The Book of Acts 3:1-11 - Peter heals the lame man
Acts 3:1-11 · Roger Henderson · Mar 9, 2014
Acts (2014), No. 10
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492641950566

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, today we start on a new chapter, chapter three. And also we're going to have at the end, we're going to have hopefully James and Joy. Hopefully they'll show up and we'll answer the question that was kind of came up. That's at the end of the handout. And also there's a part of the handout is a whole thing from Vern on, we'll talk about that as well. So, okay, so we're going to get into chapter three today and chapter three, We the first part in Chapter three and in Chapter four, we have the. Peter heals the lame man.

We're going to spend all our time talking about these 11 verses. It's kind of interesting. You read through this pretty quickly and think, well, there's not a whole lot here. But when you start looking at it, there's actually quite a bit. This is his second sermon. And actually, it's the first healing by an apostle recorded in Acts. Previously, Peter was a witness, right? He was there the day of Pentecost. And he watched what God did. The Spirit of God came. tongues as a fire on people, but there is no human act. God just did it all, and man just observed. Peter observed. In this case, Peter is going to be the instrument of God in healing this lame man, and his reward for that, he gets put in jail. He and John get put in jail, and maybe others.

I don't know. It's not clear. So basically, that's kind of the short outline. We're going to look at his He has healing of the lame man. The next week actually we'll cover the sermon. The following week we'll cover being put in jail. And then actually he has a chance to talk to the Sanhedrin and tell them about Christ, even though they're not too happy about that. They tell him to be quiet. And he says, well, I can't be quiet. So that's another day for that. Could someone read off the overhead? Volunteer to read those 11 verses. Read your own Bible too, if you like. Well, I can see it, so I'll go for it.

Now, Peter and John were going up to the temple at the ninth hour, the hour of prayer. And a man who had been lame from his mother's womb was being carried along, whom they used to set down every day at the gate of the temple, which is called Beautiful, in order to beg alms of those who were entering the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he began asking to receive alms. But Peter, along with John, fixed his gaze on them and said, look at us.

And he began to give them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you, in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, walk. And seizing him by the right hand, he raised him up, and immediately his feet and his ankles were strengthened. With a leap, he stood upright and began to walk.

And he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God, and they were taking note of him as being the one who used to sit at the beautiful gate at the temple to beg alms. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. While he was clinging to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them at the so-called portico of Solomon, full of amazement. This is a pretty neat thing. This guy is pumped. You'll be pumped too. Actually, if you read down a little farther, he's over 40 years old. Most of his life, he'd been taken up to the temple and sitting there.

And all of a sudden, it's just incredible. And actually, we're going to see some of the words used here toward the end there in verses 10 to 11. Those words of wonder and amazement. The people, I mean it was super, they were just, this can't be, how can this be happening? It's interesting even though we're going to see comparisons with the healing of Christ, I think the fact that that a disciple of Christ or someone following Christ could do that just blew their circuits. They just couldn't understand it. So anyway, we'll see that shortly. So I borrowed this from Merriman in his book, and I adapted a little bit. I added some of my own little words in here. And actually I had an additional thing I wanted to add, which I didn't get in this chart.

But anyway, kind of comparing Like we said before, there was a miracle that happened when they spoke in other tongues, and then there's a healing miracle here. So kind of a comparison, speaking in other languages was a miracle in Acts 2. This one is the healing of a man who was lame from birth. And that really is going to kind of balance this guy. You know, this wasn't something he didn't become lame. He didn't trip over something and fall and break his leg or destroy his leg or was in a car accident, a car accident, a chariot accident.

Okay, in Acts 2 it was Peter preached and what he preached was about kind of similar sermons, similar messages, a slight bit different. He adds about Jesus being a prophet and the restore of Israel in this message. Next week we'll see about that. 3,000 are saved in Acts chapter 2 and then 2,000 more are saved for a total of 5,000.

The time period is not real close. I'm not sure we know exactly how much time transpired between these two events. It doesn't exactly say. Actually, I have a picture here. How are we going to get 2,000 people kind of crammed into this area of the temple? And we'll see. I think this picture that actually is from Vernon makes a little more sense to me. How do we get 2,000 people? Before, the 3,000 people may have been outside the temple. In this case, they're sort of close to one of the temple gates here in the portico.

