Dennis Tuuri

# SERMON TRANSCRIPT – REFORMATION COVENANT CHURCH

have full authority then relative to preaching ministration of sacraments to a lame man that he might work walk into God’s temple and praise him there please stand for the reading of God’s word.

Acts chapter 3. Sermon topic is the restoration of all things.

Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer being the ninth hour and a certain man lame from his mother’s womb was carried whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called beautiful to ask alms of them that entered into the temple who seeing Peter and John about to go in into the temple asked alms and Peter fasting his eyes upon him with John said look on us.

And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them. Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up. And immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. And he leaping up stood and walked and entered with them into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God.

And all the people saw him walking and praising God. And they knew that it was he which sat for all into the beautiful gate of the temple. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him. And as the lame man which was healed held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch that is called Solomon’s, greatly wondering. And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, “Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this?

Or why look ye so earnestly on us? As though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his son Jesus, whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. But he denied the holy one and the just, and delivered a murderer, and desired he murdered to be granted unto you until the prince of lights whom God hath raised from the dead whereof we are witnesses.

And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong whom ye see and know. Yay, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. And now, brethren, I want that through ignorance did it as did also your rulers. But those things which God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled. Repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come.

The presence of the Lord. And you shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you, whom the heaven must receive until the time of the restitution of all things, which God hath spoken through the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said unto the fathers, “A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me, Him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you.” And it shall come to pass that every soul which will not hear that prophet shall be destroyed from among the people.

Ye and all the prophets from Samuel, and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days. Yeah. children of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, “And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. Unto you first God having raised up his son Jesus sent him to bless you and turning away every one of you from his iniquities.” We thank God for his word and pray that we also might be healed to the end that we would praise God in all that we do.

Subject is the restoration of all things. And what I want to do first is remember what the context of this is. We just finished actually with what the chapter that follows us. But in the course of Acts remember in Acts chapter 2 we have the day of Pentecost. and the typological salvation of the whole world. The first sermon by Peter, the church is reorganized, the gift of the Holy Spirit for ministry receives that unction.

As a result of the preaching, 3,000 come to the Lord. And then at the end of chapter 2, there’s a brief description of the fellowship of the church. And you remember it talks about how they devoted themselves to the apostles instruction, breaking of bread, fellowship, and prayer. And that is found in the last few verses that lead up to this particular section of scripture dealing with what I believe is essentially the theme of the restoration of all things.

Remember we said before that there are correlations between the book of Joshua and the book of Acts. And one of those correlations is that fellowship together and worship in the community of God precedes conquest. Gilgal, the rolling away of God’s reproach from the people, the entering into the sacraments of the Old Testament again and then fellowshipping together there. That home base of operations was for the purpose that all the world, the typological world, all of Canaan would be then uh conquered through God’s people.

And so it is that scattered throughout the accounts in Acts, we have pictures of the church. People come together, worship, fellowship, apply themselves to the instruction of God’s word. They might take that word out then and do what they’ve already seen happen in Acts chapter 2, save the whole world through the preaching of the gospel. And so it is with us today. We come together in the Lord’s day. We fellowship together.

We receive the instruction from the scriptures. We weigh it by the scriptures. We fellowship together. We attend to the breaking of God’s bread and the power of the sacraments that gives us grace to go forward in the power of Jesus Christ. These are the acts of the apostles. They’re really the acts of Jesus Christ through the apostles. We’ve seen this identification repeatedly made in these first few chapters between the apostles and Jesus.

Jesus marches forth in the terms of the church. So we come together on the Lord’s day reminding ourselves that this is not we go into the world, suffer to defeat, come back together just to get restored back to where we were last week. No, the idea is we’re progressing on. This becomes home base. The armament facility so to speak where we receive our equipping to go out and preach the gospel exercise works of dominion and essentially then disciple the nations.

So that same model applies to us and then after immediately after this of course we saw the opposition we talked for the last couple of weeks and this is what the opposition the first persecution or opposition of the church occurs in the context of is the healing of this lame man and the preaching of the gospel by Peter in what is recorded as the second sermon. I thought of this concept of credentialism as a device to oppose people on the part of the sitting bureaucracies at least twice this last week.

I saw news stories that related And I’ll just share them with you to help you to remember to interpret what one of the big things we’re trying to point out here is that the apostles interpreted contemporary events on the basis of God’s scripture. And this theme of credentialism used to solidify a power base for people that are in authority is demonstrated in our world repeatedly.

