Healing Series

In my research last week I ran across a little piece of verse called “if.”

IF

If you can live without caffeine,

If you can be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,

If you can resist complaining,

If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,

If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,

If you can ignore a friend's limited education and never correct him or her,

If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend,

If you can face the world without lies and deceit,

If you can conquer tension without medical help,

If you can relax without liquor,

If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,

If you can honestly say that deep in your heart you have no prejudice against creed, color, religion, gender preference, or politics,

Then you have almost reached the same level of spiritual development as my dog!

Acts 3:1-11

1 Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour. 2 And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple; 3 who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked an alms. 4 And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, look on us. 5 And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them. 6 Then Peter 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. 7 And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.

8 And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God. 9 And all the people saw him walking and praising God: 10 and they knew that it was he which sat for alms at the Beautiful gate of the temple: and they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him. 11 And as the lame man which was healed held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch that is called Solomon's, greatly wondering.

In the past couple of weeks we’ve looked at the introduction of the book of Acts in chapters one and two and I’ve taken the time to explain who wrote the book, why he wrote it and who he wrote it to; and all these things are foundational to our understanding of the rest of the book.

And these first two chapters follow the pattern of several other books in the New Testament like the book of Matthew. Matthew begins with Jesus’ genealogy and His genealogy describes who He is in terms of history and who His forefathers were and how these things qualify Him to fulfill the prophecy of being the Son of David; the Son of God.

And then in the book of John it’s easy to pass over chapter one but I remember when I taught it in New Brunswick; I actually took six or seven weeks to preach through the first chapter because the first chapter lays the foundation to understanding that Jesus is the Son of God and then as you read the rest of the book; it proves the point.

And in the book of Revelation it begins by showing Jesus in His resurrected state in chapter one and He’s described as the beginning and end of everything and then in chapters two and three He addresses the seven churches, which are historical churches meaning they were actual churches of the first century and we can also see them perennial meaning they can represent various Bible believing churches worldwide and some even see these seven churches as being prophetical in that they describe certain ages of the church which begin with the first century and last until the end of time.

And it doesn’t matter if you agree with these views or not because you can still see that Jesus rebukes some churches while He encourages others and all this is meant to prepare the church for the horror of the judgment that’s going to be unleashed on a rebellious and unbelieving world.

So, in each of these books Matthew, John, Acts and Revelation God uses the same kind of format to introduce the subject matter of the books and the purpose of this was to allow help us to understand these books better.

We were also told many that signs and wonders were done through the apostles in Acts 2:43 and I believe this chapter and those to come give us specific examples of the many wonders to come.