We're going to read from Acts
chapter nine and from verse 32. Acts chapter nine and verse 32. And it came to pass, as Peter
passed through all quarters, he came down also to the saints
which dwelt at Lydda. And there he found a certain
man named Anais, which had kept his bed eight years, and was
sick of the palsy. And Peter said unto him, Anais,
Jesus Christ maketh thee whole. Arise and make thy bed. And he arose immediately. And
all that dwelt at Lydda and Saron saw him, and turned to the Lord. Now there was at Joppa a certain
disciple named Tabitha, which by interpretation is called Dorcas. This woman was full of good works
and almsdeeds, which she did. And it came to pass in those
days that she was sick and died, whom when they had washed, they
laid her in an upper chamber. And for as much as Lydda was
nigh to Joppa, and the disciples had heard that Peter was there,
they sent unto him two men, desiring him that he would not delay to
come to them. Then Peter arose and went with
them. When he was come, they brought
him into the upper chamber, and all the widows stood by him weeping
and showing the coats and the garments which Dorcas made while
she was with them. But Peter put them all forth
and kneeled down and prayed. And turning him to the body,
said, Tabitha, arise. And she opened her eyes, and
when she saw Peter, she sat up. And he gave her his hand and
lifted her up, and when he had called the saints and widows,
presented her alive. And it was known throughout all
Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. And it came to pass that
he tarried many days in Joppa with one Simon the Tanner. Amen. May God be pleased to bless
to us this reading from his word. We have been thinking over the
past few weeks of the man called Saul, whose name later became
Paul, Saul of Tarsus, as he was. And we're going to leave Saul
of Tarsus for a little while back in Tarsus. He had headed
to Tarsus because he was being persecuted by the enemies of
the church at that time in Jerusalem, and his friends there thought
it would be safer for him back in Tarsus, in his home city,
and so that is where they sent him. And as Saul disappears,
as it were, out of the picture, we go back to think a little
bit about Peter, this apostle, and to some extent, the one who
was a leader of the church in Jerusalem at that time. But Peter
knew that the Lord had told them, the disciples, the apostles,
that they were to go into all the world and preach the gospel. and they were to start at Judea
and Samaria unto the ends of the earth. So Peter was obedient
to the call of the Lord and we're told that he started to go around
all the areas, all the quarters, preaching the gospel of the Lord
Jesus and establishing the believers that lived in those places. This
was a period of calm and rest for the churches. And Peter travelled
busily. We read that there was a period
of calm and the churches enjoyed peace at this time. So Peter
travelled around the towns and the villages preaching and teaching
and encouraging the disciples who lived there. And in this
passage that we've read today, we see something of the continuing
presence of the apostolic gifts with these men. Gifts of healing,
gifts of insight, gifts of understanding, and gifts which were clearly
supernatural. Now we do not see these supernatural
gifts continuing in the church today because the purpose of
these gifts, it seems from the reading of scripture, was to
give authority to the men who were able to perform those gifts
and enable them to have a voice and to be heard in their preaching. And here we see that first this
man, Anais, was an ill man. We're told that he had the palsy,
which was a kind of paralysis that came into his body. And he had been ill and in bed
for eight years. Can you think about that for
a moment? Eight years. I think maybe some of you this
morning that are listening to me might not be much older than
eight years old. And he had been in bed as long
as you have been alive. He had not been able to get up
for that length of time. It's hard for us to conceive
of this unless we've experienced something like it. And those
were days of rudimentary medicine when basically all that could
be done would be to try and make the individual comfortable. But
what? Trials and traumas must have
gone through that man's mind in those long hours that formed
his weeks and his months and his years as he simply lay there
and was unable to move. He was perhaps realising that
all he was doing was waiting to die and all that could be
done for him would be that his basic needs could be tended for. It's interesting that several
who had this ailment, this palsy, had been in the lifetime of the
Lord Jesus Christ during his own ministry healed. And it's
perhaps the Lord's example that gave Peter that faith to heal
Aeneas. The picture that we have with
Aeneas is one of need and one of inability. And of course,
that picture, it translates, forms from the thoughts that
we have of the man lying in need and not able to do anything and
the condition that we are in. not because we are confined to
our beds or not because we can't move because of an illness in
our physical bodies, but this is a picture of what sin does
in somebody's spirit, what sin does in somebody's soul. This is a picture which we find
often in Scripture that because of the physical powerlessness
We are reminded of our spiritual powerlessness. And just as this
man Aeneas couldn't get out of his bed, so we can't do anything
to help ourselves as far as our spiritual needs are concerned. We have to rely on God's goodness. We have to rely on his grace.