At the beginning of last week I saw for instance where they’d run a scam in Portland for private contractors and they had some lady advertising new defense fixed the house painted this kind of stuff and had half-hour appointments to these contractors and they and these contractors didn’t have licenses. The state of Oregon you have to have a license to be a private contractor run an ad. And so these guys didn’t have licenses. They were handcuffing every 30 minutes they bring a new one in, handcuff them, jail them, charge them with operating without a license.

You know, you may have different opinions of this than I do, but I don’t think it’s the job of the civil state to determine who can fix a fence and who can’t. And I don’t believe you should have to pay for a license and go through state accreditation. I think one of the reasons why that happens is the city authority structure, the private contractors who are licensed are very happy about this because they want their authority base held.

Then yesterday was a medical hearing for men who’s an acupuncturist. I’m not in favor of acupuncture necessarily, but I am in favor of a market that’s not controlled by the civil state again saying who can practice medicine and who can’t. And because this man practices acupuncture the state can’t determine how to test that. He’s any good at that. They’re essentially taking away his license to practice except for one patient. And there were 100 patients at this hearing yesterday apparently saying we like this guy. We want him to treat us.

The state says, “No, no, no. He doesn’t meet our credentials and so he can’t practice medicine unless he practices under existing authorized acupuncture credentialism.” Well, that’s what the Pharisees used and the Sadducees against the church of God as well. At least that’s one of the indications from Acts chapter 4.

And now we’re going to look at Acts chapter 3, which was the basis for this opposition. And I believe and I said this last week that as Acts chapter 2 saw in microcosm the salvation of the world. So here we see the restoration of all things in this lame man being healed. Let’s go over the story real quick.

Peter and John, it is said go up to the temple at the hour of prayer which is the ninth hour. We have a specific time setting given to us important. There were three hours of prayer in the Jewish system and this is the evening sacrifice time evening sacrifice they went up in terms of the 9th hour. And so they were going to the temple continuity with the Old Testament church as we talked about in this church quite a bit.

As they’re going up there into the temple, there was a man lame from his mother’s womb. That’s important because he didn’t get lame recently. He’s been lame all his life. And they carry him up to the gate of the temple and he then begs alms of people. Peter and John come up and he says, “Hey, you know, I want some alms here, gold and silver.” And Peter says, “Well look at me.” And the guy looks at him. He’s got to raise his eyes up to Peter to look at him.

And by the way, there says in verse one, they went up to the temple. Ascension again. That’s a repeated theme throughout the scriptures when you go to worship God, you ascend. They go up to the temple. It was a moral and physical elevation in the words of Jay Alexander. We should remember that when we come to this temple, so to speak, this convocation of God’s people, this body of Jesus Christ, we come up because we get a heavenly perspective. Again, we’re reinforcing that through the ceremony every week to remind us to have a heavenly perspective.

That’s what they’re doing in worship. So they meet this fellow there at the door to the temple. At the gate of the temple, he can’t. He’s not going in. He’s out there at the gate to receive alms from people. And they say, “Well, you know, we don’t have silver or gold, but what we do have will give you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” They healed this fellow. And this shows us that silver and gold really are just pictures of this health and restoration, pictures of the goodness of God’s throne.

It’s idolatry to want silver and gold without realizing that their relationship is to the God of creation. Well, in any event, he it’s interesting here again repeatedly in these first few chapters of Acts, they refer to Jesus as Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Jesus Christ, Savior, King. In our letterhead, we talk about in the letter had reformation covenant church we have a phrase that I got from R.J. Rushdoony proclaiming let’s see the preaching the good news of the ascension of the savior king to the throne savior is Jesus king anointed one messiah Christ so savior king of Nazareth though Peter is never ashamed to talk of Jesus Christ of Nazareth his beginnings even though that was a contemptuous term of derision used against him during the life of our savior and you see it should be reminded of us when we see Nazareth that we should not be ashamed of Jesus Christ either what the scriptures portray of his life he did come from Nazareth so it’s important to us to remember that there’s other things as well.

We could talk about in terms of that, but we won’t take the time now. I’m trying to cover the whole chapter in one week. Okay. So, they take him by the hand. They condescend. They tell this fellow to go ahead and walk. They command him, so to speak, to walk in the name of Christ. But they also give him a hand to help him up. And that’s a good picture for us as well. And we’re instructing people, exhorting them to come to help us.