What's interesting is in Acts chapter 2, the Lord provided that miraculous event. Everybody was in tune with that, even though they're Jewish background. They were praising God, everybody was excited. Well, the result of this healing, the Jewish leaders, they don't like it. This is infringing on their territory. They don't like it and they put them in jail. They will be the day after.

But anyway, OK, that's kind of a little summary. OK, so starting off here, do we know who John is in this passage? And before you answer that, it may as well sway your decision. Let's go look at Acts chapter. Let's look. Look. Twenty two, eight. Someone read Luke 22, eight. And then you can give me your opinion or your opinion.

Then came the first day of unleavened bread on which Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. And he sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat it. And they said to him, Where do you want us to prepare it? Okay, you can just stop there. It's kind of in the middle of thought. So just from the context and what you know about what's happening here, this is preparing the Passover feast. And who do you think John is? He's Italian. Yeah, I mean, this is not hard.

At first, when I first started reading through that, I kind of said, why Peter and John? You know, the thing was, there'll be more than one John, more than one this or that. And so actually, this is one of them. There's quite a few cases where it says Peter and John, Peter and John. What's interesting here is we see an ax.

John is kind of silent. John doesn't say anything. Even though John's going to be the human author of the gospel of John, he doesn't have much to say here. He's with Peter. In many cases, he's silent. No words are spoken by John. And the action is all taken by Peter.

This is not a biggie, but just kind of observation. Don't they usually say he was the youngest? I'm not sure. I haven't really done a certain amount. He actually lived, wasn't he the last? He was the oldest, he lived to be 90. He was the last remaining disciple.

Here's another interesting thing. Notice, when they became believers, they didn't leave the temple. The temple was the place where they met with God. They continue to go up for prayer. They are believers now, but there is nothing wrong with that. They went up to the Jewish temple to pray, but they had a whole new idea about what praying was about. They had the Spirit of God.

That's interesting. That's why we don't see the clash. That's why we didn't see the clash initially, because it was just early in the game. Now when more people, 2,000 more believe, We're getting more people believing, and the Jewish leaders see this as a threat to them. And they are not happy about this.

He was lame from his birth. And actually, later on it says he was over 40 years old at this time. Every day, he went up to the temple called Beautiful. We don't know exactly that word. The beautiful gate. There's a writing by this Jewish historian, Josephus. There is a gate called the Golden Gate, and we're going to see that in a second, but we're not sure. There's a picture coming up here we can look at.

What does it mean to beg for alms? This isn't hard either. So you'll see that in various places. They beg for alms. What was that about? Getting money or food or whatever. Mostly money. And also it looks like that, there's a little psychology here, and this is kind of speculation, that if you go to the gate, the beautiful gate, and there's some thought that it was the most elaborate.

It's on the eastern side of the temple. And I'm not sure how they know that. Every reference I had said it was the eastern side of the temple. Let me just go to the other picture here. So basically it's the shoe hand. That's the one we call the shoe hand. Anyway, so it looks like this most likely was the gate in question. Because we're going to talk about this Solon's portico, which is this kind of covered area. around the perimeter of the temple. What's cool is Vern has this picture. This is neat. Here's this covered portico, this covered colonnade deal.

If this is to scale, there's plenty of room for lots of people in there. That's where they're all going to rush to. 2,000 people are going to rush to something like that. This is from a model. created a model. There are actually several temples that were built. This is a model from the second temple, I believe. So that's the place they're going to rush to.

So what was my point about the Golden Gate? So let's go back for a second. So some people think it's one of these more inner gates. I don't know. It seems to make more sense because they're going to rush to this portico here. But at some point, it could be one of the Corinthian gate. Yes, but was he allowed to? Because he's lame. I thought that they... And maybe they wouldn't like that he was not fit. Maybe they didn't like begging close in there.

This seems to fit more. Now here's the outside world. It says Bridge to Malavalas that way. And this is the eastern side. Everybody says it's the eastern side. I couldn't find anything necessarily that said it was that, but that's what people say. Anyway, so I thought these were helpful. I put these in just for... Okay, so let's go on.

