Leaping In Faith — Acts 3-4

0:01 I'd like to pray as we start off. Father God, we thank you for the Lord Jesus. We thank you, Father, that the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins and we thank you for your precious word that instructs us about our Lord. And we think of the wonder of the name of Jesus Christ, and we think of that quote from our chapter today, In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And we just think of the power of that name of Jesus.

0:36 We praise you, Lord Jesus, that you died for us and loved us. So we... In Jesus' name, amen. Our chapter today is going to be Acts three. And I have, I just thought it by way of introduction, are a couple of witnesses that were given, particularly to the church.

1:04 I'm gonna say the early church, though we certainly have the same witnesses today. One I'm speaking of is the resurrection, the witness of the resurrection, and it's a life changing witness. The other witness is the witness of the messianic prophecies in the Old Testament. Just a word on the resurrection. In the first chapter of Acts, in the third verse, it says that the Lord gave them many infallible proofs concerning his bodily resurrection.

1:44 And I often enjoyed that expression, many infallible proofs. It is kind of interesting that that there's, there are many that would, that would, that perhaps would not, today that would say, well, how can you call them infallible proofs? But I'll tell you who thought they were infallible truths, those ones that saw those signs. They knew it was infallible truths. It was such evidence to their souls that when the tests came and they faced a martyr's death, they were faithful unto death and think, yes, the resurrection was a big thing.

2:33 Sometimes... Well, in the fifteenth chapter, for instance, it makes this statement. This is fifteenth chapter, first Corinthians, I'm sorry. And it makes this statement. It says that if Christ be not raised from the dead, your faith is vain and you're yet in your sins.

2:49 It's interesting, isn't it, that the resurrection is given such a foundational place in the whole salvation scheme that it says, Hey, you got nothing if Christ wasn't raised from the dead. I wondered sometimes why that was, why it was that important. It was just like, You've got nothing. And I found a verse that I'm just gonna quote it for you. It's actually Romans one:four, but it says this about the Lord Jesus.

3:22 He says that he was declared to be the son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. And and I thought, wow, so so why is the resurrection so important? It's God's declaration concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. You may have crucified my son, but I want you to know God's declaration that he's my son and I give all power to him. So, the resurrection is foundational and it was the witness.

3:59 In the early chapters of Acts, every chapter, it speaks concerning the resurrection. We'll go to the third chapter then. I'm going to speak a little bit more as we go through the chapter about the witness of the Messianic prophecies because they're given actually here in the chapter. Third chapter of Acts, Now, Peter and John went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. 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 from those who entered the temple, who, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked for alms.

5:14 And immediately, his feet and ankle bones received strength, so he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered into the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. You just love that. Walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God, and they knew that it was he who was begging alms at the beautiful gate of the temple. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

5:52 Now, as the layman who was healed held on to Peter and John, All the people ran together to them to the porch which is called Solomon, greatly amazed. When Peter saw it, he responded to the people, Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this, or why do you look so intently at us as though by our own power and godliness we had made this man walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant, Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate when he was determined to let him go. But you denied the holy one and the just. Then you asked for a murderer to be granted to you and kill the Prince of Life, whom God raised from the dead, there it is, right?

6:48 Whom God raised from the dead, of whom we are witnesses. And his name, the name of Jesus, and his name through faith in his name has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through him has given this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. And now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did your rulers, But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all of his prophets that the Christ should suffer, he is thus fulfilled. Repent, therefore, and be converted that your sins may be blotted out, so that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, that he may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before.

7:48 I love this story. You know, think of those two witnesses that I mentioned, but there were other witnesses who weren't there. And one of them were the miracles of healing such as we see here. And of course, another one would have been the miracle of the baptism by the Holy Spirit on the second day. But there were other witnesses, but this one is really good.

8:15 I love this story. So when we start off in the story, the first thing that really catches my eye is that this man was lame from birth. What you might have called a hopeless situation, at least would seem to us to be hopeless, a hopeless situation. Surely it would have caught your attention or brought the sympathetic heart, moved your sympathetic heart to have seen him lying there or perhaps sometimes I think maybe he was seated kind of with his back against the post of the door. However exactly it was, he was someone that was sort of hopeless in his situation.

