Oh, how we long for these days
to be over soon. Be able to. I guess our governor
is going to make an announcement this week about. Relieving some
of the. Restrictions we are social distancing
here and we're being very careful wiping everything down and. Hopefully, we'll be able to get
back together soon. Tom's going to come lead us in
number 37 in your hymnal. Oh, Lord, my God, when I, in
awesome wonder, consider all the worlds our hands have made.
That's how we come, don't we? We're just in wonder. of his
glory, of his grace, and of his power. Let's stand together. Tom, you come, please. Number
37. O Lord my God, when I in awesome
wonder Consider all the works Thy hands have made, I see the
stars, I hear the rolling thunder, Thy power throughout the universe
displayed Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee How great
Thou art! How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee How great Thou art! How great Thou art! When through the woods and forest
glades I wander and hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees,
when I look down From lofty mountain grandeur, And hear the brook,
And feel the gentle breeze, Then sings my soul, My Savior God,
to Thee, How great Thou art! How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee How great Thou art! How great Thou art! And when I think That God, His
Son not sparing, Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in. That on the cross, My burden
gladly bearing, He bled and died to take away my sin. Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee, How great Thou art! How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee, How great Thou art! How great Thou art! When Christ shall come with shout
of acclamation, and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart. Then I shall bow in humble adoration
and there proclaim, my God, how great Thou art. Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee, How great thou art. How great thou art. Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to thee. How great thou art. How great thou art. Please be seated. So thankful the Lord has always
provided for his people, how faithful he is. Would you please
turn and the Lord's call to worship to Matthew chapter five. Matthew
chapter five, and we will start at verse 38. The Lord Jesus Christ is saying here,
he said, ye have heard. that it hath been said, an eye
for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you, I like that. That's what we've come, we wanna
hear what the Lord has to say. That you resist not evil, but
whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, torture him
the other also. And if any man will sue thee
at the law and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak
also. And whosoever shall compel thee
to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee,
and from him that would borrow thee, turn not thou away. You've heard, he says this again,
you have heard that it has been said thou shall love thy neighbor
and hate thy enemies. But I say unto you, love your
enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate
you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute
you, that ye may be the children of your father which is in heaven.
For he maketh his son to rise on the evil and on the good,
and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you
love them which love you, What reward have ye? Do not even the
publiclents the same. That's interesting. That's no
big deal. The worship of Satan, they love
one another. And if you salute your brethren
only, what do you more than others? Do not even the publiclents so. And then verse 48, be ye therefore
perfect. That is God's standard, absolute
perfection. Even as your father, which is
in heaven, is perfect. I confess to you, I think for
all of us, Lord, you've commanded me to love my enemies. That's
not natural for me. I can say that I don't want to
do that. That's not me. And the only way
that I can obey God's command is in Christ. Lord, you're going
to have to enable me to do this. I don't have the power. I don't
have the ability and truthfully, I don't have the desire. But
Lord, would you enable me to obey you and love them? That's the gospel. God's commanded
what we cannot do, perfection. And the only hope I have is that
I have a substitute who is perfect on my behalf. And I have no power. Brother, you said no power. I
don't even have, I thought about, I don't have the power to cover
just one single sin, let alone, my sins are like the grains of
sand. Lord, I'm dependent on you for life and everything,
and I pray that the Lord, if we have thoughts, and we all
do, of our own self-rights, that he would crush that rebellion
in us, crush it. We ask the Lord that he would
enable us to pray today. Lord, we've come here today,
we've gathered. Lord, we plead with you to speak
to us And so we desire to hear what you have to say. And Lord,
we ask your blessing upon your servant, brother Greg, and your
other gospel preachers today, that you would enable them to
