Body Life (Acts 4:32 - 5:11)

09/21/18 • -1 min

The most exciting event of our exciting times is not the exploration of the moon, remarkable and exciting as that is and really magnificent in its scientific achievement. But the most exciting event today is the healing of the body of Christ. I see it occurring in many places. You have been reading in Christian magazines, and even in the newspapers, of movements of the Holy Spirit on college campuses across the country, notably the one that began at Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky a few weeks ago. These are all instances of the way the Spirit of God is moving to heal a sluggish and diseased church.

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Confrontation! (Acts 5:12-42)

When the Apostle Paul wrote his last letter to his son in the faith, Timothy, he said, "In the last days there shall come perilous times..." (2 Timothy 3:1b KJV). Those last days began when our Lord first appeared upon the earth. We make a great mistake if we read that as though Paul was talking only about the future. He was talking about the present age, his own day. All the time that lies between the first and second comings of Jesus Christ are the last days. During that whole time there would come periods of crisis, times of danger, times of peril, when men would be "lovers of self, lovers of money... and lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God..." (2 Timothy 3:2 RSV). Whenever those conditions prevail they are, indeed, perilous times. Selfishness creates violence, the demand to have your own way, do your own thing, stand up for your own rights, this -- spread large across a nation -- creates pools of dissent and attrition against one another, and results in waves of violence with bloodshed breaking out everywhere.

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When the Establishment is Wrong (Acts 4:13-31)

We last left our heroes, Peter and John, hailed into court before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish rulers of Jerusalem. With them was the former lame man who had been made whole. Peter had said to him, "Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I unto you; in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk!" (Acts 3:6). Peter and John had been arrested because they had used the occasion to preach Jesus and the resurrection. It is important to notice that they did not use the occasion to begin a divine healing service. They did not ask the people to bring the sick and lame for them to heal. They did what God had intended done on that occasion, to preach through Jesus and the resurrection the ultimate healing of the inner hurt of man by the power of a new and risen life.