Acts 3:6

Acts 3:6

I. Man is, by nature, morally crippled and helpless; a beggar, a bondman, carried about at another's will. Great bodily infirmities are the shadows of the sins and weaknesses of the soul. What a cripple is among men, a sinner is before the angels and pure spirits on high. All sin works by privation. It shuts up senses and organs which God meant to be inlets of joy and channels of life.

II. There is a Name which can make us whole again, sound, glad, and free. Your soul wants precisely what that poor cripple's body wanted, power to stand, to walk, to leap, and to utter forth the praises of God. And that power is in Christ, and in Christ alone. Light to the blind, strength to the impotent, life to the dead is He. The more you think of it earnestly, the more you will find that life is just what you need. A man whose system is worn out can be patched up for a while by the physicians, but a new gush of life into it is what it needs. Give it that, or you patch and prop in vain. This is what Christ can truly do for your soul. I am not speaking now of the solace of His compassion, of the joy of His communion, of the sweetness of His love, of the glory of the hope which He inspires. I sum it all up when I say, "In Him is life." That life, God's life, He can give to man, He will give to you. It will be a power in the end, all-mastering, all-ruling, a power unto salvation.

III. This is the time to believe on that Name, and to rise up and walk. Does God care for wrecks? Let that poor cripple answer. Let the Lord's works of mercy answer. They were mostly fragments, broken fragments of humanity that He gathered; they were mostly wrecks that He saved. Publicans, harlots, thieves, prodigals, whatever the world flung out as worthless, He gathered. Such life is in Him, such power of quickening and re-creating souls, that wretched ones, whom Scribes and Pharisees cast out from the decent fellowships of earth, shall be reigning among the angels, white-robed, palm-crowned, through eternity. Lay hold on Christ and the Lord will lift you; you will stand up as a man, and look your tempters and tyrants in the face; you will find strength to defy them, and to win at first, at any rate, an easy victory. You will go forth to the old drudgery with a new and wonderful joy.

J. Baldwin Brown, Christian World Pulpit,Oct. 18th, 1876, p. 248.

Note:

I. The lame man. It is a fact that almost all the alms of the world are administered at the gate of the Temple. Almost all the charitable institutions of the world are dependent for their moral and pecuniary support; and almost all the benevolent movements of society are dependent for their success, on them that go up to the Temple at the hour of prayer. When money is needed to assuage the world's grief, to relieve the world's distress, men go straight to the gate of the Temple to beg. Christianity is founded not so much in the powers as in the needs of the race.

II. The cure of the lame man. The man sought alms but the Apostles gave him what was better; they gave him health. Health without money is infinitely better than money without health. Moreover, by endowing him with health, they were conferring on him the ability to earn money; by imparting the greater they were also giving the lesser. In this the miracle was a sign, and typifies to us the Divine method of saving the world. The Gospel does not aim directly at improving men's circumstances, it aims at improving men themselves. But no sooner does it bring about a moral improvement in the men, than the men bring about a noticeable improvement in their surroundings. The Gospel converts the man, the man converts the house. Men need better houses and purer air, and more wholesome water; but the great want of men is life more life; and Jesus Christ came that they might have life, and have it more abundantly. Utilitarianism doesmen good, Christianity makesthem good.

J. Cynddylan Jones, Studies in the Acts,p. 52.

Look:

I. At that which Peter had not, "Silver and gold have I none." The question as to whether the Church's power is increased by worldly possessions is one of the very last importance. It was an essential condition of the prevalence of the Gospel that men should be holy, and if they were determined to cling to their sins it was a necessary consequence that the only way to peace should lie through contention. So, though it be the future of the Church to inherit the glory of the Gentiles, it is an essential condition of her power that she shall abandon all selfishness and covetousness, and if men will cling to selfishness and covetousness, then the only way to power is by stripping herself of her earthly possessions. God only knows whether that be necessary for the Church. Now, if ever, we must gird up our loins and trim our lamps, taking up the pilgrim's staff and scallop-shell, seeking upon the hard rough sands of the world's desert the way to the heavenly Jerusalem.

II. Notice next the positive aspect of the text. (1) The completeness of the miracle. The Apostle did but speak, and straightway by the Almighty power of God it was as if an electric shock had passed through him the impotent man could leap and walk. And so it is in the conversion of the soul. "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation." (2) The name and means by which the miracle was wrought. "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." There is the explanation of all; there is the explanation of the miracle; there is the secret spell of Apostolic power. Just at the time when His people are passing through gloom and sorrow, the highest heavenly power is wielded with a tenderest human pity, so that when we come in our weakness, our sin, our loneliness, and look up to heaven, we see not the naked blinding glory of the Deity, but the face of the High Priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities bending over us in pity and love.

Bishop Moorhouse, Penny Pulpit,No. 407.

References: Acts 3:6. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. i., p. 189; Christian World Pulpit,vol. vi., p. 3.Acts 3:6. G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons,p. 60. Acts 3:7. New Outlines on the New Testament,p. 81.