“HEALING FOR MY HANDICAPS”
ACTS 3:1-10
OPEN
A family had moved into a new community. They attended a church their first Sunday in town. The parents wondered how their 10-year-old son would like the new church and how he would do in a new Sunday school class.
The family met up after Sunday school and sat through the worship service together. On the way home, the mom asked her son, “What did you think of your Sunday school class?” The boy answered, “It was exciting.” So the dad asked, “What made it so exciting?”
The boy replied, “Well, the teacher told us all about when the Israelites escaped from Egypt. They had a clean break all planned but the Egyptians found out about it and chased them right to the sea. Things looked bad for them. Real bad.
“But General Moses was really smart. He had a surprise waiting for the Egyptians. He got out his radio and told the Air Force to drop some bombs behind the Egyptians. While that was going on and the Egyptians were distracted, Moses had the Army build a pontoon bridge and all the Israelites crossed over it to the other side.
“Then the Egyptians started after them on the bridge. But the Israelites had planted explosives all across it. When the Egyptians got out in the middle, General Moses blew the whole thing up. All of the Israelites made it across but none of the Egyptians made it.”
Mom and Dad looked very concerned. They wondered what kind of teacher had taught the class. Dad asked, “Is that the way the teacher told the story?” And the boy said, “No, not really. But if I told it the way the teacher told it, you’d never believe it!”
We’re a lot like that 10-year-old boy. We read or hear about the power of God thousands of years ago and we tell ourselves, “God doesn’t do that any more.” But in Mal. 3:6, God says, “I the LORD do not change.” Heb. 13:8 tells us, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. That means that God’s character is the same as it was 2000 years ago. His purpose is the same. His priorities are the same. And His power is the same. If God could heal thousands of years ago, He can still heal today.
We’re going to look at a passage this morning that tells us about the healing power of God through His apostles. The miraculous signs and wonders done through the apostles was a sign that Jesus was still working His miraculous power through His people.
Acts 3:1-10 – One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon. 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. When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he
asked them for money. Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, “Look at us!” So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them.
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.” Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles
became strong. He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts,
walking and jumping, and praising God. When all the people saw him walking and praising God, 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.
THE PEOPLE
Let’s begin by talking about the people involved in these events – the main characters in the story. First, there’s Peter the apostle. He was first brought to Jesus by his brother Andrew. He eagerly accepted Jesus’ call to become a fisher of men.
Yet Peter had handicaps before he gave his life completely to Christ. He was extremely outspoken. He was the kind of person who would speak first and think later. He was also very impulsive. He would act before he considered the ramifications of his actions. He was loudest in his promises to Jesus the night that Jesus was arrested but abandoned Him and even cursed His name. In another impulsive reversal, he then went out and cried bitter tears. William Stuart McBirnie described him as “a rare combination of courage and cowardice, of great strength and regrettable instability.”
Yet, we see the effect of the resurrected Jesus in his life. He was changed from being Simon, which is a name that signified the concept of “hearing” to being Peter, a name which signified a rock that was moveable. Peter writes about Jesus being our foundation stone and all of us Christians being living stones. In essence, when Christ changed his name from Simon to Peter, He was saying, “You’re going to be a solid piece off of the foundation stone.” And Peter become the leader of the early church, wrote two letters in the New Testament, and as many scholars believe, was the primary source for the material in the Gospel of Mark.
Then there’s the apostle John. He was one of the sons of Zebedee along with his brother James. They were business partners with Peter in the commercial fishing industry
Like Peter, he was handicapped before he gave his life completely to Christ. He and his brother James were known in Galilee as “the sons of thunder.” Can you imagine the kind of men who were called the “sons of thunder?” The term designated someone who was full of extreme rage and anger. I can picture them walking around with chips on their shoulders daring others to knock them off. And even if you did it accidentally or on purpose, you were going to feel the full force of their fury. They were probably the kind of guys that would start trouble the minute anybody even looked at them the wrong way.
