Living Sermons – Acts 9:32-35

Last Monday was the anniversary of a huge event – although I’m not sure that everyone would agree.

Only the people my age or older can truly appreciate what this anniversary means.

It was 50 years ago that an experimental oral vaccine was offered to the public in the war against the killing and crippling disease of polio.

At the time, polio was so terrifying to parents that they lined their children up to receive what was still a medical experiment.

This sort of thing would never take place today, but in our simplicity and ignorance it did 50 years ago.

And over the next couple of decades polio was virtually eradicated from North America.

I remember my sister and I being taken down to Hulstrom Elementary School and marched into the gym along with hundreds of other kids, to drink from a little paper cup with some liquid in it.

I was concerned at the time that it might not taste good, but I was determined to take it anyway.

However it tasted, I had been convinced it would be better than any of the alternatives.

As I remember it didn’t have much of a taste at all.

But it did as advertized, and today polio is a semi-rare disease found mostly in third-world countries.

I may be mistaken, but I can only think of one polio victim whom I have ever met, and he contracted the disease in the Philippines.

Those of you who are younger than 50 have no idea how devastating this disease was at the time.

Was the man in our scripture suffering from polio?

Bible scholars don’t know exactly what it was that this man had.

But the Greek word here is “paraluo” ( par-al-oo’-o ).

It was some sort of paralysis, and that he was “sick” of the palsy seems to suggest that it was a disease and not the result of an accident.

Students of medical history tell us that there is evidence that poliomyelitis has been plaguing the Middle East since at least 1,000 B.C.

So it is quite possible that Aeneas was suffering from this crippling disease.

Here was one man who was cured by the grace of God, and today, by that same grace, nearly the entire human race has been cured.

This is one of many things for which we should thank God, but rarely, if ever, do we do so.

The thing that I’d like you to notice this morning is found in verse 35:

“And all that dwelt at Lydda and Saron saw him, and turned to the Lord.”

What we have recorded in these four verses is a living sermon.

We have all the ingredients of a true sermon, BUT it came in the form of an illustration.

It was well preached, blessed by the Lord, and produced results that glorified God.

See if you don’t agree.

Most good sermons begin with a GOOD INTRODUCTION, as this one did.

“And it came to pass, as Peter passed throughout all quarters, he came down also to the saints which dwelt at Lydda.”

There had been a severe persecution against the Christians throughout Judea.

But God put a stop to it in a very surprising fashion – with the conversion of the chief persecutor.

When Saul became a child of God, the haters of Christ lost their most virulent proponent.

The Christians went back on the offensive, evangelizing the country-side with the gospel of Christ.

And the apostles openly hit the road, visiting from town to town and village to village.

I can’t tell you how long Peter was away from Jerusalem or how many places he had visited on this circuit,

but his journey brought him to Lydda, in the Sharon valley, just below and south of Mount Carmel.

And as was his custom, he sought out the church and the SAINTS there.

Are you aware that rarely did the Protestant Reformers use the word “saint” when describing God’s people?

The reason was that the Roman Catholic church had taken the word and for over a thousand years mis-used and abused it.

The Protestant’s reaction was to basically ignore the term entirely.

But it is a very common Bible designation of any AND ALL of God’s people – the Christians.

In this chapter, when Ananias was talking to the Lord about Saul of Tarsus he said, “Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem.”

And when God raised Tabitha from the dead, Peter “gave her his hand, and lifted her up, and when he had called the saints and widows, presented her alive.”

When Paul wrote to the church in Rome, he addressed his letter “to ALL that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

And he told those saints that he was going to Jerusalem in order minister to the other saints there.

The word “saint” is used in the Bible to refer to anyone who has been sanctified unto the Lord.

It means that the person has been separated – set apart – unto Jehovah.

So a “saint” is a sanctified person, & to be sanctified means to be separated & dedicated to God.

Catholicism made it apply only to miracle-workers, extraordinary preachers, bishops over groups of churches and other kinds of super-saints.

But that was never God’s intention; EVERY true Christian is a saint in the sight of God.

Every true Christian has been bought by the blood of the Saviour, & adopted into the family of God.

Every true Christian is special in the sight of God,

“Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.”

But even though Catholicism is wrong in its use of the word “saint,” they do have something right:

They know that every true saint should be special.

Every true Christian should not only be sanctified in the sight of GOD,

But they should also be sanctified unto God in the sight of PEOPLE around them.

In other words they should look and behave – LIKE SAINTS.

This sermon started well:

There was a man of God, who wanted to be a blessing to people and to bring glory to his Saviour.

And there was a congregation of saints, who were seeking the blessing of the Lord,

They were SEEKING TO BE a blessing to the Lord.

This should be the situation in every church of Christ every Lord’s Day morning.

Is this your desire this morning?

The sermon had a good introduction.

And then we come to the BODY of the message.