9:02 It says he was laid daily at the gate of the temple. This man was not just happened to wander in and get there. He was someone that they regularly brought him there and set him in the temple. It's interesting that that is kind of noted, like for instance, in the eleventh verse it says, Now, as the layman who was healed held on to Peter and John, the people ran together to them on the porch, which is Solomon's. And so basically, they recognize...

9:46 I'm thinking... Do I have the right verse? Oh, I should be reading the tenth verse. And they knew that it was he who sat begging at the door of the temple. So it's like this was not a stranger to them.

9:59 This guy was always there, puts him there daily. I suppose he had been kind of chosen as a, or approved as an appropriate object for their alms. But but that's part of actually the kind of the forcefulness of the miracle was he was known. This was no strange thing. He was known.

10:24 And even in the next chapter, we're going to read it, it says, I'm sorry, I can't quite find the verse I was looking for, but there's a verse there that says that they knew him. And so there's a force in this. So now we kind of have this set up. Now there was something about the man that was pitiful enough that it would really kind of pull your heart. And I'm sure that Peter and John felt that as they went past him looking there.

11:25 Now, when I was a kid, I'm gonna say I was probably in my early teens. And my folks used to, we lived in Paducah, Kentucky, and they would let us ride our bicycles downtown. It was probably two or three miles downtown and explore. We were great explorers. And so I remember being downtown Paducah and walking along Broadway, I think it's called, walking down Broadway right near the river.

11:57 It was a kind of a rundown place. You might maybe imagine it because there was several pawn shops there and it was, it was not perhaps the very best neighborhood. Few saloons too. But as we're walking along, we saw there was a man that he was sitting on the sidewalk. And he was leaning back there and there by his side was a tin cup for alms, for people to put money in.

12:26 And we come walking along that sidewalk and I looked at him and you won't believe this thing, but this man had both arms and both legs amputated. I was like, I've never seen anything like that before. It was just like and he was just sitting there, just had enough stubs of his legs to support himself up against the wall. And I don't know, my heart just went out for him. And I, you know, I was a paper boy, newspaper delivery boy, so I had a little bit of change in my pocket.

13:01 So I pulled out a coin and I walked over and I assume it was a 0.25 or something and I dropped it down in that tin cup. I can still remember from this time that the metallic clunk of that coin when it hit there. And there must have been, I think it must have been a really strange look on my face when I did it. I think there must have been because there were two other guys and they were smoking there. There was kind of a candidate standing nearby and they started laughing at me.

13:32 And I thought... I was kind of embarrassed and walked off. But you know, what impressed me was I saw this guy there, thought, man, what would it be like to be like that? You know, it's just like something. It's like, I can't imagine it.

13:50 I don't even want to imagine it. You know, it's like so bad. And it really touched my heart. It's funny, isn't it, that sixty five years later, I can still remember that, even the clunk of the of the coin as it hid in there. It was that impressive to me.

14:07 This is the sort of man that we're talking about here in our chapter. It was a man that was in kind of a hopeless situation and yet he was sitting there asking alms. So he asked Peter and John for alms, for money. And so Peter and John look, and Peter says, he says, Look on us. And he wanted to get his attention, Look on us.

14:44 And so he's looking expectantly. He's wanting to get some. And Peter says, Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And so at that moment, I believe he was healed.

15:25 And he and he... It says that he leaped up and walked. And and I I I've often kinda thought, what would it have been like? You never walked in your life, never walked in your life and suddenly, suddenly you could walk. In my imagination, the man takes a tentative step and says, hey, I can do this, you know?

15:50 And then he... Next thing he tries to leap, you know, he jumps he jumps and and pretty soon describes him this way. It says, he he entered into the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. Isn't that a neat description? Walking and leaping and praising God.

16:12 That was a neat story, wasn't it? How this man was healed. Well, this man, when he was praising God, he was doing it, you know? He was shouting praises to the Lord. And it made a sort of a disturbance and people started looking, what's this all about?

16:29 You know? And the crowd immediately starts to gather. And it says that they recognized him. This is the guy that was just laying there completely lame out. What happened here?

16:46 And it says, The people ran together to the porch which is called Solomon, greatly amazed. What is going on? And so that's when Peter gets his chance to make his testimony for the Lord Jesus. So Peter says, Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Why do you look at us as though we by our own power or godliness that made this man walk?