speak clearly and concisely what you put in their heart. And the
words they speak may be from you and that we will hear them
as you speak them. And as your people, we pray,
oh Lord, that you would enable us, give us the faith to hear
what is said and the faith to believe what is said, and that
you would enable us to give you all the glory and all the praise. And Lord, that you would humble
us, cause us to see that salvation is all of the Lord, and we can
do nothing for ourselves. And we plead with you, Lord,
because we know you alone are able to save. We pray for those
who gather with us who remain strangers to your grace. Plead with you for their souls
that you might be pleased and willing to open their eyes and
cause them to rest in you. We ask these things for your
glory. We'll sing the hymn that's on
the back of the bulletin. If you need a bulletin, I think
there's still some copies on the back table back there. Let's
all stand. Before the throne of God above, I have a strong, a perfect plea. A great high priest, whose name
is love, who ever lives and pleads for me. My name is graven on his hands. My name is written on his heart. I know that while in heaven he me to depart. Because the sinless Savior died,
my sinful soul is counted free. For God the just is satisfied
To look on him and pardon me One with himself I cannot die
My soul is purchased with His blood. My life is hid with Christ
on high, with Christ my Savior and my God. Please be seated. Caleb is going
to bring special music down. If you'd like to look at Psalm
119 verses 33 through 40, Psalm 119, verse 33. He says, Teach me, O Lord, the
way of thy statutes, and I shall keep it unto the end. Give me
understanding, and I shall keep thy law. Yea, I shall observe
it with my whole heart. Make me to go in the path of
thy commandments, for therein do I delight. Incline my heart
unto thy testimonies and not to covetousness. Turn away mine
eyes from beholding vanity and quicken thou me in thy way. Establish thy word unto thy servant,
who is devoted to thy fear. Turn away my reproach, which
I fear, for thy judgments are good. Behold, I have longed after
thy precepts. quicken me in thy righteousness. Teach me, O Lord, the way of
thy statutes. And I shall keep it unto the
end. Give me understanding, and I
shall keep thy law. Yea, I shall observe it. With my whole heart, make me
to go in the path of thy commandments. For therein do I delight. Incline my heart. unto thy testimonies, and not
to covetousness. Turn away mine eyes from beholding
vanity, and quicken thou me in thy way. Establish thy word unto thy servant, who is devoted to thy fear. Turn away my reproach, which
I fear for thy Judgments are good. Behold, I have longed after thy
precepts. Quicken me in thy righteousness. How's the blessing Caleb? Thank
you so much. You can do that. Any Sunday? Will you open your Bibles with
me to acts? Chapter 3 acts chapter 3. I've titled this message crippled
at the gate. Crippled. At the gate. I want to introduce this message
by making it absolutely clear that if we have any hope of acceptance
before God, it will be only for Christ's sake. We have nothing to bring. Not
the sincerity of our sorrow. not the depth of our commitment,
not the strength or the size of our faith. We have no claim
on God. There is one reason and one reason
only that we can plead the forgiveness of our sin and the salvation
of our souls. And that is the shed blood and
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our only hope,
and he is the only ground on which we are able to stand. But what hope he is, and what
ground he provides, he is the rock of ages on which we stand. Peter and John are preaching Christ as we are
called to do today. Now, this is the first miracle
that is recorded after Pentecost. And I would only pause to say
that though the scriptures make it clear in Acts chapter two,
verse 22, that the Lord Jesus Christ himself was approved of
God by miracles and signs and wonders, which went unheeded
and unbelieved by men. And though in verse 43 of chapter
two of Acts, Fear came upon every soul and
many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. There could
be no doubt that these miracles were real, that they were performed
in the power of God, nevertheless, We are not to look for physical
miracles for the proof of the gospel. We have the testimony
of God's word. We are rather to understand these
physical miracles given to us in the scriptures as types of
a much, much, much greater miracle Is God still doing these signs
and wonders today? Oh, what he's doing in the hearts
of his people, illustrated by these physical miracles, is much
greater, much greater than any of the miracles that we read
of in the scriptures. My hope this morning is that
the Lord will give us hearts to believe on
Christ and that the greatest miracle of all, which is the
miracle of salvation will be experienced by each one of us. And we will see ourselves like