But again, we see the effect of the power of the resurrected Jesus in John’s life. There was such a change in John’s actions and attitudes that he went from being known as a “son of thunder” to being known in the early church as “the apostle of love.” He wrote the Gospel of John, three letters, and the book of Revelation.
The other main character in this story is the lame man. He was physically handicapped. Luke tells us here in Acts 3 that this man had been lame from birth. Later, in Acts 4:22, Luke tells us that this man was over 40 years old. He was also economically handicapped. Because he could not walk, he could not work and therefore had to sit at one of the temple gates on a daily basis and beg for the things that were necessary to life. That kind of life brings on emotional handicaps. He probably thought that he was pretty much worthless to his family and to himself.
THE PLOT
Next, we need to examine the plot – the storyline; what actually happened. We see Peter and John going up to the temple to participate in one of the three designated prayer times. These designated prayer times were 9:00 a.m., 12:00 noon, and 3:00 p.m.
Peter and John’s attendance at the temple during these times was not an unusual occurrence. Lk. 24:53 and Acts 2:46 tells us that the disciples spent considerable time at the temple.
To picture where this event occurs, you have to understand the makeup of the temple in the first century AD. The city of Jerusalem sat on top of a high hill so that everyone had to climb up to it. Inside the city, the temple sat at the highest point. Today, it’s still referred to as the temple mound.
As you entered the temple, you had to travel through its outermost court known as the Court of the Gentiles. Non-Jews could worship in this area. There was a warning posted for the Gentiles that if they moved into the temple any further that they would be put to death.
The area just inside of the Court of the Gentiles was the Court of the Women. The Jewish women and their children could meet and worship in this area. Beyond the Court of the Women was the Court of Israel. Only Jewish adult males could enter this area. The inner court consisted of the Holy Place where only the priests could go and the Holy of Holies where only the high priest could go and that only once a year on the Day of Atonement.
From the individual courts, there were several gates or doors which you could use to enter the next section. Between the Court of the Gentiles and the Court of the Women one of these gates was called the Eastern gate. It was also known as the Beautiful Gate.
Jewish historian Josephus tells us that this gate was 50 cubits tall. A cubit is equal to about a foot and a half. So the door was about 75 feet tall. He also says that it was decorated with plates of gold and silver. The base under the gold and silver was made of Corinthian bronze and was crafted into the shape of a huge vine – representing Israel as God’s vine in the world’s vineyard. When the sunlight struck this gate, it created quite a dazzling sight.
It was at this gate where Peter and John encountered the lame man. Luke informs us that friends or family members carried this man to this gate every day. It was the main entrance from the Court of the Women into the Court of Israel. Here, the man would be able to receive help from the most amounts of people.
This was probably not the first time Peter and John had seen this man. They were regular in their attendance at the times of prayer and this man was there every day. It’s also interesting to note that Jesus had been through this particular gate multiple times. He had probably seen the men there at different times.
You’re probably wondering if Jesus had seen this man at different times, when then didn’t He heal him? As you read through the gospels, you find that Jesus never healed anyone who didn’t ask Him first. Even the woman who had an incurable issue of blood took the first step when she reached through the crowd to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment.
Something different happened at this gate that day. Obviously, the lame man was now requesting help from Peter and John. He probably knew who they were and figured that even if healing wasn’t possible that he could at least get enough assistance from these men so that he wouldn’t have to beg for awhile.
So he asks and Peter tells him, “I don’t have any silver or gold.” Now, that wasn’t technically true because we’ve been reading how the church had already provided funds for those in need in Acts 2. But Peter was saying, “We don’t have anything like that on our persons but we want to give you something we take with us wherever we go. We don’t have money to keep you in your present condition but we do have something to get you out of this condition.”
This lame man reached out in faith for a hand-out but he got a hand up – straight up to standing on his own two feet. This lame man had found the answer to his handicaps in the power of Jesus Christ. And he knew from where the healing came. Luke describes him as walking and leaping and praising God! He was giving testimony to the crowd about the One who had healed him. Warren Wiersbe comments, “Now that he could stand, there was no question where this man stood!” He acknowledged Christ as his healer.