17:19 This isn't us. This is something bigger. And so the next three verses that we're gonna read, they're gonna be like the introduction to Jesus. Peter said, It's not us. Then who is it?

17:36 It's Jesus. And that's the big point of this story. Thirteenth verse, The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate when he was determined to let them go. You denied the holy one and the just and ask for a murder to be granted unto you. So, first of all, he's saying that Jesus had been glorified by the heavenly Father, God.

18:16 Jesus had been glorified. I'm not quite sure what that's talking about, whether it's talking about when he had just a couple chapters before he had ascended up into heaven where he was glorified, we're told. It may be speaking of that, or it may be talking about those wonderful miracles where the Lord Jesus was shown to be the son of God. One way or the other, he was glorified, and I hope we'll still glorify him today. But he says, God glorified him, but you denied him.

18:56 Even Pilate was gonna let him go and you wouldn't let him. You denied the holy one and the just. Jesus is the holy one and the just one. You denied him. You asked for a murder.

19:08 That'd be Barabbas, right? You asked for a murder to be granted unto you and you killed the Prince of Life, Jesus, the Prince of Life, the one who has power over life, it's whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. Yes, we're back to this resurrection, isn't it? It's God's declaration. God's declaration.

20:20 It's the same name. So, in the sixteenth verse, we have faith introduced into this. Sixteenth verse, And his name, name of Jesus, his name, through faith in his name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yeah, yes, the faith which comes through him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. You know, in one of miracles of Jesus, the Lord Jesus, it was the one where they let the man down through the roof, broke up the tile.

21:12 And the man's let down, He's in his stretcher or bed or whatever it is. And he's been let down. He's right in front of Jesus. And obviously, their desire is that Jesus would heal this man. He was lame.

21:29 Another lame man. He was lame. And the Lord Jesus looks down at the man and says, Son, your sins are forgiven you. Your sins are forgiven you. And the religious leaders, the priests, they start saying, this man is blaspheming.

21:55 He's he's he's saying he can forgive sins. Only God can only God can forgive sins. And and so so now this is a challenge to the Lord Jesus, isn't it? Can he forgive sins or can he forgive sins? And I think that's very parallel to what we have here in this one here.

22:17 Can he forgive sins or can he forgive sins? Now he hadn't healed the man yet. Jesus hadn't healed the man yet. So he looks around the people and he says, so that you may know that the son of man himself has power on earth to forgive sins, he says to the man, rise up and walk. And the man, he stands up and he walks, completely healed.

22:46 Wonderful. Now, what was it that really happened there? The Lord Jesus was being challenged whether he had the power to forgive sins. He's being challenged that way, okay? And so the Lord Jesus says, Now I'm going to do a miracle.

23:04 He didn't say these exact words, but this is the thought on it. He said, I'm going to do a miracle. I'm gonna heal this man, but that miracle is so that you'll believe that I can forgive sins. So he's gonna do something wonderful and marvelous in the physical world that they can see and view. And he says, It's gonna be evidence to you so that when I do, when I tell you that I can do this spiritual wonder for you, I can forgive your sins.

23:36 I can save you from the wrath to come. I can make you one of my own children. When he tells us that, he leaves this other witness that we can actually see so that we'll believe that He really is the one. And that's where faith is all about. Now, let's talk about faith for a minute.

24:17 But faith is not just believing a fact. Faith is trusting. Trusting. So someone says to you, Jesus can forgive your sins, but do you really believe that he can? Are you willing to trust him and say, Yes, Lord, I would like you to forgive my sin.

24:36 Are you willing to really trust him to do it? Well, that's the kind of faith that we're talking about here, the faith that really trusts him. So Peter goes on. Okay, we're in the seventeenth verse. Peter goes on and says, Now, brethren...

24:53 Now, remember, he's talking to these people who had been among those who had condemned the Lord Jesus to death. He says, Now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did your rulers. You didn't really understand the significance of what you're doing. But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all his prophets that the Christ should suffer, he is thus fulfilled. So by doing what they're doing, they were actually fulfilling the prophecies.

25:26 We're talking about the messianic prophecies that said ahead of time that Messiah would suffer. It would be like a lamb that would be sacrificed for them. And so the Lord Jesus was fulfilling that by dying. Now Peter makes the application. This is what they should do.