this certain lame man who was standing at the temple gate. Now the temple in this miracle
represents heaven. That's what it represents. This
man could not get into heaven. He could not enter in to worship
with God. And though he sat at the very
gate, No question about what that gate is. The Lord Jesus
Christ made it clear that he is the gate into heaven. When that new Jerusalem is seen
in the book of Revelation coming down from heaven, it had 12 gates,
all of one pearl. The Lord Jesus himself is the
pearl of great price. If we're going to enter into
glory, into fellowship with God, it will be in and through Christ. This lame man, lame from birth,
clearly represents all of humanity. And yet the fact that the apostles
took him and gave him The blessing of the gospel illustrates what
God does for his elect out of humanity, giving to them eternal
life. The silver and gold that Peter
and John said they have none of represents all the temporal
things of this world and everything that silver and gold can buy. The one thing that silver and
gold cannot buy is the salvation of our souls. That's the story here. Oh, the miracle of grace in the
heart of a sinner is so much more glorious than seeing a man
who's been 40 years completely atrophied in his legs and ankles,
immediately standing up and jumping and praising God and running
around and going into the temple. I'd lot rather God do a work
of grace in my heart and in your heart than to see something like
that. Notice in our text in Acts chapter
three, This is our prayer, crippled
at the gate. Lord, perform this miracle for
me today. Peter and John went up together
into the temple at the hour of prayer being the ninth hour. Now the Jewish reckoning of time
started at sunrise, which would be around 6 o'clock in the morning,
and the ninth hour would have been at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. What is the significance of the
ninth hour? Well, we know what happened on
the ninth hour. At the sixth hour, the sky was
darkened. A great God covered the earth
with a great blackness, a veil, so that no man could see another.
And the Lord Jesus Christ hung on Calvary's cross from the sixth
hour to the ninth hour and precisely at the moment of the evening
sacrifice. That happened at three o'clock
according to the Levitical law. The sacrifice was made at three
o'clock in the afternoon. It's called the evening sacrifice. And at the precise moment that
the priest was making the evening sacrifice in the tabernacle,
the sacrifice of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, bearing the sins
of his people, bowed his mighty head on the ninth hour and cried,
it is finished father into thy hands I commend my spirit and
the priest in the temple as they were making sacrifices were amazed
that the veil was rent at that very moment from the top to the
bottom you and I stand at heaven's gate and the only way that we're going
to be able to enter in is based on what happened the ninth hour. The ninth hour was the moment
when all of God's people were saved. You don't hear believers
talking about when they got saved. They got saved 2000 years ago
when the Lord Jesus Christ offered himself as their sacrifice to
the father and satisfied the demands of God's holy law and
justice. The scripture speaks of our,
of our new birth as a new birth. It speaks of it as a calling,
but our salvation is already established. The only hope that
you and I will be able to enter into the glory of God is based
on something that happened 2,000 years ago, the ninth hour. The
ninth hour. The evening sacrifice. The hour of prayer as the scripture
refers to it. Everything pertaining to time
and to eternity happened at the ninth hour. May God give us the faith to
look back to what was accomplished 2,000 years ago during the moment
of that evening sacrifice, three o'clock in the afternoon, the
very moment that Peter and John encounter this man, the very
moment where he is given the picture of salvation by his physical
healing, might the Lord strengthen our ankles. Might the Lord take
these cripples and enable them to stand and to leap. And if
he shows us what Christ, if he shows his people the power of
his works, if he shows us what the Lord Jesus Christ actually
accomplished on the ninth hour, and gives us faith to rest all
our hope in him, then like this cripple, we'll be able to leap
and rejoice and enter in through the gate called beautiful. You notice it's the gate called
beautiful. Now notice in verse 2, the scripture
refers to him as it often does a certain man. A certain man. Now, we use that
word certain in two senses. We use it to refer to something
in particular. A certain individual or a certain
place. That's a particular place. We
also use it to represent something that's sure. It is certain. It is certain that it's going
to happen. And when the scripture says a certain man, both things
are meant. Both things are meant. This is
one of God's particular elect one that God chose according
to his will and purpose before the foundation of the world.