The people who were there at the temple that day were amazed! They saw this man sit everyday at the same place asking for the same thing – help. They never expected that he would be healed from his handicaps. They couldn’t believe their eyes because they asked, “How in the world could this happen?”
THE PERTINENCE
Now that we’ve looked at the people and the plot, we need to look at the pertinence – how what God did then applies to our lives today. You see, the account of this handicapped man in the temple in Jerusalem in the 1st century AD speaks volumes to our lives today.
Back in May of 2007, a man by the name of Andrew Speaker became the first man in 44 years to be placed under quarantine in the United States. He was planning a trip to Europe but in a routine checkup he was diagnosed with a form of tuberculosis. He decided to leave anyway.
Andrew Speaker and his fiancée flew out of the US on May 12 and landed in Paris. On May 14, they flew on to Athens and, two days later, flew to the Aegean holiday island of Santorini for their wedding They then flew to Rome for their honeymoon.
Meanwhile, Speaker’s tuberculosis test results were sent to the Centers for Disease Control and they diagnosed him as having what is known as XDR-TB. XDR stands for “extrmely drug resistant.” Speaker was contacted while on his honeymoon in Rome and told to turn himself over to the proper authorities and seek immediate treatment.
Instead, Speaker and his new wife boarded a series of flights and flew into Canada and then rented a car and drove into the United States. Even though Speaker was on a watchlist, the border guard where Speaker and his wife crossed into the states allowed him in because he thought the warning was discretionary.
Once Speaker was back in the states and being treated, the National Jewish Medical and Research Center announced, and the CDC confirmed on July 4, 2007, that Mr. Speaker's earlier diagnosis was incorrect and that he instead had MDR-TB (multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis), a more treatable form of the disease.
How dangerous his behavior was. Think of all the people he could have infected with that horrible and highly-contagious disease.
Yet, we all face the struggle with the disease known as sin. It’s a disease that we inherit . Rom. 5:19 tells us that it was “through the disobedience of one man that many were made sinners.” Our common ancestors, Adam and Eve, passed along the inherent tendency to sin to everyone of us. And we all suffer the ravages of this disease. Rom. 3:23 – For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
It’s a very deadly disease. Ezek. 18:4b – The soul who sins is the one who will die. James 1:15b – Sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
And because of sin, we’re all handicapped in different ways. We have sick marriages, emotional burdens, and spiritual disease.
Yet, so many people walk around and even come to church acting as if they don’t have any handicaps; that there is no hurt or pain in their lives. They put on their best clothes and their best smiles. They try to look happy and whole. They try to make everyone think that everything is OK with them.
But in the meantime, they’re family is facing horrendous financial pressure. They have an income of $700 a week but an outgo of $850. Maybe they’ve just been diagnosed with a disease they’ve prayed would never afflict them. But the diagnosis shows the disease is working rapidly and the outlook is bleak. Maybe there’s a couple who had a nasty fight last night. It was the one that broke the camel’s back and each one is considering divorce. Maybe there’s a teenager who feels like he or she is on a rack – being pulled this way and that. Parents and church pull one way and peers and hormones pull another. And those who are hurting often lash out and hurt others. Many times those who appear so confident on the outside feel so empty on the inside.
Yet Jesus calls to us in Mt. 11:28-30 – “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest
for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
And Jesus still has the power to heal! He can heal ruined relationships. He can heal emotional burdens. He can pull you up from your spiritual handicaps. He can turn the darkness into daylight. And yes, He can still heal physical ailments if we ask in faith, are obedient to Him, and our healing fits His plan for what is best.
You see, I know what I’m talking about. December of 1999 was a very busy month. Not only is the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas an extremely busy time in the ministry, I had a lot of hospital visitation to do that month. Somewhere along the line I caught a virus and it lodged itself in the sac around my heart.