So when he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he began asking. He began asking. So it's the idea that it's continuous action and pastime He's been doing this for years. When people start coming by, he starts his spiel. Unfortunately we see people, they start their thing. You go by, he starts asking. So it's like, alms for the poor. I don't know if he said that. That's what you see in the movies. So I guess they didn't have signs. No cardboard signs. He began asking. So now, if you look here, since when he saw Peter about to go to the temple, he began asking. So he's asking, he's asking, he's asking.

So Peter, along with John, fixed his gaze on him. So the Lord led him to look at this man, and apparently they both looked at him, it looked like. Peter, along with John, fixed their gaze, having looked at him with a piercing gaze. And there's a, we don't have to turn to it, but there's a passage that Cornelius He used a very similar term. He fixed his gaze on an angel of God. They really focused. They really stared at him.

That would kind of... Actually for the layman it says, hey, got some customers. He'd be excited. That's how he makes his living. Well, that's even a big deal to look at somebody like that, isn't it? Oh yeah. Even we do that now. You see the people and it's like, oh yeah, oh yeah. Look at them, you know. Well, you see people that roll down their window and they'll hand money and the people that come right, they'll thank you, thank you and they'll take your money and you know. Personally, I have a problem with some of that. I see people out there... A lot of you wonder if it's just that they just don't want to work and that's how they make a living. It kind of bugs me a little bit. But anyway, that's a whole other story.

And so what Peter said, he said, look at us. Look at once at us. So he wanted to get his attention. Look at us. So that got his attention. This beggar is expecting, it says here, verse 5, And he began giving him his attention, look at us, expecting to receive something from Peter. So he's going to have quite a shock here.

But Peter said, I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have, let's just go back. He says, the idea of possessing is to be in existence, to be ready at hand. It kind of has the idea that I don't have silver and gold on me, and the possibility that I have silver and gold is non-existent. I just don't have that kind of money. You might say that. Peter had something to live on, but he didn't have silver and gold. He didn't have silver and gold.

But what he did have, I give you. in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene walk. So what's interesting is, do you remember what it means when you say in the name of? We talk about that occasionally here. We'll mention in the name of. What does that represent?

So what he is doing is, Peter is not saying in the name of Peter walk, he is saying in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazarene walk. Peter said it is not my ability, later on he is going to say during his sermon, my power had nothing to do with this. God through the Lord Jesus did that. So what does it mean in the name of? And this isn't super hard either. Through the authority of? Exactly, by the authority and by the significance of his name.

What's interesting is a lot of commentators will say Nazareth wasn't considered the garden spot of Israel. It was sort of like saying you're from Colfax, East Colfax. If I said Jesus Christ of East Colfax, If you knew what East Colfax is like, you'd say, it's kind of a sleazy neighborhood. So what's interesting is that for whatever reason, you'll see, of course, there are plenty of churches that are named Nazarene churches. I mean, that's become kind of flipped around. But in that time period, Nazareth was considered kind of not a cool place.

You want to be from that. And he was from that. So anyway, for whatever reason, the apostles, It was sort of like, to confound the Jewish leaders, here we have the son of God from Nazareth. And it's just like, give me, he can't be from there. He's got to be from a noble place, a cool place. And he wasn't.

So it's kind of interesting. It kind of fits the Lord Jesus. It was a place that, kind of the end of the road place. It's literally start walking and keep on walking. It wasn't just take a few steps and you can see what's going to happen. He's leaping and walking and jumping. He's just all over the place. It's kind of cool.

So what we see here, Peter had the power and the authority to heal as an apostle. So I kind of thought it would be appropriate, and I borrowed another chart from from Merriman, to look at what kind of authority and power do we see in the New Testament for apostles. So this is a chart from the verse-by-verse book. And you should go online and get that if you can.

OK, first point is the word apostle means sent one, sent on a mission, or with a message. Apostles were not given to the church. They weren't given to the church until after the ascension of Christ. So there were disciples, right? Before that, disciples of the Lord. Then, after the ascension, that's when the idea of Apostle came into view.