And it was certain. It was certain that the ones
whom God chose. will meet Christ and will be
given strength and will believe the gospel and will enter into
the gate called beautiful to the inheritance prepared for
them from the foundation of the world. What hope, what glory. That's the picture here. We're
not looking for a physical miracle. We're looking for a miracle much
greater than that. Physical miracles can be deceiving,
can't they? There's a bunch of charlatans
that are pretending to perform physical miracles. Can you imagine
if a person was actually, we're not talking
about the fake miracles that are performed in these religious
ceremonies. We're talking about real bonafide
miracles of people who were crippled all their lives. Something like
this happening in our day. Can you imagine the millions
of people that would flog to that person? I mean, you couldn't
stop them. You couldn't stop them, could
you? I mean, they fill up a whole stadium for somebody that's obviously
a fake. If a guy was really doing it,
The whole world would be turning to them, would they not? And yet, God is performing a
miracle so much greater than that, that few have any interest
in. Now if that's not a testimony
to the depravity of man, if that's not a testimony to man's lack
of interest for the salvation of his soul. All he's looking
for is silver and gold, something to enrich his life, and he's
not concerned for the most important miracle that God's performing,
the greatest miracle that God's performing, the salvation of a sinner. Notice that he was lame from
his mother's womb. He was born this way. This guy,
this man's never stood on his feet. He's got feet, got legs,
got ankles. But for 40 years, he's been carried
around. There's no strength in them.
You can just see them. They're withered away to nothing. If he, if he wanted to stand,
he couldn't, he couldn't. And he was this way from birth. Now that's my problem. And that's
your problem. The world looks at the sin problem
as certain behavioral. Problems don't think well, you
know if I could just quit doing this and start doing that then
I won't have a sin problem anymore. No Now we commit sins because
we are sinners and we are sinners because of our birth David said
behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive
me we're born sinners and We commit acts of sin because
we're sinners. We don't become sinners because
we commit acts of sin. We come forth from the womb. The scripture says, speaking
lies and drinking iniquity like water. That's our problem, isn't
it? It's our sin nature. We're just
like this man. wasn't a result of an accident.
It wasn't a result of some irresponsible behavior on his part. It was
the result of his birth. That's our problem. That's our
problem. And until God is pleased to make
us to have no power and cause us to be sinners and cause us
to realize, Lord, everything about me is sinful. Everything about me falls short
of your glory. Lord, I have no righteousness
whatsoever. Then we may turn to God or to
our imagination of God for help with a particular sin. Everybody,
a lot of people do that. Their self-destructive behavior
becomes so painful that they cry out to God to deliver them
from a particular bad pattern of behavior. That's not repentance. Repentance is when God causes
me to see the reason I do what I do is because I am what I am.
Or my problem is not there. My problem's here. You know,
you talk to people, I just need to get away from everybody and
move out in the woods and, you know, lock myself up in a closet
and isolate myself from the world. And people have tried that for
the history of mankind. You know, you have monasteries
and you have this group and that group that, you know, separate
themselves from the world thinking they're gonna live a holy life.
What do they do? They just took their problem
with them. You lock yourself up in a closet, you've got your
worst problem right there in the closet with you. That's the issue. We're born this way. We're born
this way. You say, well, I don't feel it. It's true. God said it. Truth is that you and I are never
going to feel the full burden of our sin. We couldn't bear
it. We could not bear it. You say,
well, I need to experience the sorrow and the repentance and
the burden of my sin in order for me to be able to come to
God in repentance. No, you come to God in faith. You just believe
what God says. Because you're not going to experience
it. You don't want to experience it. The Lord Jesus Christ is
the only man who ever experienced the full weight and burden of
sin. And it cut him off from God. Say, well, I, how do I just believe
God? All have sinned and fallen short
of the glory of God. Everything about you and everything
about me falls short of His glory and God says it is sin. And God
says man at his very best state is altogether vanity. Empty of
any righteousness, devoid of any ability. You say, what do
we do? We just believe God. Now this
man, this man didn't know anything other than his experience. I'm
sure he probably didn't think about it much. That was all he
ever knew. All he ever knew. He didn't really
understand the condition of his crippledness until he was made
whole. You show me a sinner. And I'll
show you a saint. God ain't never made someone
a sinner without saving them ever. You show me a person who believes
what God says about their sinful nature. And I'll show you a believer,
a believer in the Lord, Jesus Christ. This man had no control over
his circumstances. He couldn't even get to the gate
by himself. They had to be taken. Isn't that the way it is with
us? Lord, I didn't just decide one day I was going to go to
church. Lord, you sent somebody to invite me. You brought me
there. You, you worked it out to where I could be there. Lord,
I didn't, I didn't figure this out and work this out. By nature, we don't know God.