25:50 Repent, therefore, he said, and be converted that your sins may be blotted out. Repent therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out. Okay, so what is this repentance? Well, repentance, I think the word itself means like a change of mind. So the idea is that we're going through our lives, we're doing our thing.

26:22 We're doing our thing, not God's thing. And somewhere along the line in our lives, we we say, you know what? This isn't working. This isn't working. I can't go on this way anymore.

26:38 This isn't working. And so we turn around and we turn away from our way and we say, I'm going to go God's way. I'm going through my life. I'm just doing my thing. And I decide, you know what?

26:51 This isn't working. And then we say, okay, I'm going to turn and I'm gonna go God's way. And that's repentance. That's a change in life. And that's why it says, Repent and be converted.

27:07 There's a change involved here. You're really inwardly changed. And then there's another thing about it too. It says that your sins may be blotted out. Sins blotted out.

27:21 It's like like sin is like a a stain. And and how are you gonna remove the stain of sin? Sins blotted out means sins removed, is the idea of it. And that is sins forgiven, sins forgiven. And that's like when the Lord Jesus said to that man, Man, your son, your sins are forgiven you.

27:48 Your sins are forgiven you. And so when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and we trust in Him, He can do that very... He will do that very thing. He will forgive our sins. And so that's what he's offered, and that's what's at stake is our sins.

28:52 And this is the prophecy that the Messiah would come, this great Messiah. And it was an expectation that the Jewish people had that Messiah would come. God had promised this. And it says, All the prophets prophesied. You know, I had gotten really interested in these about the time COVID started.

29:19 I got really interested and I decided I was going to try to myself personally dig out those messianic prophecies and really look at them. And so I spent the better part of a year reading through the Old Testament carefully, trying to find cross references in the New Testament where the things were actually fulfilled. And before I was done, found 104 definite prophecies, messianic prophecies. Thought I was rather stagnant. I was really impressed by the scope of it.

29:54 It's like all the way from his ancestry to his birth to even naming places that he would be. And I think I found something like 16 or 18 references that just had to do with this crucifixion. It's really an impressive witness that have that's been given to us in the Old Testament. Okay, so now, Peter's talking here. So he says, And Moses said to the fathers...

30:27 Okay, so this is one of the messianic prophecies, okay? So Moses said to the fathers, The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me, like Moses, from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things whatever he says to you. And it shall be that every soul that will not hear that prophet will be utterly destroyed from among the people. Now, that prophecy is in Deuteronomy 18.

30:56 And I'll just say that I was just this last month reading through the book of Deuteronomy and I ran across this very prophecy in Deuteronomy. We'll turn to it for a second. Deuteronomy 18. Deuteronomy 18. I'm going to read from verse 15.

31:18 Now, this is Moses is actually speaking to the children of Israel at this moment. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear according to all that you desired of the Lord in Horeb in the day of the assembly saying, 'Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore.' They said that was the time at Mount Sinai when the mountain was quaking and was like, almost like a volcano. And the Lord said to me, What you've spoken is good. And then, now, this is the Lord speaking to Moses.

32:03 The Lord said to me, I will raise up for them a prophet like you, like Moses, from among the brethren, and I will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak to them all that I command them. And it shall be that whoever will not hear my words which he speaks, I will require it of him. Now, I kind of puzzled a little bit over this. I said, I wonder how Jesus was like Moses. What kind of comparison?

32:59 And when you read it in the new King James, think it says it says that Moses was the most humble man on the face of the earth. Humble, meek, same sort of a thought. Moses, the humble one. And so then I thought, so, that's like Jesus, right? So I thought, you know, there's that verse in Matthew 11.

33:24 It goes something like this. Jesus says, Come unto me, all you that are weary and heavy laden. I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly at heart. Moses, Moses, come unto me, says Jesus, for I'm meek and lowly at heart.

33:48 I think we finally found someone that was meaker than Moses, I think. The Lord Jesus. Well, that's one example. You could find some others too, but I think I should go on. Okay, so we're at the twenty fourth verse of our chapter.

