Listening to all those songs,
I thought, well, we are a needy lot, aren't we? We are a needy lot. There's not
a time ever that we are without need. I need the air that I breathe. There's one fool, there's one
fool who says, so thou hast much good laid up I'm going to go
build bigger barns and put them in. They say, oh, you haven't
eaten. God says, you fool. You don't even know your needs.
I tell you, it's a blessing. It's a real blessing. Even though
it may be a heartache at times, it's a real blessing for God
to make us know how much we need him. I mean, every second. You realize all that God provides
for every day, all the needs that God takes care of every
day. I'm talking about the animals,
the plants, the fish in the sea, the father air, the human race,
the angelic world, everything. He takes care of it minutely
every day. Well, that's not really on my
subject, but I couldn't help thinking that when we were singing
those songs. I thought, my, we're a needy people. But this, it
does fit. The title of this message is,
Jesus Christ, Make Thee Whole. The Lord Jesus Christ, he's the
one. If you and I are going to be
made whole before God, if we're going to stand before God, accepted
and whole, he's the one who's going to do it. He's the one
that will do it. In these verses, as we read,
we see the Lord makes this man in his hole. He heals him of
his palsy. And then he takes this woman,
Dorcas, and he raises her from the dead. She's a believer. This
is a picture, her resurrection really is a picture of our resurrection
to die no more. She's going to have to die again.
But he's going to raise us one day to die no more. We won't have to deal with that
ever again. We won't be a needy people like that, like we are
now. But it says here in verse 32,
It came to pass, as Peter passed throughout all the quarters,
he went around helping all the churches. You know, it says in
the verse previous to that, it says the churches had rest. So
Peter took advantage of that rest. You see, God saved the
one who's causing them all the trouble, Saul of Tarsus. God
saved him and the church had rest. So Peter went about helping
all these churches and establishing pastors and strengthening where
strength needed to be had. And he came down also, it says,
to the saints. You know, that's a Bible word.
That means sanctified, set apart. He came down to those who were
set apart by divine grace before this world ever was created.
And as we read in Hebrews this morning, Paul called him Holy
Grantor. He didn't hesitate to call him
Holy Brethren, because in Christ that's who we are. We are saints,
sanctified, justified, and holy in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
there he says in verse thirty-three, there he found a certain man
named Enios. He had been sick of the palsy
for eight years. For eight years he lay in the
bed, looked at the ceiling, looked at the four walls, I mean, he
was just a hopeless case. His case was hopeless, and all
he could do was beg and depend on someone else to take care
of him. It's amazing how God teaches
those whom he's going to save their hopelessness, isn't it? If God does not teach us our
hopelessness, we'll never look to Christ. We'll never depend
on him. We'll always think we can do
something about it. But this man, knew that physically
it was hopeless, and he knew that he was going to lay in that
bed and die. If somebody wasn't able to do
something for him, he was going to lay there and die. God has to bring us to the end
of ourselves before we'll ever lay hold of Him, before we ever
look. That woman who had the issue
of blood for, what was it, twelve years? It said she had spent
all her living upon physicians. and was none the better, but
rather grew worse. She had tried everyone in town. She had tried every hocus-pocus
thing that was coming down the road. She had tried it, and after
all had failed, and she had grown worse, then she heard about Christ. God then brought her to Christ.
God brought Christ to her, and then she touched Him. He had
to bring her to the end of herself, just like He had to bring us
to the end of ourselves. There was no known cure for his
disease. He was going to die in that bed,
as far as he was concerned. Sin had taken its toll on him,
taken its toll on him. Now, I'm not saying that he did
something sinful to cause this to happen to him, but this is
the effect of sin in us. It really is. Sin permeates our
whole being. By nature, there's not a part
of me that sin has not affected, not a part of me. Every ache,
every ache and every pain that I have and you have, really,
the root of it is sin. When God finally eradicates sin
and we stand in His presence, He says, you'll wipe away all
tears. There'll be no more sorrow, no more pain, no more, because
there'll be no more sin, not even the presence of it, not
at all. Our bodies are growing old, and
we feel it. They're growing old, and they're
going to die, and they're going to decay because of one thing,
sin. Sin. Sin robs us of our physical
health, and sooner or later, usually of our mental health.
