Acts 3 – He’s an on-time God!

Came across a George Wood sermon years ago with a provocative thought – why doesn’t God NOT intervene at times when we really need him to do His thing?

God’s intervention in Acts:

Pentecost Sunday!
3,000 converted!
The Church birthed!
The conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch!
God setting up the conversion of Cornelius/household through Peter
The sudden and dramatic conversion of the murdering Saul.
Church after church getting planted by Paul and his preaching.

Wow! Hilarious! God works! But, Wood says, consider…

God’s nonintervention in the Book of Acts:

The flogging of the apostles—the Lord did not turn the whips into spaghetti noodles, you know!
The murder of Stephen and the subsequent persecution.
The apostle Paul – …dumped over the city wall in a basket…
Falls ill on the first missionary journey.
Paul continually getting kicked out of towns he had witnessed in-including his expulsion from Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. Why didn’t the rocks turn to marshmallows so they landed harmlessly? Why didn’t a plastic bubble come down and protect him so he could smile?
Paul’s beating at Philippi. Or, his arrest in Jerusalem and his subsequent two-year imprisonment, shipwreck, snakebite, and two-year house arrest.
2 Corinthians 6, he says, “In great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger.” That is a list of noninterventions.

Does anybody identify with this? Anybody able to say – Yeah, I was in trouble, I was sick, I was left alone, I was in tremendous need, and…you know what God did? Nothing!

I can recall prominent atheists who have rejected Christianity based on the fact that God didn’t intervene during suffering – Billy Graham’s good friend Charles Templeton comes to mind – he was ticked off because he saw a picture of a starving kid and reasoned – all God has to do is send rain. He didn’t, so I reject God.

Acts 3

Healing of a lame man.
The man wanted Peter and John to give him $; instead Peter says “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk”
He did!
A crowd develops, Peter preaches the gospel.

Let’s stand as we listen to His sermon: 3:11-26.

One thing has kind of captured my thinking – how many times did Jesus pass by that very same location with the lame man planted in the very same place and…did nothing?

Jesus may never have passed by that place. But I suspect it was somewhere between a few and several times he did and never once moved to heal the man.

Perhaps, one day, their eyes locked – for the lame man had heard of the healing gifts of Jesus and, of course, he wanted that gift exercised on him.
But, if the man could have read the eyes of Christ they might have said to him, “Not today, perhaps someday. But if and when it happens, you will see why we waited.”
Jesus died, was resurrected, and then ascended into heaven. Still, the man is lame.
Until Acts 3 – Peter and John walk by and proclaim “Silver and gold – not in our pockets. But in the name of Jesus Christ, rise up and walk.” And he did – “walking and leaping and praising God.”
And from that moment (and into the next chapter) it is noted that the crowd rises from 3,000 to 5,000 men (not counting, apparently, the women and children). And so, because of this delayed (perhaps) miracle hundreds upon hundreds came to know and put their faith in Jesus.

Worth the wait?

Loved preaching this one Tuesday night in the prison. In the middle of the message I had us all sing that Dottie Peoples classic:

He’s an on-time God, yes He is.

He may not come when you want Him,

But He’ll be there right on time.

He’s an on-time God, yes He is.

One more thing – in vs. 13 – “You handed him over to be killed.”

I was reading this and wonder if “handed him over” was that word in the NT that Billy Graham’s theologian – Carl Henry – called the scariest word in the NT.

Paradidomai – Henry notes that that word comes up 3x in Romans 1 – I give you up, I hand you over, I deliver you. Basically, you want it that way, have it YOUR way. Henry wondered if God hadn’t already done that with America with our love affair of abortion, our aberrant sexualities, our rejection of the family, our burgeoning crime rate.
Then there is the way it is used here – we hand HIM over. So, two ways so far that we can see the word paradidomai being used – 1) He hands us over, 2) we reject Him and hand HIM over.
But get a load of this – how it is used in Gal. 2:20 – He handed Himself over for us.
Your choice – which of these three do you choose – 1) God hands you over to YOU, we reject Him and hand Him over to be killed in our lives or 3) accept the gift of salvation as He hands His life over…for ours.