We should condescend to help them up. Well, anyway, they reached down the man, raise him up. He reaps up and his ankle bones and his feet are receive health and strength. And he can walk again. And he starts jumping up and down praising God. He can not only walk, he can jump up and down and leap. The scriptures tell us. Well, then They go into the temple. Then he goes with Peter and John. And it says specifically that he was holding on to Peter and John.

That doesn’t mean for wanted strength. He’s been jumping and leaping and praising God, but he is associating himself with men who are associated with Jesus Christ. And that’s a good picture for us, too, of devotion to those who have healed us to a certain extent, who have ministered the word to us, who have brought more wholeness into our lives. We should have a sense of devotion and want to be around those people and spend time with them.

And it’s it’s a sad thing, but all too often in the Christian church, those people that have ministered to people, brought them to a degree of holiness, so they’re left behind when something else happens in their life. And none of that is knowledge. Well, let me admit, this lame man holds on to Peter and John and the people see all this happening. So, you got a great picture here. This lame man being healed, going to the temple, praising God, made whole by the word of Jesus Christ.

And the people see all this and they’re just amazed and wondering. And so, here we have Peter’s second sermon recorded in the book of Acts. And it’s very much like the first sermon in that it’s in response to the people and what they’re doing. And as the people marveled at the gift of tongues, foreign languages in Acts chapter 2, here the people marvel at the restoration of this man. And so, Peter says, “Well, now what are you marveling about?

Why are you marveling at him? Or why you marveling as if we made this guy whole?” So, Peter’s second sermon also begins with an explanation. Remember in the first sermon he said, “Hey, these guys are not drunk. You’re saying they’re drunk. They’re not drunk. Here’s what really is going on here.” And here he says, “You’re marveling as if this guy made himself whole or if he been made whole by no power, just kind of a thing that not related to anything in the substance.

Or as if we by our own personal piety and holiness, which is what the words seem to indicate here, haven’t been able to give this guy life.” And that’s a good thing for us to remember, too, that we cannot give life on the basis of our piety or holiness. It does no good. It’s a ministration of the spirit of God that brings people to health and wholeness. It’s never the result of our own holiness. Our own holiness is important, but you always must remember God’s sovereignty.

And I shared this before, but when I first became a Christian or began to walk with God again, I’m not sure which it was really. When I immediately went back to Minnesota for a period of time, I was not doing lead a good life. I was doing things every day that I should have been doing. And yet, I knew who Jesus Christ was and I was I was saved and I was telling people about the Lord Jesus Christ. I’m not advocating that people have a bad lifestyle and witness in the context of that.

But after I left that town and got a letter, most of those people have become Christians. this is like a counter culture group around a rock band, this kind of thing. the word goes out and God taught me right in the very first days of my self-conscious devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ that it was not a result of my personal witness or testimony, so to speak, that ultimately moves people to accept the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is the power of the word. Now, the importance of our lifestyle is real. I don’t want to overbalance that way either. It’s important how we live our lives. But you must always remember that it’s God’s sovereign work that brings people to salvation and also the minister’s grace under wholeness and health. Okay? So, Peter says, “We didn’t do it.” But what actually has gone on here, he says in verse 13, “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, repeated for emphasis, continuity to the old covenant community, the old church, so to speak.

It’s simply been reorganized. It’s not a new church. This is the church of God now. No longer the apostate Jewish system. That God has glorified son Jesus. And you could take this a couple of different ways. Remember, we talked about his exaltation, Christ’s exaltation and glorification in that sense is what led to the gift of the spirit. But Jay Alexander thinks, and I think he’s right, that what this means is God has beautified, made heavier, given more glory to his son Jesus through this miracle.

So the purpose for this miracle is to give glory to the Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of the people. So he’s saying this miracle didn’t just sort of happen. This guy didn’t do it. We didn’t do it. God has done it and he’s done it to exalt the name of Jesus Christ. So restoration to wholeness always is for the purpose not primarily of our own wellbeing, it’s for the purpose of exalting the name of Jesus Christ.

Okay. Now, we’re not on the outline yet, in case you’re wondering where I’m at there. I’m just kind of reviewing all this before we get into the outline, which should go fairly quickly, I think. Okay. Now, he tells that, and again, as he did in Acts chapter 2 with his first sermon, he then calls the people to repent. let’s see. I probably should have done this first, but one commentator said that what we have here is need, healing, preaching, a reaction rather, an explanation.