But sin robs us. I cannot even come close to doing
the things I used to do 20 years ago. It robs us of that health. I'd like to do them. There's
things I'd like to do still, but I just forget it. Forget
it. It ain't going to happen. You
just can't do it. Sin robs us. It's a thief. Sin is like the thief that breaks
in the house and steals all the goods. That's what it's like. And listen, sin never, ever makes
us better. Never. There's never, ever a
good effect of sin. Always, it's always worse. Always
worse. Sin, like a bad disease, it eats
away, it absolutely eats away at everything that's good and
healthy. Everything. At one time, I said he was in
this bed for eight years, which tells me at one time this was
a healthy man. At one time he was healthy. Just
like at one time Adam knew no sin. But now look at it. Oh, Enos, sin took a hold of
him. And there he is in that bed, slowly dying, slowly headed
for the grave, just like we are. But as I read this, Ephesians
2 came to my mind. But God. That's the reason I
read it this morning. But God, that's what we can say. But God, who is rich in mercy,
rich in it, he has plenty of it, for his great love wherewith
he loved us, even when, when we were dead in sin, hath quickened
us together with Christ, who by grace, he says, you are saved,
by grace you are being saved. Sovereign mercy was after Enos. And I thought this Enos had no
idea. Laying in that bed every day,
watching the sun come up, the sun go down. This man had absolutely
no idea that the mercy of God was after him. No idea. He had no idea that God had chosen
him. You'd believe that bed would
have been a happier bed if he'd known that. But he had no idea
that God had chosen him to be a vessel of mercy. An object
of His love, of His great love, wherewith He loved us. Oh, my. He didn't look like a vessel
of mercy, did He? He looked like a poor paralyzed... He was paralyzed. He couldn't do anything. But
there's an object of God's mercy. There's a Son of God's love. And God is going to have Him.
He's going to have Him. Because it says here, a certain
man. Now, that's not just accidental
language. certain man named Enos. Enos
was not a lucky man. Enos was a chosen man. He was
not a lucky man. He was a chosen man. There is
no such thing as luck. Luck has nothing to do with anybody. It has nothing to do with anything
or anybody, but especially God's children. Every minute detail
is determined and purposed and predestinated by God. Everything. He was a chosen man, as all of
God's people are. And here God sent him a preacher.
Here's evidence of it. God sent him his preacher, Peter. And Peter walked, and I believe
he was at home, because he told him to make up his bed instead
of pick up his bed and carry it. He told him to make up his
bed. I believe Peter entered into his home. And Peter goes
into his house. And he said to him, Enos, Jesus
Christ maketh thee whole. Peter declared that name that
is above every name, that name that every knee is going to bow
and every tongue is going to confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord to the glory of God the Father. He said, that's the one
who's going to make you whole. That's the one who's going to
save you, Enos. Peter made it very clear who maketh thee whole. We should always, when we stand
behind this pulpit, or any pulpit, we should make it very clear
who saves sinners, not what saves them, who saves them. Jesus Christ,
he said, maketh thee whole. Peter did not ask Enos to do
anything. He didn't ask him to accept him,
did he? He didn't say, Enos, would you
accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior? He just said, Enos, Jesus
Christ is going to save you. Jesus Christ is going to make
you whole. You're going to get up off that
bed because the Lord Jesus Christ is going to save you. He declared. He declared to him the one who's
going to save you. That's what he did. He didn't
ask him to do anything. He declared the one who's going
to do it all. That's what we do. We preach Christ. We preach
the one who's going to do it all. That's who we preach. Here is salvation. I'd like to
tell this to the whole world. Jesus Christ maketh thee whole. Can I make it any more simple
than that? Do we want to complicate it? Do we want to get a long
thesis? It's Jesus Christ maketh thee
whole. That's salvation. That is salvation. That is, it's the Lord making
you whole. It's the Lord saving your soul.
It's the Lord washing you in His blood. It's the Lord making
you righteous. It's the Lord making you whole
before God. That's what it is. And it do us well to get acquainted,
to get intimately acquainted with this One who can make us
whole. Now, this statement here implies
that He was not whole, doesn't He? We know that because he was
laying in a bed. He was paralyzed. But it implies
also here that not only Enos, but all of us are ruined. All of us are not whole. We're
broken, broken, ruined, fallen, and we desperately need to be
made whole. And here's some things I thought
of sitting in a study the last few days. Our hearts need to
be made whole, don't they? Our hearts need, we got heart
trouble. By nature now, by nature, we have heart trouble. People
go to the hospital, they want to see if they're having heart
trouble and the doctor says, well, it's 75% clogged. Ours is 100%. That old heart
is 100% clogged. There's no life in it. We love
things we ought not to love, don't we? Oh, that's, we do. Oh, we love things we ought not
to love. And we hate things we ought to love. We're just mixed
up. We need to be made whole. We
need to be, we need a spiritually healthy heart. One that, David
said that his heart, he said, my heart pass after the water
brook, so my heart pass after thee, oh God. That's the kind
of heart we need. We need God to give us a heart
that truly, I mean truly, pass after him. Your heart will pan after Him.
