The video above might be God’s means today of delivering you from temptation!
“Now let’s look at what the healed man did not do. Let’s look again at (Acts 3) verses 8 through 11 to get the picture. ‘Cause it’s an amazing picture.
It says about the man in verse 8, “He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping.”
Isn’t that beautiful? He was crippled before. Now he’s not just walking, he’s jumping; he’s, like, testing it out.
“And praising God. When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened. While the man held on to Peter and John,” verse 11, “all the people were astonished and came running to them in the place called Solomon’s Colonnade.”
Now… Between verse 10 and 11, something happens that we’re not told here. Because you remember they went through the gate Beautiful, they’re going to the afternoon prayer meeting, that means they enter into the sanctuary area, the man is healed there, and he follows them, and that’s where he’s jumping and leaping and walking and praising God.
And then it says in verse 11, that all the people ran to Peter and John and the guy out at Solomon’s Colonnade. So, what that tells us is that they departed the sanctuary at some point with the dude, and they went out to this area that was across the court of the Gentiles, out through the gate Beautiful where they first came in and the guy was healed, they went back out through the gate across the court of Gentiles into this area called Solomon’s Porch. Church history tells us that the church used to gather there quite a bit and do teachings, and hangout, so on and so forth.
So, they went past the gate Beautiful where the man was healed. They go to Solomon’s Porch. That’s where everyone runs to them.
I want you to notice what the man is doing. The man stuck with Peter and John, he walked past the place where he used to beg, and he went to a new place with them. The man, having been touched by the power of God, is now walking to a new place with the people of God. The man, having been touched by the power of God, is now going to a new place with the people of God.
Here is what the man did not do. He did not return to his former space, place, and way of life. He did not say to Peter and John, “Thank you so much for everything, guys. I’m going back now to my old way of existence. I liked my lame, constricted, and crippled place of need.”
He didn’t do that! He didn’t get to the gate, where he used to live in that way that he’s been delivered from and stop there and reconsider and go back to that place. He’d been there for years!
He didn’t go back to that place. He went to a new place because that would be stupid to go back to that place.
If we read the story and it’s like, “so Peter and John left and the guy didn’t follow them, and he got to the gate Beautiful, and he’s like, ‘Oh, my old mat, and my old spot, and my little begging cup! I’m going to settle back into this place of lameness.’” We’d be like, this is ridiculous!
And yet, how often do we do that? God’s people have always struggled with that.
You remember in the exodus? God delivered his people from slavery to Egypt, and at one point Israel complained and said, “You know, we had such nice food in Egypt. The garlic and the leeks. Life was so much easier there” (See Numbers 11:4-6, 18-20). And they literally considered going back to the place of slavery. We read that and we say, “That’s ridiculous!”
And so it is!
This man, having been touched by the power of God, is now sticking with the people of God, and going to a new place. He’s not going back to his old place.
And let this man and his previous crippled condition be a picture of the life of sin. Let it be a picture, a metaphor, for that.
Every day the man had previously found himself constricted, afflicted, and needy. After he was touched by the power of Jesus, he was liberated, light, and happy.
See the juxtaposition, and don’t let the power of it be lost on you. The man, having been touched by the power of God is now walking with the people of God to a new place and he is not returning to his former way of life. He walked right past it, and away from it.
And we were once all beggars made lame by and impoverished by sin in our lives. But we have been healed by and set free by the power of Jesus and his finished work on the cross and his resurrection (Romans 6:6-7).
So, we don’t go back to our former way of life (Romans 6:12-14)!
That’s the deal! We go forward as a people of God, with the people of God, away from the way that we used to live (Philippians 3:13).
It is the metaphor of the exodus, come out from, delivered from and go to a new place into God’s promises.
Please God, help us not to go back to our old ways.
Please God, deliver us and heal us from our backsliding ways.
Please God, teach us, as a people of God, to stick with one another and go forward into the promises of God.”