Acts 9:20-43 - Part B

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That's Connect with Skip Heitzig on YouTube. Now, let's get into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Every church needs people like Barnabas who will put their arm around young, rough-around-the-edges believers, people with a different, weird, sordid background, the kind of people that many Christians just don't want to spend the time of day with because they're so messy, and they'll get their hands dirty, and they'll bring them in. They'll encourage them and vouch for them and stand with them and disciple them in the body of Christ. So, Paul, Saul, was with him in Jerusalem. Now, back to verse 29. And he spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus and disputed against the, who? Hellenists.

Why did he do that? Well, because he was a Hellenistic Jew. He was born outside of Israel in Tarsus of Cilicia, a Roman province in modern-day Turkey. It was at one of these synagogues called the Synagogue of the Freedmen where Stephen had been preaching. Stephen was also a Hellenistic Jew, went to the synagogue in Jerusalem called the Synagogue of the Freedmen, gave this incredible historical witness, and then preached Jesus unto them. Saul was there that day. They stoned Stephen, laid their clothes, the people who killed Stephen, at the feet of Saul. And Saul was consenting unto his death at this very synagogue. So, he goes back to the Hellenistic synagogue, disputes with them. Now, he's the guy that was egging them on to kill Stephen.

And so, true to form, they try to kill him. When the brethren found out, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him out to Tarsus. Caesarea is on the coast. It is headquarters for the Romans in that part of the world. It's where the procurator had his headquarters, Pontius Pilate at one time had his headquarters at Caesarea.

The procurator, governor, like Pilate, was only in Jerusalem for feast days. So, Caesarea was sort of like the... And when you go to Israel and you see Caesarea, you go, oh, I get it. I mean, Jerusalem's cool, but we're on the Mediterranean... We're on the beach right here. And so, there was this beautiful harbor built by the Romans in Caesarea. Saul will be back in Caesarea later on, spending two years there in jail before he gets sent to Rome. But now they just take him to Caesarea because that's the quickest port. You either go to Joppa or Caesarea. They took him to Caesarea, put him on a boat, sent him back home to Cilicia, back to Tarsus where he is from.

Now, get this. He's been in Arabia already for three years. He gets sort of out of exile, comes to Jerusalem, gets in trouble again, gets sent out of Jerusalem back home, and he doesn't show up again for seven years.

Seven years. Now, when he shows up again, he will not show up again in Jerusalem. He shows up again in Antioch of Syria because the church is starting to grow there. And Barnabas will be the guy to bring him from Tarsus and Cilicia down to Antioch to help him.

That's really where he's going to get his ministry experience, is in this Gentile region of Syria, Antioch of Syria. But why I'm bringing that up is because three plus seven is ten. So it took a decade of isolation and preparation before Saul of Tarsus was ready for the operation of ministry. So don't get discouraged. Man, I've been waiting on the Lord for six months, and he hasn't used me yet. And I remember thinking that I was driving down the 405 freeway, and I remember I was mad at the Lord. I said, Lord, I'm getting old.

I'm 23 years old. I thought I would have started a church by now. Why aren't you using me, Lord? And the Lord used the ten-year preparation of Saul of Tarsus to speak to my heart.

Three plus seven. Now he's back up after this at his hometown, going through probably all, spending all the time, no doubt, going through the Scriptures and getting really ready, as we'll see when he comes on the scene again. But notice verse 31.

Then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified, and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied. Now there is a little bit of information that we don't get until we get to Acts 22. So since it could be a while or the Lord could come back before we even get there, I am just going to look at Acts 22 for just a moment and listen to Saul of Tarsus.

Let me just set the story. In Acts 22, he's back in Jerusalem. This time he's in the temple. The Jews see him in the temple, throw a hissy fit because they think that he's brought Gentiles into the temple courts of the Jews.

He gets arrested. He's brought before a Roman soldier. And Saul of Tarsus, now Paul the Apostle, speaks to his Jewish brethren who are in the courts of the temple, and he's giving his own background and testimony. And he says to them, this is Acts 22, I'm reading from verse 17, Now what happened, says Paul the Apostle?