It will pan after this or that. You know what? I'll tell you
this. I know and you know what it pans after. We know. We know. And then our understanding needs
to be made whole. It says over in the Psalms, you
thought I was also tempted like yourselves. Well, that's an awful
high opinion of ourselves and an awful low opinion of God,
wouldn't you think? To think God's like me? You think
I change like you change? I'm up one day, down the next,
happy one day, glad another. You know, God speaks in language
that we can understand. When the Scripture speaks of
God being angry, it's not talking about God being upset this day
and glad the next day. God's the same. God changes not.
He speaks in language that we can understand. But God is... I thought of the Scripture over
in Genesis. After Adam fell, you would think
there would be lightning, thunder, And when Adam heard God, when
God came into the garden, he said, where are you? And he said,
I was afraid. He said, I heard your voice walking
in the garden in the cool of the day, just as calm as could
be. That's God. That's God. He speaks a language we could
understand as far as anger against sin, but you and I are the only
ones that's up and down, up and down, changing this way, that
way. Oh, he said, you thought I, our understanding, our understanding
needs to be made whole of who God is, who he is, holy, just,
and merciful. That's who he is. Then we, I
tell you this, we need, our walk, our walk needs to be made whole.
I just read that to you in Ephesians. We walked after the course of
this world. That's the way we walked before the Lord saved
us. That was our walk. And all men,
all men naturally walk after the flesh. When Christ came into
the world, His own received Him not. When the Creator of heaven
and earth came into this world, walked among men, He was despised
and ridiculed. You'd think you'd be happy, wouldn't
you? You would think when the Son
of God Almighty was going to come into this world, that this
world would have shouted hallelujah. Instead, they shouted crucify.
That needs to be made whole. That needs to be fixed. Our walk
needs to be made whole. We need to walk even as He walked. And then the work of our hands
needs to be made whole. That needs to be made whole.
We need to use... I was looking at this last night, and I thought,
what a mechanical wonder. You look at your body sometimes,
you just think of the mechanical wonder of the hands, how they
just... At just the thought, you can just bend a finger. These
need to be used in serving Him, not myself. And we'll see this
in Dorcas. In Dorcas, she sewed coats for
those widows. She used her hands. God made
her hands whole. Just like I said, He needs to
make our hands whole. We need to be serving Him. And
our talk needs to be made whole. It needs to be seasoned with grace,
doesn't it? We need to be, our conversation, instead of being
after the world, needs to be after Him. After Him. What we really need
is this. Here's what we need. A new creation. We need a new, not a renovation,
not fixing up the old house. I tell you what, I don't want
to fix up, I don't want to do that. I want a new one. I want a new one. The only way
that you and I can be saved from the ravages of sin is for Christ
to make us a whole new creation, a whole new man, to be made new
creatures in the Lord Jesus Christ. We need to be made righteous
in Him. That's what we need. We need His blood to cleanse
us from our sins. We need His life for our death.
I need his life for my death. I need his wisdom to replace
my ignorance of who God is. We need Christ to make us whole. That's what we need. And as we
see in the next few verses, we need him to raise us from the
dead, not just spiritually, but when this life's over with, we
need him to raise us up out of the graves to be with him forever.
We need Him through the whole process, don't we? We need Him. Now it says in verse 36, there was a certain woman, a
certain man, a certain woman, named Tabitha, or Dorcas. You know, God deals in particulars,
doesn't He? God always deals in particulars
all the time. A certain man, a certain woman.
The mercy of God, the saving, sovereign mercy of God, is after
a certain people. It's after a certain people.
God is not willy-nilly out trying to save people. What kind of
God is that? You know, I have to think sometimes
that people would stop and think. If they'd just stop and think,
what kind of God is that? that wants to save you, but can't.
What kind of God can create such a universe? What kind of God
can create such a world and such an earth, such a population,
and yet He can't do anything unless you let Him? What kind
of God is that? It's the kind of God I don't want. I don't
need that one. I got that one. We had that one
with Satan. That's the kind of God that is. That's satanic.
But God deals here, and He's after a certain people. That's
what He's after. He's on the trail of a certain
people. Now it says here that she was
a disciple, which tells me she was a believer. She believed
the gospel. She knew the gospel. And she
was full, and notice this, it says she was full of good works.