Apostle was a spiritual gift bestowed by the Holy Spirit. So that's kind of key, because people have tried to make that more than... Apostles were endowed with signs or miracle working powers. Gifts like healing and tongues or speaking other languages and prophecy.

An apostle was an eyewitness of the Resurrected Christ. And that's kind of key. That was one of the requirements. And that's why when a person today, you know, there are some churches that will teach that they have apostles in their church. And they're somehow descended from the apostles. According to scripture, they have to be an eyewitness.

Paul was the interesting exception. He was an eyewitness, but in a totally different way. The Lord met him personally. He personally had a personal revelation. He was taken up to heaven. His eyewitness account was mind-boggling. He had to be an eyewitness of the Lord. And this is something that you kind of see in Corinthians and stuff. And Mike Doyle focused a lot.

The apostles, they were very powerful men. And because the New Testament wasn't completed, for this time wasn't even written, they were the authority on doctrine. What they said, they spoke the doctrine of the church. And then as it's recorded, then the scriptures are our doctrinal focus. And then, and this is the last one I kind of mentioned already, there's no such thing as an apostolic succession. Even though people want to have Peter as a pope, they claim there's a succession of Peter. Boy, read your Bibles. So that gift ended with the twelve and Paul.

So that was kind of good. Any thoughts at this point so far? Keep on going here. So now we're starting in verse 7. And this is kind of interesting. And seizing him by the right hand, he raised him up. So what's interesting is that if you look at, we can go look at the healings that Jesus did. Let's look at a couple of these. Let's look at Matthew 8. Could someone read 14 and 15? And when Jesus was coming to Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid and sick of a fever, and he touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she arose and ministered unto them. Okay, great. Thanks, Doris.

So there seems to be what some people call a gesture. You know, the Lord can heal, and Peter can heal via the power given to him. They can heal just by, he said, walk, right? And it seems like that's all that he will need to do. But there seems to be an accompanying, and it probably makes sense, a physical gesture. In the case with Peter, he grabbed his right hand and kind of helped him up. Did he really need to do that? And with his mother-in-law here, he touched her hand and the fever left. It seems like this seems to me a more direct connection. The Lord can heal just by speaking the word. He doesn't need to be a touch. But there are touches we see in more than one case.

Let's turn over to chapter 9. If you look in 9.25, this is a case where it's the synagogue officer's daughter. The context is back in verse 18 where this guy, a synagogue official, he approaches Jesus, and my daughter has died, just died, but come, this is verse 18, and lay your hand on her and she will live. If you go down to verse 24 and 25, And he began to say, depart, for the girl has not died, but is asleep. And they began to laugh at him. So Jesus came up to the official's house, that's back in 23, and they thought, well, this girl's dead. Why are you here? It's too late. Jesus isn't concerned about that. And then 25, he says, when the crowd had been put out, he entered and took her by the hand, and the girl arose. So there's another physical gesture. And then the last one is in 2034. And these are the two blind men. They're back to 32.

And Jesus stopped and called them and said, what do you want me to do for you? And they said to him, Lord, we want our eyes to be opened. And with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes. And immediately, they regained their sight and followed him. So the point here is that there seems to be a physical gesture that goes along with that. And it doesn't seem like that is totally necessary, but that's what the Lord does. So it says, he sees him by the right hand and he raised him up, and instantly his feet and ankles were made strong. So he didn't have to wait for them to get strong, they just were strong. And this is what's really cool. And with a leap, he stood up. Leaping, he stood up. And so he's doing three things. He's walking and leaping and praising God. Okay, so let's go over the next one here. The last three verses.

And all the people saw him walking and praising God. So when you see in scripture, the people, with a definite article, the people. Many times it refers to, in this case, I believe it refers to the men of Israel or the Israelites. So that's kind of a, without saying it, it refers to those are Israelites, the people. They're God's people, the people. So all the people, they're all Israelites, saw this.

And what's interesting is, I don't know what Doris, do you have the King James? Could you read verse 10 for me? Acts 3.10.

Acts 3.10. And they knew that it was he which sat for alms at the beautiful gate of the temple, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him.