We can't know God. The wicked are estranged from
the womb and they go about speaking lies. You talk to anybody in the world
and you will find out that there are four views of the nature
of man. The first and probably I think
the most popular in the world is evolution. Okay? that man is getting better and
just let the law of the survival of the fittest and natural selection
run its course and man will get better and he'll get smarter
and stronger. You know what amazes me? Most
of the people that we listen to right now, the talking heads
on TV, You know, I see the Pope even recognized evolution as
a fact recently. And most people believe that.
Well listen, the coronavirus fits perfectly
into the theory of evolution. It's natural selection. It's
survival of the fittest. It's the killing off the weak
and the old and the infirm so that we can strengthen the genes
of the race. You don't hear anybody talking
about it like that, do you? But it perfectly fits their theory. If evolution is true and man
doesn't need a savior, He just needs a little bit more time. The second view is that men are
born neutral. They're just a blank slate when
they come into the world. And what they end up being is
the result of their circumstances, their education, their upbringing,
their examples. And if that be the case, then
men don't need a savior. They just need a good teacher.
They need a good example. They need good circumstance.
They need more education. The third view of the nature
of man is that men are born sinful, but their sin problem is not
so bad as to completely eradicate and destroy their free will.
They have a sin problem, but they have the ability in and
of themselves to rectify that problem by making the right decision. And in that case, men don't need
a savior, they need a persuader. They need someone to just convince
them to make the right decision and pray the right prayer and
do the right thing and they can be saved. Now those are the three views
that men have of themselves. And none of them are true. The truth is that you and I were
born spiritually dead. dead. No interest in God, no love for
God, no desire for God, no ability to come into the presence of
God. And except you be born of the Spirit, you cannot enter
into the kingdom of God. Except the Lord have mercy upon
you. Except the Lord give you ears
to hear. Except the Lord give you a heart to believe. Except
the Lord call you by his grace, you can't, you can't know God. Salvations of the Lord, isn't
it? This is the miracle we're hoping
for, isn't it? Not to see a man who's lame from
birth immediately jump up and walk. This man was unconscious. of his need to be healed. He
was, he was asking for alms. He didn't think that was even
a possibility. I'm sure he had discounted that as a child at
40 years. He'd been going to, somebody
has been carrying him to the gate called beautiful every day.
And he's been asking for alms. And Peter and John said, look
on us and looking beholding Peter and John thinking that he was
going to get some silver and gold. As far as he was concerned, his
need was to get enough money to support him and his physical
needs for another day. He had no thought of being healed. And we don't become conscious
of our need to be saved until we're saved. Now that's glorious. That's glorious. If you have a conscious need
to be saved and a desire to be saved, it's because the Lord
saved you. Where do we find him? We find
him at the gate. Look, now Peter and John went
up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, being the
ninth hour, and a certain man lame from his mother's womb was
carried. He didn't even have the ability
to get there. Somebody had to carry him there.
