The Acts of the Apostles 41

Subtitle: Peter Continues to Minister

Acts 9:32-43.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on May 21, 2023.

We are picking back up where left off several months ago.  At this point in the book of Acts, Luke has detailed the beginnings of the Church in Jerusalem and its spread.  He has also introduced Saul, his persecution of the followers of Jesus, and his conversion to faith in Jesus as Messiah.  After an attempt on his life, Saul left the area and went back to Tarsus, his hometown.

Luke's narrative now turns back to the Apostle Peter.  Today, we will look at two miracles of healing that were done through Peter.  All of this is leading up to an important event in Acts 10.  It will be the first time that the Baptism of the Holy Spirit comes upon Gentiles who believe in Jesus.

Let's look at our passage.

The healing of Aeneas (v. 32-35)

Here is a link to a map of the area in our story today.

In Acts 8:40, we are told that Philip, a deacon of Jerusalem, had preached in all of the cities from Azotus to Caesarea.  God worked through Philip to do miracles, healings, and exorcisms.  Lydda and Joppa would fall within this area.  Thus, Philip would have seen healings and salvations in Lydda, and there had been ministry in the name of Jesus already.

Verse 32 tells us that Peter was going throughout all of the area and visiting believers.  He is being faithful to the Lord's command to him, "Feed my sheep."  Just as Peter and John followed up on Philip's ministry in Samaria, so Peter is now coming into these areas after Philip.  It could be as much as a year or two since Philip has ministered here.  Some of these saints in Lydda may also have fled to there from the earlier persecution in Jerusalem under Saul of Tarsus.  Regardless, Jesus intended his disciples, apostles, to be a gift to the early Church, helping it to be established firmly upon His Word and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Verse 33 tells us that Peter "found" a certain man named Aeneas.  He had been bed-ridden from a paralysis for eight years.  We know very little about this man.  It doesn't say that he was a believer like it will mention with Tabitha in the next event that Luke relates.

It also begs the question.  Where was Aeneas when Philip ministered in the area earlier?  Why wasn't he healed and saved then?  However, we could ask the same question about people who were healed by the apostles.  Jesus had ministered throughout Israel for three and a half years, healing people and casting out demons.

There seems to be a certain accident of timing in many things in life.  The timing can be affected by the person.  Were they gone when it happened, or unreceptive at that time?  It can be affected by circumstances outside of the person's control.  Why are some reached quickly and others take a great length of time?  On this side of eternity, our lives are filled with questions that will most likely remain unanswered.  Our walk and experience with the Lord is not dependent upon having all of the answers.  What matters is that a person comes to faith in the work of Jesus as their Anointed Savior, and submit to him as their Lord.

You may notice that your conversations with some who are not Christians can devolve into one question about detail in the Bible after another.  However, at some point, you have to move a way from questions that are the theological equivalent of "Did Adam have a belly button?" and  press the issue.  Can you now put your trust in Jesus as God's answer for your sin and the sin of the world? 

We are never going to have all of the answers.  Even if we did, you may think about whether or not it would actually help us.  Peter's power came from a trusting relationship with the Lord and not from having all of the answers.

I love how Peter says to Aeneas, "Aeneas, Jesus the Christ heals you."  Peter wants to make it abundantly clear just how this healing is happening.  We shouldn't turn this into a kind of mantra that always works to perform healings, and yet, we shouldn't rush past it.  God does use people in different ways, and we should recognize that.  However, we can never see that person as our source.  God is our source.  He is the giver of ever good and perfect gift.

Peter then tells Aeneas to arise and make his bed.  It was most likely a bed roll so making it is most likely rolling it up.  Yet, we are told that he arose immediately.  The cynic may cry foul, and call it a long con, but that just doesn't make sense.  He is not going to convincingly pretend to be paralyzed for 8 years in order to make the disciples of Jesus look good after Jesus himself was crucified.  However, Aeneas was initially paralyzed, God touched the underlying issue and he was healed in an instant!

The spread of this story among the people of Lydda and the area around it called the Sharon led to an influx of believers into the faith.  Just like this paralytic not being healed, we see that there were still people who needed to be saved.  They had resisted, or missed out, earlier, but now they have finally believed.  Oh, the grace of God to not give up on us!