Now what happened? When I returned to Jerusalem, that's after three years in Nabataean Arabia, and was praying in the temple that I was in a trance. Now we don't get this back in Acts chapter 9. And I saw him, Jesus, saying to me, make haste, which means hurry it up, and get out of town, get out of Dodge, get out of Jerusalem, quickly, for they will not receive your testimony concerning me. So I said, Lord, they know that in every synagogue I imprisoned and beat those who believe in you.

And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by consenting to his death and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him. And then he said to me, depart, or I'm done talking, just go. And he's trying to argue with the Lord, but Lord, they know who I am.

Surely they're going to listen to me eventually. Jesus says, get out, depart, for I will send you far from here to the Gentiles. So he leaves. Seven years pass, we will not see him again till we get to Antioch, chapter 13 of the book of Acts. For the next few chapters, and you'll notice it now in the next verse, there's a shift back to Peter. See, we have seen the flow of the gospel from Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria. And then we saw the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, and we're still going to deal now for the next three chapters with Peter and Peter's ministry. And then beginning in chapter 13, Saul of Tarsus becoming Paul the Apostle dominates the rest of the story. He's the guy that dominates the rest of the book.

So verse 32, it came to pass as Peter went through all the parts of the country that he also came down to the saints who dwell at Lidda. There he found a certain man named Aeneas who had been bedridden for eight years and was paralyzed. Luke was an interesting character.

He tells us about Aeneas, but he gives us no background information except to say he was paralyzed. Now, Luke was a doctor, so he's just sort of giving us the clinical rundown of the disease this man has. But he didn't tell us if he's a Jew or a Gentile, how old he is, how long he lived there, if he was a believer or not, just he had this disease. He's a doctor.

He's given us the medical facts. Now, it says he came to Lidda in verse 32. Let me just say, if you've ever, anybody here ever been to Israel, raise your hand. Okay, so you've been to Lidda. You go, I don't remember Lidda. Well, when your plane lands at Ben Gurion Airport, you've touched down in Lidda. The airport is located on the site called Lidda, or Lod, L-O-D, and that is the ancient place, or that's the modern place of the ancient place of Lod, or Lidda.

Lod it was called in the Old Testament, Lidda it was called in the New Testament. Now, the Lord's going to speak to Peter and use Peter. Interesting that Peter is not in Jerusalem.

He's traveling. He's now become an itinerant preacher, so to speak. He's kind of moving around Judea, which he didn't have to do because back in Acts chapter 8, there was a persecution that came on the church, and it says the church in Jerusalem was scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles. Peter's an apostle. Peter didn't have to go. He had to stay in Jerusalem, but he felt the need, the desire, the call of God perhaps to go out and do ministry in an itinerant way. So he's moving, and the Lord will use Peter while he's on the move.

My point being this. It's easier to work with the moving object. It's easier to do ministry when somebody is not just sitting back going, Well, Lord, you know where I live, and you know my phone number, and you know my address, so if you ever want to use me, just, I don't know, send a vision from heaven or something to get my attention. But people who are on the move, it's easier to direct a moving object. It's easier to control a moving bicycle. It's easier to direct a moving person, a busy person looking for opportunities.

A busy person will find many opportunities to serve the Lord when they're looking for and engaging in and getting involved in God's work. So he is on the move. So there's a certain man, verse 33, who had been bedridden for eight years, and he's paralyzed.

And Peter said to him, Enneas, Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, heals you. Arise, make your bed. Now, when he said make your bed, it's not like what your mom used to say to you when you were a kid, make your bed that way. Clean up your room and make your bed. It's just take your bed roll and pick it up and go. Make your bed.

Get ready to forget the bed and start walking. Then he arose immediately, so all who dwelt at Lydda and Sharon, that's the Sharon plane, the shuffle law it is called topographically, saw him and turned to the Lord. Enneas is healed and becomes a walking testimony. The result of the walking testimony is the salvation of those who knew him and saw him and came in contact with him. Now, I suppose it would be tempting to say the greatest miracle in the world is healing a sick body, a paralyzed person. That's the greatest miracle ever.