There was a need for the man to be healed. Peter healed. Peter and John healed him through the power of God. There’s a reaction by the people and then an explanation by people, by Peter rather what has actually occurred. And in the explanation, Peter goes for this outline according to this one commentator. He talks about the atonement. He exhorts them. He gives an invitation. He warns them. And then he identifies with them in the context of being part of the church.

So what he’s doing here is he’s now explaining that this is not what happened here. And he goes right then into the preaching of the gospel by telling them that they are guilty. Jesus has glorified his son Jesus whom ye delivered up and denied him in the presence of Pilate when he was determined to let him go. So he uses this occasion to drive home, as all good preachers do, people’s personal sin and responsibility for their actions.

Jesus was crucified by these particular people. But he is in a very real sense also crucified by those who refuse to acknowledge him. It is their sins, okay, that is being pictured in the atonement of Jesus Christ. And so you deny the holy one and the just and desire a murderer to be granted unto you and kill the prince of life. That’s a great phrase. Kill the prince of life whom God has raised from the dead whereof we are witnesses and his name.

And then in verse 16, he focuses on the fact that it is Jesus’s power that has brought this man to health. And then he calls him to repent as he always does in his preaching to these people. He tells them there to repent therefore that your sins may be blotted out. And then he goes on to give a curious addition here that is not found in Acts chapter two when it since we brought it out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord and he shall send Jesus Christ which before was preached unto you when the heaven must receive until the time of the restitution of all things which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began and that’s kind of what we’re focusing in on is what’s central to this particular message that distinguishes it somewhat for chapter 2 is this focus upon the times of refreshing that come upon people that repent and the linkage of that to the restitution of all things which must happen before Jesus returns then he goes on to close it off by talking about the prophets Moses says to the fathers a prophet should come like me, you must hear him.

And now notice that you shall hear him in all things. Whatsoever he shall say unto you in all things that he says you must hear this prophet. And if you don’t do this, he says, then you will be cursed. But if you do believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, then you’ll be part of the kindness of the earth shall be blessed in him. Okay?

So Peter responds to this reaction to the crowd. God sets it up by doing a manifestation of the spirit in terms of restoration. The way he set up the people, so to speak, with the manifestation of the power of the spirit and the preaching of the gospel in different languages in Acts chapter 2, the people then respond with wonder. And that gives Peter all the opportunity he needs to begin to preach. of the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s always ready and able and equipped to preach in response to whatever the people are doing. That’s a good model for us as well.

Okay. I want to focus on seven things from this passage of scripture. And the first thing I want to talk about here is that restoration is pictured in the healing of the lame man. And really, you know what I’m talking about here is those verses that I just referred to as I think being central to all this. Peter tells the people to repent. He says their sins will be wiped off the roles of God’s books of account if they do.

And that this is linked to times of refreshing coming from the presence of the Lord. And that is then linked to the of Jesus which before was preached unto you whom the heaven must receive until the time of the restitution of all things. It’s my belief that what being is being pictured here in the healing of the lame man is what’s being talked about here. Just as this man was refreshed. Now the word refreshed means to have to be cooled off a cool breeze refresh you.

Or it can mean the revival of air. If you’re out of air for whatever reason, running too hard, whatever. Refreshing means you get back air. It’s a picture of resurrection really. It’s a picture of new life, restoration to soundness. And this man has just been a picture to them. The restoration to wholeness. He’s been lame all his life. Now he’s physically whole. And throughout this passage of scripture, it talks about this that wholeness.

It’s not just he can walk again. He’s perfectly sound is what the text says. He’s received strength in his feet and ankle bones. There’s a sense of refreshing that’s come upon him that’s manifested by his praise and going to the temple and praising God. And I think that is the central picture that God puts before us as was the preaching in the foreign languages. That’s what’s going to happen in the flow of history.

And the flow of history will include that include people coming to repentance. But it will also include that when they come to repentance, they’ll have times of refreshing upon them. You’ll receive a cool breeze. You’ll receive wind again when you are out of wind. The breath of God will fill your lungs as Jesus breathed on his disciples. And if that is linked to the time of the restoration of all things, heaven must retain Christ until the time of the restoration of all things.

We’ll talk about that in a fuller sense in a couple of minutes. But this restoration then that is part of salvation is pictured in the healing of the lame man.

Secondly, this restoration is promised to all who repent. This picture is then promised As I said in acts chapter in chapter 3 rather verses 19 and 20 repent therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the lord.