The phrase "turned to the Lord" reminds us that salvation is not just a matter of intellectually faith in Jesus and a change of life-style.  It is also a relationship with the Lord Jesus who is the master.  They have changed their mind and become his students.  They have believed on Jesus and have been born again by the Spirit of God into His family as a child of God.  They have said "Yes" to Jesus and have taken their place among the bride of Christ.  God is always working to bring us into proper relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. 

They had been resisting, but now they believed.  What if God was as easily miffed as we are?  God's grace kept sending people their way.  Yes, for all people, there is a last time that the gospel is brought to our minds and hearts, but even then God loves us to the very end.

The raising of Tabitha (v. 36-43)

At this point, our story segues to the nearby coastal city of Joppa, modern-day Tel Abib-Yafo.  The news of the healing of Aeneas spreads so that the believers in Joppa hear that Peter is nearby.  While this good thing is happening in Lydda, there is trouble in Joppa among the believers.

A woman named Tabitha becomes sick and dies.  Luke notes for his Greek readers that her Aramaic name of Tabitha is equivalent to the Greek name Dorcas.  Both of the names mean "gazelle" in their respective languages, and she was a graceful woman.  She was a very industrious doer of charitable works among the people of Joppa.  Verse 39 gives us an idea of at least one thing that she did.  It speaks of the widows weeping and showing the tunics and garments that Tabitha had made for them while she was alive.  Apparently, Tabitha was able to afford making and giving away these garments to the less fortunate in town.

We could contrast this with a man like Peter.  We should not put down very natural gifts of helps like Tabitha displayed in relation to the supernatural gifts that were displayed through Peter.  We can be guilty of diminishing the importance of simply using the natural gifts of God in our life to bless others.  It reminds me of Moses when God sends him to go to Egypt and deliver the Israelites.  Moses is very intimidated by the task.  However, God asks him, "What is that in your hand?"  It was a simply staff, but it was all Moses needed as long as the Spirit of God was with Him.  The Spirit of God used Tabitha to bless people, but not through healings and raising people from the dead.  It is not that Peter had no natural abilities either, and Tabitha no spiritual ones.  Both of them upon their deaths would find people weeping over their passing.

So, Tabitha became sick and died during the time that Peter was at Lydda.  Tabitha is the kind of person that we can struggle with their deaths.  She is not dying of old age.  Why would God allow her to die?  We need more people like her.  Why don't you take a bad person?  Many are the questions that people have of God. 

Clearly, not all believers are healed from disease, and even less are raised back to life from death.  There are only a few stories from the Old Testament.  Jesus himself raised three people back to life: the son of the widow of Nain, the daughter of Jairus, and Lazarus.  There are only two stories of someone raised back to life in the New Testament.  Peter raising Tabitha here, and Paul raising Eutychus, a young man who fell out of a window and died- probably breaking his neck, or blunt force trauma.

In all of these cases, it is probably best not to use the term resurrection.  They are brought back to life, but into mortal bodies.  This is different from the resurrection of Jesus and the promise of resurrection to believers (1 Corinthians 15).  At the resurrection, believers receive a glorified, immortal body.  The story here is more on the level of an impossible "healing." 

Lazarus was raised from the dead after being in the grave for four days.  Yet, he went on to grow old and die.  When he died, Jesus did not come down out of the heavens and raise him back to life, or send an apostle, nor should we see his later death as some kind of failure with the spiritual power of the Church.  Lazarus would die a second time and, though it too would be sad, it would be the grace of God.  He can let go of this mortal body knowing that he shall have a glorified one in the resurrection.  This is not to discount this mortal life.  It is in this mortal life that God teaches us about Himself, and we can do exploits for His glory.   It is where we learn to trust Him!

Some think that God should have made us powerful like the angels.  They seem to see our weakness as an argument against the goodness of God.  But, it seems that a perfect world is one in which we face the exact kind of difficulties that will enable us to become like God enough to understand His heart.  I'm reminded of the classic problem of a man who creates a business from scratch from hard work and over the top of great adversity.  No matter how good of a man he is, his kids, and then grandkids, will not have as much adversity as he did.  They will only know a life of being born with a silver spoon in their mouth.  This doesn't guarantee that a kid will be spoiled and not like their grandfather, but it tends towards that.  It appears that a world in which nothing can ever go wrong would more likely ensure that none of us truly understood God and became like Him.  We would never truly be able to have a deep relationship with Him.