I would argue it is not the greatest miracle, and I'm not saying this to sound super spiritual, but the greatest miracle in the world is the salvation of a soul, not the healing of a body. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we return to Skip's teaching, in his Jesus Loves booklets, Pastor Skip Heitzig shows you God's radical love for all people and challenges you to love all people like Jesus did. And when you give a gift of $50 or more today, we'll send you four of these booklets in our Jesus Loves Them bundle. Our thanks for your support to reach more people with God's love through Connect with Skip Heitzig. You'll fall more in love with your living Savior as you see just how much he loves all people and calls you to do the same.

Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your bundle when you give. Let's get back to today's message from Pastor Skip. The greatest miracle in the world is the salvation of a soul, not the healing of a body. In fact, the first miracle enabled a second miracle.

The miracle of healing this man enabled and brought what you see in verse 35, those who dwelt in Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord. That was the purpose of the healing, to bring a greater miracle. You say, well, why is that a greater miracle? Why is salvation a greater miracle?

It's easy. It costs more, costs the blood of Jesus Christ on the cross to save people from sin. It brought the greatest results, the salvation of a soul for all of eternity. It brought the greatest glory to God as they'll be with him in heaven and have the capacity to do the same with others.

So it cost the greatest price, it brought the greatest glory to God, and it brought the greatest results. Now it says at Joppa, that's down by the seacoast, there was a certain disciple named Tabitha, which is translated Dorcas. Tabitha is the Hebrew word and the Aramaic word.

That means gazelle, like the animal, the gazelle. The Greek word is Dorcas. So same meaning, just two different languages. One is Aramaic and Hebrew, and the other is Greek. I'd rather be called by the Aramaic or Hebrew, wouldn't you?

I wouldn't like to be, hey, dork. So it's not a great name, but it's a beautiful meaning name. So Tabitha Dorcas, she is called.

One is an Aramaic term and the other is her Greek term. This woman was full of good works and charitable deeds, which she did, but it happened in those days that she became sick and died. And when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room, and since Lydda, or Laud, about ten miles away from Joppa, was near Joppa, that the disciples heard that Peter was there, and they sent two men to him, imploring him not to delay in coming to them.

Peter arose and went with them, and when he had come, they brought him to the upper room, and all the widows stood by him weeping, showing the tunics and the garments which Dorcas had made while she was with him. Tabitha was a Proverbs 31 lady. She extends her hands to the poor and she spreads out her arms to the needy, it says in Proverbs 31.

She was that kind of a person. She saw the need that people had and she went to minister that need. And so when you have a person like that in a church who dies, who goes to be with the Lord, it's wonderful for that person, but it's sad for that church. You get somebody that lovely and that needed to leave your midst, and it brings this kind of weeping.

They're not weeping for her, they're weeping for themselves and the fact that there's that huge vacancy that is left now in that church. So they did something. They did what was customary to do. You take the dead body, you usually take it to a room, you wash the body, and you anoint the body, and then you quickly bury the body. So they had already followed the custom of washing the corpse, anointing the corpse with all that was needed for burial, and they were about to bury her. But it was as if somebody says, well, hold on just a minute. I know we've washed the body and I know we've anointed the corpse, but before we actually stick her in the ground, I hear Peter's in the area.

We've got nothing to lose. She's dead. So let's ask Peter to come in because they are already making the burial preparations, but somebody had the presence of thought to go, go get Peter. So Peter comes, goes up to the upper room, and then verse 40, But Peter put them all out.

Get out of the room, he said. And he knelt down and he prayed. And turning to the body, he said, Tabitha, arise. And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up. I have a question. Peter put everybody out.

Why? Well, I don't know, but I have a guess. My guess is when he saw her lying on that, he remembered something that happened in Jesus' own ministry when he and James and John were with Jesus on a special occasion in Mark chapter 5 when a little girl had died and everybody was gathered in a room around the body and Jesus said, get them all out.

She's only sleeping. And Jesus turned to that little girl and said, Talitha cumi, which means little girl, arise. Now, I think he said, I know what to do. I've seen it done.

Get everybody out. And the similarity is remarkable. He didn't say Talitha cumi, but he said, Tabitha cumi in Aramaic. Very similar, but calling her by name Gazelle, Tabitha cumi, arise. And she opened her eyes. And when she sat up, when she saw Peter, she sat up.

