Acts 9:34

THE MESSAGE TO ÆNEAS

‘And Peter said unto him, Æneas, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole.’

Acts 9:34

The four Gospels tell us what Christ did up to His Ascension (Acts 1:1). The Acts of the Apostles carries on the story. It tells what Jesus did—by the Holy Ghost—through his disciples, after He ascended to heaven. St. Peter pointed Æneas to Christ as the Source of all healing (cf. Acts 3:6).

I. It is through His Cross the healing comes.—In our solemn Litany we beseech Him by the memory of His Cross and Passion to deliver us.

II. He knows the human heart.—He can put His hand just to the place where the pain is sorest (Psalms 139:1; John 2:24).

III. He possesses not knowledge only but sympathy (Hebrews 4:15).

Illustration

‘ “Curse God and die,” said the wife of Job, who was the Lady Macbeth of the Old Testament. That is certainly an extreme case, but the world can never give a peace it does not possess. At the death of his mother the late Professor Huxley wrote to his sister: “My dearest sister,—I offer you no consolation, for I know of none. There are things which each must bear as best he may with the strength that has been allotted to him.” In fact, all the philosophers of the world, from Plato to Herbert Spencer, can do nothing for us in the hour of our deepest need when the towers fall.’