Christians have a greater hope than having someone pray for us and being healed, or raised from the dead.  The God that can heal mortal bodies and raise them back to mortal life, can do even greater things than that!  He is able to do far above what we often are wanting from Him at the time.  Let us learn to trust the Lord.

Back to our story, we are told that the disciples send for Peter and urge him to come without delay.  This seems to imply that she wasn't dead yet when they sent for him.  I say this because they would have no expectation that Peter would raise her from the dead.  None of the apostles had done such a thing.  Yet, she passes before Peter comes.

Verse 39 describes the scene as Peter shows up in Joppa.  They brought him to the room where Tabitha's body has been prepared for burial.  There are women weeping, mourning her death, and explaining what a special woman she was.

However, at verse 40, something changes.  Peter has all of the weeping women and others leave the room.  We then see a scene similar to the time that Jesus healed the daughter of Jairus in Mark 5.  Peter was there and saw all that Jesus did.  Surely, this is not he first person in the Church around Peter to die.  What gives rise to this coming raising of Tabitha from the dead?

This is conjecture at this point, but I do believe that the Holy Spirit put it in Peter's mind and heart.  Something about this scene gave Peter the faith, or belief, that God may want to raise this woman back to life.  First of all, we are told in Mark 5:41 that when Jesus healed the girl he said, "Talitha, cumi."  Talitha is an Aramaic word that simply means "little girl," and cumi means "rise."  Talitha sounds the same as Tabitha, but is different by one letter.  I think that, upon hearing that her name was Tabitha, Peter remembered Jesus saying "Talitha, cumi."  This may have put the question in his mind.  Does the Lord want to raise her?

Thus, Peter does the same thing as Jesus did by putting the people out of the room.  In Mark 5, Jesus was clearly bolder than Peter.  He told the people the girl was merely sleeping and that he would wake her.  They began to ridicule her.  Thus, for Jesus, it appears that he is removing the doubters, not just so that he could perform the miracle, but also because this was a holy thing and they were not worthy to witness it. 

We can become stuck in a group that is not speaking and walking in faith in Jesus.  Even if it is not spoken, people can be cynical and doubtful.  God's people will not thrive in an environment of doubt.

Peter does something that Jesus didn't.  Peter gets on his knees and begins to pray.  Jesus prayed all the time, but he didn't need to pray on the scene to do a miracle.  Jesus was already prayed up, and knew the will of the Father.  But, this is just Peter.  I think Peter is praying for understanding from the Lord.  Lord, are you really wanting to heal this woman?  Do you want me to command this dead body to rise? It doesn't say how long he prayed, but at some point, Peter says to the body, "Tabitha, rise."  Luke doesn't say what language Peter used, as Mark does with Jesus.  However, I tend to think that Peter said, "Tabitha, cumi."  It is not the language and the words that brought Tabitha back to life, it was faith in Jesus and trust in the leading of the Holy Spirit that healed her that opened the door for the Lord to heal her.

We want to avoid two extremes that exist today.  Some point to a passage like this and attempt to make it normative for every Christian at all times.  To them, the Church should be raising people back to life all over the place, and when you really have Jesus, you will do this too.  This is in the face that the whole New Testament only lists twice that this happened in around 30 years of ministry.  It was a rare thing.

On the other hand, some go to the other extreme and say that God doesn't heal or raise people from the dead anymore.  It is one thing to say that raising from the dead is rare, but quite another to say that God doesn't do this any more, to say that God doesn't heal anyone any more.  What does the Word of God say?  It tells us that, when someone is sick, we should call the elders together, anoint the person with oil, and pray for them.  Whether God grants a miracle or not is up to Him.  My part is to be a person on his knees seeking God for what His will and purpose is, and then do it.

Just as God used Tabitha to dress some widows in Joppa, so He can use a doctor to help you, i.e., through natural means.  However, God is able to use anything.  He still has the creative power to turn dirt into a body, and a broken body into a healed body.  We will never be able to put God's power into a Petri dish.  God is not jumping through our hoops to satisfy our fleshly mind, or curiosity.  But, He does care about your soul, and He does want a relationship of trust and faith with you.-o

When you think about it, Tabitha's raising back to life is a mercy to the people of Joppa rather than to her.  She was in the presence of the Lord.  There can be a level of selfishness in our mourning and crying out to God about His purpose in taking someone "too soon."  If they knew Jesus, then they are in a better place.  However, the answer is not to "de-supernaturalize" our faith and walk with God.  Rather, He is the one that we always need, and it is to Him that we should always look.  Lord, what do you want me to do in this moment?  Help me to honor you.