What's interesting is that in the New American Standard they were taking note What it literally means is, which seems kind of weak, it's sort of like, oh yeah. They recognize it. It's sort of like, well that's him. That's the one. I saw him every day. He's right there. Taking notes seems kind of weak. They recognize him. It was an aha moment. That's him. The one who used to sit at the beautiful gate to beg alms. Seems a little weak. Actually, Doris's isn't too bad. King James there. OK.

Now here's some cool words here. They were filled with wonder and amazement. So we've got a couple words I want to look at, and what had happened. So the first one is wonder. And that's a word for astonishment, amazement. And actually, let's look and turn to Luke 5.9. Let's go back to verse 8. But when Simon Peter saw that he fell down at Jesus' feet, saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord, for the amazement had seized him and all his companions because of the catch. fish which they had taken. It's just an amazing thing.

So that wonder is amazement, the first word. Then we've got amazement again. This is another word for amazement. This one is interesting. It literally means to remove out of its place or state an ecstasy in which the mind is for a time carried as it were out or beyond itself and lost. Weiss kind of renders this, they were filled with amazement and were in a state of mental imbalance. It's like, I can't handle this. It doesn't compute. I can't grasp this. How can this guy who used to be here for four years, how can he be walking and leaping? It can't be. Because at that time you couldn't go to the doctor. Chances were zero. Okay, so there's two words for the amazement and wonder. And then actually what's cool is, at the very end, all the people ran together full of amazement.

And this word, full of amazement, is an intensified form of wonder. Full of amazement is this word with a little goody tact in the front. They call it intensifier in the Greek. It intensifies the meaning of that. And actually it's rendered as being utterly astonished. And actually I like what we used to say. It's kind of an old school word.

Completely flabbergasted. And flabbergasted is what we looked up last night in dictionaries. People don't talk about being flabbergasted these days. At least I haven't. I haven't heard the nightly news that we were flabbergasted today. They don't talk about that.

That's kind of a cool word. So the amazement at what happened was just startling to them. And that's why I think 2000 showed up there. It's just like, we got to see this. This guy's walking around and you know. All right. So that's actually all I had on the first 11 verses. Unfortunately. James, where are you? You kept me sleeping. Well, I'll have to get with James.

One on one or whatever. We'll talk. But anyway, let's go. I'll just go ahead and we'll talk about the question that came up here the other day. Okay, so any last thoughts on this? I might want to go through these last charts here. If not, we'll just go ahead here.

Okay, a couple weeks ago, and James wrote the question, which I think was a good question. He made an observation that we don't see the word separated. People talk about that, and so the question is what does it mean? And then this verse was talked about a few times. It's a verse right here, let's see. So what does forsaken mean in this verse here? In Mark 15, 34, at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice.

Kids, I'm sorry to interrupt. Sure, sure, go ahead. Can I ask what the sort of big question was again? I kind of forgot. Well, the question was, it seemed like that James's point was, And he made a point that people will say that Christ was separated from his father on the cross during the three hour time. I'm reading between the lines here. People will say it, and I think you said it, and actually there's a lot of people that say it. So the question is, what does that mean? Either, and so the question is was, do we think Christ was separated from God during that time or was he not? Well, actually it's not quite that easy. Okay. Okay. The question is what, what is it? Actually, scripture doesn't say that.

Scripture says he was forsaken and abandoned, which actually in my mind is a lot stronger. The separated part, I think, and I'm going to speak for James, I don't know. I think he's sort of saying, well, we realize that This was a temporary event, right? Christ during this time period was forsaken and abandoned by his father. And there's a reason for that, and we're going to see that in a second. But obviously the Lord, he was raised on the third day. If he was truly accepted, that wouldn't have happened.

So, I guess I don't know the full motivation behind his objection to separated. People will use that as a synonym of forsaken or abandoned, which I don't have a real big problem with. Let's just look at what scripture says and see what forsaken or abandoned means. My goal here is to see, we refer to this verse and we said, some say, oh that's, he was separated. And James kind of rejected that. So I want to say, let's see what it says. And then we can see whether separating is applicable. So that's kind of the thought process here.

