TEXT: Acts 9:32-40

SUBJECT: Acts 10

Brothers and sisters in Christ,

Today, with the Lord's blessing, we'll procede in our study of Acts. The book features many great men--Peter and Paul, James and John, Stephen and Philip, and more. But the story Luke tells is not theirs; its the story of Jesus Christ. What He "Began to do and teach" in the Gospels, He continues in this Sacred Book.

In Chapter Eight and the first part of Nine, we see the Lord breaking out of Jerusalem and getting into "Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the world". He didn't do it physically, of course, but by His Spirit and in His people.

What an amazing story! On the Day of Pentecost, every saved person in the world, it seems, lived in one city. But now, just three years later, the Kingdom has come to the whole region. Within a hundred years, it would go as far west as Britain, as far east as India, and south into the heart of Africa. And all of this was done without the Sword of Muhammad and without the money of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Today's passage picks up the story and carries it a little further. Jesus Christ reaped a full harvest in Judea and Samaria. He planted a seed in Ethiopia which will provide a similar yield.

But now He comes back a little bit and renews His work in Israel. It's in the far west this time, three towns on the Mediterranean coast.

THE STORY

The story begins in Lydda. As far as we know, the Lord never set foot in that town. But now He's come in the Apostle Peter.

Why's Peter there? Oddly enough, it's not to preach the Gospel to sinners. He's come to visit the church. When he gets there he finds a man lying in bed paralyzed. The man's name is Aeneas and he's been that way for eight years.

Peter is moved by the man's plight and says to him,

Which the man promptly does. The paralytic is healed by Jesus Christ. The Man who raised crippled men in Person is doing the same thing from His Seat in glory.

A great miracle has been done. It results, not only in one man's cure, but in the conversion of two cities.

This was no new thing, of course. The miracles our Lord performed were designed to create faith in those who saw them. To a doubting Apostle He once said,

They testified to Him. Even the Pharisees knew that.

The healing at Lydda has a powerful effect on that town and the one next to it.

Then Peter comes to Joppa. The believers are very sad there because a dear sister had just died. Her name is Tabitha or Dorcas. The dear lady was

Her specialty was making clothes for the the poor. She did it so well, it seems, that her garments were laid out beside her.

Peter is called for and told the bad news. He goes into the upper room where the body is. And tells everyone to leave the room. They comply with his wishes.

Peter kneels down beside the dead body and prays. Then he issues a command,

Hearing the Word of Christ in Peter's voice the dead woman obeys and sits up. He then calls for the grieving women to come back in, and to them "he presented her alive".

Jesus Christ has raised the dead. What He did in Nain before and then in Bethany, He has now done in Joppa. He has once again proven Himself Lord of "Death, hell, and the grave".

The results are the same as before. One woman benefits greatly from the power and grace of Jesus Christ. But it's not only Tabitha who gets a blessing out of it, but others do too--

Peter leaves Tabitha and moves into the home of another friend in Joppa, named Simon the tanner.

From there, he'd be called to do his greatest work. But that's for another day.

THE MESSAGE

That's the story. What does it mean?

At first glance, it interrupts the flow of redemptive history. Jesus Christ is "Going forth conquering and the conquer". He took Jerusalem, then Judea, then Samaria, then the Ethiopian, then He saved Saul who would be a great missionary, and in the next chapter Peter would see Gentiles turn to Christ. There's a defininte flow. The story is moving rapidly one way.

But now it screeches to a halt and seems to go backward. Why are we coming back into Israel? Doing the same thing over again?

Well, we're not quite doing that. There's is something different about this passage that what we've read before. Has anybody noticed? Let me give you a hint. Although three cities were brought to Christ, did it occur to you that nowhere is the Gospel preached. When the crippled man was healed in Jerusalem, people ran together--and Peter preached to them. The same thing happened in Samaria with Philip. But here, it seems, the miracles do the preaching for Peter.

Thus far, Luke has emphasized the Gospel in Word. Thus we have sermons and defenses and personal witnessing, and private Bible studies.

But here, the Lord uses some other means to bring sinners to Himself. It is not contrary to the Word, of course, but it is different than the Word. What is it? It is Christian love. The miracles were of a special kind. They were works of Divine compassion--a paralyzed man was healed; a dead woman was raised. In these works, the love of Christ shines brightly.

Here's the punchline: Jesus Christ advances His cause in the world, not only by Gospel preaching, but also by Gospel living.

The heart of the Gospel is God's infinite love. Hinted at in the Law, it becomes crystal-clear in sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Many verses say this, of course. Some of the best known are John 3:16, I John 3:16, John 15:13, Romans 5:8, and John 13:1.

In Gospel preaching, we tell sinners that God is love and that He sacrificed His Son for them. That message cuts men to the heart and brings them to repentance and faith.

If that's Gospel preaching, what is Gospel living? It is showing this love by our actions.

Peter did this in a miraculous way, by healing Aeneas and raising Tabitha from the dead.

We shouldn't expect to do that. For even then, miracles were the exception and not the rule. Yet, without any supernatural powers, we can show our love to people in need. Maybe we can't raise a paralytic from his bed--but we can pay him an encouraging visit. Maybe we can't raise a dead body, but we can weep with those who lost a loved one. And help in other ways too.

These thing we can do! Through Christ. And in doing them the world sees--not our love--but the love of Jesus. And that still wins people to the Lord. In this age of cynical advertising and "spinning" the truth, there's still an argument no one can answer or ignore: It's the argument of Christian love.

That argument, seen in the life of Peter, won three cities to Christ. It will do the same thing today. If it's seen in our lives.

Let us therefore commit ourselves to caring for each other in such a way that the world must take notice. And say with the pagans of old,

Where the Gospel will not be listened to, it can still be seen. In your life and mine.

When the unsaved look at you what do they see? They ought to see the love of Christ--a living, breathing, walking presentation of the Gospel. Do they see that? Or, do they see a Pharisee? Talking up love day and night, they never see you do it.

May God make us "Doers of the Word and not just hearers". For Christ's sake. Amen.