So everybody leaves the room. Peter kneels before he says to the dead woman, arise. And he gets down and he prays.

Here's what I want you to notice. There is going to be, you know the story because you've read it, she gets up from the dead. So there's an enormous, there's a power encounter that happens. But before the power comes the prayer. If you want the power, you start with prayer. Because once you pray, you can expect power. But don't expect power until you pray. So get everybody out and just get down and start praying. And once you have the prayer, now you can be open and expect the power.

But one will bring the other and you can't reverse that. One of my favorite stories about the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London that Charles Haddon Spurgeon pastored is that visitors heard of him and they wanted to come and see it. They came to the tabernacle, the doors were locked, it was a weekday.

They wanted to see the preacher, they wanted to see the great tabernacle in London, that huge multi-thousand seat auditorium where Spurgeon preached every week. They got there, the place was shut up, they were sitting on the steps. A man came, some stories even say it was Charles Spurgeon, and he said to the visitors, do you want to see the heating apparatus of the tabernacle? And they thought, you know, they're thinking, not really. I mean, I want to see the tabernacle, I don't care about the heating apparatus, it's a strange thing to be asked.

But they said, okay, sure. So they got in, they walked down a flight of stairs, went down a long hallway, a door opened up where there were hundreds of people praying in the room. And the man said, there is the heating apparatus of this church.

The reason this church is so powerful is because these people gather and they seek the Lord in prayer, and the prayer is what produces the power. So Peter gets everybody out, prays, speaks to the woman, Tabitha Cumi, and she gets up. Then he gave her his hand, so practical. What do you do to a dead person who just gets alive again?

Give him a hand. And he lifted her up. And when he had called the saints and the widows, he presented her alive, and it became known throughout all Joppa and many believed on the Lord.

So again, one miracle leads to the greater miracle, and that is the salvation of many. So it was that he stayed many days in Joppa with Simon, a tanner. Luke doesn't put that in just because. He puts it in because it's leading somewhere.

Where it's leading is chapter 10, and we'll have to wait till we get to chapter 10, but let me just give you a little teaser. A tanner was an unclean profession among the Jews. Tanners were not regarded. They were looked upon with distaste because they handled the skins of dead animals, and so they became ceremonially defiled all day long, all the time.

Besides that, if you've ever been around a tannery, it stinks to high heaven. So it's just like unclean. Peter goes and hangs out.

And why is this important? Because in the next chapter, he's going to get a vision from God about unclean animals, and God's going to say, I cleansed, don't you call unclean. So it's like the Lord is giving him one step at a time to lose the baggage of religion and legalism so he can be open to the salvation of anyone who would call upon the name of the Lord. So Saul of Tarsus had a hard year behind him, breathing out anger and threats against the disciples. He has a whole wonderful year ahead of him, fraught with some challenges, but a whole new life because he's in Christ.

Peter sees miracles by his hand, though he's going to experience persecution. So the year ahead of him looks like a mixed bag, good and bad, and that's probably what it's going to be like for us. As you look back over this year, and if I were to ask you, how was your year? You'd say, some good, some bad. And that's probably what your year's going to be like.

Some good, some bad. But the Lord will be with you through it all. There won't be one time, one day, one instance, one dark moment that he won't be with you. So it's been said that an optimist stays up on New Year's Eve and waits for midnight to welcome the new year in.

A pessimist will stay awake on New Year's Eve to make sure the old year goes out. But let me just say, a biblicist goes to sleep and rests because he or she knows God is in control of it all. So as Corrie ten Boom said, never be afraid to trust an unknown future into the hands of a known God. You know your Lord.

Thanks so much for being with us today. Before you go, remember that when you give $50 or more to help reach more people with the gospel through Connect with Skip Heitzig, we'll send you a copy of the Jesus Loves Them bundle to help you understand God's abounding love for all people. Request your copy when you call and give 800-922-1888.

That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. Come back next time for more verse-by-verse teaching on God's Word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Have a great day. Make a connection Make a connection At the foot of the crossing Cast your burdens on His Word Make a connection Connection Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.