We have to rely on his mercy because we can't please God.
We can't live for God. We can't do anything that would
make us holy before God because of the powerlessness we are in
through sin. And this healing of Aeneas is
a picture of the miracle of grace. And here we see Peter's authority
to heal. That authority came from the
Holy Spirit. And Peter healed Aeneas in the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ. It showed, the miracle showed
that Peter had authority to speak for the Lord Jesus Christ. He
was a part of that apostolic ministry which the Lord Jesus
Christ had established, and Peter could speak with authority for
Christ, and he was worthy to be heard when he spoke with Christ-given
authority. And so he speaks, and as a result
of this Holy Spirit demonstration of power in Aeneas' life, as
a result of the healing that we saw in Peter's ministry, we're
told that many turned and were converted to Christ from their
evil ways. There were those who were converted
who simply saw what Peter had done and the evident outworking
of the power of Christ in Peter's ministry. And that takes us on
to this other account, which didn't happen very far away,
because this town of Joppa was quite near to where Aeneas lived. And this lady was called Dorcas,
or Tabitha. It's the same name in two different
languages. And it means a deer, a roe deer. And it's quite clear, if you
will forgive my pun, that this lady was very dear to the believers
in Joppa. She was one whom they loved greatly. And when this lady died, we're
told that they took her body and they mourned for her. They
cleaned her body, as was the pattern in the time. And then
they called for Peter to come and visit. And it may well be
that because they realised that he was relatively close, that
they were calling for him to come and minister to them, to
comfort them in their grieving. I don't know that they would
have any real idea what wonderful things were going to happen when
Peter came to visit them. And when he came, we see that
the Holy Spirit again showed Peter that he was to pray for
this girl, this lady, and she would come to life. So there
is a similarity here in the way in which in the way in which
Peter dealt with the situation as to the way in which Jairus's
daughter had been raised from the dead by the Lord Jesus. And
Peter sent everyone out of the room as the Lord had done. And
then he knelt and he prayed. And again, showing us where true
power was to be found, not in Peter, but in Peter's God. Not
in Peter's prayer, but in Peter's saviour and in the power of the
Holy Spirit. And he said, Tabitha, arise. And she opened her eyes and she
sat up. She was raised from the dead. And again, that's a picture of
The gospel coming to an individual in new life. And that's what
we speak about. We speak about spiritual life.
We speak about being born again to those who are dead in sin. We're all dead in sin by our
nature. The Bible tells us that we have
all gone astray. We have turned our backs on God's
way. We have not given God that honour
that he is due, that obedience that he deserves, that holy living
that he requires. We have succumbed to our own
way. But the Bible also tells us that
there is a way of recovery. There is a way of new life. There
is a way of spiritual life to those who are spiritually dead
in their sin. And Tabitha, or Dorcas, is a
picture of that to us. This new life comes from the
Lord Jesus Christ. And again, we're told that many
heard of this miracle that had been performed by Peter and they
came and they listened to the gospel message that Peter preached
and they were converted too. The gospel went forth, the gospel
went to them from Peter's lips into their ears and it entered
into their hearts with spiritual power. God the Holy Spirit, as
it were, said to them in their spiritually dead state, arise! And he bestowed that new life
into their souls. We're told at the end of the
passage that Peter stayed a long time in Joppa and that he stayed
with a man called Simon the Tanner. And I think there's just a lovely
little lesson there right at the very end of this passage
in that phrase. You know that a tanner probably
had one of the worst jobs in those days? and it was a dirty
job and it was a smelly job. And the tannery where he worked
with his leather, cleaning his leather, preparing his leather
so that it could be used for shoes or for tools or for whatever
reason it might be, was the most disgusting place that you could
be. And often these tanneries, these
people who were tanners, they lived on the edge of town or
even over the hill from the town. because the place where they
worked was so disgusting. And that's where Peter stayed.
And that's where he stayed for a long time with Simon the Tanner. Peter wasn't too proud. Here
was a man who could raise the dead. Here was a man who could
heal the sick. and yet he was not too proud
to live with Simon the Tanner. And it speaks to us again of
the way in which the gospel is to be received by all people
and we have to be clear that we are not special people as
far as this world is concerned. We are not to be proud people.
We are not to be high-minded. Anything that we have has been
given to us as a gift. Any Grace that we have received
is of the goodness of God and we have to be ready to take this
message even to the lowest in our society as well as to the
highest. So thank you very much for listening
to this story about Peter and Aeneas and Dorcas and we will
move on in our study of the Book of Acts on another occasion.
Thank you very much.