In these stories, the tragedies are reversed by God, or at least, they are ameliorated, improved by His grace.  However, let us know that, even if these people had not been healed or raised from the dead, God still would love the people of Lydda and Joppa.  He would still love Aeneas, and Tabitha.

Luke does not describe the shock and joy when the people see Tabitha alive.  She responds immediately to Peter's command to rise.  She sits up and he helps her out of bed, presenting her to the people.

News spread about this amazing miracle, leading many to believe on Jesus.  Luke ends this story with the note that Peter stayed at Joppa for many days at the house of Simon the Tanner.  The influx of people who heard about the miracle provides a great springboard to sharing the Gospel of Jesus.

God gives miracles from time to time, but they are not the emphasis.  The emphasis is people turning to the Lord Jesus because they see that he is truly the one who can forgive sins, and make us right with God.  May God help us to be a people of faith! 

Let us not make anything become an ultimatum to the Lord because we don't understand.  Instead, let us trust Him because He has proven trustworthy.  If you challenge God to heal someone, or do a certain thing, as a condition of faith, He may simply not do it.  He loves you too much to jump through your hoops on demand.  His purpose is bigger than this mortal life, even eternal in scope.  Trust God because He loves you and is fitting you even now for an eternal relationship with Him.

This generation needs people who are trusting in God.  Even those who ridicule you for your faith do not understand just how much they need you to stand firm.  They will never see it, or admit it, until the day that they come to faith in Jesus.  May we be God's blessing to the people in our life in the ways that He determines.

Peter ministers audio

The Acts of the Apostles 10

Subtitle: A Lame Man Is Healed

Acts 3:1-10.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on July 24, 2022.

In Acts chapter two, Luke describes a powerful scene, the giving of the Holy Spirit, and then a sermon from Peter.  We have this same structure in chapter three.  An amazing healing occurs, which provides a hearing of the Gospel.

Acts 2:43 stated, “Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles.”  We have here one of those amazing wonders and signs done through the Apostle Peter.  It is the healing of a man in his 40’s who has never walked, but now he instantly is able to walk.  He was the beggar who was always at Gate Beautiful. 

This miracle was undeniable, reminiscent of the things that the executed Jesus had done, and was done through one of his disciples.  However, it provided a platform from which Peter could preach to the crowds in the temple.  Acts is invaluable because it cuts through almost 2,000 years of accreted tradition, and puts in front of us a sample of the kind of teaching given by those who walked with Jesus.

For context, this scene takes place at one of the temple gates in Jerusalem.  Peter and John are on their way to the temple and they are asked for money by a beggar.  The name “Beautiful” is not attached to any of the gates in any of the first century writings that we have.  Josephus does describe a gate made of Corinthian Bronze that was particularly outstanding from the rest.  This gate was called after the man who made the donation for its creation, Nicanor, and it was between the court of women and the area where sacrifices would be made in front of the temple building.  However, the story will end with Peter, John and the healed man in Solomon’s Porch, or colonnade.  This was a covered structure on the east wall.  A question then arises on whether it was actually a gate further out and they came into the temple compound? Or did they simply go back out to Solomon’s porch?  Ultimately, knowing exactly which gate this was will not change the story.

You can do some online searching to be able to see this.  Many models have been made over the years of what is described by those from that time.

Let’s get into the passage.

The lame man’s plight in life

We do not know this man’s name.  We do know that he had been lame from birth.  Because of this, he would be carried to the temple to beg for charity from the religious people who were going in.  This would be a “target-rich” environment, to be crass, since they are on their way to worship before God and more inclined to give.

People who are born with disabilities all have a similar experience physically and mentally.  However, some factors can be vastly different.  Do they have family, and does that family love and help them?  Is the family rich or poor?  Also, there can be other mitigating circumstances that make the situation worse or better.  We know nothing about these aspects of the man’s background.

We do know that he has been given a tough situation for life, and nothing about it is fair.  It just is, and that reality is physically, emotionally, and spiritually tough.

In all of the ministry of Jesus and his disciples, this man had never been in the right spot at the right time.  It seems impossible that he had not heard stories of a miracle-man healing people like him.  Acts 4:22 tells us that he is over 40 years old.  So, he has been carrying this heavy load for a long time, and, when there is hope that someone can do something about it, the man is executed.  How discouraged this man must be at the very least, if not angry at God and life in general.  However, God did care about this man and simply had another plan.