34:10 Yes, says Peter. And all the prophets from Samuel and those who followed, as many as I've spoken, have foretold these days. That's very sweeping, isn't it? You know, when I was into that particular study of the messianic prophecies, I was reading, actually I reading, I think there's a moody book on the messianic prophecies, a big volume. But I was reading in the introduction to it, the man was saying this, he says, You may look at the Old Testament as being a Messianic book.

34:50 That is its purpose. It's to direct us to this Messiah that's coming. And that's the great purpose of it. I thought, I like that. I said, I think that's pretty good.

35:03 And this would kind of support that idea. The twenty fifth verse. You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Now, that where God's... Or that promise that God made to Abraham, that's made in Genesis 22 verse 18.

35:33 There's several that are similar, but the best match is Genesis twenty-two 18. And the seed or the descendant of Abraham is said to be Christ in Galatians three. And so when God says this to Abraham, In you and in your seed, all the families of the earth shall be blessed, he's talking about the great Messiah, Jesus, who would come into this world and he would do something that would be a blessing to the whole world. And of course, we know what he did. He died for our sins.

36:16 He gave himself for our sins. And that's why we can even speak about it today, because Jesus was the seed, the person, the descendant of Abraham, who would bring blessing to the entire world. Now, I'm going to try to do this quickly. I have about four minutes here. So, in the fourth chapter, Now, they spoke to the as they spoke to the people, as Peter and John were giving this message, As they spoke to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, being greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.

37:04 By the way, just to understand the significance of that, the Sadducees were the ones that the Lord Jesus had warned his disciples about. He said, Beware of the doctrine or the teachings of the Sadducees. What were they? Well, number one, they totally didn't deny the resurrection. They totally denied the resurrection.

37:29 Number two, they didn't believe there's any such thing as an angel or a spirit. They didn't believe that at all. And so the Lord Jesus warned about them. Anyway, they come upon Peter and John. They lay hands on them, the third verse.

37:47 They put them in custody. And then they're brought back the following morning, they're brought out from jail, and they stand before the high priest and before the rulers. And these rulers, perhaps this high priest, says to them in the seventh verse, By what power or by what name have you done this? And I'm sure there was great disapproval in their voices when they asked this question. What's going on here?

38:30 By what power or what name have you done this? Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said, Rulers of the people and elders of Israel? If we this day are judged for a good deed done to this helpless man, I think, I kind of enjoyed this remark. I think that the very spirit of this remark is it's kind of throwing back on them. If they were sneering at him for what he had done, he's kind of throwing it back onto them.

39:00 You're examining us, you're giving us a hard time because we've done a good deed for someone that was helpless and made him well. That's what you're doing. You're giving us the what for doing a good thing. So Peter continues, Let it be known to you all and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man stands here before you. Not mincing any words, is he?

39:41 It's interesting because in a sense, these rulers had the power of life or death. And many were, no doubt, martyred, but this was God's time. They may have them under captivity, but God is gonna keep them safe. I suppose that the rulers were afraid of the multitudes. I think that was what kept them under control.

40:06 So Peter accuses them openly in public of crucifying the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he tells them, But this one whom you've crucified, he's the one whose name has the power to heal a man that's lame. And then Peter quotes another messianic prophecy. This one's from Psalm 118. And it goes like this.

40:43 So the Lord Jesus is looked as a foundational stone and that the builders, that would be these rulers and the high priests, the builders, they had rejected that stone. But that stone was the cornerstone. You can't reject the cornerstone. You gotta have the cornerstone. And so, that's what that prophecy is all about.

41:09 But I love the twelfth verse and I think that will be our conclusion on this message. The twelfth verse says, we're talking about Jesus Christ now, nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. The name of Jesus Christ. And the interesting thing about this is that, one of the interesting things about it is the exclusiveness of it. There's no other way, folks.

41:44 That's the only way we can be saved is through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, through trusting in Him as a person. Nor is there salvation in any other. There's no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. That exclusiveness is expressed in the last verse of John three that goes something like this. He that believes on the Son hath everlasting life.

42:12 He that does not believe in the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides upon him. It's important for us to realize that we need to be saved and that the Lord Jesus is the one that can provide salvation for us. We'll praise his holy name. We're going to pray now, and I'm just going to make an invitation for anybody that has never come to the Savior, that you would even, while we're praying here, that you could just whisper or even think a prayer and he'll know what you're saying. You can ask Him to be your Savior.

43:15 In Jesus name, amen.