“And there he found a certain man named Aeneas, which had kept his bed eight years, and was sick of the palsy. And Peter said unto him, Aeneas, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole: arise, and make thy bed. And he arose immediately.”

Let’s think about this man with the paralysis – Aeneas.

We have no direct statement from God whether or not he was one of the saints in Lydda.

Next week we are going to study the Lord’s raising of a dead lady in the neighboring city of Joppa.

And in that particular case the Bible directly states that Tabitha was one of the disciples.

Should we assume that since the Bible doesn’t say this about Aeneas then it means that he wasn’t?

I think that it would be a mistake to be dogmatic, but I tend to think that he was NOT a disciple.

It is argued by some that, since Peter didn’t explain who Jesus Christ was, it means that Aeneas already knew the Lord.

But one reply to that is to go back to the healing of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate in Acts 3.

Peter didn’t give that man a theological lesson on the Lord Jesus either.

He simply said, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.”

By this time, after the three years of Jesus’ ministry and the many months since His resurrection and the preaching of the apostles, Judea was familiar with the name of Jesus.

Whether or not he was a Christian when Peter first met him, I’m sure that he became one eventually.

And whether or not he was a Christian before his healing, he illustrated someone who wasn’t.

Some people argue that the man’s name PROVES that he wasn’t a Christian.

“Aeneas” was a Greek name, and in the Virgil’s story “The Aeneid” Aeneas was the son of a goddess.

But there is not very much peoples’ names.

A man may be named “Christian” but that doesn’t make him a child of God.

And girl might be given the unfortunate name of “Jezebel” but that doesn’t create her character.

For the most part, a name is just a name.

There are quite a few people in the New Testament who had two names, both heathen and Hebrew.

In verse 36, Tabitha had Greek name: Dorcus.

The fact that we aren’t told that Aeneas had an Hebrew or Christian name, suggests, but doesn’t prove that he didn’t have another name or that he wasn’t a Christian.

So we don’t know much about this poor man, but we do know that he had been paralyzed for years.

In fact he had been basically confined to his bed during that time.

It may be that like many people in his condition, he had friends or relatives who moved him out into the streets of Lydda in order to beg for money and food.

But of this we aren’t told.

If in no other way, this man’s palsy is an illustration of the helpless condition of the human soul.

The Bible says that before meeting Christ and the blessing of God’s grace, there is none that doeth good in the sight of God.

“There is none righteous, no, not one:

There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.”

If we can use our feet at all, those feet are swift to shed blood (Romans 3:15).

The Bible unequivocally declares that “they that are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:8).

“For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.

For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.”

If nothing more, Aeneas reminds us that man has nothing to offer God.

We are dead in our trespasses and sins against God.

And without the intervention of grace, we will spend our time on this earth as invalids – spiritual dead-men.

And after we die our physical death we will suffer the second death, being cast into the Lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.

After this sermon’s introduction, we begin the see the gospel in the person of Aeneas.

At the very least, he pictured someone dead in sin and in desperate need of the grace of God.

But “Peter said unto him, Aeneas, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole: arise.”

There is a lot of interesting information contained in those few words.

For example Peter’s sermon quickly turned to the Saviour.

This sermon was not man-centered; it was Christ-centered.

It was the preacher’s intent to make the man lift up his eyes from his own condition, as miserable as it may have been.

“I want you to look to Christ Jesus,” he said.

It is Jesus who has the power to make you whole.

It is Christ who has the authority to make you well.

“Peter said unto him, Aeneas, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole: arise.”

And notice that Peter didn’t tell the man that the Lord Jesus “wanted” to make him well.

He said, “Jesus Christ makes you whole: arise.”

Without suggesting that Aeneas didn’t believe Peter or didn’t believe in Christ and His power to heal,

Peter didn’t make the man’s cure dependent upon Aeneas’s faith.

The preacher didn’t tell the man that Jesus wanted to heal him, but that the omnipotent Son of God was limited to whether or not he would put his faith in Him.

Just as it had been at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple,

Somehow the Lord had revealed to Peter that He was going to heal this man.

Peter simply announced to him the intention of the Lord.

“Stand back, Aeneas, Jesus is going to heal you,” or in this case, “Stand up, Aeneas.”

And it appears that the man who had been crippled for nearly a decade, believed the preacher and believed on the Lord, because he arose immediately from his little mat-like bed.

Did his faith precede his healing, or was it a part of the over-all miracle?

I believe that it was a part of the gift of God.

He was instantly healed.

This was not anything that an ordinary, human doctor could have done.

When I was gradually healed of a broken leg, after spending three months in a body cast,

I had to re-learn to walk and to build up the muscles that I had lost in my legs.

It was another month before I could make my bed and walk home.

But that was not the way that it was for this man – his cure was instantaneous and complete.

And that is precisely the way that it is with God’s salvation of the soul.

It’s not a part of a process,

Salvation doesn’t follow various phases of obedience and commitment.

Forgiveness and deliverance from sin is the gift of God.