So the verse says, Christ said this, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And that was a quote out of Psalm 22. I'm not going to turn there. But then I actually have another from the Amplified Bible. It helps out a lot here. It's the last part of that verse. And it says, which means, my God, my God, why have you forsaken? And actually, in parens, they have forsaken. And we'll see that means deserting me, leaving me helpless, and abandon me.

So that's pretty strong. I mean, there's, you know, that, that close relationship seemed to be broken, right? Or is, was broken, right? And actually, if you look at the, if you look at the, the word forsaken, and it has a little intensifier. Whenever you see, of course, you don't always have the Greek in front of you, the kata, that intensifies that the rest of the word, L-I-E-P-O, lepo, Lepo is a word for leave, so it intensifies that word.

It means to forsake, in the sense of abandoning, by implication to leave in the lurch, forsake, desert, abandon. So that's pretty strong. If I said to you I'm going to desert you and forsake you, we wouldn't be talking to each other probably, right? I'm going to If someone walks away, you're abandoned, good luck, see you later.

But what's interesting is, and the question is, let's see, are there other verses that modify this a little bit? So let's look at, turn in your Bibles to Acts 2.27.

Can someone read Acts 2.27? And maybe we'll go back just for context a little bit.

Because you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor allow your Holy One to undergo decay. Okay, what's interesting here is, and this is a quote from the Old Testament again, you know, it's actually a Psalm of David. Go back to 25, it says, for David says of him, I was always beholden to the Lord in my presence, and so on. It goes down to 27, it says, because I will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor allow the Holy One to undergo decay.

So this is saying the ultimate outcome of Christ's death on the cross is the opposite of what we have up here. It's the same word. He will not be abandoned or forsaken or all those definitions left in the Lurch. He will not be to Hades. So the Lord is not going to be abandoned to Hades, which is a term for hell. And then also if you go down, that's 27. It says, leave my soul in Hades.

So that makes it seem like Temporary. Okay, and actually there's some discussion about that. Anyway, that's another topic. So we got down to 31. Another statement, very similar statement. And he looked ahead of the resurrected Christ. So now he's speaking of the resurrected Christ.

He was neither abandoned, this is our word, abandoned, forsaken, and so on. to Hades nor did his flesh undergo decay. So the Lord Jesus didn't die. His death on the cross didn't result in him going into Hades or his body start decaying like a person who dies. Is Hades their... Is that hell or is that the grave? Well, and that's a good point Bonnie. That's a good point. I'm going to be careful about that. I think it's the grave. I think you're right. I think you're right. Actually, I got a little bit carried away there.

Even though he died, he didn't go through the death process. God the Father raised him up and his body didn't start decaying. Even though he was dead, it didn't start decaying like any other human being would be. So I guess my point in bringing those two verses out is to show that this abandoning and deserting and leaving behind on the cross was a temporary thing.

And it could be why some people object to the word separated. And it seems like even if Christ knew that God would not abandon him that would still take faith for him to trust his father so much that if he knew he would be separated but he would be reunited.

Right, right. And actually if you look at it... Because then I would think, well if he knew he was just going to be saved anyway, then it's not such a big deal. But it's like, that took a lot of faith to really... Well, consider this. Well, two things to consider. In eternity past, we're going to get to this.

In Hebrews 13, there's what's called the... In Hebrews 13, but not verse 5, that's another verse. That's for us in just a second here. In the end of Hebrews, there's a verse that talks about what's called the Eternal Covenant between God the Father and God the Son.

And to summarize quickly, in eternity past, before anybody was created, God the Father and God the Son made a covenant. And the covenant was that the son would lay down his life and the father would raise it up. So they made that agreement and eternity passed before we ever were created.

And he would do that for the sins of the world. So that was in place. Like I said, the Lord knew that. But what's interesting here, he then becomes the God-man. And he's fully God and fully man. So I think what we see here in these words, we see the humanity of Christ. Just like in the garden, He said, Father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me. So we see the humanity of Christ come in view there, even though he's still God.

And then actually, Hebrews 13.5 is a cool verse. And it talks about us. It talks about us.

Turn to Hebrews 13.5. And it says, and this is one of my favorite verses, if you ever doubt that the Lord cares for you, Of course, you have to read it in the expanded version.

Hebrews 13.5, it doesn't sound as impressive as it does in the expanded version.