If you ever get to where the gospel is, your confession will
be, you know what? Somebody brought me here. God
brought me here. I didn't just wake up one day
and decide I needed to be saved and go hear the gospel. The Lord
put me in the place where the gospel could be heard. He brought
me to the gate called Beautiful, whom they laid daily. This was
a daily problem he had. It never went away. And that's
our sin problem, isn't it? Daily at the temple, which is
called beautiful to ask alms of them that entered into the
temple. Now, just as these physical miracles
are but types of the much greater miracle of salvation that God
is still doing. The greater miracle that we desire
more than to see any of these miracles. So it is that the Lord
is still performing these miracles through the apostles and the
prophets. That's right. I'm talking about biblical apostles
and prophets, not those who call themselves apostles and prophets
today. These are the men who were filled with the Spirit of
God and used of God to pin the scriptures so that the Bible
says that the church is built upon the foundation of the apostles
and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
So the apostles and prophets are still performing miracles. The miracle of salvation is still
being performed through the ministry of the apostles and prophets.
Of his own will begat he us by his word, of his word, with
his word. Lord, give us ears to hear. what
the apostles and prophets said. They did not speak by private
interpretation. They were holy men moved by the
Holy Spirit to write the Word of God. Brethren, you and I have
the Word of God. Let the world listen to the wisdom
of Confucius or Buddha or Joseph Smith or the politicians or the
philosophers What do they have? They have the words of men. We've
got the word of God. This is the word of God. Thus saith the Lord. The whole
counsel of God. And let me say this. Good communication, and I'm obviously
not a good communicator because it's hard for me to condense
my thoughts into few words, but good communication is done with
the fewest of words. Okay? All eternity will not be
sufficient to communicate to us the fullness of the glory
and grace of our God. And yet, for now, The Holy Spirit
has condensed everything that you and I need to know about
God in 66 books. The full counsel of God's word.
This is everything we need. Is this everything there is to
know about God? It's everything we need to know about God. Eternity
will not be sufficient to declare the fullness of his glory. Now
what am I saying? For a man or for a religious
organization to write a creed or a confession of faith is to
say we can condense God's message in fewer words than the Holy
Spirit is able to do. How blasphemous is that? Those who have creeds and confessions, not only are they blaspheming
the Holy Spirit, but they use their creeds and their confessions
to stand in judgment of the Word of God. They interpret the Word
of God by the words of men. Might God give us the grace to
preach the whole counsel of God's Word and to settle all controversies
with what sayeth the Scriptures? What does the scripture say about
it? That's all the thing. I don't care what Dr. Sounding Brass
had to say about it. What does God say about it? I've
got God's word here. What's he say about it? We've
got the full counsel of God's word. No, they interpret the Bible
by their creeds. And they stand in judgment over
God's word. Paul spoke of the Bereans being
more noble than those who were at Thessalonia because they received
the word with gladness and they searched the scriptures to see
if the things that he said were true. They didn't search their
creed. They didn't search their confession.
They searched the scriptures. Peter and John here in performing
this miracle represent all the apostles and prophets that are
still performing the miracle of salvation through the Word
of God in the hearts of God's people. This is not the Word of a man.
We've got over 40 penmen. writing these books, 66 books
written over 1,500 years by 40 different penmen, and they're
all being moved by the Spirit of God to declare one message,
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Believe God, that's all I'm trying
to say. Just believe. You've got God's word. You can't
understand it all. You can't experience it all.
You can't feel it all. You can't relate to it. God doesn't
command us to do. He says, believe. Believe. If you don't believe God, then you're
believing somebody else. Oh, what a beautiful gate we
have here. The Lord Jesus Christ is represented by this beautiful
gate, isn't he? Or this beautiful gate represents
him. He's the he's the pearl of great price. He's the he's
the gateway into the sheepfold. And how beautiful he is. The
beauty of his righteousness, the beauty of his work. Behold, what manner of man is
this? What a glorious man he is. Now, quickly turn with me back to
Acts chapter 3. And when Peter and John, verse
3, about to go into the temple,
who's seen Peter and John about to go into the temple? ask an
alms. That's all he did every day.
Sat at the beautiful, got people going into worship at their,
at their most vulnerable, um, uh, most, most giving moment.