The lame man’s plea

It is 3:00 PM when the time of the afternoon prayers began.  Peter and John were probably meeting with other believers to participate in the prayers and then spend time talking and teaching in the outer court under Solomon’s porch. For them, these are exciting times. But the lame man was there that day begging for his daily food once again. 

The men who walked by him were not outwardly any different than others.  He had asked them for alms and was already looking for another person.  He doesn’t seem to know who they are and rejection is a large part of the experience of a person who has been reduced to begging.

Let me just point out that the Greek word for alms here is similar to the English word “charity.”  Charity technically means love, but can come to refer to the money that is given to another out of charity, or love.  Similarly, the word translated alms here is literally “mercies.”  The man is begging people to give him mercies.

Charity and mercy are an important part of being righteous.  The Law of Moses states in Deuteronomy 15:11, “For the poor will never cease from the land; therefore I command you, saying, ‘You shall open your hand wide to your brother, to your poor and your needy, in your land.’”  God calls His people to help the poor and needy, and yet also states that they will never cease from the land.  This lame man is not in a position to help the poor and needy because he is poor and needy.  Those who were in a position to help needed to demonstrate their righteousness through helping them.  This didn’t make them more righteous than the poor, but was how they could demonstrate faith in God. 

This begs the question.  How does a poor person demonstrate faith in God?  They do so by not letting bitterness and anger rule them.  They do so by praising God over the top of their difficult situation.  They do so by waiting on the mercy of God, which may never seem to be enough to our flesh, but in which our spirit can be content.  They do so by not looking to people to be their answer, but recognizing that God uses people.  They do so by remaining humble even though it isn’t fair.

The lame man praises God for healing

We don’t know if the Holy Spirit urges Peter to do this, or if Peter simply thinks, “What would Jesus do?”  Christ had given his apostles power to heal and cast out spirits when he sent them out in pairs to the towns of Israel.  There is no indication that Jesus took this power back.  As long as Jesus was with them, he led the ministry.  However, now Peter is in a similar situation that he has seen before, with and without Jesus.  He had been prepared for this critical transition from being a disciple of Jesus while he was physically on the earth, and being a disciple of Jesus while he is seated in the heavens.  Jesus may have been “dead and gone” in the eyes of the religious leaders, but through these twelve men, he was alive and well.

Peter first tells the man to look at them.  He has clearly made up his mind what to do.  This would be an important moment in the man’s life.  From this moment on, he would not need to beg at the temple.  He would know that God has seen him, and had provided an answer for him.  Peter makes him look at them first so that he would pay attention to exactly what is happening.

“Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you.”  The apostles did not have any money.  They had not been working since they followed Jesus, and now Jesus was gone.  However, Peter knows that he has something else that he can give the man.  Peter has been given the spiritual gift of healing.

Now, healing in the Bible is not broken down into a science.  It doesn’t give us the 5 steps to securing your healing every time.

However, it does give some principles of things that impact healing.  Those who pray for others to be healed must have faith in God, and those who need healing must have faith in God as well.  Jesus himself did few miracles and healings in his hometown of Nazareth because most of them were full of unbelief that God was working through him (Mark 6:5).

It is also clear that some Christians have the spiritual gift of healing where others do not (1 Corinthians 12:30).  All believers have the ability to ask God for healing, whether for themselves or their loved ones.  This is the dynamic of a child asking a father for grace.  God sometimes answers such prayers.  However, there are people whom God particularly works through in the area of healing.  They will see more healings than Christians in general, and even spectacular ones.  However, the spiritual gift of healing is not a kind of power that they control.  The healing comes from the Spirit of God.  The gifted person is cooperating with the Spirit and acting as the mediator of the healing.  The Apostle Paul asked God to heal him of a malady three times and yet the Lord told him, “No.” 

This means that God’s purpose and will is involved in a way that cannot be boiled down to a simple, “God always wants to heal a sick person,” or, “God doesn’t do that anymore.”  There are seasons in God’s dealing with an individual, an area, a nation, and even this world.  There are seasons where God is granting more miracles and healings than normal, but there are seasons where God is seeing what we will do with the grace we have received.