It says, Hebrews 13.5, let your character be free from the love of money, being content with what you have.

For he himself said, I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you. But what's interesting is there's five negatives in this verse. It only looks like there's two negatives here. But the first negative is a double negative. It is, I will never, never desert you. And then the last negative is a triple negative.

I will not, I will not, I will not ever forsake you. Boy, I tell you, I can't tell you how many times that verse has comforted me, because I say, wow, I may feel like the situations, you know, but God has promised, I will never, never desert you, and I will not, I will not, I will not ever forsake you.

So, and the reason I put that in there was because it kind of fits in, you know, God's plan with his son was to raise him up on the third day. Yes, he had to go through to be forsaken and God terminating for a time period. And people have used the word separated. So I don't know fully what James's point was. So actually what I wanted to do, I wanted to give some thoughts here to what did Christ suffer on the cross. To try to see why was it necessary for the father to forsake him and abandon him. So there's three points.

And we've talked about these many times before, but just as a review. Christ died for all sins, plural. Christ died unto the sin nature. That's the nature we have from Adam. And here's the one that's just another circuit blower. Christ was made sin on our behalf.

And that one is the one that kind of helps me to see why the Lord had to abandon him for a time period. I have my little picture that I like. Here's a tree with fruit and roots. Let this picture help us. The fruit represents our personal sins. It says Christ died for our sins, plural. The root in this illustration represents the sin. If you look in your Bibles You won't see sin nature, you won't see the word sin nature, but you will see, with the help of the New Testament Greek, you will see the sin.

So when it says in Romans 6.10, he died unto sin, there's actually a little definite article, the word the is really in the text but not translated. He died unto the sin nature. Let's look at a few verses here.

Christ died for all sins. 1 John 2. And he himself is the propitiation or satisfaction for our sins, plural, but not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. So Christ paid the penalty for all sins of all times. That's part of what was placed on Christ when he was on the cross. The sins of everyone. So that by itself is a crushing load.

And there's a few other verses here. But God demonstrated his love toward us while we were sinners. Christ died for us. Hebrews 9 28 So Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins, plural of many, will appear for a second time for salvation, without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await him. So those are three verses. There are many others that you could probably list.

So now let's switch to the sin nature. So now we're going to talk about the root of the problem. What causes sin in a believer's life? It's the nature that we have. You have to have something that's causing the sins. This is the root of the problem. So Christ dealt with the root of the problem as well as the fruit of the problem. And this is from the King James.

For in that he died, he died unto, and then I put the definite article the in there, the sin, once. But in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. So if you look at, and Lee's translation does try to bring out the full impact of this the sin nature. So this is the same verse in the Luis translation. For the death that he died, he died with respect to our sinful nature. So that's the sin, once for all, but the life he lives, he lives with respect to God. And then here's another verse that speaks about the sin nature. And this speaks about the fact that sin nature has been condemned.

I don't have to remind you, Christians still sin, right? That's not a shock. I hope that isn't a shock to you folks. We still sin. And I like how Mike likes to say it. Who's driving the ship here? Something has to be causing that, right? I mean, we know we shouldn't be sinning. We know that. We know the world doesn't desire us to sin, but we still sin. So we have to have something.

So this verse 8, Romans 8, 3 tells us that what God did, He condemned. He condemned that sin nature. For that which is an impossibility for the law, because it was weak for the sinful nature, God having sent his Son in the likeness of flesh, in the likeness of the flesh of sin, in concerning sin, condemns sin in the sinful nature. So our sin nature has been condemned.

And then what's interesting is, if you look in the latter parts of Romans there, it talks about the believer, the believer being delivered from the power of sin. It says, based upon what the Lord has done for you. Let me read a portion of that real quickly. Based upon what Christ has done, it says, therefore, do not let sin And that could be the sin nature. Reign in your immortal flesh that you should obey its lust.

Do not go on presenting the members of your body to the sin nature as instruments of righteousness, of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. Sorry to stop there. Okay, so now, my last point here is that Christ was made sin on our behalf.

And I don't have a total answer, and this is the one that Bonnie always asks me. What does that mean? What does that mean? What does that mean? And this is a toughie, but I think it shows the magnitude of what Christ suffered on the cross. So the verse that that comes from is 2 Corinthians 5.21.

