing this practice-they were interrupted on the way into the Temple. And, I think this tells us that if we are to be a part of God’s wonder-working power we must be just as INTERRUPTIBLE. To be a part of God’s work in this world, we must be sensitive to His still small voice when He says, “Stop and help that person.” There are millions of hurting people out there who are looking to us who call ourselves Christians to do just that to follow God’s guidance and tap into His power by stopping long enough to help.
I wonder, how many miracles have we missed out on simply because we weren’t interruptible? How many times has our haste led us to walk by a human need and in so doing miss out on being a part of God’s wonder-working power?
4. While we’re on this subject I want to point out that sometimes the miracle people need most is not a PHYSICAL one.
As I said earlier-the effects of physical miracles in this fallen world of ours are always temporary-so sometimes the MIRACLE people need most is not physical healing. They need something more lasting. In Preaching Today Tony Camplo tells this story:
“I was in a church in Oregon not too long ago, and I prayed for a man who had cancer. In the middle of the week, I got a telephone call from his wife. She said, ‘You prayed for my husband. He had cancer.’ I said, ‘Had?’ WHOA I thought, it’s happened. This man has miraculously been cured! Then, she said, ‘He died.’ and I felt terrible. She continued, ‘Don’t feel bad, Mr. Campolo. When he came into that church last Sunday he was filled with anger.
He knew he was going to be dead in a short period of time, and he hated God. He was 58 years old, and he wanted to see his children and grandchildren grow up. He was angry that this all-powerful God didn’t take away his sickness and heal him. He would lie in bed and curse God. The more his anger towards God grew, the more miserable he was to everybody around him. It was an awful thing to be in his presence. But after you prayed for him, a peace came over him and a joy came into him. Tony, the last three days have been the best days of our lives. We’ve sung. We’ve laughed. We’ve read Scripture. We prayed. Oh, they’ve been wonderful days. And I called to thank you for laying your hands on him and praying for healing.’ And then she said something incredibly profound. She said, ‘He wasn’t cured, but he was healed.’
Do you see what I mean? The healing this man needed most was a soul-healing-not a body-healing and this leads to the last point I want to make this morning because…
5. …this story shows that the greatest miracle…most powerful miracle is NEW BIRTH.
I mean, the most amazing thing that happened that day was not that cripple’s healing as wonderful as it was. No-it was the healing of the 2,000 souls who became Christians. And it is still that way-the most powerful miracle is when a man, woman or child, invites Jesus Christ into their heart and life, has their sins washed away and is born again! You see, the truth is all of us are born “spiritually lame”-unable to walk so as to please God. The Bible tells us that, in a very real sense, our father Adam had a “fall” and passed his “lameness” on to all of his descendants. (Romans 5:12-21). And, like this beggar in Acts 3, as sinners we too are poor. In fact we are bankrupt before God, unable to pay the tremendous debt that we owe Him. (Luke 7:36-50) This man was “outside the temple,” unable to go in-and as sinners we are “outside” as well. Our sin separates us from our Holy God. But when we repent of our sin and ask Jesus to forgive us, He does and miraculously our sins are washed away and we come into a personal relationship with God. As Isaiah 53:5 says, “By His stripes-HIS WOUNDS-we are miraculously healed.”
And that my friends is a miracle! Do you remember the words to the old song, “It Took a Miracle?”
“My Father is omnipotent of that you can’t deny…a God of might and miracles. ‘Tis written in the sky. It took a miracle to put the stars in space. It took a miracle to hang the world in place. But when He saved my soul, cleansed and made me whole. It took a miracle of love and grace.”
Salvation-that is the most powerful miracle-NEW BIRTH-that is the truest healing-Having your sins forgiven-THAT-THAT is POWER! Do you remember the time those faithful friends broke a hole in the roof of the building where Jesus was speaking so they could lower their paralytic down to Him on a mat? Matthew’s gospel said that when they did this Jesus was impressed by their faith and He said, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.” (Matthew 9:2) This really ticked off the teachers of the law and Jesus knew it so He said, “Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…” And then He said to the paralytic, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” (Matthew 9:5-6)
Invitation:
Would you like to be a part of a genuine miracle right now? Ask Jesus to take away your bitterness-or anger. He’ll touch your spirit and remove that emotional cancer. Ask Him to forgive you of your sin. Invite Him into your heart and life as Savior and Lord. Ask Him to use your life-to empower you to minister to the hurting people who are all around us here in this county. Ask Him to work in and through you as a member of this church family. And-if you experience one of these miracles…then come forward right now and bear testimony.