I’ve noticed this dynamic with my own group, the Assemblies of God.  In the early 1900’s when this cooperating fellowship of churches began, it was quite common to see, or hear, of amazing answers of God through the miraculous and especially healing.  Over time, these healings became fewer and farther in between.  At the same time, a social dynamic was happening in this group.  Early Assemblies of God churches tended to be on “the other side of the tracks,” and its people were typically poorer.  Today, the Assemblies of God churches are by and large on “this side of the tracks,” and its people are more middle class.  I understand that these are rough generalizations, but we need to see that there is more going on here than just the faith of the individuals involved.  God is ultimately sovereign, and all believers need to keep humble before Him, rather than building a system that goes to one of two extremes- God always wants to heal, or God doesn’t heal any more.

I believe that God still heals people.  However, more blessed are those who do not see and yet believe.  We will be tested on both these things.  We must believe God enough to pray for healing, and yet trust Him if the answer is “No.”

The story is told of Thomas Aquinas, a theologian of the Church who as also a Dominican friar and priest.  He was in Rome and the pope was showing him an incredible display of gold, wealth, and precious jewels.  The pope then says, “Peter can no longer say, ‘Silver and Gold have I none!”  To which, Aquinas replied, “And neither can he say, ‘Rise up and walk in the Name of Jesus!”  This highlights an age-old problem of becoming rich, comfortable, and uninterested in the work that God is wanting to do.  God help us not to love the world and the things of this world to the point where we become irrelevant to His daily work.

There have been many charlatans with “healing ministries” through the years.  However, Peter is no charlatan who is looking for fame on TV and an empire that has a constant flow of money into its coffers.  Peter commands the man to rise up in the name of Jesus, while at the same time taking him by the hand and pulling him up.  This took a lot of faith on Peter’s part.  However, he was full of the Holy Spirit and in some way knew that this was God’s plan.

It is easy to think that the man asked for money, but received what he really needed.  This may be true, but on a deeper level than we think.  What good does physical healing do if a person does not become a believer in Jesus?  Think about the amazing medical technology that we have amassed in our world.  Who needs a healing Jesus when we can solve the maladies of the world through science and technologies developed off of it?  Of course, we can recognize that there are still sick people in our world today.  Technology is not yet the god that the world wishes it to be.  Second of all, what good does a perfect body that has never been sick do for the person who never puts their faith in Christ?  Yes, the person struggling with disease generally needs people around them that will help them, whether physically, monetarily, or both.  However, fixing the disease will only make a difference in their natural life.  Ultimately, we all need to come to faith in Jesus more than we need the troubles of our life fixed.  It is in the difficult times that we learn to trust more in God.

If I have money to give to a person who is in a difficult situation, then that is good.  If I pray for them to be healed, and God heals them, then that is even better.  However, if they do not put their faith in Jesus as their Lord and Savior, then neither of those things will truly benefit them.  No amount of charitable giving, or healings, can fix the need of a soul to have its sins covered by the grace of Jesus made available through his death on the cross.

Think of it.  These weren’t even atrophied muscles.  He had never walked for over 40 years, and yet strength came into his legs, ankles and feet immediately.  This man was blown away.  He wasn’t healed in the name of Peter, or a particular ministry, or church.  He was healed in the name of Jesus.  Peter made it clear that he was representing Jesus, not himself.

They enter into the temple praising God.  The word for temple here doesn’t mean the main building where the Holy place was.  Only the high priest could enter there.  It means the temple compound, the large, flat structure upon which the temple building was built.  It is unlikely that he had ever been able to go in.  His job was to beg at the gate, but now he has something to praise God about, and he is leaping, shouting, and making no small commotion.

How many times can we indignantly look at others who are entirely too bubbly about praising God?  Yes, sometimes people can be putting on a show, but how do you know?  And, is your heart in the right place?  Excited praise is not always pretense.  Sometimes God has done amazing things in a person’s life.  Sometimes a person has learned to see the amazing grace of God that they are swimming in despite the lack of a healing, or miracle, or money.

Let us recognize that God does care about the poor and the needy even if they continue to be so.  It is not typically the rich and the healthy who are jumping up and down praising God, if they even go to church.  There is a day coming when God will wipe away every tear and restore all broken things to a pristine condition.  Where will I be on that day? 

Let’s be a people who are not so full of this worlds comforts that we have lost sight of the heart of God!

