Series: Acts
Title: Healed!
Text: Acts 28: 7-15
Date: October 21, 2010
Place: SGBC, New Jersey
Those who are healed in the heart by Christ will give all honor and praise to God our Savior, Christ Jesus our Lord. They desire for others to be healed by our great Physician.
Back in Acts 14, Paul was preaching the gospel when he perceived the impotent man had faith to be healed. Paul told him to rise up and walk and the man did. The people called him a god and went about to worship Paul. He and Barnabas rushed in and preached the true God of creation to them, scarcely stopping them from doing sacrifice before Paul (Acts 14: 14-18).
In Melita, the barbarous people saw a viper bite Paul with no harm and began thinking he was a god. Rather than telling Publius' father, to rise up, he laid his hands on him and quietly prayed. Paul was declaring that only God is of Power to heal. Paul bowed himself to God. He cast all at the feet of the Lord to do with this man as he would. Paul, no doubt, declared in speech, what he declared in his actions here: "do not praise me, I have no power, the power is of God."
When God heals us, we want all praise to go to our God for his mighty works.
Ephesians 1: 6: To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.
- Not my will, God's will
- Not my works, God's works
- Not my prayer, God to whom I pray
- Not my glory, God's glory
- Not my praise, God's praise
The reason every believer looks only to the triune God to save in Christ Jesus is because of the dire sickness every sinner has.
I. THE SICKNESS IS SIN--SPIRITUAL DEATH
A. We see our sin-sickness in this man.
Acts 28: 8: And it came to pass, that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever and of a bloody flux
1. He lay sick--he was disabled by this sickness--could not do anything to heal himself--the description conveys it was the worst of its kind--multiple symptoms--so it is with every sinner.
2. He lay sick of a fever--a fiery heat--every child of Adam suffers from a fiery heat, enmity against God.
3. And of a bloody flux--dysentery--the bowels used in scripture of the inner most being, the inward man.
This describes every child whom God will call by his grace: From the sole of the foot to the crown of the head there is no soundness in us, only wounds, bruises, putrifying sores, not bound up, not mollified with ointment.
II. THE HEALER IS CHRIST JESUS THE GREAT PHYSICIAN.
Acts 28: 8:…to whom Paul entered in, and prayed, and laid his hands on him, and healed him.
As we see the Lord heal through Paul, we see an example of the work of the triune God healing his children through Jesus Christ. Paul entered in. Our God saves through Christ by entering in.
A. Entered in to an everlasting covenant: Paul prayed (interceded) on his behalf. Paul stood between God and this helpless man. That is what Christ has been, and has done, since the Father entrusted his children to his Son before the world was made--BY THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE--HE EVERLIVETH TO MAKE INTERCESSION.
Hebrews 7:22: By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament.
Note: CHRIST WAS NOT PATTERNED AFTER THAT MOSAIC PRIESTHOOD, THAT PRIESTHOOD WAS PATTERNED AFTER CHRIST. He told Moses, see that you make all things after the pattern I have showed you in the mount.
This is the mystery, God's purpose is in himself. God entered in to promise with God and God can not lie. His covenant is with himself. God's children have been accepted in the Beloved since God the Father put them in HIM!
Ephesians 1: 3: Blessed [be] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly [places] in Christ: 4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: 5: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.
B. In the fullness of time, God the Son entered this world
He entered in to flesh that his children are. He entered in under the law--not under its curse (not at first), but under the law he served without sin from his mother's womb, manifesting he is the Faithful One.
C. Christ entered in--became--the sin of his children
He was willing made a curse for his children. He was willing made sin for his children. God entered in to judgment with him, pouring out just due on him instead of his people.
D. Christ Entered in to death, the grave
He died the death his children owed. For one transgression justice demanded one death. By that one death, justice is satisfied for each one for whom Christ died.
Romans 6: 8: Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: 9 Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. 10 For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. 11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
E. The Redeemer Entered into resurrection glory with Father.
Hebrews 9: 12: Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us….24: For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:
F. God our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Enters into every child for whom he died through the Holy Spirit--
He lays his effectual hand upon us and heals each one in spirit and in truth.
Romans 8:1: [There is] therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: 4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
Illustrations: Dysentary requires water rehydration. God heals by the Spirit of God through the Water of the Word. Earthly physicians deal with this one symptom at a time. God healed this man all at once. So it is with the born again child of God. Christ makes us every whit whole.
James 5:15: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
The prayer of faith shall save the sick because the prayer of faith lays all hope at the feet of the Great Physician. The Lord is the Physician who raises up. He is the one who forgives sins. The very prayer of faith is casting all on Christ believing Christ is All and alone is able!
III. THE EFFECTUAL RESULT OF HIS HEALING IS LOVE.
A. Love for God. (The healing of this man was God bearing witness of the Christ Paul preached)
· God lifted Christ up on the cross
· He lifted him up to his own right hand
· He lifts him up in the gospel
· He lifts him up his witnesses as trophies of his power to heal
· The Lord Jesus Christ said, John 12:32: And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all [men] unto me.
Acts 28: 9: So when this was done, others also, which had diseases in the island, came, and were healed:
When the Spirit makes us to know that Christ is the Physician and that we are sick then you will come and he heals all who come.
Mark 2: 16: And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto his disciples, How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners? 17: When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
B. Those who are healed in the heart by Christ love their brethren. They will give all honor and praise to God our Savior, Christ Jesus our Lord and desire for others to be healed by our great Physician. This truly is the love for brethren.
Acts 28:10: Who also honoured us with many honours; and when we departed, they laded [us] with such things as were necessary.
1. It was the love of Christ constraining Paul that made him
· Enter in to those who were sick--denying he was a god, denying any power in himself and pointing them to the God of glory
· Love of Christ makes a believer fall at Christ's feet on their behalf interceding in prayer for them
· Love of Christ make a believer (load) the needy with such things as are needful--the gospel riches, whatever God has given us to provide
JUST AS PAUL DID FOR PUBLIUS' FATHER AND FOR MANY WHO WERE SICK ON THIS ISLAND.
2. When God uses one of his vessels to shed his love abroad in our heart, the love of Christ makes the believer
· Honor those who honor our Lord just as these honored Paul and the brethren.
· The love of Christ makes us to laden them with such things as are necessary because God used them to laden us with all things necessary through the gospel.
The LORD says,
"Them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed."
And here we see an example of what the Lord said:
Matthew 10: 41: He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward.
· This love of Christ makes us want to be with brethren (v14)
· Through brethren the Lord causes us to thank him and encourages us (v15).
WHAT A PHYSICIAN! WHAT HEALING!
Jeremiah 8:22: [Is there] no balm in Gilead; [is there] no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?
Have you heard? There is Balm in Gilead! There is a Great Physician here! Are you sick or righteous? Why do you tarry? If you are sick, call on the Physician. There is healing in his wings!
Amen!