The virus caused the sac (and the rest of my body as well) to retain more fluid than it should. The pressure from the extra fluid in the sac around my heart caused me to go into congestive heart failure. I was admitted to the hospital in Paoli, IN and met the new year of 2000 lying elevated in a hospital bed.
When they moved me from the emergency room to a hospital room, I told Anna to call the elders from the church to come and anoint me with oil and pray for me. Things were serious and if I was going to trust God at any time in my life, this would be it. So I did. I was out of the hospital within a week and long story short, six months later, I was declared healed by my cardiologist.
I was simply being obedient to James 5:14-15: Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.
There are a lot of different attitudes towards healing in our world. There are those who think that there has to be some other explanation for miraculous healing. To many Christians, they view it as being too filled with sensationalism and emotionalism. And then there are those who ask, “IF God really has the power to heal, why doesn’t he just heal everybody?”
God uses our ailments to teach us about ourselves, about others, and about Himself. Sometimes, healing is not the best thing for us. We want lighter loads and God wants us to have stronger backs. A case in point here is the apostle Paul’s “thorn in the flesh.” He asked God several times to remove but what he really needed ws to learn that God’s grace was sufficient for him in this instance.
Sometimes we haven’t received healing because we haven’t trusted God enough or because there an answer to our problems in the Bible but we don’t want to look there. And sometimes we haven’t received healing because we’ve been ignorant or disobedient. I point specifically back to the passage in James 5. Most people want a preacher when their sick and not an elder. James mentions that both physical and spiritual healing can come from just following this simple teaching.
CLOSE
Most of you have probably never heard of Dr. Felix Ruh but you’ve probably heard of coworker – Dr. Louis Pasteur. Pasteur and Ruh worked diligently to prove the germ theory – that most diseases were caused by organisms that couldn’t be seen by the human eye.
Ruh’s granddaughter had died of black diphtheria and many more children lay sick and dying. He vowed that he would find out what had killed her. He locked himself in his laboratory for days. He came out with fierce determination, along with Dr. Pasteur, to demonstrate that the germ theory was more than a theory.
The French medical association had disapproved of their and managed to get them exiled out of Paris. But both men did not go far. They hid in the forest and built a laboratory there in which they could continue their forbidden research.
When they completed their research, they brought scientists and doctors out to their facility. Then they brought 20 healthy horses into the lab. Ruh opened a steel vault and took out a large pail filled with black diphtheria germs, which he had cultured carefully for months. There were enough germs in that pail to kill everyone in France. The scientist went to each horse and swabbed its nostrils, tongue, throat, and eyes with the deadly germs.
Every horse except one developed a terrific fever and died. For several more days this final horse lingered, lying pathetically on the ground. Most of the doctors and scientists got tire of waiting. Instead of waiting around for what they thought would be the death of the final horse, they went back to Paris.
While Ruh, Pasteur and a few others slept on cots in the stables, the orderly on duty had been instructed to awaken the scientists should there be any change in the animal's temperature during the night.
About 2 a.m. the temperature showed a half degree decrease, and the orderly wakened Dr. Ruh. By morning the thermometer had dropped two more degrees. By night the fever was entirely gone, and the horse was able to stand, eat, and drink. The horse was the only one who could withstand the disease.
Then Dr. Ruh killed the horse and drew all the blood from the veins of this animal that had developed the black diphtheria but had overcome it. The scientists drove as fast as they could to the municipal hospital in Paris. They forced their way into the ward where three hundred babies lay, segregated to die from black diphtheria. With the blood of the horse, they forcibly inoculated every one of the babies. All but three lived and recovered completely. They were saved by the blood of one who overcame the disease.
Is. 53:4-5 – Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
It’s through the blood of an overcomer that we are healed. Heb. 4:15 – For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Jesus overcame sin and death on the cross and through His resurrection from the grave. It is by His blood that we are saved. Eph. 1:7 – In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.
Last Sunday night, we looked at a passage where Jesus asked a lame man a very important question: Do you want to get well? Well, do you?