The Spiritual Sickness of Sin

One of the effects of sin and The Curse is sickness and disease.  God created the earth and it was very good.  However, because of man’s rebellion it went from very good to death and decay.  Now today we are going to see the problem of Leprosy in Luke 5:12-16.  Though the term used in those days is not the technical terms that we use in medicine today, the descriptions of the disease are very clear.  It was contagious and thus those who had it were quarantined outside of the city.  What started as a small spot on the skin would eventually cover their whole body.  From what we know today, leprosy does not actually cause flesh to rot.  Rather, starting in the extremities and on the skins surface it destroys the nervous system and our sense of touch.  The lack of pain and feeling is what leads to injury and destruction of the flesh.

The late Dr. Paul Brand, a pioneer in treating leprosy, said, “I cannot think of a greater gift that I could give my leprosy patients than pain.”  He later co-authored a book with Phillip Yancey, “The Gift of Pain.”  It is a sad irony that those who suffer in this way should lose physical pain and yet gain even greater inner pain.  Let’s look at this passage.

Leprosy Is A Picture

In verse 12 we are told that Jesus was in a certain city when a man who is full of leprosy falls down before him and begs, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”  We often wonder why God allows things to be.  I don’t want to make the mistake of being so quick to say Jesus even heals leprosy, that I miss the fact that this leper is a human being who has been through much grief.  Even his statement to the Lord evokes pity and compassion.  Why was he a leper?  For whatever reasons, we do know that God didn’t create the world with lepers in it.  We are the ones that brought sin, sickness, and death into the world.  One thing is true leprosy is one of those diseases that gives us a very horrible picture.

Leprosy first is a picture of incurable disease.  Regardless of the name of the disease and the century that one lives in, mankind will always face diseases he cannot “fix.”  People in these situations end up spending all their money and their emotional capital on treatments and experiments that leave them poor, broken and without hope.  Often they are quarantined or in a bed isolated from others and under a death sentence.  They have become a danger to themselves and others and they feel all alone.  Regardless of whether or not we find a solution for leprosy, there is always something else, whether it be AIDS or Cancer, etc… 

Leprosy is also a picture of the reality of sin.  Because the inner effects cannot be seen, we can tend to think that there are none.  One of the reasons why God allows sickness, disease, and death is because it gives us a material picture of what sin does spiritually.  Just as leprosy destroys by first desensitizing the God-given nervous system in our bodies, so sin desensitizes the individual’s God-given conscience.  We come to think that our sin is no big deal.  But it doesn’t stop there.  Over a series of being desensitized we come to no longer feel the bite of conscience and spiritually injure ourselves and others, even to the point of spiritual death.  The hideous images of what leprosy can do in the natural should point us to the hideous things that sin does in our heart.  The contagion of sin can only truly be appreciated in the face of the bacterial and viral onslaught in our own day and age.  These things always start small, only a small spot.  Yet they spread and destroy the whole body if not brought in check.

If you think I am stretching it use disease as a metaphor for sin then look at 1 Corinthians 5:6.  Here Paul told the Corinthians, “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.”  He uses yeast as a picture of what sin does within an individual and a group.  If you put up with just a little bit it is going to affect the rest.  So you need to deal with it before it gets hideous and horrible.

The Solution For Both Is Jesus

Whether we are talking about a physical problem or a spiritual one, the solution for both is Jesus.  The leper had come to believe that Jesus could heal him, because Jesus had been healing others.  Why not me?  Even though he has the most horrible and fearful physical curse of his day, the man breaks the law and social custom to beg Jesus for health.  Somehow we need to get to that same spot in our own life where we are on our face before Jesus begging for spiritual health.  The good news is that God is looking for you.  In Luke 19:10 Jesus said, “I have come to seek and save the lost.”  Later he gave his disciples a Great Commission in Matthew 28:19, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…”  This aspect of Christianity is coming into more and more ill repute: calling people to turn to Jesus.  Jesus said in John 10:27, “My sheep hear my voice.”  In all of these we see two things.  We need to find Jesus, and graciously he is calling and looking for us.  If your heart truly wants healing, you will find Jesus and He will find you.  Now clearly spiritual healing is far more important than physical healing.  And, even if we are physically healed, all will eventually grow old and die.  No matter how hard we pray for “healing” of old age, God is going to let us grow old and die.  Yet, he has promised The First Resurrection to those who believe.