He who did not know sin in the experiential way on behalf of us and instead of us was made sin, was made sin. In order that, as for us, we might become a righteousness of God in him. So Christ never experienced sin. He didn't have a sin nature. He was sinless. He was a sinless one.

But on behalf of us and instead of us, he was made sin. There are two aspects to sin. There are sins that we commit, plural, and the sin nature. Christ dealt with both of those. Imagine that. He dealt with all the sins of the world plus all the sin natures of the world. All the engines that drive that sin. That's what he was dealing with on the cross. And that's the best I can come up with. He was made sin. He was made the epitome of sin. The nature and all the culminations of all those sins. And that's a load that no human could ever handle. I mean it's just mind boggling. And there's a verse that doesn't really come close. Have him become a curse for us. So he was cursed. by taking on the sins and the sin nature. page on your handout is a little thing from Verne. This question also came up, or at least it was mentioned, and I'll give you the quick answer here.

This last little handout says, Is it true that God cannot look upon sin? Well, Verne's answer, if you look in your handout here, and I agree with it, is only true that God cannot look upon sin and be dispassionate. What he's saying is, God is not going to look on sin and do nothing about it. God cannot look upon sin without taking an action consistent with his character. So if you go through and read here, basically it gives some verses. Now God does look upon sin. He does see man's sin. But sin is judged. God had to judge sin.

He's not dispassionate about it. So that question kind of came up, and it kind of goes along with the thing about being separated. Some people kind of made a case, well, God is separated, and then he can't look upon sin. Well, I think those all can get kind of wrapped up. So this was an attempt to kind of clarify the thing about God looking upon sin. Sin is, like in Isaiah there, it was displeasing to him in his sight. There's no justice and so on.

There's many verses that talk about God looking upon sin, but God judges sin. Can I quickly, just how this fits into mine, because I had heard that God can't look at sin and that's why he sent Jesus, is because God couldn't come down to earth because he couldn't look on sin, but it would also fit in to say that God couldn't come down onto earth because he would be doing something about it, whereas Jesus being fully human, I mean, we see sin and we don't do anything about it. We can look at it and be like, okay, there's sin, you know, so that would also fit into Jesus being able to tolerate it, or not tolerate it, but not act on it. But what's cool is he came as the sacrifice for sin. Once again, God was not just saying, oh there's sin again, oh there they go again. He came and he sung, I've come. For a purpose. God does not act, he's not dispassionate.

He is very passionate about sin. So passionate that he just couldn't leave it. So I think this really helps. It helps us to put it in perspective. Sin does offend God, but God did something about it. He dealt with it. And he started over again. I know, so God is not, he is very passionate about sin. He is very passionate.

Jesus, you are going to have to go do that because I am just going to wipe him out. They would need an eternity pass to do that. Hopefully you see with the, he being made sin for us and the two aspects of sin, the nature of sin, Those engines of sin that just crank it out, and then all those sins that are committed, that's what Christ took upon himself. And that, to me, that helps me kind of grasp that he had to be abandoned and forsaken on the cross.

And if someone doesn't like to use the word separate, I say, I don't have a problem with that. If that bothers him, The receipt is not separated. That was a time period. Hopefully that helps. I'll hopefully get with James and we'll talk. This reminds me of Hal. So many times I've been with Hal for so many years. Even at work. Somebody would ask Rusty McLaren. Rusty he likes to be called now. so many times at work. We'd have a Bible study at work.

He'd come to Hal's class, he'd ask a question, he wouldn't be there the next time to get the question answered. Rusty, where are you? Hal's here, he has an answer for your question, but you're not here. And it's okay. The Lord knows that, and there's reasons why we're not here. I'm not trying to give people a hard time for not being here, but that just seems to be the way it is sometimes.

Okay, well let's close then. Dear Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have in our Savior, Father. Thank you that you did take on, Lord, the sins of the world, and you also took on the sin natures, Lord, and you became sin, which seems just mind-boggling. But you did that for us, Lord, because you care for us and you love us. And we thank you for that. In Christ's name, amen.