I think he was telling him here you see what’s happened to this man the same thing will happen to you morally as you would come to repentance and believe in the lord Jesus Christ now repentance is a very important thing here and he really drove home to them as I said that they needed to repent repentance is keyed to the recession the restoration that is to occur in their lives Alexander in his commentary said there were two things really that he really focused in terms of his preaching in verses 13 and 14 of their in the first was a formal rejection of their own Messiah.

That’s the first thing he told him about. You’ve rejected Messiah. But secondly, and I’ll quote here from Alexander. The second aggravating circumstance suggested is that this rejection ruinous and wicked as it was in itself was rendered still more heinous by it having been committed in the presence of a heathen ruler representing the great dominant power of the gentile world. Not only did you reject the Messiah who came to you as your king and as your prince, the prince of life is what he calls him in Acts chapter 3.

Not only did you reject him, you rejected him in the context of Pilate, the heathen ruler representing the heathen rule of the Roman Empire over all the gentile world. And it’s the same thing today when Christians reject the lordship of Jesus Christ, they are very much in the same way rejecting Messiah in terms of his being king.

Now it’s not, you know, I don’t want to equate, this is like I said last week, I don’t I want to be careful equating them too strongly, but it is certainly true that when Christian leaders appear on national media and say the Lord Jesus Christ should not be king over the civil affairs of men, in a sense, they’re sharing in the same sin and they should repent of it.

They should repent over thinking that their areas of human that the Lord Jesus Christ is not king over and they should particularly repent if they make those sorts of assertions in the context of a heathen world that has rejected the Lord Jesus Christ and is not part of the people of God. It’s also true in our own lives. We may claim to be good reconstructionist transformationalists, whatever you want to call yourself, you may assert the crown rights of King Jesus over all your life, but if you have areas of your life that you do not consent to his kingship in the place of his law in that’s sin, then you must repent of that sin.

And if you do, then you’ll have times of refreshing sent to you in terms of that area of your life. That is particularly true if that sin occurs in the context of the heathen world. Maybe it’s your place of business, for instance, you’re not openly acknowledging the lordship of Christ and you deny it. And if you deny it in front of men who are themselves not Christians, that’s a heinous sin in the sight of God.

We should be very careful as we speak about affairs of the Christian world to the non-Christian world, to the Gentiles, so to speak, or outside of the Israel of God. We must be very careful how we criticize the church. It may be proper to criticize the church at times and criticize members of the church, but there is a distinction to be made when we do that in terms of being within the family of God, without the family of God.

Well, in any event, these times of restoration are promised then to those who And not that, you know, I don’t want to say they’ll receive the gift of salvation plus type of restoration. I think what Acts chapter 2 and chapter 3 shows us is that salvation itself infers the restoration of our lives in terms of restoring to do dominion, soundness, health, etc. And so that’s what’s being pictured here. And that is that is so the full gospel is what’s being portrayed in Peter’s first and second sermon recorded in Acts chapter 2 and Acts chapter 3.

Third, this restoration requires an acknowledgement of our need. Boy, this is, you know, it’s so simple and yet I think it’s real important. Clearly here, this man who was lame had to understand that he had he had a need. and clearly the people that Peter then preaches to, they would not come to repentance unless they understood their need. And that’s why he drives home to them their personal sin. You cannot receive restoration, so to speak, healing and a time of refreshing in terms of an area of your life as Christians either unless you acknowledge a need in that particular area.

Remember what we said before several weeks ago, I gave this model. Some of us have remembered pretty easily 3Ds that typically with our sin, we’ll either deny that we sinned altogether, we’ll divert the conversation away from our sin, or we’ll defend our sin. Now, you know, I’ve been in counseling now for 10 years in the context of this church and I’ve also seen my own life you know clearly and I know that this is what almost always happens at first when you go to anybody or somebody approaches you about your sin you almost always try to divert it away or you’ll try to defend what you did we’ve been trained to think that way of course in the context of our world we’ve been trained to think that what we do is a result of our situation around us our environment etc environment is god-ordained and I don’t want to put all that down but the point is that God says that unless you recognize in a particular area that you’re lame that your feet are broken and need strength you’re not going to be receiving strength in those feet.

God works. Now, God doesn’t have to work this way, but the way God works is he brings you to a consciousness of your sin and he brings you to a desire to repent of that sin before he brings you to wholeness in a particular area. Because he doesn’t have to work that way, but that’s how he works. That’s how he’s decided to work. And so, it’s important for us to recognize that all we’re doing when we deny sin, when we divert the argument away from our sin, when we defend our sin, all we’re doing is postponing the times of refreshing that God can breathe into that particular area of our life.