The second thing we find with this leper is that he humbled himself.  He is not supposed to interact with people.  He is breaking the law and he knows it.  Yet, he has his face in the dirt begging Jesus for a miracle.  Now it is not as important that his face is in the dirt than that his heart was that humble.  Until we are spiritually humbled to the point that we cease worrying about what we look like, we may never reach the humility needed to receive salvation from Jesus.  We have to see ourselves and others as completely unable to fix the problem.  Jesus is my only hope!  This cry is the cry of the humbled and thus humble.  When we get to the place where we are humble enough we are free to ask him to do what we cannot do for ourselves.

Notice the word “clean.”  We must want to be clean.  It seems obvious that a sick person wants to be well, but it is not always the case.  Have you ever encountered a person with emphysema who needs to carry an oxygen tank around with them and yet still wants to smoke?  Often getting well requires us to give up things that bring on the problem.  Am I asking Jesus to clean the surface but not deal with the root of the problem?  Jesus heal my lungs so I can smoke them to death again!  Is this what we want?  “To want to be clean” is not wanting only our problems fixed, but rather, wanting the root of those problems and sin cleaned away.  The leper speaks of his skin being cleaned, but the same word is used of moral and spiritual cleansing in our hearts and life.

We must also believe in Christ’s ability or power to heal us.  He would have never approached Jesus if he didn’t believe that Jesus could actually heal him.  Now many look at Jesus, the Bible, and His Church as antiquated relics of a bygone era that never had any real power.  Now I would challenge you to recognize that no matter how ancient this culture was, these people understood the devastation of disease for which even today we do not have a cure.  We can only mitigate the effects and speed of progression.  It is quite patronizing to the point of idiocy to think that they couldn’t recognize and be amazed that one day a man who had been blind from birth could all the sudden see.  One day a man whose skin was obviously covered with leprosy was suddenly completely clear skinned.  This is something that takes real power.  This is the kind of thing that Jesus did frequently.

The man also cries out to Jesus.  It is one thing to want healing and salvation.  It is quite another to step out and ask.  Many people get to the tipping point of calling upon Jesus and yet hold back.  If you have been holding back from calling out to Jesus for salvation, don’t hold back any longer.  You must cry out to him for mercy in order to receive it.

What Jesus Shows Us About God

Now let’s look at the response of Jesus.  Now in Hebrews 1:1-3 we are told that Jesus is the “brightness of His glory and the express image of His person.”  The point is this: if you have seen Jesus then you have seen God the Father..  God who is invisible makes himself visible in Jesus.  Thus in this situation Jesus helps us to see the Truth about God’s heart for the hurting, both physically and spiritually.  The actions, thinking, and words of Jesus are exactly the actions, thinking, and words of God the Father.

First we see that God wants to touch the sick.  Though quarantines were involved to protect people from the sick, God can touch the sick.  He cannot be affected by sickness or sin and so he has no fear to touch them.  I mentioned Dr. Paul Brand earlier.  He tells a story of when he first went to India to work with lepers there.  He didn’t speak the language and had patted a leper to let them know that he would help them.  The person broke out in tears.  Why?  His Indian helper explained that the man had not been touched by anyone for many years.  Something so simple as human touch can convey a world of care, compassion, love, and help.  In Jesus God touches us.

God is also full of compassion.  Jesus couples his touch with the words, “I am willing.”  This is such a tender picture of God’s compassion toward mankind.  There is a part of us that might rebel and say that he hasn’t done that for everyone.  But the point is that the physical often is what brings us to see our need of the spiritual.  Even in the midst of our sinfulness and fallenness, God is compassionate toward the lost and works to bring them to himself so that he might heal them.

We also see that God is full of power to do what we need Him to do.  Jesus could heal the body, but also could heal the sin-sick soul.  Physical healing is never an answer in and of itself.  Even in perfect health, these bodies will grow old, decay and die.  Short of the Second Coming, we will have to face death.  It would be a tragedy to only be physically healed and yet not ask for our sins to be forgiven and covered; to not ask that our hearts be set free from sin’s grip.

Lastly, Jesus sends the man to go to the temple and be a witness to the priests and his community that God is still moving in power.  Has God touched your sin-sick soul?  Has he touched you and made you clean, and whole spiritually?  I testify to you today that he can take your life no matter how ruined, destroyed, and damaged it is and heal it if you will only cry out to him like I did.He

Spiritual Sickness audio