They would throw him a few coins and I'm sure he was probably
doing well. You understand some of these guys that stand on the,
uh, stand on the off ramp can make up to $300 a day standing
there just, you know, begging for dollar bills. Uh, probably
doing pretty well for himself and thinking, okay, here's a
couple of guys. Let me get some more arms. Let me get some more
arms. And Peter fastening his eyes
upon him. If the point is that he wasn't
interested in the salvation of his soul. He wasn't even interested
in being healed. He just wanted a little bit more
money to make his life a little bit better in this world. Peter
fastened his eyes upon him with John said, look on us. Now these
men are representing the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what
the Lord Jesus Christ says to cripples at the gate. Look at
me, look at me, fix your eyes upon me, look and you shall live. And he gave heed unto them. expecting
to receive something of them. Then Peter said, silver and gold
have I none, but such as I have give I thee in the name of Jesus
of Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And he took him. Now you can look up that word
took. It means to arrest. Peter reached down and took him
by the hand. and lifted him up and he was
given strength. Oh Lord, take me, arrest me,
do for me what you did for Saul of Tarsus. Knock me off my high
horse. Cause me Lord to acknowledge
my dependence upon Christ for everything. Give me faith to
believe everything you've said. Lord, silver and gold, have I
none? You know what the religion of
this world is all about? It's all about silver and gold.
I'm not talking about building bigger buildings and, you know,
fattening the purses of false prophets. I'm talking about the
message that's being declared to men. Come to God, believe
on God, make a decision for God, and your life will be better.
You'll have a better marriage. You'll have peace. You'll have
prosperity. You'll have health, wealth. You'll
be able to raise your children better. And it's all an appeal
to the flesh. Silver and gold will give to
you. What did Peter say? Silver and
gold. Have we none? We don't have any
silver and gold. We're not here to make your life
better. I thought about Saul of Tarsus.
Scripture says he had the highest degrees that could be achieved
in his day, having sat at the feet of Gamaliel. He was a member
of the 70-member Sanhedrin, a Pharisee of Pharisees. Concerning the
law, he was blameless, and concerning his peers, he had achieved rank
above them all." I happen to think, it's an opinion,
I hate, I shouldn't even say this, but that he was the rich
young ruler, okay? Perhaps he was. Either way, he
had prospered in this world and achieved positions of power and
comfort and wealth and authority beyond what could be imagined.
And what happens after his experience in Acts chapter 9 on the road
to Damascus? They try to kill him in Damascus.
He came out of Justin's house and went to the temple and started
preaching and they had to get him out of Damascus before they
killed him. And the rest of his life, the
rest of his life, he's beaten, he's left for dead, he's martyred,
he's hungry and cold, he doesn't have anything. Now what benefit
did the gospel do him? as far as his earthly comforts
were concerned. Truth is, you believe on Christ,
it may cost you your marriage. It may cost you your job. It
may, it probably will cost you some friends. This I, silver and gold have
I none. We're not offering men silver
and gold. We're taking them by the hand. And we're saying to them. In
the name of Jesus. Of Nazareth. And in his name
and by his authority and by his grace and by his strength, rise
up and walk. For the salvation of your soul.
Is infinitely more important than anything this world has
to offer you. May God be pleased to perform
such a miracle in our hearts today. Let's pray. Our merciful
Heavenly Father, thank you for your word. We pray for your Holy
Spirit. To do a work of grace in our
hearts, causing us to believe all that you've said. For we
ask it in Christ name. Amen. For the top. Number 268 let's stand together
268. how firm a foundation ye saints
of the Lord is laid for your faith in his excellent word what
more can he say than to you To you who for refuge to Jesus
have fled. Fear not, I am with thee, O be
not dismayed. For I am thy God, I will still
give thee aid. and cause thee to stand, upheld
by my gracious, omnipotent hand. When through the deep waters
I call thee to go, the rivers of woe shall not overflow, for
I will be with thee thy troubles to bless and sanctify to thee
thy deepest distress. When through fiery trials thy
pathway shall lie, My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy
supply. The flame shall not hurt thee,
I only design Thy draughts to consume and thy gold to refine. The soul that on Jesus hath leaned
for repose, I will, not I will, not desert to his foes. That soul, though all hell should
endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never, no never forsake