That's not a dirty word. That's not a dirty word. I hope
when I die, and I hope when you die, if I preach your funeral,
somebody preaches mine. I hope I can say, Mike was full
of good words. He said, oh, don't say it about
me. Well, they said that. They were saying this about Dorcas.
Dorcas wasn't saying this about herself, but they did. They did. The tree is known by its fruits. That's the tree's known by its
fruit. If there's bad fruit on it, it's a bad tree. If there's
good fruit on it, which the scripture calls here good works. and it's
of God. That tree's of God. That's the
planting of the—the Lord planted that tree. You shall be trees
of righteousness, the planting of the Lord. Those who believe
God ought to be full of good works. We ought to be full of
good works. I'll tell you this, if we are
full of good works, that doesn't give you any room for bad ones,
does it? If you're full of one thing, you can't have room for
another. That's a thought off the top of my head. But we should,
by the grace of God, by the indwelling of the Spirit of God, and by
the power of God, be full of good works. She was a work of
God. She was a work of God. I want
to show you some scriptures. I want you to turn over to 1
Timothy. 1 Timothy, and we'll go to Titus.
We'll stay in those two books and read several scriptures concerning
this matter. In 1 Timothy, chapter 2. Look in verse 9. In like manner also, that women
adorned themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness
and sobriety, not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or
costly array, but with good works. You see, it's in italics. which
becometh women professing godliness," he said, but with good works.
That's how you adorn the doctrine of God. That's how you adorn
the gospel, he said, with good works. Look in chapter 5 and verse 10. Chapter 5 and verse 10, or verse
9, "'Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore
years old, having been the wife of one man, well reported of
for good works, if she hath brought up children, if she hath lodged
strangers, if she hath washed the saints' feet, if she hath
relieved the afflicted, if she hath diligently followed every
good work." Now look in verse 25. It says, likewise, let me read verse
24 with it. Some men's sins are opened beforehand,
going before to judgment, and that's what happened at the cross.
Our sins went beforehand. They went to Calvary. They were taken care of there.
And some men, they follow after. That's the ones who are in trouble.
That's the ones who all their sins catch up with, right there
in the judgment. Likewise, also, in the same manner,
also, the good works of some are manifest beforehand, even
now in this world, and they that are otherwise Can't be hidden. Now look in chapter 6, verse
18. I looked all these up. He says
in verse 17, "...Charge them that are rich in this world,
that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches,
but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy."
That they do good, that they be rich. Here's what you want
to be rich in. Good works. Ready to distribute. willing, he says, to communicate. I could go on and on and on.
The book of Titus is full of them, but you get it. You get
it. That's not a bad word. That's a Bible word. That's an
evidence of the work of Christ in you. That's the evidence of
it. It's good works. If it's absent, you're none of
His. None of His. Yet good works,
all these good works we just read about, Do not keep us from
being sick. They don't keep you from being
sick. They don't keep you from suffering. And they don't keep
you from dying. They don't do that. This woman
who was full of good works, she became sick, and then she died. And then they sent for Peter,
hoping he could do something. You see, God's in this whole
matter. He's orchestrating this whole matter. Hurt them. Like
that of Lazarus, it's for the glory of God. Everything that
touches us, everything that touches the life of a believer, everything
that you and I will endure, even though we can't see it, is for
the glory of God and the good of the body of Christ, the Church. It's good for us. It's good for
Him, His glory. And Peter arose in verse 39.
He arose and he went with them. And when he got there, the widows
were weeping. Their loss was real. I'll tell you this. Don't look down on someone who
weeps over the loss of a loved one. It's a weakness. It's not.
It's an expression of love. This is an expression of love.
How much they loved Dorcas. And they showed Peter. I can
just see this. When Peter came in, and they wasn't trying to
commend her as the reason why he ought to do something. They
were saying, Peter, I want you to look what she's done. Look,
this Dorcas, she took and made coats with her hands. That's
why I said her hands were made old. She made coats, she sewed,
and she knitted for these widows who couldn't afford anything.
They couldn't afford it. She took care of the poor. She
denied herself. She sacrificed herself to taking
care of those poor widows. What an example. What an example. Who would you rather be, Peter
or Dorcas? I believe I'd rather be darkness. I'd rather be able to have the
heart to just sacrifice myself to giving and helping God's people. I think that's the better one. If I had to judge, I think it
would be. She was an example of grace in
the heart and in the life. Here, I tell you this, if it's
in the heart, it will be in the life. It's going to come out. It has to. It has to come out.