So, both this man and these people had to realize their the sense of the man has weakness of body, the sense of people their guiltiness in terms of sin. it’s interesting that this term beautiful, they’re at the beautiful gate, gate called beautiful, it’s only used three or four times in scripture twice here in the book of Acts and two other occurrences. One is in Romans where it talks about how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel bring good news that God reigns.

By the way, that is the good news, right? That’s the our God reigns is the message is supposed to come out of the mouth of the preachers of the gospel who indeed their feet are beautiful. it’s amazing how central that is to the gospel. message and yet how little you hear of it in terms of gospel preaching. It’s always individual sin and individual salvation plucking a few brands from the fire which is a biblical term but the big picture is God’s reign from heaven.

Well, in any event, that’s one of the other places used the beautiful reading the gospel. There’s another place that it’s used too. That’s Matthew 23:27. Jesus is pronouncing the woes of the scribes and Pharisees. You’re likened to white and sephilic which indeed appear beautiful outward but are within full of dead men’s bones. See, the gate beautiful is a picture of both things to us. we can have all the adornments of our liturgy, the temple, etc.

that the Jews haven’t yet. reject the substance, the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and then it’s not beautiful. It’s actually rotten. It’s interesting too that this term beautiful, by the way, refers to a time, a timeliness, youthful bloom, so to speak, is the concept of the thing here. And that’s another indication that I think that the text shows that this time of restoration of all things, the times of refreshing are related to this beautiful gate, so to speak, timeliness of God’s word in our lives.

But in any event, the point of bringing up the preaching of the gospel being beautiful, the fear of them being beautiful, and the Pharisees appearing beautiful, but being rottenous and dead bones within is that the difference there is an acknowledgement of sin. That’s what changes the beautifulness from our own appearance, which really just covers up iniquity and death to being the beautiful feet of the people that preach the gospel is awareness of sin.

In Hebrews 12, we read the following. wherefore lift up the hands which hang down and the feeble knees and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way, but let it rather be healed. See, he uses the same picture of the healing of lame feet or of hands that are broken, so to speak, and feeble knees. He uses the same picture to talk about moral renovation in the people to the people he’s addressing in the book of Hebrews.

And he what he does here is he tells us that it is the job the job of the church to be the secondary means as the apostles were to bring soundness to people whose limbs are unsound. And in terms of Hebrews 12, he’s talking about moral renovation, not physical healing. Now this happens in the context this is flowing out of this is verses 12 and 13 of Hebrews 12, but it flows out of verse 11. Now no chastening for the present seemth to be joyous but grievous.

Nevertheless, afterward it yieldth the peaceful fruit of righteousness unto them. what your exercise thereby. See, when you try to heal somebody’s lameness or you’re going to let somebody else heal your lameness, chastisement is going to be involved in it. The lameness is a result of the chastisement of God. That brings us to an awareness of our sin and brings us then to a time of refreshing to come upon us.

He goes on to say in Hebrews 12, follow peace with all men and holiness which we no man shall see the Lord looking diligently lest any man fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness bringing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled. Lest there be any fornicator, a profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For you know how it afterwards when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected.

For he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. Scriptures teach us that repentance should be frequently associated with tears. Now here, Esau, it’s not repentance unto life. He’s sorry for what he lost. And that’s too often how what our tears of repentance are about. We’re sorry for what we’ve lost. It affects us. But God wants us to be sorry because we’ve offended his holy name and broken his holy law.

Now, he promises that if we do that, we’ll receive times of refreshing and we’ll be made whole. But that’s not the purpose. The purpose is to come to a moral sense of correctness relative to God and to recognize that the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is the picture of what we owe for the sins that we’ve committed against God. And if we’re going to think just about our own condition the way Esau did, he should be leaping up and down for joy that he isn’t dead man in hell at the moment.

That he’s still sucking air, so to speak, on this earth. Because our state based upon our sin is eternal damnation from God. That’s what we’re owed. So God doesn’t want us to repent in the sense of we and a better life. God doesn’t want us to preach the gospel so he can give people a better life and times of refreshing. But he does tell us that if we repent and if we make correction and amendment in our lives that he will indeed send times of refreshing and restoration.