But notice that it was a part of the sermon that Aeneas was to prove to the world that he had been healed.

He was told to make his bed, which probably meant that he was to roll up the mat or blanket that the had been laying on.

And apparently he did so.

This obedience in the man is also an important aspect in the illustration of salvation.

As I have said so many times, I hesitate to believe the words of the professing Christian who isn’t obedient to the Lord Whom he says has saved his soul.

The Book of James tells a very pertinent and important question:

“What doth it profit, my brethren, tho a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?

Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

From there James points out a couple of things that the Lord would have His saints to do:

“If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you [merely] say unto them,

Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.”

On the day of Pentecost, when the people under the conviction of God about their sins, cried out:

“Men and brethren, what shall we do?”

Peter replied, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ.”

Baptism and church membership are not sacraments and avenues to receive God’s grace, they are evidences of that grace.

Personal sacrifice, hospitality, generosity, tithes and offerings aren’t the means of earning salvation from sin, they are the fruit of God’s saving grace.

To stop blaspheming and swearing, to quit ugly and destructive vices, to clean up one’s life, are not things that must be done to bring about forgiveness of sin.

These are things that naturally flow out of the new heart that is created by God’s saving grace.

This man was cured before he cleaned up his bed and began to serve the Lord.

I wonder if like the man in Acts 3, “And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the [local Baptist church], walking, and leaping, and praising God?”

Whether he did or not, I’m sure that Peter exhorted him to do so, and was even willing to take him there.

Every true gospel sermon teaches that genuine conversion and salvation produces genuine changes in a person’s life.

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

In this living sermon, the change in Aeneas was obvious as his own two feet.

And then came the APPLICATION of the message.

“And all that dwelt at Lydda and Saron saw him, and turned to the Lord.”

Despite what people sometimes think, the preacher doesn’t get into the pulpit just to hear himself talk.

He’s not there to entertain anyone, knowing full well, there are lots of professional entertainers out there who can do a much better job.

The preacher’s purpose is to make a difference in some fashion.

Peter was visiting the churches in Judea in order to strengthen and bless them.

And when he preached the gospel to the unsaved, it was in order to warn the wicked to flee from the wrath to come.

It was to give the Lord the means with which to save souls from sin.

When Peter told this man to arise & make his bed, it was with the intention that he arise & make his bed.

Taking the illustration a step farther, the rising of this palsied man, was designed to exhort the people of Lydda and the surrounding region of Sharon, to bow before the God of omnipotence and grace.

And that is exactly what took place.

The people who knew this man, were well aware that no doctor or surgeon had the ability to give back this man his legs.

Even today, there is no cure for polio, but God has graciously permitted us to prevent it.

For eight years this man had probably been a beggar in the streets of Lydda.

Every resident of the city knew him by name and even most of the rural people of the area, at the very least, recognized him as the palsied man.

When Aeneas could now be seen walking, leaping and praising God, the town couldn’t help but notice.

And when he testified that it was by the power and authority of Jesus of Nazareth, the city had to notice the Saviour as well as the saved.

And that was what this illustrated sermon was all about.

Whether his neighbors needed to be healed of their physical diseases or not, they were all in need of the Lord’s salvation.

“There is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not.”

“For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”

And that includes the people of our communities as well.

The Holy Spirit took the miracle and the name of the Lord Jesus and drove them deep into the hearts of the Lyddians.

The Bible says that all they that dwelt at Lydda and Saron turned to the Lord.

What does that mean that they “turned to the Lord?”

Most of the people living in Lydda and Saron were Helenized Jews.

They were primarily descendants of Judah, who had over the years become somewhat secularized.

Earlier in Acts they were called “Grecians” – Grecianized Jews.

They would have called themselves “Jews” and “worshipers of Jehovah.”

Just as the majority of the people of the United States would call themselves “Christians,”

Whether or not they were really servants of Christ.

So how can these Lyddians turn to the Lord if they were already the Lord’s people?

The answer is that to have been born a child of Abraham didn’t make a person a worshipper of God.

Just to wear the Lord’s name, doesn’t mean that they are following the Lord.

They should have been servants of God, but they were actually only servants of themselves.

Just as it is in Christianized America.

But with seeing what the power of God could do; seeing this living sermon, these people turned and returned to the Lord.

They repented; they believed the message of that sermon.

And more specifically they turned to the Lord Jesus Christ.

They agreed that “Jesus is the Christ the Son of God.”

They agreed that He is omnipotent and worthy of worship.

They turned, in the sense of repentance, they turned from their sins to Christ.

And they bowed before Him, adored Him, trusted His sacrifice, and dedicated themselves to the service of God through Christ Jesus.

Today we have a double sermon, the living, illustrated sermon, and my feeble exposition of that sermon.

Now, what will YOU do with them?

Will you respond as did the people of Lydda, or will you walk away lost and still bound for Hell?

Will you turn to the Lord, or turn away?