But this is not why she was raised. She wasn't raised because of
her good works, not at all. Actually, it would have been
better for her to stay where she was at, wouldn't it? She was in a better place.
Like Lazarus, he was in a better place. But this is going to be
for God's glory, and this is going to be for the good of the
church, because there are going to be many there, because of
this, that are going to pay attention. That's what they're going to
do. They're going to really listen now. God's going to arrest their
attention with this miracle. He's going to use her resurrection
for His glory. He's going to use it to arrest
their attention and confirm the message of Christ crucified,
of Christ risen, of Christ exalted. That's what He's going to do.
God uses means. Let's not despise the means.
God uses means in bringing sinners to hear the gospel. And now we
have His Word. There's a lot of means that we
use that we don't even recognize that God used to bring us to
this place, to where we are now. Things that happened in our lives,
in our past, the path we took, the path we've traveled, the
steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. And if you're in
Christ, a man's in Christ, a woman's in Christ, you're a good man.
In Christ you are. And those steps, From the time
you're born to the time you die, it is ordered by the Lord. Oh,
we can believe that. To God we can believe that. But
we don't need these miracles now. We don't need them. We have
the complete Word of God. And if you don't believe His
Word, though one rose from the dead, you wouldn't believe it.
You wouldn't believe it. Because faith is a gift of God. And those people believed. They
didn't believe because of the miracle. The miracle got their
attention. They believed because God gave them faith. Because
they were born of God. Just the same way you and I are.
The same way. And then Peter, he goes in the
room there where the body is laid. And he's standing there. And he puts all the people out
of the room. He has everyone leave the room
and he shuts the door. He was not in this to draw attention
to himself. Unlike people like Benny Hinn,
they would have had the TV cameras in there, like he's going to
do something. You know, they'd just have the
whole crowd following him. He puts everybody out. Because
this thing of salvation is between the sinner and Christ. That salvation
is between you and God. This is not for entertainment.
Peter's not going to raise her for entertainment. God's not
out entertaining sinners on their way to hell. Not at all, so he
put them all out of there. This is for God's glory and their
good. And notice here also, Peter kneeled
down and he prayed. He knew and he recognized his
dependence upon God for this miracle. He knew if this woman
is going to have life again, If she's going to be raised off
that deathbed, God's going to have to do it. He knew that. And I know this. If a sinner
hears it, he's going to be saying, God's going to have to do it.
Jesus Christ is going to have to make you whole. He'll have
to do it. I can't. No one else can. Who
is sufficient, the Scripture says, for these things? Here
Peter is, standing before a dead body. Who is sufficient for these things? Who's sufficient to raise a dead
body, to give life? Only God can give life. Only
he who gave the spirit can give it back. He's the only one. If
Dorcas is going to live again, God's going to have to give her
life. We can pray for one another, but we can't give life to one
another. That's of God. And Peter looked
at her lifeless body and he said, Tabitha, arise, arise. God said, live. God said, live. And she opened her eyes and she
saw God's servant. She saw Peter, God's servant,
standing there. The Lord spoke life to her through
the voice of Peter. John the Baptist said, I'm just
a voice. And I tell you what, God uses that voice. God uses
them. He uses his preachers, his ministers. He uses them, and he speaks through
them. And he used this miracle in verse
41 and 42, and I'll close. He used this miracle to confirm
his service message, and many of them believed. Many of them
believed. And look what Peter did. It says
in verse 33, And it came to pass that he tarried many days in
Joppa with one Simon, a tanner. You say, well, that's not significant. Well, you know, a tanner was
one of the most despicable persons around. The Jews thought and
believed that a tanner was one of the most lowlifes of all people
out there because he, you see, he tanned skin of clean and unclean
animals. He handled all them dead bodies
and they just, I mean, they wouldn't have anything to do with them.
And Peter goes to stay with a man who was a tanner, Simon the tanner. He didn't stay at Dorcas' house. See, he could have stayed at
Dorcas' house and they would have all came in. They could
have sat around and had coffee and talked and just carried on. And I mean, Peter would have
got a lot of attention. But God sent him over to that tanner's
house, that guy that was despicable, that everybody thought was just
a lowlife. That's where Peter stayed. because he was not going
to draw attention to himself over this spiritual. Because
it's for God's glory, not Peter's, not Peter's. He must increase,
and I, throughout my whole life, this is a lifelong process, I
must, I must continually decrease. I say, Jesus Christ, As Peter
said to Aeneas, as he said to Tapitha, Jesus Christ maketh
thee whole. He's the Savior. All right, Mike.