Acts 3:6 Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. Consider — I. MAN MORALLY CRIPPLED, HELPLESS, AND WRETCHED. Bodily infirmities are the shadows of the sins and weaknesses of the soul. All sin works by privation. It shuts up senses and organs which God meant to be inlets of joy and channels of life. But there is something very suggestive in this cripple's case — he never knew the joy of movement, "Lame from his mother's womb." Can you remember the time when sin was not a source of suffering and weakness? How long have you been borne by the storm of passion into excesses and follies when you have craved the beggar's dole? You ought to be taking your part with the angels in God's great workshop; but where are you? In the devil's, where you labour and are sheltered and sleep like the brute through long monotonous years. A change sometimes breaks the monotony — quarrels, drinkings, and all the rest, and I have heard men talk of this as life! What stroke has crippled you to put up with such a life as this — without God, joy, hope, like the beasts that perish?' Are you in love with such a life, poor cripple? or are you heartily sick of it, as this man was of his? II. THERE IS A NAME WHICH CAN MAKE YOU WHOLE AGAIN, SOUND, GLAD, AND FREE. Your soul wants what that poor cripple's body wanted — power, and that power is in Christ alone. A man whose system is worn out can be patched up awhile by the physicians, but a new gush of life into it is what he needs. They try to do something like it sometimes, they pour some fresh young life-blood into. the exhausted veins. But this is what Christ can truly do for your soul. His life will pass into every crippled faculty and unbind it, and open to your powers a field of the most glorious activity. Lie no longer moaning, "O wretched man that I am!" "The gift of God is eternal life." III. THIS IS THE TIME TO BELIEVE ON THAT NAME AND TO RISE UP AND WALK. You have been there fearfully too long. How much of your time has been spent wearily in the devil's service? How much faculty, how much life is left for God? But will God welcome such a wreck as I am? Let that poor cripple and Christ's works of mercy answer. "The blind receive their sight,... the lame walk." They were mostly broken fragments of' humanity that He gathered. Such as you He needs. You have made many an effort at reformation, but the poor palsied limbs have doubled up again. Now rise once more; there is a hand outstretched to you — I.ay hold of it. Refuse it, and to-morrow all power to make the effort may be gone. (J. B. Brown, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
    |