And in fact, that’s what the proclamation of the gospel really is all about is salvation is not simply salvation from hell. It’s salvation to something as well that is a life lived in obedience to God’s law which then has effects in the world around us. Well, Hebrews tells us that part of this whole process we’re supposed to strengthen people up. We can’t do that or people can’t do it to us unless we’re aware of our lameness.

of our sin. But one of the ways that God tells us to strengthen people is to remind them that the world around us is not getting worse. That indeed God’s flow of history is positive. The final scripture reading for today I’ll read is Isaiah 35. And it has reference to the same idea of strengthening the hands that hang down and lay the knees that are feeble. And the idea is people get feeble through fear.

So you do have to bring people a sense of hope. That’s part of this is really all this is talking about in terms of restoring people back, bringing times of refreshment, particularly areas of their lives that are Christians and helping them to come to a recognition of their sin. Really, we’re talking about how to counsel people here. And part of counseling is bringing hope as we’ll see from Isaiah 35 when we read it after all this is over.

The final scripture reading Isaiah 35 relates the strengthening of needs and removal of fear through the hope of acknowledging what God does in terms of history. But also an essential part of biblical counseling as well as bringing hope is identifying people’s sins that have created the problems that present them to us. It’s as if the lame man is a presentation in Acts three of the moral wickedness of the nation of Israel.

They’re stopped at the gate of the temple. They really cannot get in because they’re so wicked. Now they get in. They’re let in, but to no end. They’re not let into God’s presence. They’ve rejected Christ. And they’re a picture then of that moral rebellion. And we must when people when we are working in people’s lives trying to help them. It must involve a biblical identification of what their problems are.

And those problems are always rooted in sin. So we must identify that sin. I certainly a degree of empathy is involved as these texts clearly show. But then calling people to recognize that they are lame. If they don’t recognize they’re lame, they’re never going to get better. It’s that simple. Proverbs chapter 4 says this, “Ponder the path of thy feet and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left.

Remove thy foot from evil. My son, attendant to thy wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding. See, we’re supposed to on a regular basis ponder the way of our feet. Are we lame? We don’t know it usually. And that’s what the body of Christ is here to help us to evaluate our lives and to bring us to a recognition of lameness. How often do you ponder your way? You should do it regularly. We do it every Sunday, don’t we?

We come before God. We confess our sins. We go into communion. We confess our sins. We’re supposed to be pondering. We have our feet down. We’re supposed to say, “Boy, at least screwed up. We sinned against God.” But see, that’s just a model for what goes on in all of life. And you should be pondering the way of your feet. You should be thinking through the aspects of your life. Particularly those aspects that God and his providence has given you problems in to see are there problem these problems related to my personal sin in an area and bring alongside a guy a personal counselor not to reinforce you in your sense of no and no can’t be my sin must be something else.

No to help you think through to ponder the way of your feet and then to what end that you would bring correction. You wouldn’t turn to the right or to the left. You wouldn’t that you would remove your foot from the evil from the wrong way of doing things according to God’s word and put it back in the path based upon what? Wisdom and understanding. Wisdom and understanding. So, in order to receive the times of restoration and refreshing that God promises to those who repent and to those who repent on a continual basis, we must be acknowledging our sin and our lameness before God.

And that happens in the context of the body of Christ. And we’re to encourage each other with the knowledge of God’s history. But we’re also to assist each other in identifying biblical areas of sin in our life, we might come to repentance. Galatians 6:1. Brethren, if any man became taken in a fault, ye which are spiritual shall restore such a one in a spirit of meekness, consider thyself, lest thou also be tempted.

Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of God. If you don’t do that, if you see people with sin and don’t move, to restore them from that position of sin, you’re not fulfilling the law of God. It’s that plain and simple. So, restoration requires an awareness of the need to be healed, a need, an awareness of our own lameness.

Fourth, restoration prepares us to worship God. That’s what we said here is that this lame man is restored. The very first thing he does in the opening chapters of the book of Acts, this first act of restoration to soundness, apart from the preaching of the gospel, conversion to people, which is a picture of all that, of course, but here we have a vivid demonstration of restoration to wholeness and ability to exercise dominion calling. Again, the very first thing he does is he enters into the temple. What a beautiful picture that when we are restored, we’re to enter into worship and praise of God.

Now, all this it prepares us for worship. As I said, when we come to church on Sunday, that’s what the confession of sin is all about. And you should be teaching your kids that. We come to the gate of the temple here and we say, “Uh-oh, we can’t go in. We’re lame. We can’t walk into that place.” Unless God reaches down through secondary means, in this case, the apostles of the church, declaration of the forgiveness of your sins, etc.

