Acts 3:9

Thursday, 16 December 2021

 

And all the people saw him walking and praising God. Acts 3:9

 

With the complete healing of the crippled beggar, it then said that he went into the temple with Peter and John “walking, leaping, and praising God.” With that stated, Luke next records, “And all the people.”

 

This was at the hour of prayer in the afternoon (Acts 3:1). The number of people would not be small. In Luke 1, when Zecharias went into the temple to burn incense, it says, “And the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense.” Nothing is said of it being a particular day, like a Sabbath or a feast day. If it was, this would have been carefully recorded by Luke. As such, in can be inferred that a “great multitude” would be the regular attendance at this event. Of this multitude of people, it next says they “saw him.”

 

This is in the temple, at the hour of prayer and when the incense would be burned to the Lord. One might think this event with the beggar would be a great distraction from the Lord and something that would be inappropriate. Rather, it is honoring of the Lord. It is God who healed the man. It was done in the name of Jesus Christ. Everything about the ritual burning of the incense, and the offering of the lamb that would also have occurred at this time, points to the work of Christ Jesus. Every detail anticipates what He came to do.

 

Rather than being inappropriate, it is a beautiful expression of what God intended for the world to see. There is a man healed of his affliction, just as the prophets prophesied would someday occur. It was seen by the multitude, and the man was “walking and praising God.” He was giving Him glory for what had occurred in the name of His Christ. Nothing could be more honoring of the Lord than this wonderful display of renewal of the beggar through Him.

 

The lame had been cured. Nothing could be hidden in this. He was over forty, he had been crippled since birth, and he was suddenly and miraculously healed. This was a true and absolutely verifiable miracle that had occurred in the presence of the people. God was to be glorified for what He had done, and the name of Jesus would be exalted for the power it carried.

 

Life application: Throughout the years, there have been innumerable scam artists who would claim healing in Jesus’ name. One of the common tricks is to wheel a person into a church or arena who supposedly had one leg shorter than another. The charlatan would then come forward and miraculously make the shorter leg grow, right before the people.

 

Even a teenager can figure this out. By pulling the hip up, it causes one leg to appear shorter than the other. By relaxing the muscles, it appears as if the leg is actually growing. And wahlah! The money starts filling the coffers. There are innumerable scams like this. There are also well-known evangelists who have claimed to be capable of miraculous healings. Peter Popoff, for example, would make claims concerning erratic conditions in people who had come for healing.

 

However, it was discovered that while people were standing in line to enter, conversations would be brought up by his staff. The information they gleaned would then be given to people in the control room who would then transmit that to Popoff through a device in his ear. He was eventually exposed as a fraud when recordings of what he was doing were made.

 

A person who was associated with Popoff’s scam tried to justify what occurred, saying, “When you’re praying for the sick, it’s through the Holy Spirit, and there’s some times that it works freely, and then there are other times when the Spirit’s just not there.” He also added that “on the days it didn’t show, you still had to pay for the auditorium, so you needed to help the Holy Spirit along.”

 

Though bankrupted through this, Popoff continued his ministry and eventually rebuilt it, still scamming people who are unintelligent enough to continue to give to a person who knowingly did the disgraceful things he did.

 

The Holy Spirit does not need help. God is fully capable of accomplishing everything needed to fully and completely express Himself in the manner He deems is necessary. And He has provided us a written testimony of His great deeds in the pages of Scripture. We do not need to have outward displays of miraculous healings any longer. We have exactly what God deems is sufficient for us to live by faith.

 

Let us not get caught up in that which is false. We can pray for healing of those around us, and we can also pray for the grace to endure through our trials if healing is not realized. In the end, we must accept that God has done, and will do, what He determines. He does not need our help. Instead, He simply asks us for our faith.

 

Lord God, help us to be people of faith. We have Your written word. What more do we need to testify to the miraculous deeds that You have done, and to the marvels which You continue to do – such as preserving Israel, and changing lives – in the world? Thank You for the evidences You have provided us. They are sufficient to establish our faith. Amen.