Unless God reaches down and lifts us up, makes us well, we can’t go in. But if he does do that, that’s what we want to do. We want to race into God’s house, jump up and down, leap for joy, drink the wine, and have a good time, not apart from God, but recognizing those blessings flow from the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ through his church. So restoration prepares us for worship. But as we said before, worship is a pattern for all of our lives.

So the next restoration is comprehensive. It’s comprehensive. the temple as James B. Jordan has very well developed in for instance through new eyes is itself a model of the whole world and so is worship. It’s a model of the world. If we’re restored to the context of the temple, the context of the worship of God, the context of the church of God as people come along and try to make our hands and feet strong and put them back into place after being removed out of place from our sin.

And that’s a model for all of our lives as well in terms of what we do in terms of all the world. The lame man doesn’t just stay in the temple. The temple becomes the pattern whereby he runs the rest of his life. And so he goes forward and right away is called to go forward and to be a testimony to the Lord Jesus Christ in terms of the ecclesiastical rulers of the day. restoration is comprehensive. I wanted to talk a little bit now and I about this idea of the times of restoration.

This is somewhat controversial. There are premillennial who use this very verse that I’m using to talk about the restoration of all things being the flow of history to assert just the reverse. And this is again centering on verses 19, 20, and 21. 19 times refreshing. 21 talking about the restoration of all things. Verse 21 says, “Who the heaven must receive until the time of restitution of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of this holy prophet since the world began.”

Now, this word is not used real frequently in scripture. We can go over real briefly what this scripture how this word is used in God’s word to remind us or to give a better if there’s if there’s clearness about this text. If some premillennial use this text to say what this means is Jesus comes back first and then, you know, we have worked out. if they misinterpret this text that way or if they have a different interpretation, let’s let the scriptures interpret itself and see how God’s word uses this word.

And really there are only a couple of places there only let’s see eight verses where this word is found and that includes the text here before us. And there’s basically two senses. Usually it’s used in terms of health, restoration to health. So right away we have a link between this restoration the times of restitution to this lame man being healed because this word is actually used in terms of restoring lame men who are healed in other places of scripture.

By the way, it’s real interesting how one of those occurrences as Jesus is about to enter Jerusalem in the concluding weeks of his ministry. uh he I believe it’s in Luke where he is going as it says as he came up to Jericho on his way to Jerusalem. A blind man at the side of the road asks him to be healed and Jesus then goes out on his way to heal him on the way to Jericho picturing that Jerusalem is essentially Jericho.

Both lands will be conquered by God and restored to his people. But in any event, this idea of restitution that’s used in verse 21, the restitution of all things is used of hell. It’s also used of Elijah that Elijah will come to restore all things before Christ before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. And of course that’s picture of John the Baptist and that’s related to the restitution the turning of the hearts of the fathers to their children and the children to their fathers as we see at the end of Malachi and the opening statements of the New Testament gospels as well.

And then one other place where this is used the only place where it’s used besides our text and help and Elijah is in this very book of acts verse 6. when they therefore in chapter 1 and verse six when they therefore were come together they asked of him saying Lord wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom unto Israel. And so it’s used in the context and we looked at that when we first started these series of sermons through Acts and I posited that what we’re seeing is the restoration in the first few chapters of Acts of that kingdom to the true Israel, those who had rule for God.

And here we see the rest restoration of a lame man linked to this time of restitution. Picturing that these times of restitution are now what is going on. So I think the correct sense of the verse is that heaven must retain Jesus until the time of the restitution of all things. When Christ returns, everything will be then reconciled, restituted, etc. He will swallow up death and everything will be accomplished.

So this very text I think teaches against a premillennial view and let me just read a couple of quotes here now related to this. Jay Alexander while he puts it yet future says that this term essentially involves the healing of all curable disorder and the restoration of communion with the deity of all that he has chosen to be so restored. If you have a picture again of this lame man he’s here of his curable disorder.

He’s brought into the presence of God. And that’s what this time of restitution is all about. And that’s what history I believe is all about. And that’s what Peter is alluding to here. That what we’re we’re involved now in a time when people are cured of incurable diseases sin. And that here is to the purpose that God that people may be ushered back into the presence of God and reconciled to him. Now I read want to read an extended quote from a Brown’s work Christ coming will it be premillennial and he says this he says whether we understand the restitution here meant of a moral or of a physical restitution or both considered as the burden of all old testament prophets.